Machine Learning and other Computational-Intelligence Techniques for Security Applications

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Greater Humanities per la Formazione

This article deals with the fragmentation of the Humanities, a proposed solution to it, and its applicability to Education Sciences. Section §1 examines some of the historical roots of both the divide between Humanities and Natural Sciences, as well as that between the Humanities and Social Sciences. The goal will be that of drafting a genealogy of the issue, and not that of providing the reader with a thorough diachronic recount. Once the need for a common direction is established, Clifford’s proposal is examined and supplemented with Burawoy’s epistemological partition of social sciences (Section §2). Finally, the resulting template will be applied to education in general and, more specifically, to Education Sciences, in order to see if they fit the Greater Humanities vision. In particular, the case of Italy’s Scienze della Formazione post-academic movement will be tested for compliance. Its overarching research programme, as outlined by Margiotta, will elicit a closer look at the ties between Education and unitarian projects devised for the Humanities.Questo articolo si occupa della frammentazione delle Scienze Umane, di una soluzione a tale divisione e dell’applicabilità di quest’ultima alle Scienze pedagogiche. La Sezione §1 esamina alcune delle radici storiche della spaccatura tra Scienze Umane e Scienze della Natura, così come quella tra Scienze Umane e Scienze Sociali. Lo scopo sarà quello di abbozzare una genealogia della questione – e non quella di fornire al lettore una dettagliata carrellata diacronica. Una volta stabilito il bisogno di una direzione comune, la proposta di Clifford è presa in esame e integrata con la suddivisione epistemologica delle scienze sociali suggerita da Burawoy (Sezione §2). Infine, il modello risultante sarà applicato alla formazione in generale e, in particolare, alle Scienze pedagogiche, allo scopo di vedere se aderiscono al progetto delle Greater Humanities [Umanesimo Metropolita]. Nello specifico, il caso italiano del movimento post-accademico delle Scienze della Formazione sarà rapportato al modello. Infatti, il programma di ricerca comprensivo delle Scienze della Formazione, così come tracciato da Margiotta, solleciterà uno sguardo più ravvicinato alle relazioni tra la Scienze pedagogiche e i progetti “unionisti” pensati per le Scienze Umane

La ricerca post-qualitativa e gli interventi formativi della CHAT: Validità epistemologica e superamento dei problemi di metodo

Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) appears to match the tenets of post-qualitative inquiry. However, post-qualitative inquiry is credited with being averse to method and to adopt post-modernist stances that are not consistent with CHAT’s structured reading of social reality. Notwithstanding this, it is possible to propose an interpretation of post-qualitative inquiry that overcomes such conceptual challenges. This article tackles the issue both theoretically and with reference to the way current CHAT research is undertaken. First, we propose post-qualitative research should be understood as compliant with post-Gettier epistemological standpoints. Second, we show that CHAT-inspired formative interventions are both educational in nature and, given their approach to learning processes, display the core features of post-qualitative research. Given CHAT’s distinction between immanent aspects of social reality and methods tailored to tackle local issues, post-qualitative inquiry is justified in retaining its flexible—almost anarchic—methodology while, at the same time, enjoying epistemological soundness.La teoria dell’attività storico-culturale (CHAT) mostra di corrispondere ai principi della ricerca post-qualitativa. Tuttavia, la ricerca post-qualitativa si oppone al metodo e adotta posizioni post-moderniste che non paiono coerenti con la visione strutturata della realtà sociale promossa dalla CHAT. Ciononostante, proponiamo un’interpretazione della ricerca post-qualitativa che supera tali difficoltà concettuali. Questo articolo affronta la questione sia teoricamente che con riferimento al modo in cui si svolge l’attuale ricerca in seno alla CHAT. Per prima cosa, proponiamo di collocare la ricerca post-qualitativa entro il quadro dell’epistemologia post-Gettier. Successivamente, mostriamo che gli interventi formativi ispirati alla CHAT hanno sia carattere educativo che investigativo in virtù del loro approccio ai processi di apprendimento. Poiché la CHAT distingue tra aspetti immanenti della realtà sociale e metodi costruiti su misura per affrontare problemi locali, la ricerca post-qualitativa risulta giustificata nel preservare una metodologia flessibile—quasi anarchica—e, parimenti, godere di validità epistemologica

The Maximum Common Subgraph Problem: A Parallel and Multi-Engine Approach

The maximum common subgraph of two graphs is the largest possible common subgraph, i.e., the common subgraph with as many vertices as possible. Even if this problem is very challenging, as it has been long proven NP-hard, its countless practical applications still motivates searching for exact solutions. This work discusses the possibility to extend an existing, very effective branch-and-bound procedure on parallel multi-core and many-core architectures. We analyze a parallel multi-core implementation that exploits a divide-and-conquer approach based on a thread pool, which does not deteriorate the original algorithmic efficiency and it minimizes data structure repetitions. We also extend the original algorithm to parallel many-core GPU architectures adopting the CUDA programming framework, and we show how to handle the heavily workload-unbalance and the massive data dependency. Then, we suggest new heuristics to reorder the adjacency matrix, to deal with “dead-ends”, and to randomize the search with automatic restarts. These heuristics can achieve significant speed-ups on specific instances, even if they may not be competitive with the original strategy on average. Finally, we propose a portfolio approach, which integrates all the different local search algorithms as component tools; such portfolio, rather than choosing the best tool for a given instance up-front, takes the decision on-line. The proposed approach drastically limits memory bandwidth constraints and avoids other typical portfolio fragility as CPU and GPU versions often show a complementary efficiency and run on separated platforms. Experimental results support the claims and motivate further research to better exploit GPUs in embedded task-intensive and multi-engine parallel applications

An Unsupervised and Non-Invasive Model for Predicting Network Resource Demands

During the last decade, network providers are faced by a growing problem regarding the distribution of bandwidth and computing resources. Recently, the mobile edge computing paradigm was proposed as a possible solution, mainly in consideration of the provided possibility of transferring service demands at the edge of the network. This solution heavily relies on the dynamic allocation of resources, depending on the user needs and network connection, therefore it becomes essential to correctly predict user movements and activities. This paper proposes an unsupervised methodology to define meaningful user locations from noninvasive user information, captured by the user terminal with no computing or battery overhead. The data is analyzed through a conjoined clustering algorithm to build a stochastic Markov chain to predict the users’ movements and their bandwidth demands. Such a model could be used by network operators to optimize network resources allocation. To evaluate the proposed methodology, we tested it on one of the largest public community’s labeled mobile and sensor dataset, developed by the “CrowdSignals.io” initiative, and we present positive and promising results concerning the prediction capabilities of the model

Modellizzare lo sviluppo territoriale “dal basso” entro il quadro della ricerca educativa sostenibile: Un contributo a più voci riguardo ai processi trasformativi, innovativi e partecipativi che rispondono a esigenze socioculturali di tipo locale e ai bisogni speciali

This paper joins together different educational research approaches, which highlight the relevance of educational research as a stimulus to bottom-up transformative processes, and as a tool to make them valuable at the local (territorial) and global (national, European) level. Each approach is dedicated to a single region or administrative district of Italy, within which their cases unfold (namely: Apulia, Lombardy, and Trento). Moreover, as made apparent by the joint diagram, they all share assumptions with regards to the ontology of the macrolevel, which constitute the bases for their comparability. The final section subsumes individual results by projecting them against a theo-retical background that stresses on the role of bottom-up processes as fos-terers of transformative resilience; the latter allows for adaptation without depletion of contextual elements, nor the avoidance of selective pressures. As such, educational research qualifies as one of the cornerstones of sus-tainable development.Questo articolo unisce differenti approcci per la ricerca educativa che sot-tolineano la rilevanza della stessa come stimolo per i processi trasformativi bottom-up e, parimenti, come strumento per valorizzarli a livello locale (territorio) e globale (nazione, UE). Ciascun approccio è dedicato a una singola regione o suddivisione amministrativa italiana, entro cui hanno luogo i casi studiati (Lombardia, Puglia, Trento). Inoltre, come si può evincere dallo schema collettivo, condividono tutti e tre degli assunti di base sulla suddivisione ontologica del macrolivello di analisi: tale elemento condiviso costituisce il fondamento della loro comparabilità. La sezione finale riassume i risultati individuali ponendoli nel contesto teorico dell'importanza dei processi bottom-up come chiavi della resilienza trasformativa; quest'ultima, infatti, risulta da un processo di adattamento che non esaurisce gli elementi contestuali né evita di misurarsi con le pressioni selettive. In quanto tale, la ricerca educativa si qualifica come uno dei capisaldi dello sviluppo sostenibile.