Fetenech Meskele Ganebo, Dean of the School of Computer Science at Wolaita Sodo University - Ethiopia was a guest of UniTS for three months as part of a TWAS-SISSA-Lincei Research Cooperation Visits Programme grant. At UniTS, Ganebo worked with Sylvio Barbon Junior, a professor at the Department of Engineering and Architecture (DIA), harnessing the power of machine learning approaches to develop algorithms capable of predicting the spread of malaria.

According to the WHO World Malaria Report 2023, there are an estimated 249 million cases in 85 endemic countries in 2022, with 608,000 deaths. And Ethiopia, as WHO reports, is one of the three African countries that have suffered the most, along with Nigeria and Uganda.

In the high malaria transmission region of Wolaita, a densely populated rural area in southern Ethiopia, data on the spread of the disease is still collected manually. The first task for Ganebo and the Trieste team was therefore to digitise the available data.

‘The three months at UniTS were enough to achieve good results,’ said Ganebo, ‘The collaboration with Prof. Barbon Junior is promising. We have an ambitious plan to automate the collection of health data in the town of Wolaita Sodo and, at a later stage, throughout Ethiopia’. Automation would increase efficiency, accuracy and breadth of useful data, ensuring better patient care.

Once perfected, the algorithms will be used to study the combined effect of risk factors such as temperature, altitude, malaria vectors and population health status to provide health workers and policy makers with more effective predictive tools.

The technique will be used to create a regional surveillance protocol in Ethiopia to support health systems in managing mosquito control and resource allocation.

Ganebo is also the winner of the Spiga di Grano prize, awarded by the Cinzia Vitale non-profit association.

The TWAS-SISSA-Lincei research cooperation visit programme supports early-career researchers in UN-identified least developed countries on projects that contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

It offers training and collaboration opportunities at the scientific institutions of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia System of Scientific Innovation (Sis FVG) in Italy. It is supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAECI) and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS).

Photo: Prof. Eric Medvet, Prof.ssa Fetenech Meskele Ganebo e Prof. Sylvio Barbon Junior 

The University of Trieste, with the collaboration of the Upper Adriatic Technological Research Hub, has presented the House of Clusters: an initiative that aims to create a place for business clusters to meet, promoting and facilitating collaboration between the public and private sectors.

It involves regional officials, cluster managers and representatives of university departments with the aim of developing synergies between research and enterprise.

Pierluigi Barbieri, Spoke 8 representative of the PNRR (Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan) iNEST project, framed the 'House of Clusters' in the context of the iNEST Lab Village project for the development of an Innovation Melting Pot in the spaces of Trieste's Urban Center.

UniTS's commitment takes concrete form with the launch of a call for ideas, announced by C-Lab head Salvatore Dore, which aims to select and fund innovative research projects by accompanying them in the delicate transition from the academic world to the business world.

The presentation was opened by Franco Scolari, director of the Upper Adriatic Technological Research Hub, who emphasised the need for an increasingly solid interconnection between research and business, hypothesising the transfer of part of the PNRR researchers to companies, a proposal that could find concrete expression in iNEST 2.

Ketty Segatti, Central Director for special functions at the Central Directorate for Work, Training, Education and Family of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, introduced the speeches of the representatives of the business clusters, who expressed the will and the need for a common reference point: the Life Sciences cluster manager Stefano De Monte, Michela Pivetta for the Metalmechanics Cluster, the CEO Francesco Contin of ICT Digitale DITEDI and the director of the Agrifood & Bioeconomy Foundation PierpaoloRovere, the director of the Furniture and Home Systems Cluster Carlo Piemonte. Closing the proceedings was Giorgio Adami, director of the Local Economic Development Service.

"Who are you calling a jackal?", this is the title of the first episode of the new podcast "gECO", the initiative developed within the Master's degree course in Ecology and Sustainability of Global Changes at the University of Trieste and produced entirely by the students, with the scientific supervision of the lecturers of the Department of Life Sciences and the course. A podcast created by young ecologists and designed to bring young people and adults closer to nature and discovering the environment that surrounds us. With guest Alessio Mortelliti, associate professor of Animal Ecology, the first episode is available free of charge on the Spotify online streaming platform and deals with the theme of the return of large carnivores to Italy and the often conflictual relationship between them and man.

gECO was born out of a desire, felt first and foremost by the students, to explore the themes of environmental, social and economic sustainability, while at the same time seeking to disseminate correct information to support actions that, starting with the individual, can be transformed into virtuous examples for society in general. This is why throughout the various episodes, gECO will also host thematic columns and present simple sustainability tips, offering listeners useful suggestions for reducing their own impact on the environment and acting consciously to guarantee a more sustainable future for new generations.

This initiative represents one of the integrative training activities that the Master's degree course in Ecology and Sustainability of Global Change offers its students, and is intended to promote the acquisition of soft skills and useful communicative abilities to further facilitate their entrance into the world of work.

gECO Podcast will be on a fortnightly basis and each episode will last approximately 30 minutes. All episodes will be available on SPOTIFY

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gECO: podcast written and produced by the students of Ecology and Sustainability of Global Change at the University of Trieste. Podcast speakers: Gaia Butini and Lorenzo Ferdinando Campaner. Editors: Federica Montenero, Giulia Cecco, Gaia Foltran, Davide Stocco, Irene Cecchia, Matilde Capitani, Guido Romagnoli, Maddalena D'Antiga, Allegra Polato, Martina Gasparut, Natalie Vargiu, Anna Vincenti, Gaia Butini, Paolo Meroi and Lorenzo Ferdinando Campaner. Sound supervision and post-production: Paolo Meroi.Theme song by Maddalena D'Antiga. Graphics and cover by Martina Gasparut. Lecturers on the scientific committee for content verification and support: Alessio Mortelliti, Chiara Manfrin, Giovanni Carrosio, Matteo Carzedda, Fabio Del Missier, Fabio Candotto Carniel and Francesco Petruzzellis.Academic project manager Giovanni Bacaro

Giacomo Filippini, a researcher from the Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Trieste, has been awarded the prestigious 'Giacomo Ciamician' medal of the Organic Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society. The prize is awarded each year to a young researcher under 40 who has distinguished themselves at a national level for research of considerable originality and interest in the field of Organic Chemistry. Giacomo Filippini has been involved in the design and development of innovative (photo)catalytic transformations aimed at the synthesis of organic molecules of interest in the fields of theoretical and applied research.

The 'Giacomo Ciamician' medal will be awarded on Thursday 29th August 2024 during the 28th National Congress of the Italian Chemical Society in Milan, where Filippini will present the most significant parts of his research work.

Giacomo Filippini graduated with honours in Industrial Chemistry in 2013 from the University of Bologna, with an experimental thesis concerning the synthesis of new enantiomerically enriched atropisomers. In the same year he was accepted onto the PhD in Chemistry at the ICIQ in Tarragona (Spain), where he worked on the development of new enantioselective photo-organocatalytic transformations under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Melchiorre. In 2017 he was awarded his PhD and joined the group of Prof. Maurizio Prato as a research assistant at the University of Trieste, where he worked on the development of new carbon-based nano-catalytic systems. In April 2021, he won a competition for a type-A researcher position in Organic Chemistry, as part of the ERC project ‘eDOTS’ lead by Maurizio Prato) in the Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UniTS. Following this, he took up his position as type-B researcher in the same department in October 2023. 

‘2100. There’s no time to waste’ is a docufilm that, through the contributions of scientists and experts, takes stock of the effects of climate change on the environment and natural resources in 26 emerged and submerged sites on the Sicilian coast, trying to imagine what the situation will be like in 2100, the year that science uses to simulate future environmental scenarios through the projection of data collected so far.

It will be this work, which has already won awards at various festivals – produced in 2021 by Fabrizio Antonioli, an associate at the Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering of the CNR (CNR-IGAG), and Thalassia Giaccone, of the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station, and scripted by Martina Camatta – that will officially kick off the ‘MARE SOPRA’ popularisation project on 9th May at 18:00 at the Miela Theatre. It was conceived by the University of Trieste and realised, with the collaboration of various partners, thanks to the contribution of the Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, with the aim of raising awareness among the public, especially young people, about the rising sea levels caused by global warming and the consequences already visible on our coasts.

The docufilm will be followed, at 19:00 by the ‘Impact of sea level rise on Friuli Venezia Giulia’s coastline’ round table. Moderated by Franco Foresta Martin, former scientific and environmental editor of Corriere della Sera and RAI consultant (Quark and Geo&Geo), it will feature some of the leading experts on climate change and marine biology: Fabrizio Antonioli, a coastal geomorphologist from CNR-IGAG, specialising in the study of sea level variations; glaciologist Roberto Renato Colucci, from CNR-ISP; physicist Fabio Raicich, from CNR-ISMAR, marine microbiologist Francesca Malfatti (UniTS), climate physicist and Nobel laureate Filippo Giorgi (ICTP), Giorgio Fontolan of UniTS, lecturer in Sedimentology and Coastal Dynamics UniTS, and palaeontology lecturer Carlo Corradini (UniTS).

In the coming decades, sea levels will continue to rise dramatically, changing the geography of our coasts and damaging coastal structures. It has already risen by more than 20 centimetres since 1880 and is expected to reach 30 cm by 2050. We have already had warnings of what the situation may be: the most recent was the strong sea storm last November that hit the eastern coast of the Gulf of Trieste, from Muggia to Lignano, causing extensive damage to coastal infrastructure. The combination of high sea levels and winds from the southern quadrants accumulated water in the Gulf, leading to an explosive situation that could be repeated with greater intensity and frequency in the future.

With the popularisation project ‘MARE SOPRA’, conceived by Stefano Furlani, associate professor of geomorphology at the University of Trieste, the aim is to raise awareness of the problem of rising sea levels caused by climate change. ‘With its almost 100 kilometres of coastline, Friuli Venezia Giulia is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, with the risks of coastal erosion and flooding threatening communities and infrastructure,’ Furlani observes. ‘Rising sea levels could compromise coastal environments, but also many of the business sectors that gravitate to those areas, such as fishing and tourism. Therefore, it is crucial to raise awareness among citizens and especially the younger generation. Efforts to propose adaptation or mitigation actions are essential to tackle this problem while protecting people, the environment and the local economy from its consequences. MARE SOPRA intends to move in this direction, proposing meetings with experts, screenings of documentaries, hands-on experiences with students and citizens, and the creation of a virtual tour: an engaging and accessible tool to explore places and environments in a realistic and detailed way, almost as if one were on site’.

This is an interdisciplinary project, which will involve geomorphologists, sociologists and biologists from three university departments (Mathematics, Computer Science and Geosciences; Political and Social Sciences; and Life Sciences), but also citizenship, schools and associations through the Citizen Science model: it will be schoolchildren and citizens who will actively participate, after being suitably trained, in the measurement of sea level rise.

New digital technologies will also come into play, with the creation of a ‘virtual tour’ that will allow the public to virtually navigate and dive along the Friuli Venezia Giulia coastline. Thanks to 360-degree spherical aerial videos acquired by drone and by diving above and below the sea surface, a very high-resolution journey along the region’s coastline will be created from Muggia to Lignano: through a dozen clickable hotspots along the route map (including Muggia, Trieste, Duino Aurisina, Monfalcone, Staranzano, Grado, Marano Lagunare and Lignano), it will be possible to view audio content, videos, images, in-depth texts and web links to dive 360° above and below sea level.

The ‘virtual tour’, which will be tested directly by the public during an ad hoc event, will be usable from PCs, mobile devices and through Virtual Reality viewers, such as Oculus Meta 2-3, and can also be used by the science museums collaborating in the project for their dissemination activities. It stems from the experience of the Geoswim project, which started in 2012 when Furlani swam solo and surveyed along the entire coastline of Istria. The project, which has since involved biologists, archaeologists and geologists from all over Italy, has led – with the use of a boat equipped with GPS, a series of probes to measure water depth, salinity and temperature, and time-lapse and 360° cameras placed above and below sea level – to the mapping of hundreds of kilometres of Mediterranean coastline, collecting data on their morphological conformation and sea level in the present and past, as well as physical and chemical parameters such as temperature and conductivity. This summer, the mapping will be carried out by the UniTS researchers and lecturers involved in the project, who will complete the survey activities that have already begun on the coasts, by kayak and swimming.

During MARE SOPRA a number of informational meetings will be held in the municipalities of Grado, Muggia and Trieste, which will also be involved in the training and measurement activities, both theoretical and practical, conducted by young researchers and PhD students from UniTS. At the end of these activities the main coastal locations will be marked with two lines: the yellow line will mark where the sea will be in 2050, the red line its level in 2100. Finally, the usefulness of the project will be measured through questionnaires, which will be submitted to the participants in the various activities to assess the effectiveness of the 'social learning' actions.

Mare Sopra, coordinated by the University of Trieste and realised with the contribution of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, collaborates with the Marine Protected Area of Miramare, the Municipality of Muggia, the Marevivo Association – Fvg Delegation, the Marco Polo Institute of Grado, and the Galilei High School of Trieste.

The BluEcho research project is launching to address underwater noise pollution, assessing the level of noise generated by ships and wind farms in different marine basins (the Adriatic, North and Baltic seas). The project is based on EU guidelines for defining threshold values for continuous noise produced by humans in water and aims to build upon the work of previous European projects (JOMOPANS, AQUO, SONIC, JONAS, QUIETSEAS). Taking a multidisciplinary approach, BluEcho focuses on the interaction between source, medium, and receiver rather than one-way solutions.

A specific new approach will be developed for numerically modeling propellers and wind turbine blades, as well as large-scale acoustic maps. Initially, the developed methodology will be used to accurately assess the current health status of the sea. Subsequently, researchers will focus on predicting new scenarios where mitigation measures will be adopted. The effectiveness and economic feasibility of mitigation measures (including slow down or re-routing procedures in risk areas or so-called quiet periods) will also be evaluated, and the implementation of new protected areas will be proposed. Cost-benefit assessment will be conducted considering the needs of stakeholders, both in shipping traffic and wind farms.

The project, coordinated by the University of Trieste (DIA Engineering and Architecture and DEAMS Economic, Business, Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Departments), also involves the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics; Chalmers University of Technology – Gothenburg, Sweden; Institute of Marine Research – Bergen, Norway; Alfred-Wegener Institute – Bremerhaven, Germany.

A delegation made up of representatives of the key players in Somali academic, political and cultural communities has been welcomed by UniTS Vice-Rector Valter Sergo, Deputy Rector for Development Cooperation Ilaria Micheli and Giuseppe Borruso, professor of the Department of Economics, Business, Mathematics and Statistics (DEAMS).

The meeting aims at improving relations between the two countries, and is taking place in light of the strong Somali presence in Friuli Venezia Giulia since the 1970s.

The University of Trieste boasts a long-standing collaboration with the Somali National University (SNU), thanks to its active participation in a bilateral Italy - Somalia programme (together with other Italian universities). The Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) has so far financed 5 projects (SNU 1-5) aiming at strengthening the institutional and academic structure of the Somali National University.

The University of Trieste was involved in the SNU 2 and SNU 3 projects, the most significant of the series in terms of knowledge transfer and research training.

During these two phases between 2018 and 2022, DEAMS hosted some members of the delegation for three months, namely Prof. Hassan Osman Ga'al, current Rector of SNU (former Dean of the Somali Faculty of Economics). They also gave four Somali students, two of whom are now active researchers at SNU, the opportunity to attend and complete the Master's Degree Course in Economics of Productive Sectors and International Markets.

The SNU 5 project is currently underway with UniTS also among its active partners, and is coordinated by the Milan Polytechnic.

During the visit, the delegation also met DEAMS professors and researchers already involved in the SNU project, as well as those interested in collaboration with the Somali university.

These are the names of the delegation members

1. Ahmed Faghi Elmi, President of the Somali Community

2. Abdullahi Omar Abshir, Vice President of the Federal Parliament of Somalia

3. Nura Mustaf Mukhtar Guudow, Deputy Minister of Education, Culture and Higher Education of the Federal Republic of Somalia

4. Hassan Osman Gacal, Rector of the Somali National University

5. Ibrahim Gure Mohamed, Director of the Somali Diaspora Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

6. Ismail Yusuf Osman, President of the Somali Academy of Science and Arts

7. Khalid Mao Abdulkadir, Lecturer at the Somali National University

8. Salim Alio Ibro, Somali MP

9. Aues Scek, Member of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Somalia

10. Edna Moallim Abdulkadir, AMEB Mother & Child Care Association

11. Bashir Osman Ahmed, Somali Community

12. Dahir Ali, Somali Community

13. Bashir Abdulle, Somali Community

14. Lorenzo Dugulin, Somali Community

15. Ahmed Mohamed, Somali journalist

16. Mohamed Roberto degli Espositi, Somali journalist

RAI journalist Paolo di Giannantonio also present.

The workshop "Quantum science and technology: where we are, where we are headed" and the public event "Living in a quantum world" have both been organised for 18th and 19th April at the Italian Academy of Columbia University in New York by the UniTS Physics Department.

Organised on the University of Trieste's 100th anniversary, the events bear witness to the excellence achieved by the University of Trieste in the field of one of the most strategic areas of science today.

The two events will feature talks by some of the leading experts in quantum subjects, and are organised by Prof. Angelo Bassi, Prof. Fabio Benatti, Prof. Alberto Morgante (Former Fellow and current member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Academy, Columbia University), Prof. Francesco Scazza and Prof. Andrea Trombettoni.

In particular, the workshop open to the academic community will present innovations and the future of research in the field of quantum science and technology Quantum Science & Technology: where we are, where we are headed - qmts.

The panel discussion https://italianacademy.columbia.edu/events/living-quantum-world will explore the scientific, philosophical and social implications of quantum physics and quantum technologies, and is open to the public. It will feature the reflections of Katiuscia Cassemiro, Chief Editor of PRX Quantum - American Physical Society (APS Physics), Anna Grassellino, Director of the SQMS (Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems) Center at Fermilab, Philip Kim, Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics, Harvard University and Robert Konik, Chair of the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Robert Henderson, journalist for The Wall Street Journal, will moderate.

The Italian Academy (https://italianacademy.columbia.edu) is a world-leading research centre in the humanities and sciences, founded in 1991 based on an agreement between Columbia University and the Italian Republic. Its main commitment is to promote innovative interdisciplinary studies. The Honorary President is the President of the Italian Republic.

Sponsors of the two meetings are, in addition to the University of Trieste, The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), National Research Council (CNR).

Now that the Italy-Austria Interreg project SENSHOME has come to an end, the University of Trieste has obtained new funding from the European Union, enabling the university to continue its studies. The funding will strengthen research and innovation and help to introduce advanced technology, more know-how and the best practices regarding architecture for people with cognitive disabilities.

This is the specific objective of the new Italy-Austria Interreg project "BeSENSHome: Sensors in sensitive environments. Inclusive spaces which accommodate the needs of those with cognitive disabilities".

As part of the BeSENSHome project, advanced systems and smart sensor networks will be specially installed into residences, day-care centres, workplaces and facilities hosting people with neurocognitive disabilities, in order to enhance environmental comfort for occupants. To achieve this innovative goal, these systems must be customisable in order to accommodate the needs of the residents, providing individuals with the maximum level of agency possible over their built environment. Thanks to artificial intelligence coupled with the sensor network, the environment will be able to learn the preferences or requirements of the occupant, identifying stressful triggers and adjusting environmental conditions. It will also be able to alert assistants if intervention is needed, pre-emptively preventing any potentially dangerous conditions from arising. The insertion of these sensor networks into people’s environments will be implemented to the finest detail to ensure optimal integration into existing contexts. To achieve these goals and make the system as useful and user-friendly as possible, a collaborative research and design approach will be adopted throughout the project.

The developed system will then be put to the test, implementing the technologies discreetly and unobtrusively in environments where neurodivergent people and their family members/caregivers need support in their daily lives.

This support will be enhanced by the study of architectural solutions for the spaces. For example, the appropriate choice of materials for furniture and upholstery, lights and light dimming devices will facilitate sight, tactility and comfort within the various environments. The chosen spaces will also be investigated from an acoustic, visual and thermo-hygrometric point of view. This is both in order to optimise the operation of environmental sensors and to study their appropriate positioning to ensure privacy, increase autonomy, and render everyday environments more inclusive and safe.

The UniTS scientific coordinator is Giuseppina Scavuzzo, Associate Professor in Architectural and Urban Composition, Coordinator of the Architectural Studies Course of the Department of Engineering and Architecture of the University of Trieste.

Project partners include: Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (lead partner), the University of Trieste, Kärnten University of Applied Sciences, Eureka system s.r.l., Fondazione Progettoautismo FVG onlus, MCI Management Center Innsbruck GmbH.

 BeSENSHome