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The site of La Polledrara di Cecanibbio (Latium, Italy) is located about 22 kilometers northwest of Rome. Excavation campaigns conducted from 1985 to 2013 revealed 1200 square meters of deposits referable to a river that was active during the Middle Pleistocene. Two main sedimentary phases have been recognized. Initially, a fluvial episode led to the deposition of thousands of skeletal remains (mainly mammals, but also amphibians, reptiles, and birds) along with lithic and bone artifacts. Successively, a swampy phase occurred, during which some elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) were trapped in muddy ponds. The skeleton of one of these individuals is surrounded by lithic implements that were carried at (and/or knapped on) the spot. The taphonomic analysis of the skeleton and artifacts context - including technology, refitting, use-wear, residues, and spatial analyses - indicates that the elephant carcass had been subjected to a butchering activity aimed at collecting meat and fat for food, possibly in more than one episode, as well as bones as raw material for making tools. The evidence collected at the site and the comparison with other relevant sites allow for some considerations about the daily dietary needs of the humans who frequented the site and the resources available there., Journal of Mediterranean Earth Sciences, Vol. 15 (2023): In progress

The Ficoncella site in northern Latium (Italy) represents a unique opportunity to investigate the modalities of a short occupation in an alluvial setting during the Lower Palaeolithic. The small excavation area yielded a lithic assemblage, a carcass of Palaeoloxodon antiquus, and some other faunal remains. The main objectives of the study are to better characterize the depositional context where the Palaeoloxodonand the lithic assemblage occur, and to evaluate with greater precision the occupation dynamics. A 25 m-long well was drilled just above the top of the terrace of the Ficoncella site and faunal and lithic remains were analyzed with current and innovative techniques. The archaeological site contains floodplain deposits as it is located next to a small incised valley that feeds into a larger valley of the Mignone River. A tephra layer capping the site is 40Ar/39Ar dated to 441±8 ka. Collectively, the geochronologic, tephrochronologic and geologic data, suggest the site was occupied during MIS 13. The new results should prompt further research at Ficoncella in order to improve our understanding of the dynamics of human settlement in Europe during the Early to Middle Pleistocene.

Our objective is to create a trans-national tourism route, linking together the different — but also — common features of UNESCO WH sites, enhancing distinctions and commonalities under the paradigm of “the beauty of multiplicity”. — 1st review by the Coordinator: G. Laquidara, M. Mazzi Boém, M. Colombani

“Be Live 3D” — A Triple Layer Networked Semantic Modeling e project aims to build a HPW (High Power Web) framework, enforced with semantic and computational processors, able to harvest, analyze, modelize, semantically annotate 3D complex objects, and assorting them into a networked catalogue of built environments, fully explorable and cooperatively hackable through a suite of professional and consumer applications. e framework will be built within 3 different coexistent layers, accessible concurrently through 3 distinguished profiles, in order to be co-used by: #1. Researchers and technical experts in the field of archeological / architectural 3D modeling, predictive modeling, models building, large or short scale regional analysis; #2. Professionals creatives, CCIs and creative-labs; #3. users, visitors and a wide target of customers. Given the (triple) multi-tiered structure, the framework will offer an integrated ecosystem made of 3 different layers, each one offering a distinct paradigm of uses/needs: (a) an environment for capturing reality and real time 3D reproducing models and / or interior spaces, deep analysis, high-fidelity modeling, expert semantic annotation [1st level: professionals in archeology, architecture, built heritage; researchers, scholars and academics]; (b) a toolbox for experimental playing (i.e. "Creative Suite"), devoted to design approach, creative modeling and reuse of 3D models and spaces, expert crowd cataloguing and catalogue enrichment, expert semantic annotation, cooperative representation of deep and solid shapes, specialized professionals in the aesthetic evaluation and critics of heritage works [2nd level: creatives, critics, lecturers, industries’ entrepreneurs]; (c) an end-users high performative online service, allowing to experiment 3D information, simulating natural diving into archeological sites, simulating paths and itineraries through NLP queries (in Natural Language), also connecting to VR and AR devices through platform-independent graphical user interface (PIGUI), sharing co-experiences, co-understanding and co-interactions. e final triple integrated ecosystem [(a)+(b)+(c) = researcher and pro + creatives and pedagogues / academics + users and explorers] will offer a bottom-up paradigm approach and a user-driven process of ecosystem growth, driven by consumers’ demands, who will massively use the environment, exploring and requiring additional areas to visit, increased level of details, and a running procurement of “experiences”. In terms of system dynamics, at the level 1 the mentioned framework will run urgent computation instances, harvesting and processing huge amounts of coherent data from high-fidelity devices (scanners, digital cameras, etx.) and remote/ distributed providers; thus the complex system refers to the typical dynamics of Big Data processing and urgent computation (super computation, cloud - distributed computing). Moreover, at the level 2, the catalogue at the basis of the proposed framework will run on high-refined clustering process, ontology-driven information mining / retrieval, predictive model markup language, spatial learning / mapping similarities and differences throughout pan-European archaeological / architectural sites. e resulting catalogue will consist of an extremely rich and dense encyclopedic structure. At the level 3 — the end-customers one — the HPW framework will result in a worldwide networked layer of 3D archaeo-/architectural-entertainment spaces, playing a increasingly growth of breathtaking places and representations: starting from historical sites, the “Be live 3D” will evolve in a creative, suggestive and futuristic global scenery that will eventually make necessary and urgent the 3D demand from the end-users, who yearn to build additional layers of 3D creativity on the root levels of the historical basis of our culture. Basing on this paradigm, it will be easy, then, to properly address the supply of the users’ demand through creative models built on the historical European environments, enhancing their intrinsic value; as alive and kicking exhibits, a lush and swarm creativity will meet the needs of young people, researchers, and creatives — finally, stimulating the industrial production of additional modules, intrinsically linked to our cultural development.

To ensure that the new EUheritage Tour cultural route could be well considered and received by the public/private stakeholders in charge of the management and the promotion of the World Heritage sites selected in the participant countries, we determined five strong intrinsic values and then well communicated to the prospects.

Extracting relevant information in multilingual context from massive amounts of unstructured, structured and semi-structured data is a challenging task. Various theories have been developed and applied to ease the access to multicultural and multilingual resources. This papers describes a methodology for the development of an ontology-based Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) application and shows how it is possible to achieve the translation of Natural Language (NL) queries in any language by means of a knowledge-driven approach which allows to semi-automatically map natural language to formal language, simplifying and improving in this way the human-computer interaction and communication. The outlined research activities are based on Lexicon-Grammar (LG), a method devised for natural language formalization, automatic textual analysis and parsing. Thanks to its main characteristics, LG is independent from factors which are critical for other approaches, i.e. interaction type (voice or keyboard-based), length of sentences and propositions, type of vocabulary used and restrictions due to users' idiolects. The feasibility of our knowledge-based methodological framework, which allows mapping both data and metadata, will be tested for CLIR by implementing a domain-specific early prototype system.

The project named “Culture Vivarium” aims to create an “industrial cultural district”, i.e. a vibrant aggregating hub of creative and cultural industries (CCIs) using and reusing the cultural heritage of the Campania region to start and successfully develop high impact cultural and creative business models. To achieve this aims, the project builds on two logical functional pillars: #1. a digital technological infrastructure, determining a huge catalogue of digital cultural heritage resources (metadata and contents), enriched with powerful 3.0 engines and tools [semantics, Linked Open Data e georeferencing, advanced networking as well as clustering system, Big Data process engines, sector specified tools ad hoc for the creative market]; the catalogue stands as the “raw material” attracting the local CCIs and aggragating them in a network to stimulate and facilitate the reuse of the cultural resources through challenges and to select the best during the process. #2. a physical network named “Culture Vivarium”, a broad ecosystem for incubating, accelerating, establishment and growth [Culture] of industrial prototyps and their products. A pool of experts, coaches and mentors take care and assist the “seeds” industries as well as the Etoiles, i.e. mature entities who access to the final process of the growth and become resident within the Culture Vivarium after receiving a funding. In this perspective, Culture Vivarium hosts a VC fund as a resident organization in the “industrial cultural district”. Following a strict Code of Ethics developed by the Vivarium experts, the VC fund steers and leads all players in the ecosystem to follow lines bringing cross-fertilization to the whole environment as well as the external one: as a consequence, the providers of the "raw material" - i.e. the owners / providers of digital cultural heritage, progressively increasing in the catalogue - could gain direct and induced benefit [economic revenues], due to the legal nature of the new born industries, basing on Corporate Social Responsibility. The “Culture Vivarium” ecosystem could also procure a series of added services, produtcs and supplies needed by the Etoiles for the development of their supply-chain: as a consequence, periodical Calls for Ideas/Supplies are disseminated locally, to select new local industries to be introduced/plugged in the existing value chains or to be seattled in the Vivarium as resident, thus feeding it on a regular basis. Besides the Code of Ethics and the digital web and mobile tools, which are relevant in the process, a strong framework of policies and guidelines regarding IP and licensing will be set, as well as successful use cases and business models, a digital handbook with practical hints will be released, every two years.

The project named “Culture Vivarium” aims to create an “industrial cultural district”, i.e. a vibrant aggregating hub of creative and cultural industries (CCIs) using and reusing the cultural heritage of the Campania region to start and successfully develop high impact cultural and creative business models. To achieve this aims, the project builds on two logical functional pillars: #1. a digital technological infrastructure, and #2. a physical network named “Culture Vivarium”, a broad ecosystem for incubating, accelerating, establishment and growth [Culture] of industrial prototyps and their products.

2010 - 2011 The principal aim of this research is describing to which extent formal models for linguistic data structuring are crucial in Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications. In this sense, we will pay particular attention to those Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) which are designed for the Internet, and also to the enhanced solutions they may require. In order to appropriately deal with this topics, we will describe how to achieve computational linguistics applications helpful to humans in establishing and maintaining an advantageous relationship with technologies, especially with those technologies which are based on or produce man-machine interactions in natural language. We will explore the positive relationship which may exist between well-structured Linguistic Resources (LR) and KMS, in order to state that if the information architecture of a KMS is based on the formalization of linguistic data, then the system works better and is more consistent. As for the topics we want to deal with, frist of all it is indispensable to state that in order to structure efficient and effective Information Retrieval (IR) tools, understanding and formalizing natural language combinatory mechanisms seems to be the first operation to achieve, also because any piece of information produced by humans on the Internet is necessarily a linguistic act. Therefore, in this research work we will also discuss the NLP structuring of a linguistic formalization Hybrid Model, which we hope will prove to be a useful tool to support, improve and refine KMSs. More specifically, in section 1 we will describe how to structure language resources implementable inside KMSs, to what extent they can improve the performance of these systems and how the problem of linguistic data structuring is dealt with by natural language formalization methods. In section 2 we will proceed with a brief review of computational linguistics, paying particular attention to specific software packages such Intex, Unitex, NooJ, and Cataloga, which are developed according to Lexicon-Grammar (LG) method, a linguistic theory established during the 60’s by Maurice Gross. In section 3 we will describe some specific works useful to monitor the state of the art in Linguistic Data Structuring Models, Enhanced Solutions for KMSs, and NLP Applications for KMSs. In section 4 we will cope with problems related to natural language formalization methods, describing mainly Transformational-Generative Grammar (TGG) and LG, plus other methods based on statistical approaches and ontologies. In section 5 we will propose a Hybrid Model usable in NLP applications in order to create effective enhanced solutions for KMSs. Specific features and elements of our hybrid model will be shown through some results on experimental research work. The case study we will present is a very complex NLP problem yet little explored in recent years, i.e. Multi Word Units (MWUs) treatment. In section 6 we will close our research evaluating its results and presenting possible future work perspectives. [edited by author] X n.s.

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International audience; Although a vast amount of contents and knowledge has been made available in electronic format and on the web in recent years, translators still do not have friendly and targeted tools at their disposal for the various aspects of a translation process, i.e., the analysis phase, automatic creation and management of the linguistic resources needed and automatic updating with the relevant information generated by the computer translation tools used in the process (Machine Translation, Translation Memories, and so on). Text mining and information retrieval are not typically connected with the translation process and no existing online translation workspace integrates text mining or information retrieval facilities that are specifically aimed at improving the documentary competence of translators in order to process unstructured (textual) information, and make the information on the web or in texts accessible to translators. This paper explores a new approach to helping translators look for different types of information (glossaries, corpora, Wikipedia, and so on) related to the specific translation work they have to perform, which can then be used to update the lexical base needed for the translation workflow (both human or machine-aided). This new approach is based on CATALOGA, a text mining tool, which can be combined with an IR application and/or an MT/TM system and used for different purposes.

This paper discusses the qualitative comparative evaluation performed on the results of two machine translation systems with different approaches to the processing of multi-word units. It proposes a solution for overcoming the difficulties multi-word units present to machine translation by adopting a methodology that combines the lexicon grammar approach with OpenLogos ontology and semantico-syntactic rules. The paper also discusses the importance of a qualitative evaluation metrics to correctly evaluate the performance of machine translation engines with regards to multi-word units. Aquest article descriu els resultats d'una avaluació comparativa entre dos sistemes de traducció automàtica amb diferents enfocaments per al processament d'unitats multiparaula. Proposa una solució per a superar les dificultats que presenten les unitats multiparaula per a la traducció automàtica adoptant una metodologia que combina l'enfocament lèxico-gramàtic amb recursos lèxics d'OpenLogos i regles semàntico-sintàctiques. L'article també tracta la importància d'un sistema per a mesurar l'avaluació qualitativa per a avaluar correctament el rendiment dels motors de traducció automàtica pel que fa a les unitats multiparaula. Este artículo describe los resultados de una evaluación comparativa entre dos sistemas de traducción automática con diferentes enfoques para el procesamiento de unidades multipalabra. Propone una solución para superar las dificultades que las unidades multipalabra presentan para una traducción automática adoptando una metodología que combina el enfoque léxico-gramático con recursos léxicos de OpenLogos y reglas semántico-sintácticas. El artículo también trata la importancia de un sistema para medir la evaluación cualitativa para evaluar correctamente el rendimiento de los motores de traducción automática en lo que respecta a las unidades multipalabra.