Grafica, pittura, collage: Ursula Ferrara e il cinema d'animazione

È difficile dare al cinema d’animazione una definizione esaustiva; ogni descrizione sembra essere sempre limitante rispetto alle sue varietà espressive. Questo è dovuto al fatto che l’animazione è un tipo di cinema strettamente connesso a molteplici linguaggi artistici, come ad esempio la grafica, la pittura, la scultura e la musica. Lo dimostrano le opere artistiche di Ursula Ferrara, autrice pisana di cortometraggi d’animazione. La passione per la fotografia ereditata dal padre e l’amore per l’arte trasmessale dalla madre, contribuiscono fin dall’infanzia a far ricercare all'autrice un linguaggio espressivo sintesi delle due forme artistiche. Un rapido excursus nel cinema d’animazione italiano, con personalità importanti maschili e femminili aiuta a introdurre l’opera integrale di Ursula Ferrara. Grafica, pittura, collage ma anche fotografia e molte altre tecniche artistiche sperimentali caratterizzano i suoi cortometraggi. Ogni film viene analizzato nei suoi contenuti e nella sua forma stilistica oltre ad essere accompagnato dalla critica di studiosi e dalle riflessioni della artista stessa. It is difficult to give the animation a comprehensive definition, every description always seems to be limiting compared with to its variety of expression. This is due to the fact that animation is a type of cinema is closely related to multiple artistic languages, such as graphics, painting, sculpture and music. This is demonstrated by the artistic works of Ursula Ferrara, Pisan author of short animated films. The passion for photography inherited from the father and the love for art addressed to her by the mother, help her from earliest childhood to research an expressive language summary of the two art forms. A rapid excursus of the Italian cartoon, with important personalities of men and women, helps to introduce the complete works of Ursula Ferrara. Graphics, painting, collage, but also photography and many other artistic techniques characterize their experimental short films. Each film is analyzed in its content and in its stylistic shape; furthermore is also accompanied by critical scholars and reflections by the artist herself

Geotechnical Characterization of a Soft Clay Soil Subjected to a Preloading Embankment

The paper presents the geotechnical characterization of a clay soil subjected to a preloading embankment for the construction of an industrial electronics building in the industrial area (STM M6) of Catania (Sicily, Italy). To determine the geological profile and the geotechnical characteristics of the soil, the site was well investigated by means of in situ and laboratory tests. The following in situ geotechnical tests were carried out: Borings, SPT, CPT, PLT and dynamic in situ tests have been performed. Among them Down-Hole (D-H), Cross-Hole (C-H), SASW and recently Seismic Dilatometer Marchetti Tests (SDMT) have been carried out, with the aim to evaluate the soil profile of shear waves velocity (Vs). Moreover the following laboratory tests were carried out on undisturbed samples retrieved with a 86 mm diameter Shelby sampler: Oedometer tests, Direct shear tests, Triaxial Tests, Resonant Column and Torsional shear tests. Static and dynamic parameters were compared by in situ and laboratory tests. A significantly correspondence between the values of the geotechnical parameters derived from laboratory and in situ tests was observed. The in situ and laboratory geotechnical analysis gives the parameters to evaluate the performance of soil subjected to soil embankment by mathematical modeling

An Experiment in Retrofitting Competency Questions for Existing Ontologies

Competency Questions (CQs) are a form of ontology functional requirements expressed as natural language questions. Inspecting CQs together with the axioms in an ontology provides critical insights into the intended scope and applicability of the ontology. CQs also underpin a number of tasks in the development of ontologies e.g. ontology reuse, ontology testing, requirement specification, and the definition of patterns that implement such requirements. Although CQs are integral to the majority of ontology engineering methodologies, the practice of publishing CQs alongside the ontological artefacts is not widely observed by the community. In this context, we present an experiment in retrofitting CQs from existing ontologies. We propose RETROFIT-CQs, a method to extract candidate CQs directly from ontologies using Generative AI. In the paper we present the pipeline that facilitates the extraction of CQs by leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) and we discuss its application to a number of existing ontologies

A Seismic Geotechnical Hazard Study in the Ancient City of Noto (Italy)

Abstract South-Eastern Sicily has been affected in past times by several destroying earthquakes with high values of estimated magnitude. The aim of the seismic hazard microzonation studies performed at the City of Noto is to quantify the spatial variability of the site response on some typical historical scenario earthquakes that would be expected in the area. In order to quantify the expected ground motion, the manner in which the seismic signal is propagating through the subsurface has been defined. Propagation is particularly affected by the local geology and by the geotechnical dynamic ground conditions of the studied area. The data largely consist of the stratigraphic profiles obtained by in situ tests i.e. borings, MASW tests, Down-Hole tests, SDMT tests; some are accompanied by static and dynamic laboratory tests, such as Resonant Column, monotonic compression loading Triaxial tests and Direct shear tests. Processing of all these data allowed the ground response analysis at the surface, in terms of time history and response spectra, of some areas of the city using the linear-equivalent codes EERA, STRATA and DEEPSOIL, useful for microzonation of seismic geotechnical hazards

A Preliminary Color Study of Different Basil-Based Semi-Finished Products during Their Storage

open6: Basil-based semi-finished products, which are mainly used as an intermediate to produce the typical pesto sauce, are prepared and exported all over the world. Color is a fundamental organoleptic requirement for the acceptability of these semi-finished products by the manufacturers of the pesto sauce. Some alternative formulations, which adjust the typical industrial recipe by both changing the preservative agent (ascorbic acid, citric acid, or a mixture of both) and introducing a preliminary thermic treatment (blast chilling), were evaluated. In this work, a fast and non-destructive spectrophotometric analysis, to monitor the color variations in these food products during their shelf-life, was proposed. The raw diffuse reflectance spectra (380–900 nm) obtained by a UV–visible spectrophotometer, endowed with an integrating sphere, together with the CIELab parameters (L*, a*, b*) automatically obtained from these, were considered, and elaborated using multivariate statistical analysis (principal component analysis). From this preliminary study, blast chilling, together with the use of ascorbic acid, proved to be the best solution to better preserve the color of these products during their shelf-life.openTurrini, Federica; Farinini, Emanuele; Leardi, Riccardo; Grasso, Federica; Orlandi, Valentina; Boggia, Raffaella;Turrini, Federica; Farinini, Emanuele; Leardi, Riccardo; Grasso, Federica; Orlandi, Valentina; Boggia, Raffaell