Within the framework of the Summer School “Significanza culturale del patrimonio ecclesiastico", promoted by the Accademia Maria Luisa di Borbone, the Università LUMSA and the Arcidiocesi di Lucca, the researcher of the ITSERR project, Ilaria Sabbatini (University of palemro) will participate as invited professor and by presenting the following paper about our project: “I sistemi ... Read more

Fabio Tutrone (University of Palermo) took part in the interdisciplinary conference Worlds Above and Below: Supernatural Worlds in Classics, Judaism, and Early Christianity, organized by the University of Otago. He presented a talk titled "Augustine on Souls, Elements, and Demons: A Journey the Roman Cosmos to the Christian Paradise" exploring the transition from classical cosmology ... Read more

Anna Mambelli, ITSERR researcher (FSCIRE / University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), took part in the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), “Septuagint Studies” section, in Amsterdam. As part of the activities of WP8 uBIQUity, she contributed to the panel “WP8 ITSERR: Illuminating the uBIQUity of Sacred Texts Between the Ancient and Digital ... Read more

“Trends, Applications, and Challenges in Human Attention Modelling”

Authors: Giuseppe Cartella, Marcella Cornia, Vittorio Cuculo, Alessandro D’Amelio, Dario Zanca, Giuseppe Boccignone, Rita Cucchiara

Abstract
Human attention modelling has proven, in recent years, to be
particularly useful not only for understanding the cognitive processes
underlying visual exploration, but also for providing support to
artificial intelligence models that aim to solve problems in various
domains, including image and video processing, vision-and-language
applications, and language modelling. This survey offers a reasoned
overview of recent efforts to integrate human attention mechanisms into
contemporary deep learning models and discusses future research
directions and challenges.

Our colleague, Davide Caffagni (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), presenting the paper "The Revolution of Multimodal Large Language Models: A Survey." Co-authored with Federico Cocchi, Luca Barsellotti, Nicholas Moratelli, Sara Sarto, Lorenzo Baraldi, Marcella Cornia and Rita Cucchiara (University of Modena ... Read more

Within the framework of the prestigious 18th International conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR 2024)  the 16th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS 2024) will be jointly held. Here, our colleagues Usman Nawaz, Liliana Lo Presti, Marianna Napolitano, and Marco La Cascia (ESFRI – RESILIENCE RI/PNRR ITSERR) will participate presenting the following ... Read more

Our colleague, Usman Nawaz (University of Palermo) participated in the 16th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS 2024), jointly held with the 18th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR 2024), presenting the paper "Automatic Lemmatization of Old Church Slavonic Language Using a Novel Dictionary-Based Approach." Co-authored with Liliana Lo Presti (University ... Read more

ITSERR took part in the Convegno Internazionale dell'AISG, entitled “Nuovi Percorsi e Temi della Ricerca in Ambito Giudaistico". During the conference, Andrea Ravasco (University of Palermo) presented the paper “Applicazione delle intelligenze artificiali allo studio del Talmud Babilonese”. The presentation is part of the research activities carried out within WP3  of the ITSERR project, which ... Read more

The ADI (Associazione di Italianistica) National Conference was held in Palermo, during the event, Marco Papasidero (University of Palermo) presented his talk "L'immagine del 'saraceno' in alcune leggende mariane di prima età moderna (secc. XVI-XVIII)." His research examines how Marian legends from the 16th to 18th centuries depicted the figure of the 'Saracen,' offering new ... Read more

Marco Papasidero (University of Palermo) took part in the Seminario dottorale di Storia medievale at the University of Messina, where he presented his talk "Demoni, santi e tempeste sovrannaturali. Appunti per una storia culturale." His presentation focused on how believers sought saintly intercession to ensure favorable weather or ward off storms, while Vincenzo Tedesco examined the demonological ... Read more

Riccardo Amerigo Vigliermo (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 28th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2024), presenting the paper "Sensitive Topics Retrieval in Digital Libraries: A Case Study of ḥadīṯ Collections". Co-authored with Giovanni Sullutrone, Luca Sala, and Sonia Bergamaschi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), the ... Read more

Silvia Cascianelli and Giuseppe Cartella participated in the 3rd International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Digital Humanities (AI4DH). Silvia Cascianelli presented the paper “µgat: Improving Single-Page Document Parsing by Providing Multi-Page Context”, co-authored with Fabio Quattrini, Carmine Zaccagnino, Laura Righi and Rita Cucchiara. The work focuses on regesta as visually rich, multi-page documents and extends recent ... Read more

Federico Cocchi and Marcella Cornia (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 18th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2024), presenting the paper "Contrasting Deepfakes Diffusion via Contrastive Learning and Global-Local Similarities." The work introduces CoDE, a novel embedding space for deepfake detection that leverages contrastive learning and both global and local similarities ... Read more

Within the framework of the Annual Meeting on Christian Origins our colleagues Anna Mambelli and Davide Dainese of ITSERR (Italian Strengthening of the ESFRI RI RESILIENCE) participate with the following paper dedicated to the research leaded within the WP8: "Resilient Septuagint and uBIQUity: Interrelated Research Projects on Sacred Texts and their Heritages in the Digital ... Read more

ITSERR has organized its own fourth plenary meeting on the 23 and 24 of October to present the state of the art of the project and to offer to its team members a training program. ITSERR is the Italian project aimed at enhancing the RESILIENCE Research Infrastructure, whose high interdisciplinarity is finalized to meet the ... Read more

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.

  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 Heritages". The Digital Maktaba (DM) project, developed within ITSERR and funded by PNRR, focuses on AI-driven cataloguing and metadata ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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, ... Read more

Davide Caffagni, ITSERR researcher (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), ... Read more

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 ... Read more

    "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 ... Read more

PhD students Luca Sala and Giovanni Sullutrone presented the paper “Arabic Text Enhancement with GPT for Digital Libraries” at JCDL 2024, where the work was awarded second place in the Best Short Paper category. The contribution, co-authored with Riccardo Amerigo Vigliermo and Sonia Bergamaschi, proposes innovative solutions for improving the processing of Arabic texts in digital library environments. This recognition underscores the relevance of ... Read more

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 ... Read more

At the recent conference on European research infrastructures in the Social Sciences, Humanities and Cultural Heritage, organised by CNR-DSU in Rome to promote open and integrated research systems oriented towards innovation and technology transfer, Francesca Cadeddu (FSCIRE) presented RESILIENCE together with its Italian strengthening project ITSERR. In her talk, she underlined how ITSERR is developing an innovative digital platform for ... Read more

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.

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.

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 presented ABBIE: Attention-Based BI-Encoders for Predicting Where to Split Compound Sanskrit Words, a deep learning model based ... Read more

  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 ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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, ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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 ... Read more

Giuseppe Cartella, ITSERR researcher, presented the paper “Sanctuaria-Gaze: A Multimodal Egocentric Dataset for Human Attention Analysis in Religious Sites” at SINT4CH 2025 – 1st International Workshop on Spatial Intelligence for Cultural Heritage. The paper, developed as part of ITSERR research activities, introduces Sanctuaria-Gaze, a multimodal dataset of egocentric visits to four sanctuaries in Northern Italy, collected with wearable ... Read more

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 ... Read more

Amina El Ganadi (University of Palermo, FSCIRE), member of the research team of the ITSERR 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 ... Read more

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 ... Read more

ITSERR took part in the European Academy of Religion annual conference (#EuARe2025) held in Vienna, contributing with two panels dedicated to methodological and technological developments in Religious Studies. The panel “Technology and the Transformation of Scholarship: Software and Tools for the Study of Religions”, proposed and chaired by Francesca Cadeddu, brought together S. Aftar, I. ... Read more

  ITSERR, took part in the 10th Workshop on Slavic Natural Language Processing, held in Vienna, with a contribution on the diachronic analysis of Church Slavonic. Maria Cassese presented the paper “DIACU: A dataset for the DIAchronic analysis of Church Slavonic”, co‑authored by Maria Cassese, Giovanni Puccetti, Marianna Napolitano and Andrea Esuli, which introduces DIACU, ... Read more

Amina El Ganadi, ITSERR researcher, presented the paper “Reimagining Islamic Knowledge Classification: Evaluating Culturally Adaptive LLMs for Arabic-Script Libraries” at The Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School 2025. Her contribution examined how ChatGPT can support the categorisation of an Islamic digital library by leveraging incremental Machine Learning and Transfer Learning techniques, highlighting the model’s notable familiarity ... Read more

Anna Mambelli took part in the 25th Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT), held in Berlin, presenting the paper “The uBIQUity of Sacred Texts between Past and Future: Methodological Challenges and New Tools”. The paper introduced the uBIQUity project, developed within ITSERR, which investigates the sacred texts of ... Read more

  ITSERR took part in the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Cyber Humanities, in Florence, with the paper “ReCoptic: Computer Vision for the Reconstruction of Dismembered Coptic Codices”, presented by Fabrizio Sebastiani, scientific coordinator of the ITSERR project and co‑authored with Lorenzo Bianchi, Fabrizio Falchi, Alejandro Moreo and Costanza Bianchi. The contribution applies advanced computer ... Read more

  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 ... Read more

ITSERR researcher Ivana Panzeca (University of Palermo) took part in the seminar “Forme ed espressioni dell’aristotelismo nella tradizione araba”, held at the Giorgio La Pira Library and Research Centre of the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose in Palermo. The two‑day event, organised in collaboration with the Master’s degree programme Religioni e Culture (LM‑64) and the Department ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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: ... Read more

  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 ... Read more