Bayesian Nonparametric Calibration and Combination of Predictive Distributions

We introduce a Bayesian approach to predictive density calibration and combination that accounts for parameter uncertainty and model set incompleteness through the use of random calibration functionals and random combination weights. Building on the work of Ranjan, R. and Gneiting, T. (2010) and Gneiting, T. and Ranjan, R. (2013), we use infinite beta mixtures for the calibration. The proposed Bayesian nonparametric approach takes advantage of the flexibility of Dirichlet process mixtures to achieve any continuous deformation of linearly combined predictive distributions. The inference procedure is based on Gibbs sampling and allows accounting for uncertainty in the number of mixture components, mixture weights, and calibration parameters. The weak posterior consistency of the Bayesian nonparametric calibration is provided under suitable conditions for unknown true density. We study the methodology in simulation examples with fat tails and multimodal densities and apply it to density forecasts of daily S&P returns and daily maximum wind speed at the Frankfurt airport.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1305.2026 by other author

ECLAS CONFERENCE GHENT 2018 Landscapes of Conflict

Producción CientíficaThroughout the twentieth century, Friuli Venezia Giulia, the north-eastern region of Italy that borders Austria and Slovenia, played a strategic wartime role. From the Great War to the Cold War, the installation of defensive works including barracks, fortifications and infrastructure distinguished the territory. A significant rationalization in the territory and modification in the organizational structure of the Armed Forces took place from the end of the Cold War, through the EU expansion to the countries located on the north-eastern border of Italy, and up to the Army’s transformation from conscription to voluntary service. The town of Casarsa della Delizia represents a case of important significance due to the presence of the “Trieste” barracks, a settlement of extensive and significant environmental impact, a part of which has not been used for years, becoming over time a landscape-abandonment issue, on which action is needed. The paper focuses on the proposals to recover this former military area as a new integrated part of the city, merging the necessity of saving the past heritage and developing a new landscape vision, bringing together the historical and contemporary ways of living and promoting urban regeneration complex operations.European Joint Doctorate “urbanHIST”. European Union. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 721933

Keys to effective transit strategies for commuting

Commuting poses relevant challenges to cities\u2019 transport systems. Various studies have identified transit as a tool to enhance sustainability, efficiency and quality of the commute. The scope of this paper is to present strategies that increase public transport attractiveness and positively impact its modal share, looking at some case studies and underlining key success factors and possible elements of replica to be ultimately planned in some of the contexts of the Interreg project SMART-COMMUTING. The strategies analyzed in this paper concern prices and fares, service expansion, service improvements, usage of vehicle locators and other technology, changes to the built environment. Relevant gains in transit modal share are more easily achievable when considering integrations between various strategies, thus adapting and tailoring the planning process to the specific context

Scalar-tensor theories, trace anomalies and the QCD-frame

We consider the quantum effects of matter fields in scalar-tensor theories and clarify the role of trace anomaly when switching between conformally related `frames'. We exploit the property that the couplings between the scalar and the gauge fields are not frame-invariant in order to define a `QCD-frame', where the scalar is not coupled to the gluons. We show that this frame is a natural generalization of the `Jordan frame' in the case of non-metric theories and that it is particularly convenient for gravitational phenomenology: test bodies have trajectories that are as close as possible to geodesics with respect to such a metric and equivalence principle violations are directly proportional to the scalar coupling parameters written in this frame. We show how RG flow and decoupling work in metric and non-metric theories. RG-running commutes with the operation of switching between frames at different scales. When only matter loops are considered, our analysis confirms that metricity is stable under radiative corrections and shows that approximate metricity is natural in a technical sense.Comment: 10 pages. Minor changes to the main text, appendix added. To appear on PR