Pervasive Business Intelligence

In the last few years, a new generation of Business Intelligence (BI) tools called BI 2.0 has emerged to meet the new and ambitious requirements of business users. BI 2.0 not only introduces brand new topics, but in some cases it re-examines past challenges according to new perspectives depending on the market changes and needs. In this context, the term pervasive BI has gained increasing interest as an innovative and forward-looking perspective. This thesis investigates three different aspects of pervasive BI: personalization, timeliness, and integration. Personalization refers to the capacity of BI tools to customize the query result according to the user who takes advantage of it, facilitating the fruition of BI information by different type of users (e.g., front-line employees, suppliers, customers, or business partners). In this direction, the thesis proposes a model for On-Line Analytical Process (OLAP) query personalization to reduce the query result to the most relevant information for the specific user. Timeliness refers to the timely provision of business information for decision-making. In this direction, this thesis defines a new Data Warehuose (DW) methodology, Four-Wheel-Drive (4WD), that combines traditional development approaches with agile methods; the aim is to accelerate the project development and reduce the software costs, so as to decrease the number of DW project failures and favour the BI tool penetration even in small and medium companies. Integration refers to the ability of BI tools to allow users to access information anywhere it can be found, by using the device they prefer. To this end, this thesis proposes Business Intelligence Network (BIN), a peer-to-peer data warehousing architecture, where a user can formulate an OLAP query on its own system and retrieve relevant information from both its local system and the DWs of the net, preserving its autonomy and independency.

Distributed Smart City Services for Urban Ecosystems

A Smart City is a high-performance urban context, where citizens live independently and are more aware of the surrounding opportunities, thanks to forward-looking development of economy politics, governance, mobility and environment. ICT infrastructures play a key-role in this new research field being also a mean for society to allow new ideas to prosper and new, more efficient approaches to be developed. The aim of this work is to research and develop novel solutions, here called smart services, in order to solve several upcoming problems and known issues in urban areas and more in general in the modern society context. A specific focus is posed on smart governance and on privacy issues which have been arisen in the cellular age.

Smart Farming in Italian agriculture: essays on adoption and diffusion dynamics shaping the agricultural digital transition

Smart Farming Technologies (SFT) is a term used to define the set of digital technologies able not only to control and manage the farm system, but also to connect it to the many disruptive digital applications posed at multiple links along the value chain. The adoption of SFT has been so far limited, with significant differences at country-levels and among different types of farms and farmers. The objective of this thesis is to analyze what factors contributes to shape the agricultural digital transition and to assess its potential impacts in the Italian agri-food system. Specifically, this overall research objective is approached under three different perspectives. Firstly, we carry out a review of the literature that focuses on the determinants of adoption of farm-level Management Information Systems (MIS), namely the most adopted smart farming solutions in Italy. Secondly, we run an empirical analysis on what factors are currently shaping the adoption of SFT in Italy. In doing so, we focus on the multi-process and multi-faceted aspects of the adoption, by overcoming the one-off binary approach often used to study adoption decisions. Finally, we adopt a forward-looking perspective to investigate what the socio-ethical implications of a diffused use of SFT might be. On the one hand, our results indicate that bigger, more structured farms with higher levels of commercial integration along the agri-food supply chain are those more likely to be early adopters. On the other hand, they highlight the need for the institutional and organizational environment around farms to more effectively support farmers in the digital transition. Moreover, the role of several other actors and actions are discussed and analyzed, by highlighting the key role of specific agri-food stakeholders and ad-hoc policies, with the aim to propose a clearer path towards an efficient, fair and inclusive digitalization of the agrifood sector.

Sustainability and environmental impact of the Italian ceramic tile industry

The increasing consumption rates among citizens and the uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources have made environmental pollution and management of waste the main problems facing humanity in its upcoming future. Together with generation of energy and transport, industrial production certainly plays a key role in the genesis of these problems. It is for this reason that the concepts of environmental, social and economic sustainability have emerged over the years as the cornerstones for future development. In light of this, the most forward-looking industries have begun to study their impact on environment and society in order to improve their performances and, at the same time, to anticipate the increasingly rigorous environmental regulations. In this work, various performance indicators related to the Italian ceramic tile sector will be presented and discussed. In particular, the emission factor of characteristic pollutants will be reported on a period of up to fifteen years while data regarding waste management, concentration of pollutants and emission legal limits for the last decade will be here disclosed as a result of a vast analysis on recorded data. The collected information describes the present level of performance of the ceramic tile manufacturing industries in Italy and shows how recycling is now a consolidated reality and how some pollutants, such as particulate matter, fluorine and lead are actually disappearing from production processes and how others, such as volatile organic compounds, are increasing instead. Moreover, the adoption of alternative raw materials for the production of ceramic tiles is discussed and the implementation of the recycling of various waste is addressed at experimental or industrial scale. Finally, the development of a new ceramic engobe with high content of waste glass (20%) is presented as an experimental example of reutilization of resources in the ceramic tile industry.

Creazione e sviluppo di corpora multimediali. Nuove metodologie di ricerca nella traduzione audiovisiva

The construction and use of multimedia corpora has been advocated for a while in the literature as one of the expected future application fields of Corpus Linguistics. This research project represents a pioneering experience aimed at applying a data-driven methodology to the study of the field of AVT, similarly to what has been done in the last few decades in the macro-field of Translation Studies. This research was based on the experience of Forlixt 1, the Forlì Corpus of Screen Translation, developed at the University of Bologna’s Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in Translation, Languages and Culture. As a matter of fact, in order to quantify strategies of linguistic transfer of an AV product, we need to take into consideration not only the linguistic aspect of such a product but all the meaning-making resources deployed in the filmic text. Provided that one major benefit of Forlixt 1 is the combination of audiovisual and textual data, this corpus allows the user to access primary data for scientific investigation, and thus no longer rely on pre-processed material such as traditional annotated transcriptions. Based on this rationale, the first chapter of the thesis sets out to illustrate the state of the art of research in the disciplinary fields involved. The primary objective was to underline the main repercussions on multimedia texts resulting from the interaction of a double support, audio and video, and, accordingly, on procedures, means, and methods adopted in their translation. By drawing on previous research in semiotics and film studies, the relevant codes at work in visual and acoustic channels were outlined. Subsequently, we concentrated on the analysis of the verbal component and on the peculiar characteristics of filmic orality as opposed to spontaneous dialogic production. In the second part, an overview of the main AVT modalities was presented (dubbing, voice-over, interlinguistic and intra-linguistic subtitling, audio-description, etc.) in order to define the different technologies, processes and professional qualifications that this umbrella term presently includes. The second chapter focuses diachronically on various theories’ contribution to the application of Corpus Linguistics’ methods and tools to the field of Translation Studies (i.e. Descriptive Translation Studies, Polysystem Theory). In particular, we discussed how the use of corpora can favourably help reduce the gap existing between qualitative and quantitative approaches. Subsequently, we reviewed the tools traditionally employed by Corpus Linguistics in regard to the construction of traditional “written language” corpora, to assess whether and how they can be adapted to meet the needs of multimedia corpora. In particular, we reviewed existing speech and spoken corpora, as well as multimedia corpora specifically designed to investigate Translation. The third chapter reviews Forlixt 1's main developing steps, from a technical (IT design principles, data query functions) and methodological point of view, by laying down extensive scientific foundations for the annotation methods adopted, which presently encompass categories of pragmatic, sociolinguistic, linguacultural and semiotic nature. Finally, we described the main query tools (free search, guided search, advanced search and combined search) and the main intended uses of the database in a pedagogical perspective. The fourth chapter lists specific compilation criteria retained, as well as statistics of the two sub-corpora, by presenting data broken down by language pair (French-Italian and German-Italian) and genre (cinema’s comedies, television’s soapoperas and crime series). Next, we concentrated on the discussion of the results obtained from the analysis of summary tables reporting the frequency of categories applied to the French-Italian sub-corpus. The detailed observation of the distribution of categories identified in the original and dubbed corpus allowed us to empirically confirm some of the theories put forward in the literature and notably concerning the nature of the filmic text, the dubbing process and Italian dubbed language’s features. This was possible by looking into some of the most problematic aspects, like the rendering of socio-linguistic variation. The corpus equally allowed us to consider so far neglected aspects, such as pragmatic, prosodic, kinetic, facial, and semiotic elements, and their combination. At the end of this first exploration, some specific observations concerning possible macrotranslation trends were made for each type of sub-genre considered (cinematic and TV genre). On the grounds of this first quantitative investigation, the fifth chapter intended to further examine data, by applying ad hoc models of analysis. Given the virtually infinite number of combinations of categories adopted, and of the latter with searchable textual units, three possible qualitative and quantitative methods were designed, each of which was to concentrate on a particular translation dimension of the filmic text. The first one was the cultural dimension, which specifically focused on the rendering of selected cultural references and on the investigation of recurrent translation choices and strategies justified on the basis of the occurrence of specific clusters of categories. The second analysis was conducted on the linguistic dimension by exploring the occurrence of phrasal verbs in the Italian dubbed corpus and by ascertaining the influence on the adoption of related translation strategies of possible semiotic traits, such as gestures and facial expressions. Finally, the main aim of the third study was to verify whether, under which circumstances, and through which modality, graphic and iconic elements were translated into Italian from an original corpus of both German and French films. After having reviewed the main translation techniques at work, an exhaustive account of possible causes for their non-translation was equally provided. By way of conclusion, the discussion of results obtained from the distribution of annotation categories on the French-Italian corpus, as well as the application of specific models of analysis allowed us to underline possible advantages and drawbacks related to the adoption of a corpus-based approach to AVT studies. Even though possible updating and improvement were proposed in order to help solve some of the problems identified, it is argued that the added value of Forlixt 1 lies ultimately in having created a valuable instrument, allowing to carry out empirically-sound contrastive studies that may be usefully replicated on different language pairs and several types of multimedia texts. Furthermore, multimedia corpora can also play a crucial role in L2 and translation teaching, two disciplines in which their use still lacks systematic investigation.

I progetti di Oswald Mathias Ungers per la città di Treviri. Questioni di composizione architettonica

Abstract This PhD thesis focuses on two projects carried out by Oswald Mathias Ungers in the city of Trier. More specifi cally, this study focuses on the relationship between composition principles, architectural forms, historical context and the nature of the city where these buildings have been built. The works carried out by Ungers in Trier are unique experiences - if taken in this master’s works context - and each one of them refl ects - in its specifi c project and architectural composition theme - the results - in terms of design - of a complex research on the fundamentals of architecture carried out by Ungers in more than fi ve decades of his activity. The theoretical and compositional experiment aspect is one of the main subjects to defi ne these buildings in terms of architecture. This aspect is so crucial that it is possible to consider them as an example of radical and specifi c experiences, referred to a specifi c place and based on a specifi c theoretical corpus. More specifi cally, this study focuses on the design activity carried out by Ungers in this city, mainly between the 80s and 90s and in the fi rst decade of the 21st century. It puts forward an interpretation that does not only defi ne the essential features, elements and questions lying behind these two architectures, but fi rst and foremost analyzes the theoretical, methodological and compositional relationship between Ungers and Trier, his adopted city. An increasingly closer relationship between the architect and his city highlights the wider relationship network established between the place and the projects carried out by Ungers in this city and makes it possible to understand the importance of Trier in the work of this architect, in his education and in his way to see, think and make architecture. The projects analyzed - the Thermen am Forum Museum (1988-1996) and the Kaiserthermen entrance hall (2003-2007) - were analyzed in terms of their architectural composition in an attempt to highlight the poetry of these architectures and to fi nd out their progressive, rational - and therefore transmissible - character. This study is an attempt to assess and unveil the compositional themes characterizing these projects while detecting the compositional principles lying behind the works and verifying the design process through which such principles were translated into architecture. Looking at these works as architectural composition examples makes it possible to clarify Ungers’ hermeneutic relationship established with the city’s history and structure. More specifi cally, the main subject of this thesis is the relationship between the architect, his city and history in the architectural solutions offered by two exemplary case studies, which were both built and placed in the historical city center of Trier and both connected with the ancient core of the city. The Thermen am Forum Museum and the Kaiserthermen entrance hall projects are - though being developed at different times of Ungers’ architectural life and though being extremely different in terms of approach to their context, due to their architectural image - two works that can be compared with the historical heritage of the city and this makes them ideal examples of the relationship between architectural forms, history and environment.

Study of the forward photons productions in pp collisions at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV with the ZDC detector of the ATLAS experiment

The Zero Degree Calorimeter (ZDC) of the ATLAS experiment at CERN is placed in the TAN of the LHC collider, covering the pseudorapidity region higher than 8.3. It is composed by 2 calorimeters, each one longitudinally segmented in 4 modules, located at 140 m from the IP exactly on the beam axis. The ZDC can detect neutral particles during pp collisions and it is a tool for diffractive physics. Here we present results on the forward photon energy distribution obtained using p-p collision data at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV. First the pi0 reconstruction will be used for the detector calibration with photons, then we will show results on the forward photon energy distribution in p-p collisions and the same distribution, but obtained using MC generators. Finally a comparison between data and MC will be shown.