An Artificial Neural Network-based technique for on-line hotel booking

AbstractIn this paper the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in on-line booking for hotel industry is investigated. The paper details the description, the modeling and the resolution technique of on-line booking. The latter problem is modeled using the paradigms of machine learning, in place of standard 'If-Then-Else' chains of conditional rules. In particular, a supervised three layers MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP) ANN is adopted, which is trained using information from previous customers' reservations. Performances of our ANNs are analyzed: they behave in a quite satisfactory way in managing the (simulated) booking service in a hotel. The customer requires single or double rooms, while the system gives as a reply the confirmation of the required services, if available. Moreover, in the case rooms or services are not at disposal, we highlight that using our approach the system proposes alternative accommodations (from two days in advance to two days later with respect to the requested day). Numerical results are given, where the effectiveness of the proposed approach is critically analyzed. Finally, we outline guidelines for future research

An Artificial Neural Network technique for on-line hotel booking

In this paper the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in on-line booking for hotel industry is investigated. The paper details the description, the modeling and the resolution technique of on-line booking. The latter problem is modeled using the paradigms of machine learning, in place of standard `If-Then-Else' chains of conditional rules. In particular, a supervised three layers MLP neural network is adopted, which is trained using information from previous customers' reservations. Performance of our ANN is analyzed: it behaves in a quite satisfactory way in managing the (simulated) booking service in a hotel. The customer requires single or double rooms, while the system gives as a reply the confirmation of the required services, if available. Moreover, we highlight that using our approach the system proposes alternative accommodations (from two days in advance to two days later with respect to the requested day), in case rooms or services are not available. Numerical results are given, where the effectiveness of the proposed approach is critically analyzed. Finally, we outline guidelines for future research.On-line booking; hotel reservation; machine learning; supervised multilayer perceptron networks

Enlatado de monstruo: illness narrative o weird tale en “La respiración cavernaria” de Samanta Schweblin

Es dado notar como cierta producción literaria hispanoamericana contemporánea está cruzando las fronteras genéricas y produciendo narraciones híbridas que mezclan discursos aparentemente lejanos. Si por un lado los críticos están produciendo varias formas de clasificación del fenómeno fantástico contemporáneo, es también evidente como otra tendencia ya suficientemente estudiada ha observado el acumularse de textos más miméticos que abordaban el tema de la enfermedad. “La respiración cavernaria” de Samanta Schweblin es un ejemplo de esta cosecha mutante, acercándonos al discurso intimista e insufriblemente realista del ‘diario terminal’ con estrategias narrativas de sabor exquisitamente fantástico. Dicho esto, en este artículo me ocuparé de analizar la representación literaria de la enfermedad neurológica crónico-degenerativa (en particular la demencia de Alzheimer) en dicho texto, en particular deteniéndome en observar cómo se dibuja su éxito pronóstico más perturbador: la ‘incomunicabilidad’. Si es cierto que los esfuerzos conjuntos de las disciplinas antropológicas y de la medicina narrativa han dado un necesario impulso al estudio de las illness narratives, la enfermedad de Alzheimer sigue siendo un rompecabezas sin solución porque el paciente parece no tener forma de interactuar con los demás seres ‘humanos’. Este trabajo se divide en tres partes que conjuran para armar un asedio teórico a la metáfora patológica: en la primera, “Casa de retiro Macondo”, se evidenciará como Schweblin describe el proceso de pérdida de la memoria y como la idea misma de ‘identidad’ fracasa al deshilvanarse la madeja de los recuerdos; en la segunda, “Can the patient speak?”, nos concentraremos en estudiar la voz de la protagonista y el diálogo interior que construye con su alter ego monstruoso, denunciando la ‘incomunicabilidad’ entre mundos paralelos y apreciando como la illness narrative recupera las instancias resistentes de cierta narración postcolonial; en la tercera, “Fenomenología schwebliniana de los contenedores”, apuntaremos a esbozar una visión sobre la poética de la autora ocupándonos de problematizar la centralidad enrarecida, en su discurso, de ciertos misteriosos objetos cotidianos

Ibridazione e metamorfosi in Guadalupe Nettel e Lina Meruane

Illness seems to be a central theme for contemporary Latin-American literature. It is not only the object of the observation, but also a critical instrument to debilitate strong categories and binomes (such as male/female, sane/sick, alive/dead, human/non-human). This essay analyses the processes of hybridisation and metamorphosis related to illness in El huésped by Guadalupe Nettel and Fruta podrida by Lina Meruane. This examples show two different possibilities to embody the pathological experience: living against it and living with it. Illness could be an unpleasant partner, and there is no way to identify ourself with her, or a part of a wider us, opening to non-unitarian identity such as complexes and transforming organism. This consideration shows how Latin-American literature reflects on identity in a queer and posthuman way trough the metaphors that illness bring to the table

Alitalia airline: A business case of bad corporate governance

Corporate governance, allocating rights and responsibilities inside the firm, provides worthwhile guidelines that lead management to valuable processes and activities, which are the core of business success for the interests of all stakeholders. This paper provides evidence of an interesting business case in which many corporate governance rules were disregarded. In Alitalia airline company, the management, ignoring corporate governance aspects, strongly disrupted economic value. The study is based on the analysis of managerial profiles of Presidents and CEOs of Alitalia, evidencing their relationship with corporate governance issues. Moreover, we deeply investigated the story of Alitalia and the governments' political influence on the airline company. We found the absence of a proper mix of authority and responsibility, conflicts of interests and agency costs, poor monitoring activities, lack of managerial skills and scarce managerial effort, jointly with ineffective incentive mechanisms. The consequence was that past bad governance has compromised the ability of the company to create new value. We conclude that when governance principles are disregarded for a long time, even a high performing and cash-rich company can lose its competitive advantage, damaging its chances of a turnaround

Synthesis of Boron-Nitrogen-Carbon (BNC) hybrid materials: From 2D doped polyphenylenes to 3D porous architectures

In the growing field of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the replacement of carbon with isostructural atoms is becoming a versatile functionalisation strategy to tailor the optoelectronic properties of the materials. Among the different dopants, the substitution of C-C pairs by isoelectronic B-N covalent couples leads to isostructural molecular material bearing strong local dipole moments. This imparts a series of physical-chemical properties to the molecule, such as wider HOMO-LUMO gap, the introduction of anchoring points for gas storage and peculiar self-assembly behaviour on metal surfaces. The BN/CC isosterism concept goes back to the seminal discovery of the borazine (H3B3N3H3) by Stock and Pohland in 1926. Thus, in reference to its isoelectronic and isostructural relationship withbenzene, borazine ring is commonly known as “inorganic benzene”. Hence, borazine and its derivatives are valuable molecular modules to be inserted as doping units in graphiticbased carbon materials to tailor their physical-chemical properties. This dissertation focuses on the design, synthesis and characterisation of novel organic materials doped with borazine modules, with the aim of exploring the photophysics, electronics and self-assembly properties of hybrid boron-nitrogen-carbon (BNC)frameworks. Before addressing the detailed investigations of this thesis work, in Chapter I, a brief introduction on the past and recent achievements in the organic synthesis of borazine and its derivatives are given to the reader. This chapter also includes the main synthetic methods used for their functionalisations, as well as their chemical properties and materials applications. Chapter II addresses the design and synthesis of three-branched borazine doped polyphenylenes, in which one or more aryl units are replaced by borazine rings. Owing the possibility of functionalising the borazine ring with different groups on the aryl substituents at the N and B atoms, BNC polyphenylenes were prepared through the decarbonylative [4 + 2] Diels-Alder cycloaddition reaction. To achieve this, two types of molecular modules were synthesised: core and branching units. Therefore, having the possibility of introducing the borazine in different ratios, orientations and positions, three-branched hybrid polyphenylenes featuring controlled orientation and dosages of the doping B3N3-rings were prepared (Figure A.1). At last, the photophysical properties of borazine-doped polyphenylenes have been investigated, describing the relation between the light emission properties and the orientation / dosage doping of these hybrid materials. The second project tackled in this doctoral work is described in Chapter III. Inspiring by the local polar character of the borazine ring, B3N3 scaffold can theoretically interact with polar or polarisable gas molecules, thus making BN-materials promising candidates for tailoring the gas absorptions. In this chapter, the preparation of 3D BN metal organic framework (BN-MOF), composed by three-carboxyl borazine 3-1 as organic linker and [Zn4O(CO)6] as metal cluster is described (Figure A.2). Additionally, to evaluate the effect of the BN doping units in gas storage, the isostructural 3D C-MOF reference, in which the borazine core is replaced by the benzene unit, has been prepared (Figure A.2). The last section of the chapter is dedicated to the description of the X-ray crystal structures of the MOFs as well as their morphology, surface area and thermal stability. Finally, Chapter IV is dedicated to the investigation of three-pyridyl borazine derivatives, amenable to self-assemble and form 2D metal-organic porous network upon deposition on metal surfaces. The first part of the chapter deals with the synthesis of borazine 4-6 through a Suzuki cross-coupling reaction between borazine bearing three-OTf groups and an organoboron pyridyl moiety. The second part describes, by scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), the tailoring of the 2D self-assembly of borazine 4-6 on Ag(100) and Cu(111) via coordination and thermal treatments. Specifically, densely packed honeycomb network on Ag(100) was observed, whereas interconnected chains were found on Cu(111). Upon deposition of additional Cu atoms at 420 K, a structural transformation can be induced on Cu(111), which leads to a fully three-fold coordinated triangular network (Figure A.3)

energy consumption metrics for mobile device dynamic malware detection

Abstract The ineffectiveness of signature-based malware detection systems prevents the detection of malware, even objects of trivial obfuscation techniques, makes mobile devices vulnerable. In this paper a dynamic technique to detect malware on Android platform is proposed. We exploit a set of energy related features i.e., feature which can be symptomatic of abnormal battery consumption. We built different models exploiting four different supervised machine learning classification algorithms, obtaining for all the evaluated models an accuracy greater than 0.91

MANAGEMENT OF PRIMARY NEGATIVE SYMPTOMS IN SCHIZOPHRENIA: AN ONE-YEAR OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

Negative symptoms represent a separate symptom domain, with respect to depression, neurocognition, and social cognition and have a strong direct and indirect impact on real-life functioning. Furthermore, negative symptoms that do not improve following antipsychotic treatment are an important diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. We conducted a 12-month-study open-observational study to evaluate the efficacy of some atypical antipsychotics on negative symptoms, according to the following recommendations of Consensus Development Conference Attendees. In our study, we evaluated in an open-label study the efficacy of some secondgeneration antipsychotics (clozapine, quetiapine, olanzapine, aripiprazole, paliperidone) in 42 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (DSM-5 criteria) with ‘persistent negative symptoms’. We used different rating scales (PANSS, CDSs, BNSS, BPRS), but mainly we focused on the new Brief Negative Symptoms Scale (BNSS) for negative symptoms. Our total data indicate an overall statistically significant reduction in all scales, although not clinically relevant

The role of government policies for Italian firms during the COVID-19 crisis

This paper aims to respond to this research question: “How effective have government incentives been in preserving firm profitability and growth during the COVID-19 crisis?”. We used a large, representative sample of Italian companies, which has produced a deeper study than the macro analyses provided by national statistics. Results shows that government policies alleviated the negative effects of the pandemic on troubled companies, but it was not enough to maintain the same financial health as firms that did not need this support. Small companies were the most adversely affected by the pandemic.We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers and Laura Ballester (Editor-in-Chief) for helpful comments and suggestions. We also benefited from comments offered by Proff. Antonia Madrid, Juan Francisco Martín Ugedo, Francesco Cappa, Alfio Cariola and Tiziana La Rocca. All errors are our own responsability. Open Access Funding provided by Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena

Borazino-doped polyphenylenes

The divergent synthesis of two series of borazino-doped polyphenylenes, in which one or more aryl units are replaced by borazine rings, is reported for the first time, taking advantage of the decarbonylative [4 + 2] Diels− Alder cycloaddition reaction between ethynyl and tetraphenylcyclopentadienone derivatives. Because of the possibility of functionalizing the borazine core with different groups on the aryl substituents at the N and B atoms of the borazino core, we have prepared borazino-doped polyphenylenes featuring different doping dosages and orientations. To achieve this, two molecular modules were prepared: a core and a branching unit. Depending on the chemical natures of the central aromatic module and the reactive group, each covalent combination of the modules yields one exclusive doping pattern. By means of this approach, three- and hexa-branched hybrid polyphenylenes featuring controlled orientations and dosages of the doping B3N3 rings have been prepared. Detailed photophysical investigations showed that as the doping dosage is increased, the strong luminescent signal is progressively reduced. This suggests that the presence of the B3N3 rings engages additional deactivation pathways, possibly involving excited states with an increasing charge-separated character that are restricted in the full-carbon analogues. Notably, a strong effect of the orientational doping on the fluorescence quantum yield was observed for those hybrid polyphenylene structures featuring low doping dosages. Finally, we showed that Cu-catalyzed 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition is also chemically compatible with the BN core, further endorsing the inorganic benzene as a versatile aromatic scaffold for engineering of molecular materials with tailored and exploitable optoelectronic properties