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An analysis of the perceived image of science, scientists and inventions was conducted with hundreds of drawings made by children for a competition held in Italian schools. The 'draw a scientist' approach, as used in several studies, was used to analyse images of scientists. A coarsegrain, quantitative analysis of the prevalence of features exhibited stereotypes as well as new trends, suggesting a further fine-grain, qualitative analysis was necessary. A generally positive picture of the work of scientists emerged as well as a great level of confidence in the potential of science, which is capable of responding to the needs and problems of humanity and of the environment in which we live.

Large databases organized and offered online for remote accessing, integrated through meaningful links among data; " Freshly defined, working metaphors to map traditional methods into the new information technology environments. Interaction through an interface that (1) is user-friendly, offering easy interaction to general users who very often remain permanent novices with respect to the data accessed and the technologies used; (2) is user-centered, referring to the user's traditional paradigms and to his or her daily work This situation, in which many resources are available but can be exploited only with great difficulty, has motivated researchers and practitioners of automatic data management to look more closely at data mining and knowledge discovery in databases [1] and at collaborative approaches to both scientific discovery [20] and information exploration [16].We believe that successful and outstanding contributions require collaboration among researchers in different disciplines, each of whom has a different part to play in preparing a synergic mixture of

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