ITSERR

IQSA 2025 Annual Meeting
2025-11-13 - 2025-11-16 | Loyola Marymount University, 1 Loyola Marymount University Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90045, United States
Amina El Ganadi (Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII, Bologna / University of Palermo / University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), member of the research team of the ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE project, presented the paper “Hallucinating tafsīr? Evaluating LLM QA on al-Ṭabarī’s Texts” at the IQSA 2025 Annual Meeting (International Qur’anic Studies Association).
Her contribution explores the potential and limitations of large language models in engaging with classical Islamic exegesis, evaluating their performance on al-Ṭabarī’s tafsīr on Sūrat Yūsuf and highlighting, in particular, cases of accurate answers versus hallucinations, that is, content not supported by the source text. For more information about the conference, please refer to the IQSA website and the page dedicated to the 2025 Annual Meeting.
For further details, see here.

ITSERR research presented at the 44th Course of the International School of Ius Commune
2025-10-21 08:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Brussels)
From 19 to 23 October 2025, the 44th Course of the International School of Ius Commune took place in Erice, Sicily, under the title “Legal, cultural and religious pluralism: aspects and problems in the tradition of the ‘ius commune’.”
During the event, Roberto Imperia (University of Palermo), ITSERR researcher, presented his latest study:
Il “Corpus Iuris Canonici” nell’età digitale: anticipazioni sul software di ricerca GNORM.
Developed within the ITSERR project, the GNORM software is one of the outcomes of ITSERR’s research in the field of digital tools for historical and religious studies.The platform offers innovative methods for exploring and analyzing the Corpus Iuris Canonici, one of the foundational legal corpora of the European Middle Ages.
The course was organized by the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture as part of the long-standing International School of Ius Commune.
🔗 The programme

DIALOGHI CON LA STORIA DEL DIRITTO
2025-09-25 10:00 | Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza – Università degli Studi di Palermo, Piazza Bologni, 8, Palermo
On 25th September 2025, the Department of Law at the University of Palermo will host the event “DIALOGHI CON LA STORIA DEL DIRITTO”
The program will open with contributions from Prof. Beatrice Pasciuta and Prof. Fabrizio D’Avenia (University of Palermo), followed by a lecture by Dr. Ignazio Alessi (University of Cambridge) entitled “Medieval Papal Legates and Normative Authority: a Digital Approach to the Corpus Iuris Canonici.”
The event will conclude with a roundtable discussion featuring Dr. Alessi and Dr. Vincenzo Roberto Imperia and Dr. Arianna Pavone (University of Palermo), researchers within the ITSERR project.
The presence of Dr. Alessi in Palermo is made possible by a Transnational Access (TNA) grant, within the framework of the ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE project. His research combines historical expertise with digital tools, offering innovative perspectives on the study of medieval canon law.

uBIQUity at the 11th CISSR Annual Meeting
2025-09-25 | University Residential Centre of Bertinoro, Via Frangipane, 6, Bertinoro, Forlì-Cesena
uBIQUity (ITSERR WP8) presented at the 11th CISSR – Annual Meeting on Christian Origins in Bertinoro, within the session Jewish History, Hellenistic Judaism, and Septuagint Studies, co-directed by Anna Mambelli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia / FSCIRE), scientific coordinator and product owner of the project.
The paper, entitled “Scriptural Continuities in the Alexandrian Tradition: A Computational Approach to the Septuagint in Philo and Clement”, was delivered by Laura Bigoni (University of Bologna) and Isabella Pignocco (University of Bari).
The presentation highlighted how uBIQUity provides innovative tools to investigate the Septuagint and its quotations in the Alexandrian tradition, with special reference to the textual heritage of Philo of Alexandria and Clement of Alexandria, and on the interplay between Judaism and early Christianity. This work also benefits from the classification of witnesses developed within the PRIN project “Resilient Septuagint”, directed by Davide Dainese (University of Bologna).

29th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2025)
2025-09-23 - 2025-09-26 | Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
From 23 to 26 September 2025, Davide Caffagni (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), researcher in the ITSERR project, took part in the 29th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2025) in Tampere, Finland.
He presented the paper “Generating Synthetic Data with Large Language Models for Low-Resource Sentence Retrieval”, which investigates the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance sentence similarity search in low-resource domains such as ancient texts.
The study is part of WP8 of the ITSERR project and collects the most recent results from the research activities carried out within WP8.
Download the conference programme.

Seminar – From Classics to Circuits: Building and Explaining Multilingual Language Models
2025-09-19 10:00 - 12:00 | ISTI – Area della Ricerca CNR, Via G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa
On 19 September 2025, the Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa will host a seminar by Friederick Riemenschneider (University of Heidelberg), currently in Pisa as a visiting scholar under a Transnational Access (TNA) grant within the ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE project.
The seminar will explore how multilingual language models generalize across languages. Starting from a purpose-built trilingual model zoo (Ancient Greek, Latin, English), the discussion will extend to large-scale models such as BLOOM, offering valuable insights for multilingual and historical language research. By bridging Classics and AI, the talk will highlight new perspectives at the intersection of the humanities and computational linguistics.
Referent: Giovanni Puccetti
Remote participation is available at the following link

8th ITSERR Training in-house “AI for Religious Studies: Unlocking Knowledge”
2025-09-11 08:00 - 2025-09-12 18:30 | Università degli Studi di Palermo, Piazza Marina, 61, Palermo, Italy
On 11–12 September 2025, the event will take place at the Complesso Monumentale dello Steri of the University of Palermo.
The ITSERR project, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) with resources from NextGenerationEU, enhances the European Research Infrastructure RESILIENCE by developing innovative digital tools and services for Religious Studies. During the event, it will showcase how research infrastructures can advance the study and understanding of religions in Europe through digital technologies and AI.
The conference, titled “ITSERR: A Project of Technological and Digital Innovation for Religious Studies,” opens on 11 September with institutional greetings and continues with sessions presenting ITSERR’s scientific results, including a keynote lecture by Alberto Melloni, with participation from international institutions and stakeholders, such as Barbara McGillivray from King’s College London, Eric Atwell from Leeds University, and Valentina Vavassori from the British Library.
Friday, 12 September, will be dedicated to workshops and hands-on training sessions led by national and international experts in the fields of Digital Humanities and Religious Studies.
All project partners – the National Research Council, University of Turin, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and University of Naples “L’Orientale” – will join, alongside directors of European research infrastructures in the humanities and RESILIENCE member research centres.
View the detailed: Programma TIH ITSERR. Un progetto d’innovazione tecnologica e digitale per le Scienze religiose
For further information: summerschoolitserr2025@itserr.it
Read here the English translation of the lecture: Prof. Melloni’s Lecture

Summer School “AI for Religious Studies: Unlocking Knowledge”
2025-09-08 08:00 - 2025-09-12 17:00 | Università degli Studi di Palermo e Biblioteca e Centro di ricerca “Giorgio La Pira”, PALERMO, PALERMO (PA)
The PNRR ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE project promotes, from 8 to 12 September 2025, the Summer School AI for Religious Studies: Unlocking Knowledge, designed for the doctoral students of the DREST – National PhD Program in Religious Studies, and hosted by the “Giorgio La Pira” Research Library (FSCIRE) and the University of Palermo.
The Summer School is a key moment for ITSERR: an opportunity to showcase and test the potential of the digital tools and services developed by the project, while fostering interdisciplinary dialogue on religious studies in the era of Digital Humanities.
View the detailed: Programma Summer School
📩For information and organizational details: summerschoolitserr2025@itserr.it

ITSERR at #EuARe2025: Panel on Digital Tools and Technologies for the Study of Religions
2025-07-09 | University of Vienna, Universitätsring 1, Vienna, Austria
On July 9, 2025, ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE – will take part in the European Academy of Religion annual conference (#EuARe2025) in Vienna with the panel:
Technology and the Transformation of Scholarship: Software and Tools for the Study of Religions
The panel will present the outcomes of ITSERR’s interdisciplinary work in Religious Studies and Information Technologies. It will explore how digital tools and new technologies are transforming the study of religion, responding to the needs of scholars across disciplines and research traditions.
The panel includes an introduction and four thematic sessions:

Digital Humanities and non-Latin scripts
Understanding the meaning, identifying the tool
(Re)Composing datasets
Artificial Intelligence and Religious Studies

The initiative reflects ITSERR’s mission to support research innovation in the study of religions through cutting-edge digital infrastructure.
📄 View the full panel programme

ITSERR at the 2025 EuARe Annual Conference
2025-07-08 - 2025-07-12 | University of Vienna, Universitätsring 1, Vienna, Austria
ITSERR took part in the 2025 Annual Conference of the European Academy of Religion (EuARe), held in Vienna, with the panel “Technology and the Transformation of Scholarship: Software and Tools for the Study of Religions”.
The panel highlighted the growing impact of digital technologies and artificial intelligence on research in religious studies, presenting innovative tools and methodological approaches developed within the field of Digital Humanities.
The following papers were presented:
Marianna Napolitano, “New Developments and Research Limitations in the Semantic Analysis of Pre-Modern Slavic Texts: The Case of the Symbol of Faith.”
Irfan Ali and Igor Spanò, “W.H. Mill’s Sanskrit Translation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol: The Application of LLMs to the Construction of a Dataset of Sanskrit Texts and the First Results of the Comparison with Some Key Terms from the Sanskrit Creed.”
Amina El Ganadi, “Grounding Large Language Models in Authoritative Islamic Texts: Evaluative Strategies Using Sahih al-Bukhari.”
The panel provided an opportunity to discuss how computational methods and AI-based tools are opening new perspectives for the analysis of religious texts and traditions across different languages and historical contexts.
The full conference programme is available here

International Medieval Conference (IMC) 2025
2025-07-07 - 2025-07-10 | University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
Amina El Ganadi (Giuseppe Dossetti Library – Foundation for Religious Sciences Giovanni XXIII, Bologna / Department of Cultures and Society, University of Palermo), member of the research team of the ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE project, presented the paper “Divine Diplomacy: Religion and Power in Mongol-Muslim Relations during the Yuan Dynasty” at the International Medieval Conference (IMC) 2025.
She also co-organised and chaired the panel “The Rebirth of Culture under the Mongols: From the Persian World to Yuan China”.
For more information, see the IMC 2025 website.

7th ITSERR In-house Training on Open Access and Analysis Models for Religious Studies
2025-06-12 - 2025-06-13 | Dipartimento di Ingegneria “Enzo Ferrari” UniMORE, Via P. Vivarelli, 10, Modena
On June 12–13, the “Enzo Ferrari” Department of Engineering at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia will host the seventh in-house training of the PNRR-funded ITSERR project – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE. This training event will offer a moment of shared learning and dialogue, focusing on the results achieved in the final phase of the project and the outlook for the future.
The programme, delivered in hybrid mode, includes seminar-style lectures and presentations of project results, designed to reflect on the achievements and future directions of ITSERR.
The opening session will feature institutional greetings from Prof. Francesco Leali, Director of the “E. Ferrari” Department of Engineering, Prof. Emerita Sonia Bergamaschi, and Prof. RitamCucchiara, Professor of Computer Engineering at UniMORE.
Key contributions will include talks by Prof. Carlo Bianchini (University of Pavia) on Linked Open Data for research, Dr. Fabrizio Sebastiani (CNR-ISTI Pisa) on experimental content analysis models, and Prof. Sonia Bergamaschi with her team, who will present preliminary results and future prospects of the Digital Maktaba project.
The event marks an important moment of reflection and relaunch, aimed at strengthening the connection between Religious Studies and technological innovation, and at consolidating cooperation among project partners.
Programma ITSERR 7th TIH Modena 12 e 13 giugno 2025

AI and Religious Studies: New Perspectives and Applications for the Study of the Talmud Bavli and the Corpus Iuris Canonici
2025-06-10 09:30 - 23:30 | Fondazione per le scienze religiose, Via San Vitale 114, Bologna
As part of the National Open Access (NOA) mobility program of the ITSERR project, the seminar titled “AI and Religious Studies: New Perspectives and Applications for the Study of Talmud Bavli and the Corpus Iuris Canonici” will be held on 10 June 2025 at FSCIRE – Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose, in Bologna.
The event will be introduced and chaired by Federico Alpi (FSCIRE – University of Florence) and will feature presentations by Arianna Pavone, Andrea Ravasco, and Vincenzo Roberto Imperia (University of Palermo), who will present the preliminary results of the research project carried out within the ITSERR framework.
The research group has developed GNORM, an experimental software for the automatic analysis and categorization of printed religious normative sources, using data mining techniques and 3D visualization.
The study focuses on two key normative texts from the religious tradition: the Corpus Iuris Canonici and the Babylonian Talmud, opening up new avenues of research through the integration of religious studies and digital technologies.

Seminar "Interrogare o ordinare il caos? Testi, biblioteche, archivi nell’era dell’AI"
2025-05-19 09:00 - 13:30 | University of Bologna, Piazza San Giovanni in Monte 2, Bologna, Italy
An opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange on the role of artificial intelligence in the study of texts, libraries, and archives. The seminar brings together scholars working in the fields of Digital Humanities, philosophy of language, and history of ideas. With a focus on the activities of uBIQUity – WP8 of the PNRR ITSERR project, the event aims to explore both theoretical and experimental perspectives related to semiotic processes, creativity, and the digital transformation of textual heritage.
The morning will alternate between presentations and open discussions, with the participation of researchers from various Italian and international institutions.

Seminar “Online Social Dynamics. Between Fake News and Historical Interpretation”
2025-05-16 12:00 - 14:00 | Università degli Studi di Palermo, Piazza Marina, 61, Palermo, Italy
As part of the activities of the Laboratory of Bibliography and Online Historical Research, the Master’s Degree Programme in Historical, Anthropological and Geographical Studies, and the ITSERR Research Project, a seminar will be held by Walter Quattrociocchi (University of Rome “La Sapienza”) on the topic: Online Social Dynamics. Between Fake News and Historical Interpretation.
The seminar will address the circulation of disinformation in digital environments and the challenges it poses to historical interpretation and critical thinking.
Speakers will include Rosella Cancila (University of Palermo), Coordinator of the Master’s Programme, and Fabrizio D’Avenia (University of Palermo), Scientific Coordinator of the ITSERR Project.The seminar will be introduced by Ilaria Sabbatini (University of Palermo), course instructor of the Laboratory.
The event will also be accessible online.
presso l’Aula 3.3 dell’Edificio 14 al Campus di viale delle Scienze,

Seminar "Arabic Multimodal Language Modeling"
2025-05-14 11:00 - 12:00 | ISTI CNR, G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa
On May 14, the Faedo Lecture Hall at ISTI-CNR will host the seminar “Arabic Multimodal Language Modeling”, presented by Hawau Olamide Toyin, a PhD student in Natural Language Processing at the Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI).
Hawau Olamide Toyin is a visiting scholar at ISTI-CNR thanks to a TNA (Transnational Access) grant, awarded within the framework of ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of ESFRI RI Resilience, a project funded by the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). Her research stay is part of the international mobility initiatives aimed at promoting access to cutting-edge research infrastructures in the field of humanities and social sciences.
During the seminar, she will present ArTST, a pre-trained transformer model for Arabic speech and text, which extends the unified SpeechT5 architecture originally developed for English. ArTST enables joint learning of speech and text representations and can be fine-tuned for a variety of tasks, including speech recognition, speech synthesis, speech enhancement, speaker identification, and dialect classification.
The seminar also addresses a key research question: Can a single model be trained to handle multiple cross-modal speech-text tasks? The results obtained so far—both in high-resource (English) and low-resource (Arabic) settings—are promising.
This seminar is part of the ITSERR research activities in artificial intelligence, language technologies, and digital infrastructures for the humanities.
Remote access link.

6° ITSERR TRAINING IN-HOUSE
2025-04-10 - 2025-04-11 | ISTI CNR, G. Moruzzi 1, Pisa
On April 10–11, 2025, the ITSERR project hosted its sixth in-house training event at the Institute of Information Science and Technologies “A. Faedo” (ISTI-CNR) in Pisa. The two-day meeting brought together project members and international experts for updates on the state of the project and advanced training on key topics at the intersection of Digital Humanities and Religious Studies.
The programme included sessions on manuscript cataloguing in the digital age, automated methods and data conversion, Natural Language Processing for Latin, and the codification of material culture and religious practices. These sessions were led by scholars from leading institutions and fostered in-depth discussion on methodologies and tools for enhancing access to cultural and religious heritage.
This training marked an important milestone in ITSERR’s mission to strengthen the European research infrastructure RESILIENCE through digital innovation and international collaboration.
See the full Programme

Seminario La “Guida spirituale” di Miguel de Molinos tra Palermo e Siviglia
2025-03-31 | Campus UniPa Ed. 16 aula D3, Viale delle Scienze, Palermo
The Department of Cultures and Society at the University of Palermo recently hosted two seminars led by Prof. Pedro Ramirez Rueda (University of Barcelona), the first scholar to visit the University of Palermo with a TNA grant as part of the ITSERR project.
The first seminar focused on Miguel de Molinos’ Spiritual Guide and its connections between Palermo and Seville, shedding light on the historical and intellectual ties between these two cities. Professor Rueda provided an in-depth analysis of Molinos’ work, examining its influence on religious thought and its significance within the broader European intellectual landscape.
The second seminar, titled “From the Old to the New World: Circulation and Consumption of Printed Books between Europe and Latin America (16th-17th centuries)”, explored the movement of printed materials across the Atlantic, highlighting the dynamics of book circulation and readership between Europe and Latin America during the early modern period.
Both events attracted a diverse audience of scholars, students, and researchers interested in early modern spirituality, book history, and historical cultural exchanges.

ICAART 2025 -17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence
2025-02-23 - 2025-02-25 | Porto, Portugal
Irfan Ali (University of Palermo) and Amina El Ganadi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence, presenting their research on AI applications in linguistic and textual analysis.
Irfan Ali introduced ABBIE: Attention-Based BI-Encoders for Predicting Where to Split Compound Sanskrit Words, a deep learning approach leveraging bi-encoders and multi-head attention to achieve 89.27% accuracy in Sanskrit word segmentation. The study introduces a novel deep learning approach using bi-encoders and multi-head attention to accurately predict valid split locations in Sanskrit compound words. Experimental results show that ABBIE outperforms state-of-the-art methods, achieving 89.27% accuracy. A new dataset was also developed using resources from the Digital Corpus of Sanskrit (DCS) and the University of Hyderabad (UoH) corpus.
Amina El Ganadi presented Generative AI for Islamic Texts: The EMAN Framework for Mitigating GPT Hallucinations, which enhances AI reliability in Islamic studies by integrating verified sources to reduce misinformation. Her research explores the challenges of applying large language models (LLMs) to Islamic studies, addressing issues such as hallucinations and reference inaccuracies. The proposed EMAN framework enhances model reliability through API-based integration with verified sources like Sahih al-Bukhari. The study highlights how embedding-based methodologies improve accuracy and reduce misinformation in AI-generated religious content.

IRCDL 25 - 21st Conference on Information and Research Science Connecting to Digital and Library Science
2025-02-20 - 2025-02-21 | Udine
Amina El Ganadi (University of Palermo) presented her paper “Digital Maktaba Project: Proposing a Metadata-Driven Framework for Arabic Library Digitization” at the 21st Conference on Information and Research Science Connecting to Digital and Library Science.
Her research explores innovative metadata strategies for digitizing Arabic library collections, contributing to the advancement of digital library science.

Multimedioevo. Storie medievali e linguaggi multimediali fra XX e XXI secolo
2025-01-29 - 2025-01-31 | Università di Bologna, Bologna
Ilaria Sabbatini (University of Palermo) participated in the international conference “Multimedioevo. Storie medievali e linguaggi multimediali fra XX e XXI secolo” with her paper: “Teaching Medieval Sources in the Age of Digital Intelligence”.
The conference explored the intersection of medieval studies and multimedia languages, highlighting the role of digital tools in historical research and education.

ITSERR Market Place: a prototype for the future of IT search services
2025-01-22 00:00 - 2025-01-23 18:30
At the recent CNR-DSU conference for research infrastructures in the Social, Human, and Cultural Heritage Sciences, Francesca Cadeddu (Fscire) highlighted how RESILIENCE can benefit from the prototyping and testing of ITSERR’s Market Place.

Held in Rome, the conference was organized by the CNR-DSU to promote research excellence at national and European levels by promoting the development of open, integrated research systems oriented towards innovation and technology transfer.
RESILIENCE, along with the supporting project ITSERR, was presented by our General Director, Francesca Cadeddu (Fscire). She emphasized that ITSERR also provides an innovative digital platform for storing and sharing data, facilitating access to study materials and developing new research methodologies. The ITSERR Market Place stands out as a cutting-edge tool designed to cater IT needs of researchers, providing tools and features that enhance research, collaboration, and knowledge sharing beyond the scope of the project.
In the RESILIENCE context, the ITSERR Market Place could be seen as a prototype for integrating IT/user services within a single platform, and the testing of a potential IT Services partner, D4Science.org from CNR. The integration of diverse IT services and Virtual Research Environments (utilizing D4Science) tailored to researchers’ needs offers valuable insights that RESILIENCE can adopt and expand upon.

5th Plenary Meeting of ITSERR. State of the Art and Training on NLP and Onomasiological Searching and on Digital Preservation and Communication of Tangible and Intangible Heritage
2025-01-14 - 2025-01-15 | Dipartimento di Studi Storici (Palazzo Nuovo), via San Ottavio, Torino, 10124, Italy
The Fifth Training Event of the ITSERR project in Turin: at the center of Innovation and Interdisciplinary Research in the filedwork of Religious Studies
On 14 and 15 January 2025, the Department of Historical Studies (Palazzo Nuovo) of the University of Turin will host the fifth training and update event on the progress of the research of the PNRR ITSERR project – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE, coordinated by Dr. Fabrizio Sebastiani (ISTI-CNR) and involving UniTo through the Department of Historical Studies, under the scientific guidance of Prof. Stefano De Martino.
After the meetings in Bologna, Palermo, Reggio Emilia and Naples, this event will be a crucial moment to evaluate the progress of the project and plan future challenges. ITSERR aims to develop state-of-the-art technological solutions for the analysis and management of sources and data related to Religious Studies through the European research infrastructure RESILIENCE. The project brings together scholars from different disciplines – linguists, historians, philologists and religious experts – together with computer engineers in a unique synergy aimed at creating innovative and accessible tools for the entire scientific community.
The results achieved so far have already obtained international recognition, with publications in academic journals and presentations at important conferences. Among the main innovations, the project includes the development of algorithms for the recognition of title pages in non-Latin alphabets, software for the extraction of semantic data applied to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, tools for the multidimensional visualization of normative texts and the indexing of historical documents based on consolidated recording methodologies.
More than 50 participants are expected, including professors, researchers, PhD students and technologists from the project partners, which, in addition to the University of Turin, include the CNR, the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, the University of Naples L’Orientale and the University of Palermo.
The event will be opened by the greetings of Prof. Paolo Cozzo, Director of the Department of Historical Studies of the University of Turin, Dr. Monica Cini, Head of Research Support Services for the Humanities Pole, and Prof. Stefano De Martino, scientific coordinator of the ITSERR.
Over the course of the two days, participants will discuss the progress of the project and the challenges for 2025, highlighting the value of interdisciplinarity in research.
Ample space will be dedicated to training, with lectures by Prof. Alek Keersmaekers on advances in the processing of the natural language of ancient Greek, with reference to the GLAUx project, and by Prof. Vincenzo Lombardo, who will give a lecture on digital preservation and communication of tangible and intangible heritage.
The training sessions will be interspersed with thematic workshops, covering topics such as data management and visualization, large and small language models, information analysis, and critical editions.
Updates on the progress of each of the seven research groups will also be presented to identify opportunities and challenges that require interdisciplinary collaboration.
Here you can find the Program Training in-House Torino_ext

Workshop "Digital Humanities, Artificial Intelligence and Religious Studies: First Research Perspectives"
2024-12-02 10:30 - 18:30 | Edificio 14 – Aula 3.3 Dipartimento di Architettura, viale delle Scienze, Palermo, Palermo, 90128, Italy
“Digital Humanities, Artificial Intelligence and Religious Studies: initial research perspectives”
December 2, 2024, the Workshop “Digital Humanities, Artificial Intelligence and Religious Studies: first research perspectives” will be held in Room 3.3 of Building 14, Viale delle Scienze, Palermo.
The event is part of the PNRR project ITSERR – Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE in which the University of Palermo is partner with the Departments of Culture and Society, Law, Mathematics and Informatics, Engineering and Architecture.
The initiative is part of the internationalization and research promotion activities of the Department Culture and Society and it will feature contributions from experts and scholars from national and international universities and research centres, including the CNR, the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, the University of Turin and the University of Naples L’Orientale, as well as French scholars from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). The workshop will be introduced by Prof. Fabrizio D’Avenia, Principal Investigator of the project for the University of Palermo.
The workshop represents a significant opportunity for the advancement of interdisciplinary and international research in the field of Digital Humanities applied to Religious Studies.
Innovative topics related to Artificial Intelligence applied to Religious Studies will be addressed, one of the key themes of the PNRR ITSERR project, which aims to promote innovative methodologies and technological solutions capable of overcoming geographical and disciplinary boundaries, encouraging the construction of global and interdisciplinary research networks.
The workshop represents an important opportunity for the advancement of interdisciplinary and international research in the field of Digital Humanities applied to Religious Studies. Innovative topics related to Artificial Intelligence applied to Religious Studies, one of the key themes of the PNRR ITSERR project, which aims to promote innovative methodologies and technological solutions capable of overcoming geographical and disciplinary boundaries, fostering the construction of global and interdisciplinary research networks, will be addressed. In particular, during the day, aspects related to the digital processing of corpora of religious texts in both Latin and non-Latin languages, as well as artifacts and buildings of religious-cultural character from the 4th to the 19th century, will be explored through the creation of next-generation interactive software.
To encourage wider participation, it will also be possible to follow the event remotely by this google meet link.
Here you can find the complete program

The 2nd International Conference on Foundation and Large Language Models (FLLM2024)
2024-11-26 - 2024-11-29 | Dubai
At FLLM 2024, Amina El Ganadi (University of Palermo) presented the paper The Impact of Generative AI on Islamic Studies: Case Analysis of “Digital Muhammad ibn Ismail Al-Bukhari”, co-authored by Sania Aftar, Luca Gagliardelli, Sonia Bergamaschi, and Federico Ruozzi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia).
The study explores the role of generative AI in Islamic studies, focusing on the Digital Al-Bukhari project and its implications for research and analysis. It examines how large language models can assist in processing and interpreting historical Islamic texts, offering new tools for scholars.

BMVC 2024_The 35th British Machine Vision Conference
2024-11-25 - 2024-11-28 | Glasgow, United Kingdom
Davide Caffagni (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 35th British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC), presenting the paper “Revisiting Image Captioning Training Paradigm via Direct CLIP-based Optimization”, co-authored with Nicholas Moratelli, Marcella Cornia, Lorenzo Baraldi, and Rita Cucchiara (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia).
The paper introduces Direct CLIP-Based Optimization (DiCO), a novel training paradigm for image captioning that improves stability and enhances caption quality by optimizing modern metrics like CLIP-Score while maintaining fluency. The proposed approach outperforms existing methods in aligning with human preferences and generates more informative captions.

Niente su di noi, senza di noi. Biblioteche per l’inclusione
2024-11-21 - 2024-11-22 | Bblioteca Universitaria di Napoli, Napoli
Federico Ruozzi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) and Domenico Ciccarello (University of Palermo) presented the paper “Digital Maktaba: Enhancing Library Inclusivity through Automated Knowledge Extraction from Multi-Alphabet Digital Collections” at the AIB national conference “Niente su di noi, senza di noi. Biblioteche per l’inclusione.”
The Digital Maktaba project leverages AI-driven technologies like OCR, NLP, and machine learning to improve the cataloging and accessibility of multilingual, non-Latin script bibliographic resources. By promoting inclusivity in library systems, it aligns with the UN’s 2030 Agenda, fostering equitable access to knowledge.

The 2024 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
2024-11-12 - 2024-11-16 | Florida, Miami, United States
At EMNLP 2024, Sania Aftarha presented RoBERT2VecTM: A Novel Approach for Topic Extraction in Islamic Studies, co-authored by Luca Gagliardelli, Amina El Ganadi, Federico Ruozzi, and Sonia Bergamaschi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
The study introduces RoBERT2VecTM, combining RoBERTa and Doc2Vec to enhance topic modeling in Hadith studies. The approach improves semantic analysis, generating more coherent and diverse Arabic topics. The research also highlights the role of lemmatization and stopwords in refining results.

The Middle East Librarians Association (MELA)_2024 Annual Meeting
2024-11-07 - 2024-11-09 | Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford, CA, United States
Riccardo Amerigo Vigliermo (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 2024 Middle East Librarians Association (MELA) Annual Meeting, presenting the paper “The Digital Maktaba Project: Building an Intelligent System for Cataloguing Non-Latin Script HeritagesT”.
The Digital Maktaba (DM) project, developed within ITSERR and funded by PNRR, focuses on AI-driven cataloguing and metadata extraction for multilingual, non-Latin script texts. Using OCR, NLP, and machine learning, it enhances the management and accessibility of cultural heritage collections, with a key test case being the “Giorgio La Pira“ library in Palermo.

Seminario permanente "I santi internauti"
2024-11-07 | Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Santa Maria Capua Vetere
Marco Papasidero (University of Palermo) will speak at the seminar “Santi scrittori in digitale”, part of the permanent seminar series I Santi internauti. His talk, “Ildegarda spirituale: letture, riletture e reinterpretazioni della Sibilla del Reno sul Web”, will explore the digital reception and reinterpretation of Hildegard of Bingen’s spiritual legacy.
