Search results for " Nature"
showing 10 items of 391 documents
The role of parasitism in adaptive radiations – when might parasites promote and when might they constrain ecological speciation?
2012
Research on speciation and adaptive radiation has flourished during the past decades, yet factors underlying initiation of reproductive isolation often remain unknown. Parasites represent important selective agents and have received renewed attention in speciation research. We review the literature on parasite-mediated divergent selection in context of ecological speciation and present empirical evidence for three nonexclusive mechanisms by which parasites might facilitate speciation: reduced viability or fecundity of immigrants and hybrids, assortative mating as a pleiotropic by-product of host adaptation, and ecologically-based sexual selection. We emphasise the lack of research on specia…
Theodor W. Adorno e il concetto di seconda natura nel Doktor Faustus di Thomas Mann
2018
“Doktor Faustus” of Thomas Mann, as explained by its author, is a novel on German civilization in which music plays the role of paradigm. Nevertheless the author grasps a lot of quotations from different disciplines and topics, ― e.g., theology, policy, philosophy, music, chemistry ― with the aim of depicting the creation of a second nature in music according the rules of twelve-note composition established by Arnold Schoenberg. The starting point of this complicated narrative is the reinterpretation of Theodor W. Adorno’s “Philosophie der neuen Musik”, a book that inspired Mann in tracing the idea of “second nature” created by the composer Adrian Leverkühn. The article focuses on some keyw…
Willem Boshoff, artist's monograph and catalogue
2013
Willem Boshoff’s work articulates around a pivotal date, April 1994, the first democratic elections in South Africa. He may choose to work gigantic rocks of granite or establish vast installations of accumulated material. The artist claims that his work is based on language, often taking the form of Dictionaries. While reviewing the main questions by artists of the twentieth century, texts or artworks from Europe are systematically tested against their South African counterpart. Boshoff’s attitude is determined by a melancholic questioning of his role as a creator linked to a political situation and cultural milieu. He discovers more dynamic ways of presenting gestures when his artistic act…
A Survey on Nature-Inspired Medical Image Analysis: A Step Further in Biomedical Data Integration
2019
Natural phenomena and mechanisms have always intrigued humans, inspiring the design of effective solutions for real-world problems. Indeed, fascinating processes occur in nature, giving rise to an ever-increasing scientific interest. In everyday life, the amount of heterogeneous biomedical data is increasing more and more thanks to the advances in image acquisition modalities and high-throughput technologies. The automated analysis of these large-scale datasets creates new compelling challenges for data-driven and model-based computational methods. The application of intelligent algorithms, which mimic natural phenomena, is emerging as an effective paradigm for tackling complex problems, by…
‘How this holiday makes a difference’: The language of environment and the environment of nature in a cross-cultural study of ecotourism
2010
Partendo dal presupposto che le differenze culturali spesso costituiscono una fonte potenziale di problematiche traduttive, questo contributo mira a evidenziare le differenze che emergono sul piano linguistico, a livello lessicale, ma soprattutto fraseologico, in seguito a variegati orientamenti culturali che agiscono come filtri. Il linguaggio specialistico analizzato riguarda una nicchia particolare del mercato del turismo, ossia l’ecoturismo, che sta conquistando un terreno sempre più vasto in seguito ad una maggiore attenzione rivolta nei confronti di tematiche attuali, come quelle di impatto ambientale. Abbracciando una prospettiva interculturale, il lavoro indaga il diverso approccio …
La Terra reinventata. Etica dell’ambiente e Antropocene
2018
Reinventing Earth. Environmental Ethics and Anthropocene This article considers two issues concerning Anthropocene – first, Anthropocene as a puzzling notion, second, the possibilty of an environmental ethics of the Anthropocene. Definitions, narratives of, and reactions to Anthropocene are presented in paragraph 2. A view of the value of hybrid nature in Anthropocene is sketched in paragraph 3.
Langage et Apprentissage en Interaction pour des Assistants Numériques Autonomes - Une Approche Développementale
2021
The rapid development of digital assistants (DA) opens the way to new modes of interaction. Some DA allows users to personalise the way they respond to queries, in particular by teaching them new procedures. This work proposes to use machine learning methods to enrich the linguistic and procedural generalisation capabilities of these systems. The challenge is to reconcile rapid learning skills, necessary for a smooth user experience, with a sufficiently large generalisation capacity. Though this is a natural human ability, it remains out-of-reach for artificial systems and this leads us to approach these issues from the perspective of developmental Artificial Intelligence. This work is thus…
Editoriale. Modernità del paesaggio
2011
L'editoriale indaga i tanti modi per declinare il tema del paesaggio. Franco Zagari1 ne ha inviduato 48 +1, il suo, chiedendo di raccontare il proprio punto di vista ad architetti, artisti, etc. Come dice Andres Kipar (nell’intervista che pubblichiamo in questo numero), il paesaggio siamo noi. Apparteniamo al paesaggio: ne siamo attori e contribuiamo ogni giorno a modificarlo e ne siamo anche spettatori e lo percepiamo ognuno in modo diverso (cfr. Eugenio Turri, Il paesaggio come teatro). Per molti (architetti inclusi), il concetto di “paesaggio” é astratto; non é chiaro chi debba agire e con quali strumenti si possa incidere diffusamente e concreta- mente per migliorare, recuperare ed ev…
Human Sociability in Antonio Montecatini's (1537–99) Commentary on Aristotle's Politics
2021
The present article delves into the history of political philosophy by discussing human sociability in Antonio Montecatini's (1537–99) commentary on Aristotle's Politics. The focus is on a philosophical analysis of three interrelated ideas that Montecatini discusses: (1) Aristotle's dictum that human beings are political animals by nature; (2) naturalness of the household; and (3) the nature and origin of political communities. Montecatini's views are briefly related to those of John Case (ca. 1546–1600), and they are also contextualized within the late medieval commentary tradition on the Politics, but the main aim is to clarify Montecatini's philosophical position and examine the ways in …
Un dilettantismo felice: ricostruzione testuale di Tvergastein
2023
For the past few years - few compared to the long historical duration of the human species on Earth - we have been witnessing a profound cultural revolution, perhaps even an anthropological one. Cultural because, after all, this revolution concerns first and foremost knowledge - and before that, belief, and after that, everyday life, human and social experience, and widespread sensitivity. Anthropological because this knowledge is essentially ethnological, of an ethnology that, however, denies itself in order to embrace the totality of things, or, better, to allow itself a holistic look that is not only aimed at homo, in order to attribute to itself an object of study, a much broader field …