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Despite the pervasiveness of IoT domotic devices in the home automation landscape, their potential is still quite under-exploited due to the high heterogeneity and the scarce expressivity of the most commonly adopted scenario programming paradigms. The aim of this study is to show that Semantic Web technologies constitute a viable solution to tackle not only the interoperability issues, but also the overall programming complexity of modern IoT home automation scenarios. For this purpose, we developed a knowledge-based home automation system in which scenarios are the result of logical inferences over the IoT sensors data combined with formalised knowledge. In particular, we describe how the SWRL language can be employed to overcome the limitations of the well-known trigger-action paradigm. Through various experiments in three distinct scenarios, we demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed approach and its applicability in a standardised and validated context such as SAREF

The growth of data produced for example by IoT devices has playing a major role in developing healthcare applications able to effectiveness handle the vast amount of information. The challenge lies in representing volumes of data, integrating and understanding their various formats and sources. Cognitive computing systems offer promise for analysing, accessing, integrating, and investigating data in order to improve outcomes across many domains, including healthcare. This paper presents an ontology-based system for the eHealth domain. It provides semantic interoperability among heterogeneous IoT fitness and wellness devices and facilitates data integration and sharing. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in exploiting semantic web technologies to explicitly describe the meaning of sensor data and define a common communication strategy for information representation and exchange.

The effect of the resistance inducers methyl jasmonate (MeJA), acybenzolar-S-methyl (BTH) anddipotassium hydrogenphosphate (K2HPO4) was tested by seed soaking and by foliar application to determine whether these resistance inducers controlled root rot and vine decline of melon caused by Monosporascus cannonballus. Tests were carried out in pots and under field conditions in a two-year trial. Application of MeJA to melon seed significantly reduced symptoms of melon root rot and vine decline in soil artificially inoculated with M. cannonballus, and seeds treated with BTH and K2HPO4 produced plants with a slightly greater resistance to the pathogen. Greenhouse experiments in soil naturally infected with M. cannonballus in 2006 showed that MeJA treatments by seed soaking followed by foliar applications decreased the severity of the disease. In 2007, both MeJA and BTH significantly reduced root rot and vine decline, but K2HPO4 was ineffective. The resistance inducers differentially induced the synthesis of a number of pathogenesis related (PR) protein isoenzymes, markers of induced resistance in the root system. Using MeJA to induce resistance to root rot and vine decline of melon caused by M. cannonballus may provide a practical supplement to an environmentally friendly disease management when it is combined with appropriate integrated agronomic practices.

Abstract The exponential progress of AI systems today compels scientists and philosophers to redefine their conceptual frameworks to better understand the nature of these new technologies and their moral status. Among the various theories that are used to respond to the challenges posed by intelligent systems are instrumentalism, Socio-technical Systems Theory (STST) and Mediation Theory (MT), all widely adopted in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). This paper intends to present the main features of these theories and provide a comparative analysis of them in order to assess their contribution to the process of understanding the moral status of artificial intelligence. Our investigation intends to show how (1) instrumentalism is inadequate to account for the moral status of AI, (2) STST, while helping to highlight the link between AI, society and morality, lends itself to the criticism of anthropocentrism, (3) MT in its Latourian version has the merit of highlighting the active character of technological artefacts and thus of artificial intelligence in the moral sphere. However, the principle of symmetry it proposes poses the problem of the de-accountability of the human agent. (4) MT in its postphenomenological form seems to partially resolve the problem of moral responsibility, but the opacity of the terminology it employs exposes it to various criticisms. In light of these results, we intend to show how an understanding of the moral status of intelligent systems cannot be based on the diametrically opposed positions that consider technologies either morally neutral or else moral agents similar to humans, whereas particularly useful elements can be found in STST and in postphenomenological MT.

This paper aims at assessing the current significance of the anthropological reflections of Heinrich Rickert, comparing his most important contributions to recent results in the fields of evolutionary and philosophical anthropology. With this aim in mind, we examine two Rickertian theses of considerable theoretical interest: the fundamental value of sociality in being human and the foundation role of the corporeal in the cultural world. The first thesis, developed by Rickert in the field of axiology, closely relates to Michael Tomasello’s definition of man as an ultra-social animal. The second thesis represents an original contribution to the re-evaluation of the corporeal basis of human experience, which has continued to play a central role in some areas of philosophical research since the last century.

The aim of this paper is to reconsider the relationship between living body and artefacts in the perspective of Helmuth Plessner’s aesthesiology. According to the outcomes of Plessner’s aesthesiology, I present two main theses: 1) artefacts are not created, but rather discovered (entdeckt) and expressed by human agency, and 2) the bodily dimension of the human being is the condition of the “discovery” of material and symbolic artefacts. To argue these theses I highlight a) the process of “somatisation” that engages the Kantian transcendental model of subject in Plessner’s philosophical anthropology, b) Plessner’s rejection of the Kantian profile of Uexküll’s theory of Umwelt as an application of this transcendental model of subjectivity in the biological field, and c) the development in Plessner of a type of transcendental aesthetics, which can be linked with S. Crowell’s recent theory of perception.

This paper intends to illuminate the problematic outcome of Lask’s redefinition of the concept of subjectivity. The main result of this operation is the elaboration of the notion of receptive subject. With this concept, strictly linked to the notion of Hingabe (dedication), Lask identifies the original element of every cognitive process in simple intuitive receptivity. Intuitive receptivity alone provides direct access to the transcendent object. But how is this access possible? What is the relation between the receptive-intuitive element of knowledge and predicative activity? What is the status of Hingabe? The insufficient answers to these questions lead the Lask’s thought to an aporetic outcome, namely, the reduction of Hingabe to an exclusively abstract and ideal receptivity, and consequently to the reactivation, in the theory of knowledge, of the distance between subject and object. However, while this distance marks the limit of the model of knowledge developed by Lask, the main contribuition of his thought remains valid: the overcoming of trascendental subjectivism through the elaboration of a concrete-receptive subject and of an original form of realism.

Anton Friedrich Koch’s philosophy presents two main thesis: the Antinomiethese and the Subjektivitätsthese, with which the philosopher affirms respectively the original antinomic nature of thought and the necessity of a corporeal subject as guarantor of the space and time system. These thesis and their limits are at the centre of the present paper.