Interaction Design as Catalyzer of Creative and Interpretative Praxes in Museum Context

This paper argues that interaction design (IxD) can suggest valid solutions in rethinking museum mediation, focusing on conservation data as reference case study. Eliciting interest, it is possible to conceive meaningful and authentic experiences, aimed at activating a transformative dialogue with the visitors: with this approach, audiences are creatively engaged to reconsider their own expectations, behaviours and beliefs. To support this hypothesis, major attention will be paid to describe the set up and the results of a first proof of concept, conceived in the framework of the PERCEIVE Project and based on "Les demoiselles à la rivière by Matisse", now exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago

Modellare il mercato dell'arte nel Web semantico. Un'analisi preliminare

The paper presents the current stage of an ongoing project at the Fondazione Federico Zeri, aimed at the modelling of the art market starting from the recognition of the peculiarities of this sector and relying on the data collected by this institute during its research activities on its documentary collection. Specifically, this essay provides a preliminary analysis of the domain, aimed at guiding in the development of an ontology able to describe agents, events and sources which define the art market and enable its investigation. The recognition of existing conceptual models is hence followed by a reconstruction of the studied domain thanks to motivating scenario, examples and competency questions collected during the first iteration of the SAMOD methodology. For each scenario, the paper will provide the most relevant entities and will draft an alignment with existing ontologies, as well as propose necessary integrations.Il seguente articolo presenta lo stadio attuale di un progetto in corso presso la Fondazione Federico Zeri volto alla modellizzazione del mercato dell'arte a partire dal riconoscimento delle specificità che caratterizzano questo settore e dai dati raccolti dall’istituto di ricerca bolognese nel corso del trattamento delle proprie collezioni documentarie. In particolare, il saggio fornisce un'analisi preliminare del dominio volta a guidare la definizione di un'ontologia che sia in grado di descrivere i principali agenti, eventi e fonti che lo definiscono e che ne permettono l’indagine. Dopo aver fornito i riferimenti ad altre ontologie e modelli presi in esame nel corso del progetto, l’articolo indaga in profondità il mondo del mercato utilizzando la metodologia SAMOD: per ognuno dei tre moduli in cui è stata suddivisa l’ontologia vengono quindi proposti scenari, esempi e domande di competenza, elencate le entità più rilevanti e proposti sia un allineamento con le ontologie esistenti, sia alcune necessarie integrazioni

Creative engagement and meaning creation: A first experimental protocol on interactive cultural experiences for conservation data

This paper presents a study conducted in the framework of the PERCEIVE project, which focuses on fostering a "caring attitude" towards Art collections threatened by the phenomenon of colour change. "Sense of care" is indeed shown to exist only if there is a relationship between caregiver and care-receiver and can be elicited using specific triggers, such as "hooks" based on users' curiosity starting from a "knowledge gap". As art practices are proved to elicit transformation in users' behaviours, this article starts from the assumption that visitors' artistic engagement could be also applied in interactive applications to improve visitors' caring attitude. We hence describe an experimental protocol for a first qualitative evaluation of a "caring prototype", which pursues this goal, focusing on Matisse's Bathers by a River as case study, starting from conservation data. The results show the potentiality of this approach as new participatory strategy towards conservation data

Protective efficacy induced by recombinant Clostridium difficile toxin fragments

Clostridium difficile is a spore-forming bacterium that can reside in animals and humans. C. difficile infection causes a variety of clinical symptoms, ranging from diarrhea to fulminant colitis. Disease is mediated by TcdA and TcdB, two large enterotoxins released by C. difficile during colonization of the gut. In this study, we evaluated the ability of recombinant toxin fragments to induce neutralizing antibodies in mice. The protective efficacies of the most promising candidates were then evaluated in a hamster model of disease. While limited protection was observed with some combinations, coadministration of a cell binding domain fragment of TcdA (TcdA-B1) and the glucosyltransferase moiety of TcdB (TcdB-GT) induced systemic IgGs which neutralized both toxins and protected vaccinated animals from death following challenge with two strains of C. difficile. Further characterization revealed that despite high concentrations of toxin in the gut lumens of vaccinated animals during the acute phase of the disease, pathological damage was minimized. Assessment of gut contents revealed the presence of TcdA and TcdB antibodies, suggesting that systemic vaccination with this pair of recombinant polypeptides can limit the disease caused by toxin production during C. difficile infection