Open source in archeologia. Nuove prospettive per la ricerca

How can an approach that at first seemed looking like a confused bazaar, from which just a miracle could let come out a stable and coherent system, work? If open source is demonstrating its success in the IT sector, can this approach be successfully applied also to the Cultural Heritage field? Integration, interdisciplinarity, participation, data sharing are key words of an open project, together with web use. In fact the use of Internet will increasingly become not only a medium to communicate, often marginally, final results, but a real working tool. The paper will analyze a possible use of open source in archaeology, describing pro and contra of its use and comparing the characteristics of an open project with those of an archaeological one, underlying similarities and differences. A specific and new type of application will be described: VRwebGIS that will open new perspectives such as the interactive reconstruction of shared 3D web-based archaeological environments

Phenotypic and genotypic characterisation of inflammatory bowel disease presenting before the age of 2 years

OBJECTIVES: Inflammatory bowel disease presenting in early childhood is extremely rare. More recently, progress has been made to identify children with monogenic forms of IBD predominantly presenting very early in life. In this study, we describe the heterogeneous phenotypes and genotypes of patients with IBD presenting before the age of two years and establish phenotypic features associated with underlying monogenicity. METHODS: Phenotype data of 62 children with disease-onset before the age of two years presenting over the last 20 years were reviewed. Children without previously established genetic diagnosis were prospectively recruited for next-generation sequencing. RESULTS: 62 patients (55% male) were identified. The median disease-onset was three months of age [IQR: 1 to 11]. Conventional IBD classification only applied to 15 patients with Crohn's disease-like (24%) and three with ulcerative colitis-like (5%) phenotype. Forty-four patients (71%) were diagnosed with otherwise unclassifiable IBD. Patients frequently required parenteral nutrition (40%), extensive immunosuppression (31%), hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (29%) and abdominal surgery (19%). In 31% of patients underlying monogenic diseases were established (EPCAM, IL10, IL10RA, IL10RB, FOXP3, LRBA, SKIV2L, TTC37, TTC7A). Phenotypic features significantly more prevalent in monogenic IBD were: consanguinity, disease-onset before the 6(th) month of life, stunting, extensive intestinal disease and histological evidence of epithelial abnormalities. CONCLUSION: IBD in children with disease-onset before the age of two years is frequently unclassifiable into Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, particularly treatment resistant and can be indistinguishable from monogenic diseases with IBD-like phenotype

Reconstructing Roman landscape : interpretation and virtual reality

La ricostruzione del paesaggio antico \ue8 un'attivit\ue0 di ricerca molto impegnativa, che implica la gestione, da un lato, di un alto livello di incertezza e, dall'altro, richiede la collaborazione fra diverse discipline. Inoltre, l'interpretazione \ue8 un processo dinamico che dovrebbe essere correlato alle 4 dimensioni (nello spazio e nel tempo). L'interpretazione ha bisogno di essere continuamente aggiornata. Queste sono le ragioni per cui un approccio aperto e interattivo \ue8 preferibile. Questa presentazione riguarder\ue0 i quattro aspetti dell'approccio aperto e interattivo: l'uso di sistemi geo-spaziali, dove i risultati delle analisi spaziali possono essere visualizzati (e soprattutto aggiornabili grazie ad una catena di operazioni spaziali); l'applicazione della modellazione procedurale; lo sviluppo di applicazioni di realt\ue0 virtuale; la creazione di ambienti 3D modificabile e cooperativi. Questi aspetti saranno analizzati, sottolineando i pro e i contro per le finalit\ue0 di ricerca e di comunicazione. Inoltre, saranno esaminati degli esempi di ricostruzione del paesaggio romano per il progetto Virtual Rome e per il progetto Genus Bononiae. Le conclusioni riguarderanno la futura sostenibilit\ue0 dei progetti di Realt\ue0 Virtuale, all'interno di un network di eccelleza dedicato ai Musei Virtuali (V-Must.net).The reconstruction of ancient landscape is a challenging research activity that implies the management of a high level of uncertainty, on one side, and, on the other, requires the cooperation of several different disciplines. Moreover interpretation is a dynamic process that should be related to the 4 dimensions (space and time). Interpretation needs to be continuously updated. These are the reasons for which an open and interactive approach is particularly suggested. This presentation will focus on four aspects of this concept of open and interactive approach: the use of geo-spatial systems where spatial analysis results can be visualised (and particularly updatable chains of spatial operations); the application of procedural modelling techniques; the development of virtual reality applications; and the creation of editable cooperative 3D environments. These aspects will be analysed, underlining pro and cons for research and for dissemination purposes. In addition, examples of the econstruction of the Roman Landscape for the Virtual Rome project and for the Genius Bononiae project will be described. Conclusions will regard the future sustainability of VR projects, within a new Network of Excellence, dedicated to Virtual Museums (V-MUST.NET)

The Impact of Story Structure, Meaningfulness, and Concentration in Serious Games

This contribution analyzes the impact of factors related to story structure, meaningfulness, and concentration in the design of Serious Games. To explore them, the authors carried out an experimental evaluation aiming to identify relevant aspects affecting the cognitive-emotional impact of immersive Virtual Reality (VR), specifically Educational Environmental Narrative (EEN) Games. The experiment was designed around three main research questions: if passive or active interaction is preferable for factual and spatial knowledge acquisition; whether meaningfulness is a relevant experience in a serious game (SG) context; and if concentration impacts knowledge acquisition and engagement also in VR educational games. The findings highlight that passive interaction should only be encouraged for factual knowledge acquisition, that meaningfulness is a relevant experience and should be included in serious game design, and, finally, that concentration is a factor that impacts the experience in immersive games. The authors discuss potential design paths to improve both factual and spatial knowledge acquisition, such as abstract concept-oriented design, concluding that SGs should contain game mechanics explicitly supporting players’ moments of reflection, and story structures explicitly aligned to educational facts

VR Applications, New Devices and Museums: Visitors’ Feedback and Learning. A Preliminary Report

Between the 15th of September 2005 and the 15th of November 2005, an exhibit on virtual and Roman archaeology was organized in Rome inside the Trajan's Market Museum. The event, “Building Virtual Rome” (“Immaginare Roma Antica”),was a great opportunity to show, inside an ancient monument, for the first time together, many different projects,applications and installations about VR and Cultural Heritage. The uniqueness of the event was at the same time an occasion to live a new experience, for visitors and for organizers as well, and to face some problematic aspects due, both, mainly by the meeting of high technological projects (some of them still at research level), cultural contents and also archaeological “container”. During the exhibit we tried to observe visitors and make some interviews, with the goal of understanding their expectations at the beginning, their experience during their visit and finally their satisfaction/unsatisfaction, learning, feedback, interaction level during and after the visit. The preliminary results of this analysis are showing that the embodiment and the diverse difficulties to use diverse devices and software depend on many factors and that “communicating” the virtual is not a technological issue, but it is an epistemological question