Mathematical Model of Vaccine Noncompliance

Vaccine scares can prevent individuals from complying with a vaccination program. When compliance is high, the critical vaccination proportion is close to being met, and herd immunity occurs, bringing the disease incidence to extremely low levels. Thus, the risk to vaccinate may seem greater than the risk of contracting the disease, inciting vaccine noncompliance. A previous behavior-incidence ordinary differential equation model shows both social learning and feedback contributing to changes in vaccinating behavior, where social learning is the perceived risk of vaccinating and feedback repre- sents new cases of the disease. In our study, we compared several candidate models to more simply illustrate both vaccination coverage and incidence through social learn- ing and feedback. The behavior model uses logistic growth and exponential decay to describe the social learning aspect as well as different functional forms of the disease prevalence to represent feedback. Each candidate model was tested by fitting it to data from the pertussis vaccine scare in England and Wales in the 1970s. Our most parsimonious model shows a superior fit to the vaccine coverage curve during the scare

New Findings in Old Geometry: Using Triangle Centers to Create Similar or Congruent Triangles

The Euler line of a triangle passes through several important points, including three specific triangle centers: the centroid, orthocenter, and circumcenter. Each of these centers is the intersection of lines related to the triangle, mainly its medians, altitudes, and perpendicular bisectors, respectively. We present three theorems which initially share a similar construction. Each involves starting with a triangle and a point. After connecting the triangle’s vertices to that point, creating additional triangles, we establish connections to either the centroids, orthocenters, or circumcenters of the new triangles

Europeana communication bug: which intervention strategy for a better cooperation with creative industry?

Although Europeana as well as many GLAMs are very engaged - beside the main mission, i.e. spreading cultural heritage knowledge- in developing new strategies in order to make digital contents reusable for creative industry, these efforts have been successful just only in sporadic cases. A significant know how deficits in communication often compromises expected outcomes and impact. Indeed, what prevails is an idea of communication like an enhancement “instrument” intended on the one hand in purely economic (development) sense, on the other hand as a way for increasing and spreading knowledge. The main reference model is more or less as follows: digital objects are to be captured and/or transformed by digital technologies into sellable goods to put into circulation. Nevertheless, this approach risks neglecting the real nature of communication, and more in detail the one of digital heritage where it is strategic not so much producing objects and goods as taking part into sharing environments creation (media) by engaged communities, small or large they may be. The environments act as meeting and interchange point, and consequently as driving force of enhancing. Only in a complex context of network interaction on line accessible digital heritage contents become a strategic resource for creating environments in which their re/mediation can occur – provided that credible strategies exist, shared by stakeholders and users. This paper particularly describes a case study including proposals for an effective connection among Europeana, GLAMs and Creative Industry in the framework of Food and Drink digital heritage enhancement and promotion. Experimental experiences as the one described in this paper anyway confirm the relevance of up-to-date policies based on an adequate communication concept, on solid partnerships with enterprise and association networks, on collaborative on line environments, on effective availability at least for most of contents by increasing free licensing, and finally on grassroots content implementation involving prosumers audience, even if filtered by GLAMs

Efecto combinado de cepa de levadura y terroir en vinos Malbec de Mendoza

Existe una relación entre un determinado vino y una zona específica de producción del mismo, la cual le provee características y atributos únicos, permitiendo la obtención de vinos diferentes, tanto en su composición química como en sus características organolépticas. Del mismo modo, la cepa de levadura utilizada en la fermentación del mosto produce atributos distintivos en los vinos como resultado de su actividad metabólica incluyendo diferencias en la producción de metabolitos secundarios. En el presente trabajo se evaluó el efecto de cepas de levaduras comerciales (EC1118, Tango Malbec, Flavia e Ionys) e indígenas sobre vinos de la variedad Malbec provenientes de tres zonas diferentes (Ugarteche, Gualtallary y El Cepillo) de la provincia de Mendoza-Argentina, con motivo de contribuir al conocimiento de este emblemático cultivar del país. Se caracterizaron inicialmente los mostos provenientes de las diferentes zonas y luego se determinaron los perfiles fermentativos, controles de implantación, parámetros físico-químicos y cromáticos generales y análisis sensorial de los vinos. Se aplicó ANAVA de dos vías con test LSD Fisher sobre los parámetros y se realizó un Análisis de Componentes Principales. Las levaduras comerciales se implantaron en un 100%, mientras que los perfiles moleculares de las levaduras presentes en las fermentaciones espontáneas fueron diferentes entre sí. El factor región, evidenció un importante efecto, destacándose los vinos de Gualtallary por sus mayores niveles en alcohol, intensidad colorante, IPT y antocianos totales. El factor levadura reveló efectos significativos respecto a la levadura Ionys, la cual finalizó la fermentación dos días después que el resto de las levaduras y en sus vinos produjo una reducción de 0,5% grados alcohólicos y 0,2 unidades de pH, en todas las zonas.Fil: Capaldi, Carolina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias

Modellazione e analisi di vulnerabilita sismica di un edificio industriale: Filtri acciaieria dell'ILVA di Taranto

Il presente lavoro di tesi riguarda la modellazione e lo studio di vulnerabilità sismica dell'edificio industriale "filtri dell'acciaieria" dell'ILVA di Taranto. La prima fase del lavoro è consistita nello studio della documentazione e degli elaborati di progetto messi a disposizione dell'ILVA. Questa analisi preliminare ha permesso la definizione di un modello agli elementi finiti della struttura attraverso l'utilizzo del software di calcolo SAP 2000. Uno studio dei carichi agenti sull'edificio e in particolare lo studio del carico del materiale insilato, ha permesso infine di definire in maniera ottimale il modello.E' stata svolta un analisi dinamica lineare. Dalle analisi eseguite sono emerse carenze a livello della sottostruttura per quanto riguarda le sollecitazioni sismiche; risulta invece ben progettata ai carichi verticali. Alla luce dei risultati emersi, sono state esaminatee tre proposte di intervento di adeguamento sismico: incremento e regolarizzazione della controventatura rigida, isolamento alla base e utilizzo di controventi ad instabilità impedita. Gli studi hanno dimostrato che tutte le proposte portano ad un miglioramento sostanziale del comportamento della struttura

A Sensitivity Matrix Methodology for Inverse Problem Formulation

We propose an algorithm to select parameter subset combinations that can be estimated using an ordinary least-squares (OLS) inverse problem formulation with a given data set. First, the algorithm selects the parameter combinations that correspond to sensitivity matrices with full rank. Second, the algorithm involves uncertainty quantification by using the inverse of the Fisher Information Matrix. Nominal values of parameters are used to construct synthetic data sets, and explore the effects of removing certain parameters from those to be estimated using OLS procedures. We quantify these effects in a score for a vector parameter defined using the norm of the vector of standard errors for components of estimates divided by the estimates. In some cases the method leads to reduction of the standard error for a parameter to less than 1% of the estimate

Seriale, immersivo, industriale. Il barocco e l’invenzione del melodramma

Archetypes of modernity are to be recognized in serial media developed during the first half of XVII century, when a proto-metropolitan social universe was evolving. According to a mediological standpoint, the case study of baroque opera allows to identify the basic characters of consumer genres, and to define connections among serialization, immersivity, virtualization, polisensoriality, hypertextuality, ibridation, chain and work organization, with a special focus on mass audience and on creative reuse of collective imaginary and metaphors. Baroque opera, created for public theatre with admission ticket, was the second pole of an entertainment integrated system consisting of the romance, with its “horizontal” and hypertextual attitude, and of the melodrama, with its immediate and fusional setup: i.e. romance and opera like the ancestors of radio-television fiction and cinema. The birth and rise of the medium “opera” needs to be historicized in the frame of a complex environment study: Venice, as the Italian capital of a cultural proto-industry; the Incogniti Academy as the most important European publishing and entertainment laboratory; and finally, the situation of freedom from censorship, which permitted to libertine network, with its special European relations, to produce new experimental genres often being heterodox on ethical and religious grounds