Natura e architettura nel giardino di Villa Florio-Pignatelli (Palermo, Sicilia).

ABSTRACT.\u2013 Amongst the Sicilian historical gardens it is merited to remember the ornamental garden design of Villa Florio- Pignatelli, situated in the western periphery of Palermo. The building, and probably the garden too, are from the second half of the 18. century. This article contains the result of a cognitive study of its history, architecture and vegetal composition, based on field studies in the garden itself, on bibliographical and archival work. In 1838 it was sold by the Duke of Cumia to Vincenzo Florio, who in following conceded it to his son Ignazio. Already at this time, there was a garden with a "flora all\u2019Italiana" behind the Villa, which had circular vials in radial order, demarcated with a box-hedge (Buxus sempervirens), much like a small reproduction of the more famous and celebrated Villa Giulia (1777), the first public garden in the town.The elegance of the garden's proportions is based on at least four geometric orders interacting with each other. They reveal evi- dence of important fixed points or "topoi" of the garden; these affirm that the apparent simplicity contains complicated arith- metic and geometric relations in an exceptional union of architectural and botanical significance

Recommendation Systems in Libraries: an Application with Heterogeneous Data Sources

The Reading[&]Machine project exploits the support of digitalization to increase the attractiveness of libraries and improve the users’ experience. The project implements an application that helps the users in their decision-making process, providing recommendation system (RecSys)-generated lists of books the users might be interested in, and showing them through an interactive Virtual Reality (VR)-based Graphical User Interface (GUI). In this paper, we focus on the design and testing of the recommendation system, employing data about all users’ loans over the past 9 years from the network of libraries located in Turin, Italy. In addition, we use data collected by the Anobii online social community of readers, who share their feedback and additional information about books they read. Armed with this heterogeneous data, we build and evaluate Content Based (CB) and Collaborative Filtering (CF) approaches. Our results show that the CF outperforms the CB approach, improving by up to 47% the relevant recommendations provided to a reader. However, the performance of the CB approach is heavily dependent on the number of books the reader has already read, and it can work even better than CF for users with a large history. Finally, our evaluations highlight that the performances of both approaches are significantly improved if the system integrates and leverages the information from the Anobii dataset, which allows us to include more user readings (for CF) and richer book metadata (for CB)

La laurea magistrale in Storia dell’Arte (LM-89): un percorso abilitante all’insegnamento nella scuola (classe di concorso A-54 Storia dell’Arte)?

L’insegnamento della Storia dell’Arte nella scuola media secondaria, introdotto nel 1923 dalla riforma Gentile, vanta una tradizione illustre e corrisponde ai principi della Costituzione sulla tutela dell’ambiente e sulla relazione tra i cittadini e il patrimonio storico e artistico. Il contributo formula alcune considerazioni che tengono conto del vivace dibattito attualmente in corso e dei due importanti documenti prodotti dal CUN in merito al progetto ministeriale sulla possibile istituzione di un percorso universitario abilitante all’insegnamento della materia. Ai fini di un miglioramento della qualità dei percorsi educativi, si propone un innalzamento dei CFU di Storia dell’Arte, necessari per l’accesso alla classe di concorso in Storia dell’Arte (A-54), per la quale il titolo di laurea della LM-89 “Storia dell’Arte” risulta oggi il percorso più idoneo. Si sottolinea l’importanza della didattica disciplinare e delle esperienze di tirocinio.The teaching of the History of Art in the Italian secondary school, introduced in 1923 by Gentile reform, boasts an illustrious tradition and corresponds to the principles of the Italian Constitution on enviromental protection and the relationship between citizens and the historical and artistic heritage. The essay formulates some considerations that take into account the lively debate currently underway and the two important documents produced by the CUN regarding the ministerial project on the possible establishment of a university course enabling the teaching of the matter. For the purpose of improving the quality of educational pathways, it is proposed to raise the CFU in History of Art, necessary for access to the competition class in History of Art (A-54), for which the title degree of the LM-89 "History of Art" is today the most suitable path. The importance of disciplinary teaching and internship experiences is emphasized

The establishment of the agricultural landscape of central Sicily between the Middle Neolithic and the beginning of the Iron Age

The possible co-variation of human occupation and vegetation from the Middle Neolithic to the beginning of the Iron Age (7.5–2.8 ka BP) in Central Sicily in the context of the central Mediterranean between Middle and Late Holocene are analysed in this paper to provide new insights on Sicilian prehistoric demography. The demographic and economic trends during these millennia were reconstructed using archaeological, Accelerator Mass Spectrometry 14C dates, palynological, archaeobotanical, and zooarchaeological data from the northern, central, and southern sectors of Central Sicily through a diachronic comparison with variation in Arboreal Pollen, Anthropogenic Pollen Indicators, Olea-Juglans-Castanea pollen, microcharcoals, and Sporormiella from four pollen cores from sites in different ecosystems. A very significant spread of farming activities was found at the end of the Neolithic, together with an apparent demographic gap during the Middle Copper Age, and the emergence of agricultural landscapes at the end of the Copper Age associated with a striking increase in population. A combination of cultural and climatic changes during the late phase of the Bronze Age resulted in a subsequent overall decrease in population

Structure of the chlorovirus PBCV-1 major capsid glycoprotein determined by combining crystallographic and carbohydrate molecular modeling approaches

The glycans of the major capsid protein (Vp54) of Paramecium bursaria chlorella virus (PBCV-1) were recently described and found to be unusual. This prompted a reexamination of the previously reported Vp54 X-ray structure. A detailed description of the complete glycoprotein was achieved by combining crystallographic data with molecular modeling. The crystallographic data identified most of the monosaccharides located close to the protein backbone, but failed to detect those further from the glycosylation sites. Molecular modeling complemented this model by adding the missing monosaccharides and examined the conformational preference of the whole molecule, alone or within the crystallographic environment. Thus, combining X-ray crystallography with carbohydrate molecular modeling resulted in determining the complete glycosylated structure of a glycoprotein. In this case, it is the chlorovirus PBCV-1 major capsid protein. Includes supplemental appendi

Uomini, libri e immagini. Per una storia del libro illustrato dal tardo antico al medioevo

L'opera propone una raccolta di studi dedicata alla storia del libro illustrato. La miscellanea, radunata dalla curatrice, propone in versione italiana rivista e aggiornata, testi di Kurt Weitzmann, Ernst Kitzinger, Sahoko Tsuji, Erwin Panofsky, Jonathan J. Alexander, Patricia Stirnemann e Marie -Thérèse Gousset. L'edizione italiana dei testi è arricchita da contributi personali di alcuni autori. E' questo il caso dei saggi di Ernst Kitzinger e Sahoko Tsuji, da considerarsi una riedizione degli studi originali. L'antologia è corredata da un’introduzione, un glossario e un breve compendio di orientamenti bibliografici redatti dalla curatrice

Sialoendoscopy: state of the art, challenges and further perspectives. Round Table, 101st SIO National Congress, Catania 2014

This draft of the Official Round Table held during the 101st SIO National Congress is an updated review on sialoendoscopy, a technique used for diagnosis and treatment of obstructive pathologies of salivary glands in a minimally invasive fashion. This review treats many aspects of salivary gland endoscopy, starting from anatomy to deal with the more advanced surgical techniques and analyses the main decisional algorithms proposed in the literature. In addition, particular attention was directed to the current limitations of this technique and to the potential developments that sialoendoscopy could have in the near future

Characterization of a New Chlorovirus Type with Permissive and Non-permissive Features on Phylogenetically Related Algal Strains

A previous report indicated that prototype chlorovirus PBCV-1 replicated in two Chlorella variabilis algal strains, NC64A and Syngen 2-3, that are ex-endosymbionts isolated from the protozoan Paramecium bursaria. Surprisingly, plaque-forming viruses on Syngen 2-3 lawns were often higher than on NC64A lawns from indigenous water samples. These differences led to the discovery of viruses that exclusively replicate in Syngen 2-3 cells, named Only Syngen (OSy) viruses. OSy-NE5, the prototype virus for the proposed new species, had a linear dsDNA genome of 327 kb with 44-nucleotide-long, incompletely base-paired, covalently closed hairpin ends. Each hairpin structure was followed by an identical 2,612 base-paired inverted sequence after which the DNA sequence diverged. OSy-NE5 encoded 357 predicted CDSs and 13 tRNAs. Interestingly, OSy-NE5 attached to and initiated infection in NC64A cells but infectious progeny viruses were not produced; thus OSy-NE5 replication in NC64A is blocked at some later stage of replication