11,037 research outputs found
The future (?) of effective protection
This paper aims at a comparative reading of some archaeological remains in the island of Sardinia, starting from a reflection on the UNESCO discipline, which introduces a hierarchy of cultural heritage based on the level of worthiness of protection and provides enhanced protection for the goods that are on its list. The main goal of the study is to investigate in parallel the application of this ‘selective appreciation’ on the actual context of the protection of the so-called ‘real cultural heritage’ (article 9 of the Italian Constitution). The study proceeds by comparing some important sites on the island having similar contextualization, but different strategies for protection: the Archaeological Park of Porto Torres, Su Nuraxi in Barumini, registered since 1997 in the World Heritage List of UNESCO, and the archaeological area of Neapolis (Oristano). From comparisons and analysis carried out in selected areas it was possible to focus attention on some critical aspects of the UNESCO rules and on contradictions between the operational guidelines and the objectives that the organization provides for the protection of property. In the wake of new reforms for the reorganization of the Ministry of Heritage, Culture and Tourism, the critical issues discussed in this paper appear even more evident in Sardinia. The idea of a ‘protection of the exceptional’ appears to reduce the opportunities of intervention, by isolating the evidence from its context and making the action of protection inadequate for the territory and for the same items contained therein
The future (?) of effective protection
This paper aims at a comparative reading of some archaeological remains in the island of Sardinia, starting from a reflection on the UNESCO discipline, which introduces a hierarchy of cultural heritage based on the level of worthiness of protection and provides enhanced protection for the goods that are on its list. The main goal of the study is to investigate in parallel the application of this ‘selective appreciation’ on the actual context of the protection of the so-called ‘real cultural heritage’ (article 9 of the Italian Constitution). The study proceeds by comparing some important sites on the island having similar contextualization, but different strategies for protection: the Archaeological Park of Porto Torres, Su Nuraxi in Barumini, registered since 1997 in the World Heritage List of UNESCO, and the archaeological area of Neapolis (Oristano). From comparisons and analysis carried out in selected areas it was possible to focus attention on some critical aspects of the UNESCO rules and on contradictions between the operational guidelines and the objectives that the organization provides for the protection of property. In the wake of new reforms for the reorganization of the Ministry of Heritage, Culture and Tourism, the critical issues discussed in this paper appear even more evident in Sardinia. The idea of a ‘protection of the exceptional’ appears to reduce the opportunities of intervention, by isolating the evidence from its context and making the action of protection inadequate for the territory and for the same items contained therein
Analyzing requirements of knowledge management systems with the support of agent organizations
Knowledge Management (KM) is considered by many organizations a key aspect in sustaining competitive advantage. Designing appropriate KM processes and enabling technology face considerable risks, as they must be shaped to respond to specific needs of the organizational environment. Thus, many systems are abandoned or fall into disuse because of inadequate understanding of the organizational context. This motivates current research, which tends to propose agent organizations as a useful paradigm for KM systems engineering. Following these approaches, organizations are analyzed as collective systems, composed of several agents, each of them autonomously producing and managing their own local data according to their own logic, needs, and interpretative schema, i.e. their goals and beliefs. These agents interact and coordinate for goal achievement defining a coherent local knowledge system. This paper presents a novel methodology for analyzing the requirements of a KM system based on an iterative workflow where a pivotal role is played by agent-oriented modeling. Within this approach, the needs for KM systems are traced back to the organization stakeholders’ goals. A case study is used to illustrate the methodology. The relationship of this work with current studies in agent organizations and organizational knowledge management is also discussed. Differently from other works, this methodology aims at offering a practical guideline to the analyst, pointing out the appropriate abstractions to be used in the different phases of the analysis
Many-nodes/many-links spinfoam: the homogeneous and isotropic case
I compute the Lorentzian EPRL/FK/KKL spinfoam vertex amplitude for regular
graphs, with an arbitrary number of links and nodes, and coherent states peaked
on a homogeneous and isotropic geometry. This form of the amplitude can be
applied for example to a dipole with an arbitrary number of links or to the
4-simplex given by the compete graph on 5 nodes. All the resulting amplitudes
have the same support, independently of the graph used, in the large j (large
volume) limit. This implies that they all yield the Friedmann equation: I show
this in the presence of the cosmological constant. This result indicates that
in the semiclassical limit quantum corrections in spinfoam cosmology do not
come from just refining the graph, but rather from relaxing the large j limit.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Authentication and geographical characterisation of Italian grape musts through glucose and fructose carbon isotopic ratios determined by LC IRM
The authenticity of grape musts is normally checked through the stable isotopic analysis of carbon (δ13C) after fermentation and distillation by following the official OIV MA AS-312-06 method. Unfortunately, it presents some issues that are difficult to over come. Grape must samples can only be analysed after they have been fermented to obtain ethanol. The process must be carried out under careful control of the fermentation to avoid the presence of unwanted by-products arising from a premature fermentation interruption. Moreover, if the musts have been preserved by the addition of sulphur dioxide (SO2 ), they must undergo an additional step to eliminate the SO2 , which would affect the fermentation. Once the product has been fermented, the ethanol must be separated using specific distillation columns (such as the Cadiot ones) making it possible to obtain ethanol free of isotopic fractionation with a minimum alcohol degree of 95% vol. In this study, the alternative use of a technique based on δ13C isotopic analysis of the major sugars of the grape must by liquid chromatography coupled with isotope ratio mass spectrometry (LC-IRMS) is provided. In LC–IRMS, analytes are separated on an LC system and consecutively oxidized in an online reactor to CO2 , which is required for the determination of compound-specific carbon isotopic ratios. This technique has been already used in the study of matrices such as wine [1], ethanol [1,2], glycerol [2], and honey [3] to detect fraudulent alterations of their natural composition such as the addition of exogenous sugars to the products. The LC-IRMS allows a single separation of the individual components of a sample and makes it possible to determine their δ13C values online, avoiding both the disadvantages of off-line methods and the disadvantages of methods requiring a derivatization step (such as GC-C-IRMS), causing the addition of extra carbons. In order to discriminate between musts from different areas of Italy, a preliminary dataset was considered; the δ13C isotopic ratios of glucose and fructose of around 100 authentic Italian must samples from 16 different sampling regions were analysed. In addition, the δ13C variability in authentic and fake must (added with increasing percentages of exogenous sugars) has been explored and tested to verify their validity as fraud detectors. The two analysed parameters, ranging from −29.8‰ to −21.9‰, are well correlated (R2 = 0.7802) and the northern Italian regions showed significantly more negative δ13C values for both sugars than the rest of the dataset (Figure 1). By using the LC-IRMS technique, the addition of exogenous sugars, such as fructose and glucose from C4 photosynthetic cycle plants, is easily detectable as it modifies the δ13C of the individual sugar
Compatibility of radial, Lorenz and harmonic gauges
We observe that the radial gauge can be consistently imposed \emph{together}
with the Lorenz gauge in Maxwell theory, and with the harmonic traceless gauge
in linearized general relativity. This simple observation has relevance for
some recent developments in quantum gravity where the radial gauge is
implicitly utilized.Comment: 9 pages, minor changes in the bibliograph
Summary of the CMS Discovery Potential for the MSSM SUSY Higgses
This work summarises the present understanding of the expected MSSM SUSY
Higgs reach for CMS. Many of the studies presented here result from detailed
detector simulations incorporating final CMS detector design and response. With
30 fb-1 the h -> gamma,gamma and h -> bb channels allow to cover most of the
MSSM parameter space. For the massive A,H,H+ MSSM Higgs states the channels A,H
-> tau,tau and H+ -> tau,nu turn out to be the most profitable ones in terms of
mass reach and parameter space coverage. Consequently CMS has made a big effort
to trigger efficiently on taus. Provided neutralinos and sleptons are not too
heavy, there is an interesting complementarity in the reaches for A,H ->
tau,tau and A,H -> chi,chi.Comment: 19 pages, 27 figure
Spinfoams in the holomorphic representation
We study a holomorphic representation for spinfoams. The representation is
obtained via the Ashtekar-Lewandowski-Marolf-Mour\~ao-Thiemann coherent state
transform. We derive the expression of the 4d spinfoam vertex for Euclidean and
for Lorentzian gravity in the holomorphic representation. The advantage of this
representation rests on the fact that the variables used have a clear
interpretation in terms of a classical intrinsic and extrinsic geometry of
space. We show how the peakedness on the extrinsic geometry selects a single
exponential of the Regge action in the semiclassical large-scale asymptotics of
the spinfoam vertex.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, published versio
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