Judith Cowan: the capacity of things: Artist's inserts and interviews.

The book consists of three different interpretations of her work (by the two editors and Stella Santacatterina); interviews with Richard Wentworth and Susan Butler and image/texts by Judith Cowan

Development of a low-cost seismic station based on MEMS technology

L’impatto di un forte terremoto su una comunità urbana può essere ridotto con una azione tempestiva e ben pianificata da parte degli organi di Protezione Civile preposti. In tale prospettiva è di fondamentale importanza che gli organi preposti alla sorveglianza sismica del territorio nazionale si dotino di strumenti di osservazione puntuale in grado di fornire nell’immediato terremoto informazioni utilissime per la gestione ottimale delle emergenze. Ciò può essere fatto oggi mediante la realizzazione reti sismiche urbane, con funzionamento in tempo reale (OSU Osservatori Sismici Urbani), in grado di fornire in maniera tempestiva ai centri per la gestione delle emergenze, la distribuzione dell'intensità dello scuotimento a seguito di un terremoto. Le mappe di scuotimento potrebbero consentire agli organi preposti, un’ottimale gestione delle priorità e la ripartizione delle risorse in modo da ottenere una significativa riduzione del numero di vittime a seguito di un forte terremoto. Le verifiche del grado di danneggiamento e di agibilità degli edifici potrebbero così essere effettuate secondo una logica prioritaria sulla base dei massimi scuotimenti misurati dalla rete sismica urbana. La realizzazione di OSU per le finalità su preposte è l’obiettivo principale del progetto MEMS finanziato dal MIUR nell’ambito del programma SIR (Scientific Independence of young Researchers). La prima sfida affrontata nell’ambito del progetto MEMS è stata la progettazione e sviluppo di una stazione accelerometrica idonea agli scopi del progetto. Il presente lavoro ha lo scopo di descrivere nel dettaglio, la stazione accelerometrica basata su tecnologia MEMS (Micro ElectroMechanical Systems), implementata nell’abito dell’omonimo progetto. Ciò che stato realizzato è una stazione accelerometrica dalle ottime performance, estremamente versatile e a bassissimo costo.The impact of a strong earthqauke onto an urban community can be reduced taking timely actions managed by the authority in charge for the civil protection. In this view, it is of fundamental importance that the authority in charge for the seismic surveillance is provided with the appropriate monitoring tools able to give the most useful information for the best emergency management in the immediate post-event. Today this goal can be reached realizing urban-scale, real-time seismic monitoring networks (Osservatori Sismici Urbani, OSU, in Italian). The real-time OSU networks are able to promptly provide information to the emergency authority about the ground shaking at each node after an earthquake. Maps showing the spatial distribution of the ground shaking could help in the optimization of the priorities and a good management of the rescue resources in order to reduce the number of victims. Also the assessment of the damage of the buildings could be carried out according to the logic of priority given by the shakings measured by the OSU. The realisation of OSUs is the main objective of the MEMS project. This project is funded by the MIUR under the SIR program (Scientific Independence of young Researchers). The first challenge of the MEMS project was the design and the development of a devoted accelerometric stations. This work illustrates in detail the accelerometric station based on MEMS technology (Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems). The final product is a low-cost accelerometric station with high performance and great versatility

Judith Cowan: the capacity of things from life

Monograph on the work of Judith Cowan with interpretations by a selection of key critics and writers, as well as written contributions, visual documentation of work, and original art by Judith Cowan

GPR and magnetic survey at the Kamarina archaeological site (Sicily, Italy) supported by aerial photo-graphic and thermographic data

Abstract \u2013 Multidisciplinary geophysical investigations have been carried out in a small area of the Greek archaeological site of Kamarina, in southern Sicily, in order to support some hypotheses, derived from historical and archaeological bases. After an aerial photographic and thermographic survey, a small area near to the Agora has been considered for magnetometric and GPR investigations. Obtained results show a good correlation and allow to highlight some structures oriented in agreement with the uncovered remains. The use of integrated geophysical techniques allowed a more robust interpretation of the detected anomalies in order to better address the choices for new excavations

Multidisciplinary investigations at the Kamarina archaeological site (southern Sicily, Italy)

Multidisciplinary geophysical investigations have been carried out in a small area of the Greek archaeological site of Kamarina, in southern Sicily, in order to support some hypotheses, derived from historical and archaeological bases. After an aerial photographic and thermographic survey, a small area near to the Agora has been considered for magnetometric and GPR investigations. Obtained results show a good correlation and allow to highlight some structures oriented in agreement with the uncovered remains. The use of integrated geophysical techniques allowed a more robust interpretation of the detected anomalies in order to better address the choices for new excavations

A Homenaje to Tania Bruguera

testo sul lavoro dell'artista Tania Bruguer

Evidence of Roman Earthquake Surface Faulting at Santa Venera al Pozzo (Catania, Southern Italy): a probable seismic event in 251 AD?

The record of historical seismicity of Catania (Southern Italy) and its neighbourhood during the first millennium AD is largely incomplete due to the scarcity of sources reporting information on earthquake damage, whereas on the contrary numerous historical sources provide plentiful description of past Etnean eruptions affecting the Catania area. This study provides new insights on the Catania seismic history, which was struck by large earthquakes during its recent history (e.g. 1169, 1542, 1693, 1818 earthquakes). During the first millennium, the only documented earthquake occurred in 251 AD, a year before of the big Etna eruption of 252 AD (Guidoboni et al., 2014). This earthquake left well-visible traces in the archaeological site of Santa Venera al Pozzo (Acireale, Catania), which was continuously inhabited since 3000 BC, due to the presence of sulphur warm water springs. The buildings uncovered by archaeologists are a podium of a Roman temple; a thermal bath provided with at least five different pools; a Roman rural Villa; and a church of Byzantine age. The site is located on the eastern flank of Mt. Etna volcano, where seismic activity has often caused significant damage, even though localized, especially when associated with remarkable flank eruptions. Evidence of Roman age faulting has been observed in the archaeological site, which is clearly affected by a set of sharp fractures generating an overall ~ 4 m wide fracture zone. The main fracture extends for about 40 m with a ~N-S direction, offsetting the foundations of a podium, some pools and minor walls. It shows an extensional displacement of up to 5-8 cm and a right-lateral component with an offset of up to 4 cm. Fracture zones related to normal faults are quite common in the lower eastern flank of Mt. Etna (Azzaro et al., 2012). Some of these structures are also characterized by anomalous diffuse CO2 emissions from the soil (Giammanco and Bonfanti, 2009). The archaeological site is placed in proximity of one of these tectonic lineaments (Fig. 1), belonging to the NNW oriented normal fault system called the “Timpe” system. The finding of this earthquake damage and its time constraints represents the starting point for archaeoseismological research in the Etnean area

A Lightweight Prototype of a Magnetometric System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Detection of the Earth’s magnetic field anomalies is the basis of many types of studies in the field of earth sciences and archaeology. These surveys require different ways to carry out the measures but they have in common that they can be very tiring or expensive. There are now several lightweight commercially available magnetic sensors that allow light-UAVs to be equipped to perform airborne measurements for a wide range of scenarios. In this work, the realization and functioning of an airborne magnetometer prototype were presented and discussed. Tests and measures for the validation of the experimental setup for some applications were reported. The flight sessions, appropriately programmed for different types of measurements, made it possible to evaluate the performance of this detection methodology, highlighting the advantages and drawbacks or limitations and future developments. From the results obtained it was possible to verify that the measurement system is capable of carrying out local and potentially archaeological magnetometric measurements with the necessary precautions

Tutti uguali, tutti diversi Scautismo ed diversabilit\ue0

Pu\uf2 un ragazzo disabile vivere la grande avventura dello scautismo? E come proporgliela? Educare i ragazzi, aiutarli a crescere, essere attenti alle loro necessit\ue0, sostenerli nella scoperta delle loro capacit\ue0 e nell\u2019accettazione dei loro limiti \ue8 il carisma dello scautismo. Questo libro raccoglie riflessioni sulle molteplici possibilit\ue0 educative che il metodo scout offre, anche nel campo della disabilit\ue0. \uc8 destinato a tutti coloro che hanno scelto di essere educatori e che vedono in ogni bambino/a ed i ogni ragazzo/a non solo limiti ma potenzialit\ue0 inespresse da far emergere e ricchezze nascoste da far affiorare

Low-cost Remotely Operated Underwater and Unmanned Aerial vehicles: new technologies for ar-chaeo-geophysics

In this paper we present a device for magnetic survey devoted in particular for archaeological purposes. The device is able to perform accurate measurements of the total magnetic field, it is a flexible device, programmable by the users to be suitable for any specific need. The device relies upon microcontroller, a digital three axes Fluxgate magnetometer, a GPS, and a Real Time Clock (RTC) module. The device is compact and lightweight to be assembled on aerial and marine drones. Recently, Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) gained great potential for archaeo-geophysics because of their versatility and low cost, therefore the magnetometer represents a very useful tool for fast and reliable measurements