Aggiornamento: 21 novembre 2014

Publications: educational technology, social networks, Facebook, Naymz, podcasting, ...

Federica Baroni, Marco Lazzari, Sistemi esperti come strumento di pedagogia degli adulti: una ricerca qualitativa vent'anni dopo, Atti del Congresso Didamatica 2014, pp. 801-810, Napoli, Italy, 2014

Paolo Dalmagioni, Marco Lazzari, Rita Pellegrini, Paolo Slavaneschi, Mats Emborg, An expert system for managing early age concrete crack prediction

Paolo Salvaneschi, Marco Lazzari
A family of software components to deliver solutions for the interpretation of monitoring data
in I. Smith (ed.), Artificial intelligence in structural engineering, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 1454,
Springer, Berlin, Germany, 1998

In this paper we summarize the results of our efforts, during the last ten years, to apply artificial intelligence techniques to the interpretation of engineering monitoring data. These efforts led us to create a set of software components which can be adapted to develop real-world applications to face specific customers' requirements, and to deploy several systems for the on-line interpretation of data coming from automatic monitoring systems of large dams, monuments, and landslides.

Marco Lazzari
La Convenzione delle Nazioni Unite sui diritti delle persone con disabilità e le tecnologie telematiche
in Olivia Osio e Paride Braibanti (a cura di), Il diritto ai diritti,
FrancoAngeli, 2012

Una riflessione sulla presenza di temi legati alle tecnologie telematiche all'interno della Convenzione delle Nazioni Unite sui diritti delle persone con disabilità non può non rilevare che la Convenzione pone da subito la propria attenzione sulle tecnologie: già nell'articolo 4 (Obblighi generali), laddove si afferma che "gli Stati Parti si impegnano [...] ad intraprendere o promuovere la ricerca e lo sviluppo, ed a promuovere la disponibilità e l'uso di nuove tecnologie, incluse TIC, ausilii alla mobilità, dispositivi e tecnologie di sostegno, adatti alle persone con disabilità, dando priorità alle tecnologie dai costi più accessibili". Secondo la Convenzione, dunque, le TIC (Tecnologie dell'Informazione e della Comunicazione) rappresentano un fronte di ricerca e sviluppo primario, rispetto al quale gli Stati che hanno sottoscritto l'Atto si devono sentire impegnati a promuovere avanzamenti e implementazioni efficaci. Immediatamente dopo, sempre nel quadro degli obblighi generali contratti dai sottoscrittori, gli Stati Parti si impegnano [...]

Marco Lazzari
The role of social networking services to shape the double virtual citizenship of young immigrants in Italy
Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference ICT, Society and Human Beings 2012, Lisbon, Portugal, 2012

Marco Lazzari
Fiducia e tecnologia
L'incontro, 159, 2011

Joseph B. Comerford, Marco Lazzari, Daniela Pina, Paolo Salvaneschi
AI Approach for Integration of Engineering Knowledge: Water Resources Case Studies
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on the Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Engineering (AIENG 92), 1992, p. 549-560, ISBN 1851667873

The real value of AI software systems for various engineering applications lies in the integration of different sources of knowledge and information. An approach to integration is presented, based on a two level architecture: software components and object based models for integration. Two applications of the proposed approach are presented, related to water resources problems.

Stefano Lancini, Marco Lazzari, Alberto Masera, Paolo Salvaneschi
The KALEIDOS system for structural monitoring of monuments
Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on the Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Engineering (AIENG 95), 1995, ISBN 1853123161

The paper describes the results of a project which aims to improve the capabilities of a monitoring system which supports the management of safety of historical monuments. The improvement has been achieved through the incorporation of additional components developed using artificial intelligence concepts and technologies. We describe the functions, the architecture and the key ideas of the system (KALEIDOS) added to the monitoring system. The first version of the system was installed in Pavia to interpret data gathered by the monitoring system of the Cathedral and of six towers. The system is operational since January 1994.

Mauro Cadei, Joseph B. Comerford, Marco Lazzari, Paolo Salvaneschi
Modelli qualitativi nello sviluppo di sistemi di supporto alle decisioni per la gestione della sicurezza delle dighe
Atti della giornata di lavoro dell'AI*IA sul ragionamento qualitativo (QUA 93), Milano, 10-11 giugno 1993

La gestione della sicurezza delle dighe è compito importante a causa della rilevanza delle possibili conseguenze di malfunzionamenti o cedimenti delle strutture gestite e difficile per la complessità dei problemi che si devono affrontare.
L'intelligenza artificiale può contribuire alla gestione della sicurezza strutturale fornendo nuovi metodi e approcci di modellazione dei sistemi fisici.
In questa nota si presenta un progetto - DAMSAFE - che ha condotto allo sviluppo e al rilascio di sistemi di supporto alle decisioni nel campo della gestione della sicurezza delle dighe. Nell'ambito del progetto DAMSAFE si è fatto uso di modelli causali qualitativi, strutture di rappresentazione gerarchiche orientate agli oggetti e altre forme di rappresentazione integrate in un ambiente per la valutazione dei dati provenienti dal monitoraggio e dalle ispezioni di grandi dighe.

Marco Lazzari, Rita Pellegrini, Paolo Dalmagioni, Mats Emborg
Integrating neural networks, databases and numerical software for managing early age concrete crack prediction
in F. Bontempi (ed.), System based vision for strategic and creative design, Balkema Publishers, Lisse, Olanda, 2003

this paper presents an expert system that supports early age concrete crack prediction. The system embodies knowledge gathered from experts both in procedural form (programs and spreadsheets) and declarative form (graphical assistants, users' guides, documentation). Moreover, processing tasks are performed by neural networks trained on data gathered from experimental and virtual models. The system comprises a large database for storing data about concrete mixes. The procedures of the expert system can access the database and exploit its data for processing purposes.

Marco Lazzari, Paolo Salvaneschi
Neural nets and structural safety: applications and ideas
First Workshop of the European Group for Structural Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (EG-SEAAI), Lausanne, Switzerland, 1994

The paper describes the first achievements and the future developments of the application of neural networks to structural engineering at ISMES. Two main fields of applications are presented: neural nets in design, with reference to the design of arch dams, and in data interpretation, with reference to the management of structural safety.

Marco Lazzari, Paolo Salvaneschi, Stefano Lancini, Alberto Masera,
Monitoring and diagnosis of monuments through artificial intelligence
First Workshop of the European Group for Structural Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (EG-SEA-AI), Lausanne, Switzerland, 1994

The paper describes the results of a project which aims to improve the capabilities of a monitoring system which supports the management of safety of historical monuments. The improvement has been achieved through the incorporation of additional components developed using artificial intelligence concepts and technologies. We describe the functions, the architecture and the AI techniques of the system (KALEIDOS) added to the monitoring system The first version of the system was installed in Pavia to interpret data gathered by the monitoring system of the Cathedral and of six towers. The system is operational since January 1994.

Marco Lazzari
Le frecce di Basilea e le faretre degli informatici
in Giuseppe Bertagna (a cura di), Scienze della persona: perché?, Rubbettino Editore, 2006

Sovente i progettisti di sistemi informatici concentrano la loro attenzione su caratteristiche funzionali dei sistemi, sui requisiti esplicitati dai committenti, su aspetti legati all'efficacia dell'elaborazione, trascurando il momento fondamentale dell'esperienza dell'utente. Ne nascono mostri informatici [...]

Marco Lazzari, Paolo Salvaneschi, Luisito Brembilla
Looking for analogies in structural safety management through connectionist associative memories
Proceedings of the IEEE International Workshop on Neural Networks for Identification, Control, Robotics, and Signal/Image Processing (NICROSP '96) IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos, CA, 1996
[ DOI della versione ufficiale: doi:10.1109/NICRSP.1996.542783 ]

This paper describes the first successful achievements of an experimental application of connectionist hashed associative memories for realising analogical reasoning. The application field is the management of structural safety, where analogical reasoning is used to retrieve, given the qualitative description of the state of a structure, the closest-matching cases stored in a case base, which can help safety managers to interpret the current situation. This work extends the use of Greene's associative memories by proposing a complex data structure and a compositional algorithm able to access the case base through structured keywords.

Luisito Brembilla. Marco Lazzari, Paolo Salvaneschi
Neural Associative Memories for Detecting Analogies: An Application to Structural Safety Management
Proceedings of the Second Workshop of the European Group for Structural Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (EGSEAAI '95), Bergamo, Italy, 1995

This paper describes the first achievements and the future developments of connectionist hashed associative memories for realising analogical reasoning. The application field is the management of structural safety, where analogical reasoning is used to retrieve, given the qualitative description of the state of a structure, the closest-matching cases stored in a case base, which can help safety managers to interpret the current situation.

Marco Lazzari, Andrea Spinelli
ADAM: An object-oriented formalism for describing and representing civil structures
Secondo Workshop dell'AI*IA sulle interfacce intelligenti, Roma, 17-18 aprile, 1996

In the field of engineering systems, it is important to correctly integrate graphical, textual and computational resources referring to complex physical structures, such as civil structures or production plants. It is therefore necessary to weave together several information sources in a common interface, keeping alive links with real-time monitoring systems and interpretation systems: moreover, engineering structures such as dams or historical buildings present a wide morphological variability, complicating the task of developing a common user interface.
Therefore, we have experimented and tested an interpretive approach, according to which user interfaces are generated at runtime according to a general framework, in our case, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). A description of the physical structure is given in the form of an object-oriented model, which is interpreted by the system both at a shallow and at a deep level. At the shallow level, part-of relationships are exploited to make it possible to navigate the physical structure: each physical object is represented by a HTML page, with description and attributes, which is generated on-the-fly using the model; the base structure of the page is deduced by inspecting the type of the object, while the part-of relationship provides links to subparts of the object. At a deeper level, the model is exploited by a reasoning engine, for instance to evaluate causal relationships among safety-related processes.
The formalism is called ADAM (A DAM Language) and has been developed in the context of the DAMSAFE decision support system for the management of dam safety.
At run time, DAMSAFE interprets ADAM descriptions and generates World-Wide-Web pages baased on ADAM data; at user request, it activates external databases and systems on a local or wide area computer network, through CGI (Common Gateway Interface), as well as a specialised application (writtent in the X-Window-InterViews environment) which provides an interface to a causal network of processes.
Through ADAM descriptions the user informs the system about the components of the dam currently under evaluation (for instance, blocks) and about the data sources to be linked (for instance, the database of monitoring measurements and its access code).
The language has been designed in order to enable users unfamiliar with programming languages to easily set up their own data management environment.
A C++ hierarchy of classes constitutes the ADAM interpreter and allows access to ADAM functionalities from any C++ application.
Through ADAM models the DAMSAFE system is interfaced with several heterogeneous information systems: MIDAS (Management of Information for DAm Safety), providing measurement data, design drawings and numerical safety models; KAL, dealing with data about physical testing; DAMS, concerning legal data about Italian dams; our company's Management Information System, pointing to documents referring about a given dam.
The ADAM module has been deployed since April 1995 for internal use to support a group of engineers and technicians that provides services related to periodical safety assessment of dams.

Alessandra De Fiori, Marcella Jacono Quarantino, Marco Lazzari
L'uso degli strumenti di comunicazione telematica fra gli adolescenti
in Marco Lazzari, Marcella Jacono Quarantino (a cura di), Adolescenti tra piazze reali e piazze virtuali,
Bergamo University Press, 2010

Nell'ambito della ricerca sulle piazze reali e virtuali, si e costituito un gruppo di lavoro principalmente orientato a mettere a fuoco l'aspetto virtuale della comunicazione fra gli adolescenti attraverso un'attivita di indagine basata sulla somministrazione di un questionario a un ampio campione di studenti delle scuole bergamasche.

Marco Lazzari, Marco Chiodi
Experimenting with an organic metaphor and hypervisual links for the interface of a video collection
Proceedings of the 27th ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI 2009), Boston, MA, USA, 2009

In this paper we describe the prototype of an archive of short movies. The project proposes two original solutions for implementing the interface of this archive: an organic metaphor and a hypervisual navigation mechanism.

Marco Lazzari
Creative use of podcasting in higher education and its effect on competitive agency
Computers & Education, 52(1), 2009
[ DOI della versione ufficiale: doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2008.06.002 ].

This paper describes an academic experience of podcasting, which involved a group of students of a course on multimedia communication and human-computer interaction. These students acted both as users of the university's podcasting service, and as creators of podcasted lessons. A comprehensive analysis based on the evaluation of the effects on student performance, on data from student satisfaction surveys, from interviews and from instructors' observations provided encouraging results: full-time students co-involved in lessons' podcasting outperformed colleagues of the previous years and achieved higher levels of what we define as competitive agency, that led them to better understand the theoretical issues of the course and to more effective practical skills.

Marco Lazzari, Elisa Rinaldin
Un'esperienza d'uso del computer per l'apprendimento dei numeri nella scuola dell'infanzia
Atti del Congresso Didamatica 2006, Cagliari, Italy, 2006

Si presenta un'esperienza d'uso di strumenti informatici nella scuola dell'infanzia. Un gruppo di bambini dell'ultimo anno della scuola dell'infanzia ha usato il personal computer e un ambiente di grafica per apprendere i numeri; i bambini sono stati sottoposti a test di verifica dell'apprendimento, che hanno dato risultati migliori di quelli somministrati a un gruppo di controllo che parallelamente apprendeva i numeri con strumenti tradizionali. Si discutono gli effetti dell'esperienza sui bambini in termini di creatività e iniziativa, reazione agli insuccessi, autonomia, lavoro cooperativo.

Marco Lazzari, Susanna Lamarca, Silvia Rubis
Una sperimentazione sull'impatto della multimedialità nell'apprendimento dei bambini delle scuole primarie
Atti del Congresso Didamatica 2005, Potenza, Italy, 2005

Si presentano brevemente obiettivi, metodo e primi risultati di una ricerca in corso che intende verificare, con strumenti di analisi qualitativa e quantitativa, l'impatto dell'uso delle tecnologie multimediali e ipertestuali nell'apprendimento dei bambini delle scuole primarie. In particolare, il lavoro mira a fornire valutazioni qualitative e quantitative dell'utilità della narrazione ipermediale di storie a bambini della scuola primaria. I bambini oggetto dell'esperimento usano abitualmente elaboratori personali sia singolarmente, sia in coppia e in gruppo, come strumenti facilitatori dell'apprendimento disciplinare. I primi risultati dell'indagine suggeriscono che un uso appropriato della multimedialità può incidere sull'apprendimento e sulla motivazione dei bambini.

Alberto Betella, Marco Lazzari
Un ambiente open source per la gestione del podcasting e una sua applicazione alla didattica
Atti del Congresso Didamatica 2007, Cesena, Italy, 2007

In questo lavoro si presenta un'esperienza accademica di sviluppo di una piattaforma per il podcasting e se ne illustrano le opportunità di applicazione in campo didattico.

Marco Lazzari
An experiment on the weakness of reputation algorithms used in professional social networks: the case of Naymz
Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference e-Society 2010, Porto, Portugal, 2010

This paper is part of an ongoing research on web reputation, and presents an evaluation of the method used by the professional social network site Naymz to assess the online reputation of its members. By creating six ad-hoc professional communities with different profiles of users and network topologies, it was found that the highest level of online reputation can be easily achieved by engaging a small social group of nine persons or less who connect with each other, providing positive feedbacks and reciprocal endorsements.

Luisito Brembilla, Marco Lazzari, Paolo Salvaneschi
Structural monitoring through neural nets
Proceedings of the Second Workshop of the European Group for Structural Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (EGSEAAI '95), Bergamo, Italy, 1995

This paper describes the application of neural nets to the management of structural safety at ISMES. A neural net was developed to deal with monitoring data evaluation, in order to perform heuristic interpretation of the data. The net achieves the same results of symbolic processors previously used, but with reduced development and tuning effort.

Marco Lazzari, Alberto Betella
Towards guidelines on educational podcasting quality: problems arising from a real world experience
in M.J. Smith, G. Salvendy (eds.), Human interfaces, Part II, (HCI 2007), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4558, Springer, Berlin, Germany, 2007
[ DOI della versione ufficiale: doi:10.1007/978-3-540-73354-6_44 ].

This paper presents an experience of educational podcasting set up at the University of Bergamo (Italy), and derives from that experience some remarks upon the quality of podcasting services, in order to promote the definition of guidelines on podcasting quality. We discuss three main attributes of a podcasting environment: quality of the production environment (recording and editing), quality of the product (content and communication style), quality of the distribution environment (paratext and management).

Marco Lazzari
Epiphenomenal intelligence from partial models in safety management
in B.H.V. Topping (ed.), Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Application of Artificial Intelligence to Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Civil-Comp Press, Stirling, UK, 2005
[ DOI della versione ufficiale: doi:10.4203/ccp.82.7 ].

This paper represents an ex post rethinking of the contribution of artificial intelligence techniques to safety management, based on a long work experience in applying artificial intelligence to several engineering fields, from dam safety to environmental protection, from seismic monitoring to the protection of cultural heritage. The main issue is that developing models for assessing safety is a hard task, but integrating partial models may provide good results. Even if each single model is poor, a sort of epiphenomenal intelligence emerges from the behaviour of a system made of small partial models and users perceive it as a reliable assistant.

Joseph B. Comerford, Paolo Salvaneschi, Marco Lazzari, Paolo Bonaldi, Giovanni Ruggeri, Michele Fanelli, Gabriella Giuseppetti, Guido Mazzà
The role of AI technology in the management of dam safety: the DAMSAFE system
Dam Engineering, 3(4), 1992

This paper derives from a project. in progress at ISMES which aims to investigate the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques in the field of dam safety, and to develop a prototype software system. In order to carry out this task it was necessary to develop a conceptual framework within which the techniques of Al could be employed.
Therefore the first part of this paper describes the approach to dam safety adopted in this project. It is founded on the view that safety of structures is a problem of continuing management from design through construction to operation, and that this management of safety is a quality management problem, requiring the determination of quality procedures and information flows. ln describing the reasons for adopting this approach to safety, the status of such measures of safety as probability of failure are discussed. It is argued that factors of safety and probabilities of failure are features of theoretical models to be used in the management of safety rather than attributes of the dam itself. The management of safety process involves identification of hazards, defined in this context as precursors to failure, through hazard auditing as part of the quality management procedure. The application of these quality procedures is realised through testing information about the project against quality standards or some form of normative reference models. Dependability indices are suggested as possible measures designed to reflect the degree of auditing to which a project has been subjected. This approach to dam safety is seen as being in the same spirit as that of the SEED method of USER.
The second part of the paper describes how Al techniques can assist engineers in the management of this process. The view taken in this paper of Al is that it consists of new methods, which have been developed in recent years, of modelling systems and their behaviour, of representing and manipulating information, and of reasoning about both of these. The subject of Al is not covered in detail but the reader is referred to the appropriate sources. Al is seen as contributing to the problem of managing dam safety through providing an environment for integrating information relevant to the dam, for innovative modelling of dam behaviour, and for developing agents to reason about both of these.
An expert system system is described, DAMSAFE, which is being developed at ISMES.
See also: Eliane Alves Portela, Joao Bento, Dam Safety: the search for innovative tools, International Water Power and Dam Construction, 53(4), pp. 26-31. Apr 2001

Mauro Cadei, Marco Lazzari, Paolo Salvaneschi
A causal modelling framework for the simulation and explanation of the behaviour of structures
Artificial Intelligence in Engineering, 11(3), 1997
[ DOI della versione ufficiale: doi:10.1016/S0954-1810(96)00040-4 ].

An approach to the modelling of systems in civil engineering is presented. It allows the integration of quantitative relations in a qualitative causal framework which uses objects and Petri nets to represent the device and process ontologies. This approach supports the modelling and simulation of the behaviour of a physical system and causal explanations of it. The explanations are customisable depending on the needs of different users. The approach is shown by modelling the seismic behaviour of a masonry building, simulating it and generating causal explanations tailored for the needs of different users. An example application is presented through IGOR, a decision support system for seismic assessment of buildings and planning of precautionary operations.

Paolo Salvaneschi, Marco Lazzari
Weak information systems for technical data management
Worldwide ECCE Symposium on computers in the practice of building and civil engineering. Lahti, Finland, September 3-5, 1997, p. 310-314

tecnologie-multimediali-per-la-didattica.pdf

tecnologie-telematiche-per-il-supporto-alla-ricerca.pdf

Marco Lazzari, Paolo Salvaneschi
Improved monitoring and surveillance through integration of artificial intelligence and information management systems
Proceedings of the Tenth IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Applications (CAIA '94), San Antonio, Texas, 1994