Proceedings of the Fifth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics CLiC-it 2018

On behalf of the Program Committee, a very warm welcome to the Fifth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-­‐it 2018). This edition of the conference is held in Torino. The conference is locally organised by the University of Torino and hosted into its prestigious main lecture hall “Cavallerizza Reale”. The CLiC-­‐it conference series is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC) which, after five years of activity, has clearly established itself as the premier national forum for research and development in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing, where leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry meet to share their research results, experiences, and challenges

Environmental impact of intensive farming in sloping areas

The increased demand for food causes intensive farming with high yield production and large water consumption to extend significantly. Depending on soil properties, seasonal rainfall, surface drainage and water resources, hence the consumption-infiltration balance, the ground water table might be raised or depleted; soils could be saturated or remain partly saturated with negative pore pressures. As a result sloping grounds may become prone to shallow slides, as mudflows, or deep seated movements, involving large volumes of soil, especially after rupture of major watering lines or after long uncontrolled irrigations. Within this framework the paper investigates the possible effects of replacing grassland with intensive apple farming on the stability conditions of slopes. Apples require frequent watering, especially during spring and summer to meet qualitative and quantitative productive standards. Also, sprinkler irrigation is often used to protect against hail. From the precipitation, irrigation, runoff, evaporation and plant transpiration balance, the evolution of the pore water pressure distribution within an average year is calculated. Then the modified shear strength of the unsaturated-saturated soils is determined and the factor of safety against sliding is calculated

Redundancy and coherence of multi-method displacement monitoring data as key issues for the analysis of extremely slow landslides (Isarco valley, Eastern Alps, Italy)

The paper describes the study of two extremely slow, active-continuous, deep-seated landslides located in the Isarco Valley (Eastern Alps, Italy): a Multiple Rotational Rock Slide (MRRS) and partial reactivation of a Deep-Seated Gravitational Slope Deformation (DSGSD). Both landslides interact with viaducts on the E45 highway. Extensive multi-method field investigation, monitoring of surface and subsurface displacements and limit equilibrium stability analyses were adopted to fully characterize slope dynamics. In order to overcome the limitations due to the systematic errors affecting each single monitoring system and analysis method, an operative framework based on redundancy and coherence tests was introduced to check the reliability of the data and results. In this framework, the geological and geotechnical models of the investigated slopes were progressively refined. This allowed assessment of the type of interaction between the slopes and the highway viaducts

Combined use of SDMT-CPTU results for site characterization and liquefaction analysis of canal levees

The paper illustrates the combined use of the results of seismic dilatometer tests (SDMT) and piezocone test (CPTU), obtained as part of a comprehensive study aimed at investigating the post-earthquake stability conditions of canal levees damaged by the May 2012 Emilia (Italy) seismic sequence. The following issues are discussed: (1) Comparison of results obtained by SDMT vs. CPTU test interpretation, in particular soil type identification and ground property characterization of the embankment and the foundation soils. (2) Liquefaction analysis using a recent simplified method (Marchetti 2016) based on the combined use of the horizontal stress index KD provided by SDMT and the cone penetration resistance qt provided by CPTU. The results obtained by this method are compared with the results obtained by existing methods based on qt (CPT) and KD (DMT) alone, as well as with the results obtained by methods based on the shear wave velocity Vs and by laboratory cyclic tests