Conference - Osservare le collezioni orientali dei Musei Reali con altri occhi: le scansioni 3D delle tavolette cuneiformi e dei rilievi neo-assiri
2024-02-16 17:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Brussels) | Biblioteca Reale, Torino
Our colleagues of the ITSERR WP9 – TAURUS (Professor Stefano De Martino, Dr. Filippo Diara and Dr. Francesco Barsacchi) are the speakers of the conference organized by Musei Reali di Torino and introduced by Dr. Elisa Panero. The team presents the results of their research applied to the collection of cuneiform tablets from the Eastern collection of the Royal Museums of Turin, which combines the use of portable light-scanners (stereo and microscanners). Moreover, the team, by post-processing the high resolution images let to reveal for the first time some surprising details to discover new aspect of the life of the objects – about their production, storage, and their own authors.

The 20th IRCDL conference
2024-02-22 08:00 - 2024-02-23 17:00 | Brixen, Italy
Sania Aftar, (University of Palermo) participated in the 20th Conference on Information and Research Science Connecting to Digital and Library Science (formerly the Italian Research Conference on Digital Libraries), presenting the paper “A Novel Methodology for Topic Identification in Hadith” (S. Aftar, L. Gagliardelli, A. El Ganadi, F. Ruozzi, S. Bergamaschi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia).
The research introduces RoBERT2VecTM, a neural-based approach designed to identify topics within the Matn of Hadith, addressing challenges in multilingual semantic analysis. This method aims to enhance contextual understanding, outperforming existing models in handling the complexity of religious texts.

Annual Workshop - Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint
2024-03-21 - 2024-03-24 | Fondazione per le scienze religiose, Via San Vitale 114, Bologna
Annual Workshop of the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint – Vol. II in Preparation
The Annual Workshop of the Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint (HTLS) took place, focusing on the ongoing preparation of Volume II. Scholars and researchers gathered to discuss the latest advancements and contributions to the project.
As part of the workshop, three interconnected transdisciplinary research projects on sacred texts and their legacies were presented. Anna Mambelli (Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia/FSCIRE) introduced uBIQUity – WP8 ITSERR: Illuminating the Sacred Texts of the Abrahamic Religions Between the Ancient and Digital Worlds, highlighting its role in bridging historical textual studies with digital humanities.

Seminar “L’anima, il cosmo, i quattro elementi: psicologia e filosofia della natura da Agostino a Varrone (con una postilla su Dante)"
2024-03-22 | Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Porta di Massa, 1, Napoli
The University of Naples Federico II hosted a seminar by Fabio Tutrone (University of Palermo) titled “L’anima, il cosmo, i quattro elementi: psicologia e filosofia della natura da Agostino a Varrone” (con una postilla su Dante).”
Part of the “Arbor Scientiarum” series, the seminar explored the role of the four elements in Augustine’s thought, drawing connections to Varro and Dante. The event provided new perspectives on the dialogue between classical philosophy and Christian theology.

Panel ITSERR at #EuARe2024
2024-05-21 08:30 - 16:30 | “Giorgio La Pira” Library, Via degli Schioppettieri, 25, Palermo, 90133, Italy
ITSERR is the Italian research project aimed at enhancing the ESFRI RESILIENCE Research Infrastructure. By endorsing new technological paradigms, the project is willing to play a pivotal role in enriching the diversity, the quality and innovation of knowledge produced by the community of Religious Studies.
The panel at EuARe 2024 presents the first research and methodological outcomes achieved by the ITSERR interdisciplinary team composed of researchers in Religious Studies and Information Technologies.

HTLS Annual Workshop
2024-06-06 | Fondazione per le scienze religiose, Via San Vitale 114, Bologna
FSCIRE – Fondazione per le scienze religiose hosted the conference “Citazioni, allusioni, metafore. Questioni di metodo su forme e dinamiche della rappresentazione” organized within the uBIQUity-WP8, ITSERR and PRIN 2022 “Resilient Septuagint” projects.
The conference explored methodological approaches to representation in the Septuagint. Anna Mambelli and Davide Dainese presented “uBIQUity – WP8 ITSERR, Scientific Presentation”.
The event featured presentations by prominent scholars, covering topics such as intertextuality, open science in the humanities, and metaphorical models for knowledge.

Third Plenary Meeting of ITSERR. State of the Art of ITSERR project and Training on Semantic Web, Ontologies and AI for Religious Studies
2024-06-10 09:30 - 2024-06-11 17:00 | Dipartimento di Educazione e Scienze Umane, viale Timavo 93, Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia, 42121, Italy
ITSERR has organized its own Third plenary meeting on the 10th and 11th of June 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 evolving needs of the Religious Studies scientific community by enriching the diversity, the quality and innovation of the knowledge in this specific domain. The project is developed thanks to the collaboration between humanists (experts on History, Philology and Christian, Islamic and Jewish Studies) and IT engineers.
The venue of the meeting is the Department of Education and Humanities of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, which is a partner of the Italian ITSERR Consortium.
The meeting involves more than 50 researchers, PhD students, Professors and technologists affiliated to the centres of the partnership (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, CNR, University of Turin, University of Palermo, University of Naples “L’Orientale”)
During the two days of work, besides their participation to workshops and round tables, team members willpresent the state of advancement of each WP of the project and will attend master classes offered by academics working within the national and international framework of data infrastructure and AI development, which will talk about Semantic annotation, Multimodal Foundation models and their applications on Human Sciences, Theories and concepts about semantic analysis.
Take a look to this link to consult the program: Ciclo di Training courses di ITSERR v_7giugno

III Convegno SISMED della medievistica italiana
2024-06-12 16:45 - 18:00 | Udine
Panel about digital medievistic studies in the annual conference of italian medieval scholars where our colleague Dr. Ilaria SABBATINI (ESFRI – RESILIENCE RI/PNRR ITSERR) will participate.
Summary
La SISMED organizza per i giorni 10-13 giugno 2024, a Udine, il III Convegno della medievistica italiana.
Come nelle precedenti edizioni, il Convegno non è dedicato a un tema specifico, in quanto vuole dare voce al maggior numero possibile di temi e di gruppi di ricerca, anche molto diversi fra di loro, allo scopo di presentare un quadro generale della situazione attuale della medievistica italiana.
Il Convegno sarà articolato su sei mezze giornate, a partire dal 10 pomeriggio, durante le quali si svolgeranno più panel contemporaneamente, in sessioni parallele; il numero complessivo dei panel di ogni mezza giornata non viene stabilito preventivamente.
Ciascun panel dovrà essere coordinato attorno a un tema, e sarà costituito da tre relatori e un discussant. I proponenti dei panel (che potranno svolgere anche il ruolo di relatore o di discussant) devono essere soci ordinari SISMED, mentre gli altri partecipanti possono non esserlo.

Digital Humanities & Artificial Intelligence
2024-06-17 | Meadow Suite – University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, Reading, RG6 6AH, United Kingdom
Our colleagues Federico Ruozzi and Amina El Ganadi participate within the program of the conference at the University of Reading – sponsored by the Digital Humanities CoP – with the paper “The Illusion of Knowledge: Interpreting AI Hallucinations in the Study of Humanities and the Black Box of LLMs”.
See the program of the conference: DH_AI_Final_Programme
Event Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Community of Practice

SEBD 2024 - 32st Symposium on Advanced Database Systems
2024-06-23 - 2024-06-26 | Villasimius – Sardinia
Our colleagues, Giovanni Sullutrone and Luca Sala (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) made significant contributions to the 32nd Symposium on Advanced Database Systems, the leading annual event for the Italian database research community.
Sullutrone led a session on “Integrating Large Language Models in Digital Humanities,” showcasing cutting-edge applications of these models. Additionally, together with Sala, he presented “Text-to-SQL with Large Language Models: Promises and Pitfalls,” exploring both the potential and challenges of this technology.
The symposium, a key forum for academics and industry professionals, provided an excellent platform for ITSERR researchers to share their innovative work and engage with the broader database research community.

2CO Communicating Complexity Conference 2024
2024-07-04 - 2024-07-05 | Barcelona
Marcello Costa (University of Palermo) participated in the 2CO Communicating Complexity Conference 2024, presenting his paper “Ubiquity Platform. Data Visualization for Digital Humanities”.
The paper, developed within the ITSERR project, explores innovative strategies for data visualization in Digital Humanities, aiming to make complex data more accessible and understandable. The Ubiquity Platform offers new approaches to enhance the communication of digital resources, supporting interdisciplinary research and knowledge dissemination.

Conferenza annuale SID 2024 - Design e ricerca: Fonti e Risorse / Design and Research: Sources and Resources
2024-07-04 - 2024-07-05 | Università Iuav di Venezia
Cinzia Ferrara and Chiara Palillo (University of Palermo) participated in the SID 2024 National Conference – Design and Research: Sources and Resources, contributing to the discussion panel “Research Tools for Digital Humanities: Reconfiguring the Information Space.”
As part of the UbiQuity project (ITSERR), their presentation focused on disseminating research results in design for Digital Humanities, highlighting innovative approaches to visual communication and information design.

Summer School “Significanza culturale del patrimonio ecclesiastico” (8-13 luglio 2024)
2024-07-08 09:30 - 2024-07-13 17:00 | Palazzo Arcivescovile Lucca, Piazzale Mons. Giulio Arrigoni, 2, Lucca, Lucca, Italy
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, whose venue is the Seminario arcivescovile di Lucca, our colleague Ilaria Sabbatini (ESFRI – RESILIENCE RI/PNRR ITSERR) will participate as invited professor and by presenting the following paper about our project:
“I sistemi OCR per la trascrizione dei documenti antichi: l’esperienza di REVErse Regesta”
You can download the program here: Brochure Summer School 8-13 luglio

Worlds Above and Below: An interdisciplinary conference on Supernatural Worlds in Classics, Judaism, and Early Christianity
2024-07-09 - 2024-07-11 | University of Otago
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 to Christian thought.
The conference brought together scholars from various disciplines to discuss supernatural beliefs in ancient traditions, providing a valuable platform for exchange and debate.

International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCA24)
2024-08-03 - 2024-08-09 | International Convention Center Jeju (ICC Jeju), 224 Jungmungwangwang-ro, Seogwipo-si, Jeju-do, Jeju Island, Korea, Republic of
Within the framework of the prestigious conference IJCAI on Artificial Intelligence our colleagues Giuseppe Cartella, Marcella Cornia, Vittorio Cuculo, Rita Cucchiara (ESFRI – RESILIENCE RI/PNRR ITSERR) will participate presenting the following paper:

“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.

The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2024)
2024-08-11 - 2024-08-16 | Thailand, Bangkok
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 and Reggio Emilia), the paper explores the advancements and challenges of multimodal large language models, analyzing their impact on natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

16th IAPR International Workshop on Document Analysis Systems (DAS 2024)
2024-08-30 - 2024-09-04 | Grand Hyatt Hotel Athens, 115, Syngrou Avenue, Athens, 11745, Greece
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 paper:
“Automatic Lemmatization of Old Church Slavonic Language Using a Novel Dictionary-Based Approach”

18th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR 2024)
2024-08-30 - 2024-09-04 | Athens, Athens, Greece
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 of Palermo), Marianna Napolitano (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) and Marco La Cascia (University of Palermo), the paper introduces an innovative dictionary-based method for automatic lemmatization of Old Church Slavonic, contributing to the advancement of historical linguistics and digital humanities.

XXXVII CONVEGNO INTERNAZIONALE DELL’AISG 2024 - NUOVI PERCORSI E TEMI DELLA RICERCA IN AMBITO GIUDAISTICO
2024-09-09 - 2024-09-10 | Università di Bologna – Dip. di Beni Culturali, Via degli Ariani 1, Ravenna, Italy
ITSERR took part in the XXXVII International Conference of the Italian Association for Jewish Studies (AISG), held in Ravenna on 9 –10 September 2024, entitled “New Paths and Topics in Jewish Studies Research.”
During the conference, Andrea Ravasco (University of Palermo) presented the paper “The Application of Artificial Intelligence to the Study of the Babylonian Talmud.” The presentation is part of the research activities carried out within WP3 of the ITSERR project, which focuses on developing digital and AI-based methodologies for the study of religious sources.
Download the conference programme.

XXVII Congresso Nazionale dell’Associazione degli Italianisti
2024-09-12 - 2024-09-14 | Università degli Studi di Palermo, Piazza Marina, 61, Palermo, Italy
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 perspectives on historical narratives and cultural perceptions in early modern Italy.

Seminario dottorale di Storia medievale
2024-09-16 | Università degli Studi di Messina
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 perspective, interpreting the same events as manifestations of the devil’s influence. This dual approach sheds light on the evolving relationship between humans and nature over the centuries.

28th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2024)
2024-09-24 - 2024-09-27 | National and University Library of Slovenia (NUK), Ljubljana, Slovenia
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 study explores the reliability of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems in handling sensitive topics within digital libraries. By analyzing a ḥadīṯ dataset through an ad-hoc Question-Classify-Retrieve (QCR) framework, the research highlights potential biases in document retrieval and their impact on accessibility and knowledge dissemination.

(AI4DH) 3rd International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Digital Humanities
2024-09-29 | MiCo, Milan, Italy
Our colleague, Giuseppe Cartella (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) participated in the 3rd International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Digital Humanities (AI4DH), presenting the paper “Pixels of Faith: Exploiting Visual Saliency to Detect Religious Image Manipulation.”
Co-authored with Vittorio Cuculo, Marcella Cornia (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), Marco Papasidero (University of Palermo), Federico Ruozzi and Rita Cucchiara (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), the study addresses the challenge of detecting partially manipulated religious images using deep learning models enhanced by human-derived visual saliency maps. The research highlights a human-in-the-loop approach to improve fake detection systems, contributing to the preservation of religious and cultural content in the age of generative AI.

Computer Vision - ECCV2024 18th European Conference
2024-09-29 - 2024-10-04 | MiCo, Milan, Italy
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 “Safe-CLIP: Removing NSFW Concepts from Vision-and-Language Models.”
The study addresses the challenge of enhancing the safety of vision-and-language models, such as CLIP, by reducing their sensitivity to NSFW (not safe for work) inputs. The proposed approach “unlearns” unsafe concepts by fine-tuning the model on synthetically generated safe and unsafe data, improving its reliability in sensitive and trustworthy contexts. The research demonstrates how this method can be effectively integrated with pre-trained generative models for safer applications.

Annual Meeting on Christian Origins - Italian Centre for Advanced Studies on Religions
2024-10-04 09:00 - 11:00 | Centro Residenziale Universitario di Bertinoro, via Frangipane 6, Bertinoro, FC, 47032, Italy
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 World” – ANNA MAMBELLI (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) – Isabella Pignocco (University of Catania) // DAVIDE DAINESE (University of Bologna) – LAURA BIGONI (University of Bologna).
Here the program of the Annual Meeting on Christian Origins: 1.CISSR Meeting 2024_Programme

Fourth Plenary Meeting of ITSERR: State of the Art of ITSERR project and Training on Distributional Semantics and Interoperability between Datasets
2024-10-23 09:00 - 2024-10-24 16:00 | Palazzo Corigliano Napoli, Piazza S. Domenico Maggiore 12, Napoli, Italy
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 evolving needs of the Religious Studies scientific community by enriching the diversity, the quality and innovation of the knowledge in this specific domain. The project is developed thanks to the collaboration between humanists (experts on History, Philology and Christian, Islamic and Jewish Studies) and IT engineers.
The venue of the meeting is the Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies (DAAM), which is a partner of the Italian ITSERR Consortium.
The meeting involves more than 50 researchers, PhD students, Professors and technologists affiliated to the centres of the partnership (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, CNR, University of Turin, University of Palermo, University of Naples “L’Orientale”)
During the two days of work, besides their participation to the workshops and round tables, team members will present the state of advancement of each WP of the project and will attend master classes and trainings offered by Professor Alessandro Lenci (University of Pisa) distributional semantics and by Professor Franco Nicolucci (University of Florence) on the interoperability between datasets.
Here, you can find the program: Corsi di formazione ITSERR

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.

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.

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.

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.
