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The increasing number of space objects (SO), debris, and constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit poses a significant threat to the sustainability and safety of space operations, which must be carefully and efficiently addressed to avoid mutual collisions. The space situational awareness is currently addressed by an ensemble of radar and radio‐telescopes that detect and track SO. However, a large part of space debris is composed of very small and tiny metallic objects, very difficult to detect. The authors demonstrate the benefits of using deep learning (DL) architectures for small space object detection by radar observations. TIRA radio telescope has been simulated to generate range‐Doppler maps, then used as inputs for object detection exploiting You‐Only‐Look‐Once (YOLO) frameworks. The results demonstrate that the object detection by using YOLO algorithms outperform conventional target detection approaches, thus indicating the potential benefits of using DL techniques for space surveillance applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence of things (AIoT) is the combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure. AI deals with the devices' learning process to acquire knowledge from data and experience, while IoT concerns devices interacting with each other using the Internet. AIoT has been proven to be a very effective paradigm for several existing applications as well as for new areas, especially in the field of satellite communication systems with mega-constellations. When AIoT meets space communications efficiently, we have interesting uses of AI for Satellite IoT (SIoT). In fact, the number of space debris is continuously increasing as well as the risk of space collisions, and this poses a significant threat to the sustainability and safety of space operations that must be carefully and efficiently addressed to avoid critical damage to the SIoT networks. This paper aims to provide a systematic survey of the state of the art, challenges, and perspectives on the use of deep learning methods for space situational awareness (SSA) object detection and classification. The contributions of this paper can be summarized as follows: (i) we outline using AI algorithms, and in particular, deep learning (DL) methods, the possibility of identifying the nature/type of spatial objects by processing signals from radars; (ii) we present a comprehensive taxonomy of DL-based methods applied to SSA object detection and classification, as well as their characteristics, and implementation issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian aggression against Ukraine is a conflict that goes beyond, in common perception, the "ordinariness" of wars and it strikes us because, in our not yet post-colonial consciousness, it is perceived as "European". Analyzes based on the strategy and characteristics of international systems are insufficient. A deeper, radical level is needed. Beyond the union between fear and boundaries, the real fault line in the world politics passes between geopolitics and biopolitics. The fundamental theme is that of man's life on earth, of his existence, of the conditions of the human dignity, of fundamental human rights, including the right to peace and the trans-generational right to planetary integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maenads in pop culture are usually women with a strong eroticism, distinguished by sexual addiction and pure lust, malice, and murders. However, the maenads in Ancient Greek iconography and drama were completely different, not connected to the sexual sphere or to the manipulation of men. Ancient Greek maenads preserve their chastity, and their task is to honor Dionysus with dances and rites. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the common thread that has led to this contemporary sexual and gloomy distinctive characterization of maenads in modern media and to understand where this dark vision of maenadism comes from. The stages on this journey through times past are the Bacchanalia scandal (186 B.C.), the black legend of Messalina, some cases of Christian condemnations, and the conception of maenads during the Renaissance and Victorian Hellenism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay, historically placing the experience of Chiara Lubich, investigates the precious legacy of Lubich in the political reading of an epochal passage (the transition from "raison d'Etat" to "raison du monde") to be grasped, deepened, developed, realized. A radical overturning of perspective, where the emphasis on national identities, sheltered from the ever-present risk of nationalism and particularism, is not in contradiction with the serene and constructive recognition of the identities of others. Far from configuring contrasts and fragmentation, this "dialogic" identity is the foundation of a world community enriched precisely by the encounter of diversities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the "Farnesina") a special program was created in order to deal with religions and international relations. In this context, the work of R. Scott Appleby soon became a point of reference, especially for the Policy Planning Unit under the direction of the Author. In a series of meetings and conferences with R. Scott Appleby, many useful ideas were discussed and analyzed in view of a more articulated approach of the Italian MAE towards religions abroad and also for the internal organization of the Ministry. Some of these recommendations, drawn from the academic work of R. Scott Appleby, were partially implemented, establishing a bridge between theory and practice on diplomatic religious engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article underlines the "sovereign moment" characteristic of the current phase of European Union integration. In reality, the predominance of national interests over the European framework has, from the beginning, been a thorn in the side. Nevertheless, today a new dynamic is underway. Fault lines (such as North/South or East/West) are again re-emerging in Europe in the form of "polarized introversion." We are not yet witnessing the demise of democracy in the strict sense but we are in a subtler way seeing its decline or hollowing out. Outwardly, Europe is stuck in a syndrome of "reticent extroversion", implying its inability to transform the "neighborhood policy" into an authentic "policy of proximity." There is an "implicit" and undeclared secession of European citizens from the union; the detachment concerns not so much the institutions, but the policies, which, at times, are perceived not only as inadequate but even as hostile. The center of the European crisis lies not in its unwillingness to welcome others (the immigrants, the refugees, the marginalized) but in its having "unlearned" the virtue of mutual hospitality. Indeed, the political history of contemporary Europe can be narrated entirely from the perspective of "xenopolitics" that is from the point of view of being rejected or of trying to draw near to one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a comparison of the performances of a stereo and a monocular vision system for the 3D pose estimation of a planar target in very challenging conditions is presented. In particular, the systems have been designed to detect in real time a target moving with a maximum speed of 1 m/s, in a range of distances from 0.5 to 4 m from the cameras, with an accuracy of less than 1 cm (referred to the estimation of the real world coordinates) and with a field of view of 80 deg. A theoretical evaluation and experimental results to assess the performance of the proposed systems are presented. Our analysis demonstrates the good accuracy in terms of target position estimation of the presented approaches not only for close range applications, but also for mid-to-long range ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New analytical categories, which avoid geo-political simplifications and allow us to identify correlations between complex and diverse phenomena are needed in a time of global transformation. Nowadays world politics deals with polarities, both global and universal, of the center and the periphery, multipolar and multilateral. Politics is characterized by new forms of widespread conflicts, new structures different from government structures, realnew integrating and disaggregating processes. It might be possible to radically change the narrative about international relations. It is possible to imagine world politics as pan-human politics, seen as planetary reconciliation, reconstruction of the social fabric, awareness that the community is based on respect and mutual listening, on attention to needs, on justice, on human dignity and on sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of his mandate, Pope Francis has used the concept of periphery as a metaphor of social marginality. However, the notion of periphery also seems to target the asymmetries generated by the liberal version of globalization. Pope Francis' narrative has to be read in the broader context of the relation between religions and globalization. That interaction is usually conceptualized in terms of religions capitalizing on global "vectors", such as new information and communication technologies, processes of political and institutional integration, shared cultural patterns, transnational phenomena and organizations. An alternative way to analyze the role of religions consists in considering them as agencies defending the perspective of a universal community, putting into question the national political boundaries and contesting the existing global order. Understood in those terms, the concept of periphery reveals to be a powerful rhetoric device, insofar as it suggests that it is possible to get a wider perspective of the current state of the world looking form the edge rather than from the center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text presents the inaugural lecture of the academic year 2012/2013 at the Sophia University Institute (delivered on 18 October 2012). The author seeks a possible description of the concept of "constitutive peace". It emerges as an operative concept, as a description of possibility always subject to failure, as the construction of a context which permits the ongoing activity of international politics amidst the daily struggles of building and conserving relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing attention is given in IR theory and diplomatic circles to the ambivalent role of religion in world politics. However, there is a need for more analytical clarity, identifying at least four different domains: religions and inter-state relations; religions and internationalism; religions and trans-nationalism; and religions and globalism. The most promising approach is the one that concentrates on the transnational projection of religions, connecting it to the way religions address global issues to influence international actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the theoretical and pragmatic implications for international relations and world politics of the new holistic approach to climate change articulated by Pope Francis in the Encyclical Laudato Si', particularly through the notion of "integral ecology". It is not my intention to offer an exegesis of the Papal document. I will rather try to illustrate and discuss its planetary hermeneutics. I emphasize that the Encyclical's perspective is not exclusively normative, and that, within the dynamic interplay between social structure and human agency, it can also be considered as a call to action. In this context, I suggest that both International Relations Theory and global politics have much to learn from the fundamental claims of contemporary religions in relation to climate disruption. In particular, Pope Francis' document, far from being just a new chapter in the unfolding process of the "greening" of religions, raises the issue of the sustainability of the present world system. Therefore, I contend that the perspective of the Encyclical calls for a radical transformation of international relations, since it emphasizes the deep implications of environmental issues on the entire spectrum of security, development, economic and ethical challenges of contemporary world politics. Against this backdrop, my objective is to connect the main tenets of the Encyclical to the environmental turn in International Relations Theory and to the new epistemological challenges related to the paradigm shift induced by the new planetary condition of the Anthropocene and the relevant questions arising for a justice encompassing the humanity-earth system. The Encyclical seems to suggest that practicing sustainable international relations means exiting the logic of power or hegemony, while simultaneously operationalizing the concept of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image phylogeny is the problem of reconstructing the structure that represents the history of generation of semantically similar images (e.g., near-duplicate images). Typical image phylogeny approaches break the problem into two steps: (1) estimating the dissimilarity between each pair of images and (2) reconstructing the phylogeny structure. Given that the dissimilarity calculation directly impacts the phylogeny reconstruction, in this paper, we propose new approaches to the standard formulation of the dissimilarity measure employed in image phylogeny, aiming at improving the reconstruction of the tree structure that represents the generational relationships between semantically similar images. These new formulations exploit a different method of color adjustment, local gradients to estimate pixel differences and mutual information as a similarity measure. The results obtained with the proposed formulation remarkably outperform the existing counterparts in the literature, allowing a much better analysis of the kinship relationships in a set of images, allowing for more accurate deployment of phylogeny solutions to tackle traitor tracing, copyright enforcement and digital forensics problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]