The PAPIA system

In 1983 an Italian research program was begun for the design, simulation and construction of a multiprocessor image processing system. After a first phase devoted to the comparison of suggested and existing systems and to the definition of a set of benchmarks, a new system was defined. The structure of this new system is introduced here: it is based on a fine-grained pyramid of processors built up by means of a pyramidal cell implemented on a VLSI multiprocessor chip. The peculiarities and the capabilities of the processing element are highlighted. The complete hardware and software system has been fully designed and is described. A first working prototype has been built and is now operatio…

Conservation status and rates of inbreeding of Italian autochthonous beef breeds

Italian Goat Consortium: a collaborative project to study the Italian caprine biodiversity.

The Italian Goat Consortium (IGC), joined the effort of many Universities and Research Institutes, in a comprehensive study of the Italian goat population genetic makeup using a medium density (54K) SNPs chip. Currently IGC has genotyped more than 1,000 animals from more than 30 goat breeds and populations from all Italian geographical and agroecological areas of goat rearing. The aim of this work is to obtain a clear picture of the Italian caprine biodiversity, to reconstruct the ancestry, to disentangle the genetic background and to assess the relationships among and within the investigated breeds. To date, the IGC dataset includes about 50 million genotypes. The data were quality checked…