Raffaele Calabretta
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Visiting Scholar Affiliate Cambridge, MA - USA |
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Welcome to my Home Page! I am a permanent researcher of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (former Institute of Psychology) of the Italian National Research Council in Rome. I am also an affiliate of the New England Complex Systems Institute (Cambridge, MA) and collaborate regularly with Yale University.
During last years, my research has focused on deliberative and participatory democracy. In 2005, I devised "Doparies", a novel party participatory democratic decision making mechanism: they are procedures similar to primaries that are done after elections for taking party crucial and controversial decisions. The proposal have been promoted in public meetings in Italy and abroad, and featured in main Italian national newpapers and public television; in 2010, I published the book Doparie, dopo le primarie (Nutrimenti, in Italian), in which I present the proposal of doparies; in 2011, I published the first scientific article about doparies; in February 2012, researchers of MIT, Harvad Kennedy School of Government and I have launched the first field experiment on online doparies.
I have also worked in a relatively new research field, which is named Artificial Life. The main goal of this kind of research is the simulation and synthesis of living systems into a computer in order to understand "life as it is" and "life as it could be" (Langton, 1989). A few years ago I started a collaboration with evolutionary biologists (Gunter Wagner, Riccardo Galbiati) and cognitive scientists (Domenico Parisi, Stefano Nolfi, Frank Keil), and my current interest is in simulating evolution of body and brain/mind modularity in complex organisms by means of artificial neural networks and genetic algorithms (Calabretta & Parisi, in press; Wagner, Mezey & Calabretta, in press; Calabretta et al., 2000). (Neural networks are computational models of the brain which controls organisms' behavior; genetic algorithms are computational models of Darwinian evolution.)
My research activity also concerns the utilization of Artificial Life simulations and software for the development of multimedia applications in the field of education (Calabretta, 1996; in Italian). For several years I had been a Professor of Educational Technologies at the University of L'Aquila Faculty of Educational Science and I collaborate with Rai Educational.
A recent research interest is in using experimental narrative as educational tool: in 2006 I published a first science-in-fiction novel on emotions called Il film delle emozioni (second edition, Gaffi Editore, Rome; in Italian); Doparie, dopo le primarie (see above) is the sequel.
Science-in-fiction novel on
participatory democracy and happiness: Doparie,
dopo le primarie
(in Italian): it is the sequel
of the book Il
film delle emozioni
Science-in-fiction novel on emotions: Il film delle emozioni
(in Italian)
Personal