Multigranular scale speech recognition: tehnological and cognitive view

We propose a Multigranular Automatic Speech Recognizer. The hypothesis is that speech signal contains information distributed on more different time scales. Many works from various scientific fields ranging from neurobiology to speech technologies, seem to concord on this assumption. In a broad sense, it seems that speech recognition in human is optimal because of a partial parallelization process according to which the left-to-right stream of speech is captured in a multilevel grid in which several linguistic analyses take place contemporarily. Our investigation aims, in this view, to apply these new ideas to the project of more robust and efficient recognizers

Difficoltà interpretative e incongruenze metodologiche nelle politiche di tutela del paesaggio

The content relating to the protection of the landscape in the planning tools are not alwais set according to a plan for convergence and synergies. In the paper the following possible solution aimed at activating unifying process to the overall territorial variables, including rural.politiche di riequilibrio territoriale; valorizzazione del paesaggio

Temperature dependence of the surface plasmon resonance in small electron gas fragments, self consistent field approximation

The temperature dependence of the surface plasmon resonance in small metal spheres is calculated using an electron gas model within the Random Phase Approximation. The calculation is mainly devoted to the study of spheres with diameters up to at least 10 nm, where quantum effects can still be relevant and simple plasmon pole approximation for the dielectric function is no more appropriate. We find a possible blue shift of the plasmon resonance position when the temperature is increased while keeping the size of the sphere fixed. The blue shift is appreciable only when the temperature is a large fraction of the Fermi energy. These results provide a guide for pump and probe experiments with a high time resolution, and tailored to study the excited electron system before thermalisation with the lattice takes place.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Il parco come impresa

The plans for sustainable development and the role of the parks. The involvement of the population in the management, protection and enhancement of the territory. The development of rural areas and the action of the park.parco; sviluppo sostenibile; gestione e valorizzazione territoriale

Alignment-free Genomic Analysis via a Big Data Spark Platform

Motivation: Alignment-free distance and similarity functions (AF functions, for short) are a well established alternative to two and multiple sequence alignments for many genomic, metagenomic and epigenomic tasks. Due to data-intensive applications, the computation of AF functions is a Big Data problem, with the recent Literature indicating that the development of fast and scalable algorithms computing AF functions is a high-priority task. Somewhat surprisingly, despite the increasing popularity of Big Data technologies in Computational Biology, the development of a Big Data platform for those tasks has not been pursued, possibly due to its complexity. Results: We fill this important gap by introducing FADE, the first extensible, efficient and scalable Spark platform for Alignment-free genomic analysis. It supports natively eighteen of the best performing AF functions coming out of a recent hallmark benchmarking study. FADE development and potential impact comprises novel aspects of interest. Namely, (a) a considerable effort of distributed algorithms, the most tangible result being a much faster execution time of reference methods like MASH and FSWM; (b) a software design that makes FADE user-friendly and easily extendable by Spark non-specialists; (c) its ability to support data- and compute-intensive tasks. About this, we provide a novel and much needed analysis of how informative and robust AF functions are, in terms of the statistical significance of their output. Our findings naturally extend the ones of the highly regarded benchmarking study, since the functions that can really be used are reduced to a handful of the eighteen included in FADE

Future applications of the high-flux thermal neutron spectroscopy: the ever-green case of collective excitations in liquid metals

The European landscape of neutron sources for research applications is changing and the major European joint effort, the European Spallation Source (ESS) currently under construction in Lund (Sweden), is progressing. The high flux source ESS is designed to deliver slow neutrons with a long-pulse time structure, a rather unique feature, with characteristics optimised to maximise the instrument performances and the experimental throughput. This is expected to result in unprecedented scientific capability over broad research areas. Major breakthroughs are likely to take place in the understanding of complex, strongly interacting and disordered systems, more specifically on their dynamical response. This will have an impact on the development of novel theories to cover some of the presently existing knowledge gaps and will prompt advanced applications of the investigated materials. Liquid metals are a prototypical example of complex systems extensively studied from the sixties on, now re-emerging as powerful functional materials for unconventional and broad spectrum applications. Research on liquid metal composites will benefit of the new experimental possibilities available at the ESS. We review the status of the experiments on liquid metals dynamics, focusing on a selected set of systems, and discuss the perspectives for cutting-edge experiments at the new sources

Urbanizzazione in chiave neoliberale e progetti di sviluppo a grande scala

La riscoperta di alcuni valori sociali, economici e culturali introdotti dal neoliberalismo di fine secolo ha richiesto la riformulazione di nuovi concetti, obiettivi e metodologie sulle innovazioni della città post-moderna. Essa è chiamata ad assolvere la funzione di città “intelligente” (smart city) soprattutto in riferimento all’organizzazione territoriale, con l’obiettivo di mettere più direttamente in comunicazione la realtà locale con quella globale, soprattutto in tema di politiche strutturali. I progetti comunitari sul recepimento delle innovazioni con cui la globalizzazione elabora le proprie strategie nei confronti del locale individuano nella città medie il centro-motore primario dell’organizzazione territoriale, grazie ad almeno due fattori di straordinario impatto: l’attrattività e la competitività. Tuttavia, la riconosciuta perdita di competitività dell’economia locale, dunque dei sistemi locali dello sviluppo (SLoT), rende più problematico il rapporto locale/globale. Questo si verifica quando il soggetto chiamato in causa, in tal caso l’area vasta, si mostra incapace di valorizzare le proprie risorse mediante l’adattamento e l’integrazione delle priorità tematiche individuate dalle politiche comunitarie (5° e 6° Programma quadro): qualità della vita e gestione delle risorse biologiche; b) società dell’informazione conviviale; c) crescita competitiva e sostenibile; d) energia, ambiente e sviluppo sostenibile. L’obiettivo di questo contributo è quello di fornire spunti di riflessione affinché le risorse di area vasta siano utilizzate in sintonia con le priorità comunitarie. Tali risorse, di natura materiale, immateriale, naturale e umana, se correttamente integrate, possono conciliare le logiche del cambiamento imposte dall’apertura alla globalizzazione con quelle impegnate a difendere e tutelare l’identità storicoculturale del contesto locale, offrendo un contributo decisivo alla valorizzazione del territorio, quindi alla costruzione di un’economia locale proiettata verso il globale

Measuring the financial sustainability of vine landraces for better conservation programmes of Mediterranean agro-biodiversity

The Apulia region, in southern Italy, has a long tradition of vine cultivation for winemaking. However, in the last decades, regional farmers substituted local landraces with more productive non-native varieties. Regional institutions introduced regulations aimed at preventing the extinction of the local and historic ecotypes in the form of financial subsidies to reduce planting and operating costs. In this paper, we compared the financial sustainability of a non-autochthone, a typical and a landrace variety for wine production, in intensive and semi-extensive cultivation systems, with and without financial supports. The analysis referred to northern Apulia, considering a 26-year economic duration of vineyards. The results showed that the non-autochthone variety was more profitable due to its higher yields, while investments regarding landrace-based plants were characterized by lower economic convenience, despite financial aid. These estimates shed light on the effectiveness and efficacy of the present regulations, as well as on the development of future strategies for a better restoration of vine landraces in Apulia. This new framework will help to increase farmers’ profits, improve environmental conditions for the community and ensure higher quality, security and safety for consumers

Water in a Polymeric Electrolyte Membrane: Sorption/Desorption and Freezing phenomena

Nafion is a perfluorosulfonated polymer, widely used in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells. This polymer adopts a complex structural organisation resulting from the microsegregation between hydrophobic backbones and hydrophilic sulfonic acid groups. Upon hydration appear water-filled channels and cavities, in which are released the acidic protons to form a solution of hydronium ions in water embedded in the polymer matrix. Below 273 K, a phenomenon of water sorption/desorption occurs, whose origin is still an open question. Performing neutron diffraction, we monitored the quantity of ice formed during the sorption/desorption as a function of temperature down to 180 K. Upon cooling, we observe that ice forms outside of the membrane and crystallises in the hexagonal Ih form. Simultaneously, the membrane shrinks and dehydrate, leading to an increase of the hydronium ions concentration inside the matrix. Reversibly, the ice melts and the membrane re-hydrate upon heating. A model of solution, whose freezing point varies with the hydronium concentration, is proposed to calculate the quantity of ice formed as a function of temperature. The quantitative agreement between the model and experimental data explains the smooth and reversible behavior observed during the sorption or desorption of water, pointing out the origin of the phenomena. The proposed picture reconciles both confinement and entropic effects. Other examples of water filled electrolyte nano-structures are eventually discussed, in the context of clarifying the conditions for water transport at low temperature

Il Manifesto di Ventotene e la duplice idea d’Eur

The author analyses the European souls starting from the documents of his first conceptualization: the Ventotenemanifesto to touch on the problems of the European political crisis and fundamental rights.L’autore analizza le diverse anime europee a partire dal documento della sua prima concettualizzazione: il manifesto di Ventotene sino a toccare i problemi della crisi politica europea e dei diritti fondamentali