Quark-hadron duality and higher twist contributions in structure functions

Quark-hadron duality is studied in a systematic way for polarized and unpolarized structure functions, by taking into account all the available data in the resonance region. In both cases, a precise perturbative QCD based analysis of the integrals of the structure functions in the resonance region has been performed: non perturbative contributions have been disentangled, higher twist contributions have been evaluated and compared with the ones extracted in the deep inelastic scattering region. A different behavior for the unpolarized and polarized structure functions at low Q^2 is found.