The Presence of Words in Visual Art from Surrealism to Conceptualism

Without a doubt, one of the biggest changes that affected XXth century art is the introduction of words into paintings and, in more recent years, in installations. For centuries, if words were part of a visual composition, they functioned as reference; strictly speaking, they were used as a guideline for a better perception of the subject represented. With the developments of the XXth century, words became a very important part of the visual composition, and sometimes embodied the composition itself. About this topic, American art critic and collector Russell Bowman wrote an interesting article called Words and images: A persistent paradox, in which he examines the American and the European art of the XXth century in almost its entirety, dividing it up in six “categories of intention”. The aforementioned categories are not based on the art history timeline, but on the role that language played for specific artists or movements. Taking inspiration from Bowman's article, this paper is structured in three chapters, respectively: words in juxtaposition and free association, words as means of exploration of language structures, and words as means for political and personal messages. The purpose of this paper is therefore to reflect on the role of language in contemporary art and on the way it has changed from artist to artist.

When Beauty Goes to Sleep: an analysis of the symbolism behind the sleeping beauty tale

Approaching the world of the fairy tale as an adult, one soon realizes that things are not what they once seemed during story time in bed. Something that once appeared so innocent and simple can become rather complex when digging into its origin. A kiss, for example, can mean something else entirely. I can clearly remember my sister, who is ten years older than I am, telling me that the fairy tales I was told had a mysterious hidden meaning I could not understand. I was probably 9 or 10 when she told me that the story of Sleeping Beauty, which I used to love so much in Disney’s rendering, was nothing more than the story of an adolescent girl, with all the necessary steps needed to become a woman, the bleeding of menstruation and the sexual awakening - even though she did not really put it in these terms. This shocking news troubled me for a while, so much so that I haven’t watched that movie since. But in reality it was not fear that my sister had implanted in me: it was curiosity, the feeling that I was missing something terribly important behind the words and images. But it was not until last year during my semester abroad in Germany, where I had the chance to take a very interesting English literature seminar, that I fully understood what I had been looking for all these years. Thanks to what I learned from the work of Bruno Bettelheim, Jack Zipes, Vladimir Propp, and many other authors that wrote extensively about the subject, I feel I finally have the right tools to really get to know this fairy tale. But what I also know now is that the message behind fairy tales is not to be searched for behind only one version: on the contrary, since they come from oral traditions and their form was slowly shaped by centuries of recountals and retellings, the more one digs, the more complete the understanding of the tale will be. I will therefore look for Sleeping Beauty’s hidden meaning by looking for the reason why it did stick so consistently throughout time. To achieve this goal, I have organized my analysis in three chapters: in the first chapter, I will analyze the first known literary version of the tale, the French Perceforest, and then compare it with the following Italian version, Basile’s Sun, Moon, and Talia; in the second chapter, I will focus on the most famous and by now classical literary versions of Sleeping Beauty, La Belle Au Bois Dormant, written by the Frenchman, Perrault, and the German Dornröschen, recorded by the Brothers Grimm’s; finally, in the last chapter, I will analyze Almodovar’s film Talk to Her as a modern rewriting of this tale, which after a closer look, appears closely related to the earliest version of the story, Perceforest.

Analysis of morphological and functional heterogeneity in ct perfusion images of lung tumours

Questa tesi si propone di innovare lo stato dell’arte dei metodi di analisi dell’eterogeneità in lesioni polmonari attualmente utilizzati, affiancando l’analisi funzionale (emodinamica) a quella morfologica, grazie allo sviluppo di nuove feature specifiche. Grazie alla collaborazione tra il Computer Vision Group (CVG) dell’Università di Bologna e l’Unità Operativa di Radiologia dell’IRCCS-IRST di Meldola (Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico – Istituto Scientifico Romagnolo per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori), è stato possibile analizzare un adeguato numero di casi reali di pazienti affetti da lesioni polmonari primitive, effettuando un’analisi dell’eterogeneità sia su sequenze di immagini TC baseline sia contrast-enhanced, consentendo quindi un confronto tra eterogeneità morfologica e funzionale. I risultati ottenuti sono infine discussi sulla base del confronto con le considerazioni di natura clinica effettuate in cieco da due esperti radiologi dell’IRCCS-IRST.

Collection and real-time analysis of images from aircraft to support civil protection operational activities

This report describes the realization of a system, in which an object detection model will be implemented, whose aim is to detect the presence of people in images. This system could be used for several applications: for example, it could be carried on board an aircraft or a drone. In this case, the system is designed in such a way that it can be mounted on light/medium weight helicopters, helping the operator to find people in emergency situations. In the first chapter the use of helicopters for civil protection is analysed and applications similar to this case study are listed. The second chapter describes the choice of the hardware devices that have been used to implement a prototype of a system to collect, analyse and display images. At first, the PC necessary to process the images was chosen, based on the characteristics of the algorithms that are necessary to run the analysis. In the further, a camera that could be compatible with the PC was selected. Finally, the battery pack was chosen taking into account the electrical consumption of the devices. The third chapter illustrates the algorithms used for image analysis. In the fourth, some of the requirements listed in the regulations that must be taken into account for carrying on board all the devices have been briefly analysed. In the fifth chapter the activity of design and modelling, with the CAD Solidworks, the devices and a prototype of a case that will house them is described. The sixth chapter discusses the additive manufacturing, since the case was printed exploiting this technology. In the seventh chapter, part of the tests that must be carried out on the equipment to certificate it have been analysed, and some simulations have been carried out. In the eighth chapter the results obtained once loaded the object detection model on a hardware for image analyses were showed. In the ninth chapter, conclusions and future applications were discussed.

Flower cover and bee diversity estimate by drone RGB images

Worldwide, biodiversity is decreasing due to climate change, habitat fragmentation and agricultural intensification. Bees are essential crops pollinator, but their abundance and diversity are decreasing as well. For their conservation, it is necessary to assess the status of bee population. Field data collection methods are expensive and time consuming thus, recently, new methods based on remote sensing are used. In this study we tested the possibility of using flower cover diversity estimated by UAV images (FCD-UAV) to assess bee diversity and abundance in 10 agricultural meadows in the Netherlands. In order to do so, field data of flower and bee diversity and abundance were collected during a campaign in May 2021. Furthermore, RGB images of the areas have been collected using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and post-processed into orthomosaics. Lastly, Random Forest machine learning algorithm was applied to estimate FCD of the species detected in each field. Resulting FCD was expressed with Shannon and Simpson diversity indices, which were successively correlated to bee Shannon and Simpson diversity indices, abundance and species richness. The results showed a positive relationship between FCD-UAV and in-situ collected data about bee diversity, evaluated with Shannon index, abundance and species richness. The strongest relationship was found between FCD (Shannon Index) and bee abundance with R2=0.52. Following, good correlations were found with bee species richness (R2=0.39) and bee diversity (R2=0.37). R2 values of the relationship between FCD (Simpson Index) and bee abundance, species richness and diversity were slightly inferior (0.45, 0.37 and 0.35, respectively). Our results suggest that the proposed method based on the coupling of UAV imagery and machine learning for the assessment of flower species diversity could be developed into valuable tools for large-scale, standardized and cost-effective monitoring of flower cover and of the habitat quality for bees.