L’informalità del cambiamento urbano. Pratiche e progettualità dell’abitare nel quartiere San Berillo di Catania

This ethnographic research focuses on the informal activities that take place in the streets of the San Berillo neighbourhood in the historical centre of the city of Catania, highlighting the stories and meanings that are linked to these uses as a production of transformation and planning. Urban regeneration is an important resource to improve the urban quality, but this process can be produce marginalization and displacement process in the city context. Rethinking the city by expanding the elements of reference, it means recognizing in the urban practices, in the meanings from the bottom and in the symbolic dimension, interpretive categories endowed with planning. Urban practices play a decisive role in the construction of the city. Although they are often more easily associated with abusivism, they constitute the fundamental and prevailing modalities of urban development. The city is not given only by a constructive process of physical space but is the result of adaptation and appropriation of spaces to redefine their uses

Patrimonializzazione e angoscia territoriale. Un’analisi etnografica delle pratiche di narrazione della “Città Vecchia” di Taranto

In questa sede si propone una riflessione sul ruolo di attivazione sociale che può rivestire il patrimonio culturale, in una visione dinamica e processuale, in cui entrano in gioco la memoria, il racconto e la performatività di storie che identificano e trasformano la città. In questa visione il patrimonio si lega ai processi di rigenerazione di spazi abbandonati e aree non utilizzate, con riferimento al caso studio della “Città Vecchia”. L'obiettivo è comprendere le dinamiche di interazione tra programmi di recupero e di valorizzazione che individuano spazi urbani da tutelare, e le forme di “agency” che interpretano e individuano altre forme di patrimonio. La ricerca attraverso un approccio etnografico indaga il protagonismo sociale e culturale di un gruppo di abitanti della città di Taranto, che attraverso il racconto di storie e la creazione di percorsi urbani, intende far conoscere quest’area definita centro storico ma ancora marginale rispetto ai patrimoni valorizzati e tutelati. La narrazione sulla (e nella) Città Vecchia, come forma articolata di trasmissione dal passato, diventa risorsa progettuale per il riuso di spazi abbandonati, attraverso la creazione di momenti di coinvolgimento pubblico in cui le storie del quartiere vengono raccontate e performate

Carlo Capello, Giovanni Semi, a cura di, Torino: Un profilo etnografico, Milano, Meltemi, 2018, pp. 268

Book review of Carlo Capello, Giovanni Semi, eds, Torino: Un profilo etnografico, Milano, Meltemi, 2018, pp. 268.Recensione di Carlo Capello, Giovanni Semi, eds, Torino: Un profilo etnografico, Milano, Meltemi, 2018, pp. 268

BLIND: A privacy preserving truth discovery system for mobile crowdsensing

Nowadays, an increasing number of applications exploit users who act as intelligent sensors and can quickly provide high-level information. These users generate valuable data that, if mishandled, could potentially reveal sensitive information. Protecting user privacy is thus of paramount importance for crowdsensing systems. In this paper, we propose BLIND, an innovative open-source truth discovery system designed to improve the quality of information (QoI) through the use of privacy-preserving computation techniques in mobile crowdsensing scenarios. The uniqueness of BLIND lies in its ability to preserve user privacy by ensuring that none of the parties involved are able to identify the source of the information provided. The system uses homomorphic encryption to implement a novel privacy-preserving version of the well-known K-Means clustering algorithm, which directly groups encrypted user data. Outliers are then removed privately without revealing any useful information to the parties involved. We extensively evaluate the proposed system for both server-side and client-side scalability, as well as truth discovery accuracy, using a real-world dataset and a synthetic one, to test the system under challenging conditions. Comparisons with four state-of-the-art approaches show that BLIND optimizes QoI by effectively mitigating the impact of four different security attacks, with higher accuracy and lower communication overhead than its competitors. With the optimizations proposed in this paper, BLIND is up to three times faster than the baseline system, and the obtained Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) values are up to 42% lower than other state-of-the-art approaches

Bayesian Modeling for Differential Cryptanalysis of Block Ciphers: a DES instance

Encryption algorithms based on block ciphers are among the most widely adopted solutions for providing information security. Over the years, a variety of methods have been proposed to evaluate the robustness of these algorithms to different types of security attacks. One of the most effective analysis techniques is differential cryptanalysis, whose aim is to study how variations in the input propagate on the output. In this work we address the modeling of differential attacks to block cipher algorithms by defining a Bayesian framework that allows a probabilistic estimation of the secret key. In order to prove the validity of the proposed approach, we present as case study a differential attack to the Data Encryption Standard (DES) which, despite being one of the methods that has been most thoroughly analyzed, is still of great interest to the scientific community since its vulnerabilities may have implications on other ciphers

Sex worker nel quartiere catanese di San Berillo: Presenze, resistenze e trasformazioni

This article argues that the presence of, use of space by, and spatial practices of sex workers in the historical red-light district of Catania (Italy) contributed to shaping the imaginaries of this space as well as its symbolic and tangible transformation. It relies on ethnographies conducted in the San Berillo district by two of the authors, interviews carried out by all three authors, and the collection of documentary material by one of the authors. We start the article by shortly illustrating the events that have mostly impacted on sex work in the district, including the changes in the national prostitution policy, the urban transformations that have affected the district in the mid-1950s, and the more recent police repression against sex workers. We then analyse the gathered material through the thematic categories of ‘presences’, ‘relations’ and ‘resistance’, and reflect on the spatial practices and spaces of representations that have emerged in the district. We conclude this article by illustrating how sex workers’ spatial practices in the district – which evidence their willingness to actively contribute to thinking and making the city – open new imaginaries of the future of urban living

Your Friends Mention It. What About Visiting It? A Mobile Social-Based Sightseeing Application

In this short poster paper, we present an application for suggesting attractions to be visited by users, based on social signal processing technique

Disease-Modifying Therapies and Coronavirus Disease 2019 Severity in Multiple Sclerosis

Objective: This study was undertaken to assess the impact of immunosuppressive and immunomodulatory therapies on the severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). Methods: We retrospectively collected data of PwMS with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. All the patients had complete follow-up to death or recovery. Severe COVID-19 was defined by a 3-level variable: mild disease not requiring hospitalization versus pneumonia or hospitalization versus intensive care unit (ICU) admission or death. We evaluated baseline characteristics and MS therapies associated with severe COVID-19 by multivariate and propensity score (PS)-weighted ordinal logistic models. Sensitivity analyses were run to confirm the results. Results: Of 844 PwMS with suspected (n = 565) or confirmed (n = 279) COVID-19, 13 (1.54%) died; 11 of them were in a progressive MS phase, and 8 were without any therapy. Thirty-eight (4.5%) were admitted to an ICU; 99 (11.7%) had radiologically documented pneumonia; 96 (11.4%) were hospitalized. After adjusting for region, age, sex, progressive MS course, Expanded Disability Status Scale, disease duration, body mass index, comorbidities, and recent methylprednisolone use, therapy with an anti-CD20 agent (ocrelizumab or rituximab) was significantly associated (odds ratio [OR] = 2.37, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.18-4.74, p = 0.015) with increased risk of severe COVID-19. Recent use (<1 month) of methylprednisolone was also associated with a worse outcome (OR = 5.24, 95% CI = 2.20-12.53, p = 0.001). Results were confirmed by the PS-weighted analysis and by all the sensitivity analyses. Interpretation: This study showed an acceptable level of safety of therapies with a broad array of mechanisms of action. However, some specific elements of risk emerged. These will need to be considered while the COVID-19 pandemic persists