Neutrino masses and Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay: Status and expectations

Two most outstanding questions are puzzling the world of neutrino Physics: the possible Majorana nature of neutrinos and their absolute mass scale. Direct neutrino mass measurements and neutrinoless double beta decay (0nuDBD) are the present strategy to solve the puzzle. Neutrinoless double beta decay violates lepton number by two units and can occurr only if neutrinos are massive Majorana particles. A positive observation would therefore necessarily imply a new regime of physics beyond the standard model, providing fundamental information on the nature of the neutrinos and on their absolute mass scale. After the observation of neutrino oscillations and given the present knowledge of neutrino masses and mixing parameters, a possibility to observe 0nuDBDD at a neutrino mass scale in the range 10-50 meV could actually exist. This is a real challenge faced by a number of new proposed projects. Present status and future perpectives of neutrinoless double-beta decay experimental searches is reviewed. The most important parameters contributing to the experimental sensitivity are outlined. A short discussion on nuclear matrix element calculations is also given. Complementary measurements to assess the absolute neutrino mass scale (cosmology and single beta decays) are also discussed.Comment: Presented at the "European Strategy for Future Neutrino Physics" Workshop, CERN October 1-3 200

Heterogeneity in R&D cooperation: an empirical investigation

This work explores the roles of potential simultaneity and heterogeneity in determining firms' decisions to engage in R&D collaboration, using a sample of Italian manufacturing firms. Partnerships with other firms, research institutions, universities and other small centres are considered jointly by applying a multivariate probit specification. This allows for systematic correlations among different cooperation choices. The results support the hypothesis that the four cooperation decisions are interdependent. The decision to cooperate in R&D differs significantly depending on the cooperation options. Public support, the researcher intensity and the size are all of importance in determining R&D alliance strategies

Impact of different recommendations on adequacy rate for sleep duration in children

A huge amount of literature in the last decades showed that sleep is essential for children’s health and well-being and that short sleep duration is associated with several negative health outcomes. Many developmental phases in infancy and childhood are in strict relationship with an healthy sleep. In the last years some specific recommendations made for how much sleep children need have been published. The empirical evidences for contemporary sleep recommendations has changed and the new recommendations are clearly different from the previous ones and reflect clearly the changes in the sleep need of the children and adolescents in the last decades although seem still to be largely unfitting for preadolescence and adolescence. If sleep is to be treated as a therapeutic intervention, then consensus guidelines, statements, and evidence-based best-practice documents are needed to underpin sleep recommendations for children. Sleep recommendations for children play an important role for public policies and interventions, and to advertise parents and children of the negative consequences of sleep deprivation/reduction

Cause-specific mortality as a sentinel indicator of current socioeconomic conditions in Italy

This study aims to assess whether simple, widely available demographic indexes, like mortality measures, may serve as sentinel indicators of the economic development and the social wellbeing in Italy. We analyze and compare the geographical patterns of all-cause mortality indexes and those of the mortality rates for leading causes of death, with the spatial pattern found for a more complex index, the vulnerability index, recently introduced by the Italian National Institute for Statistics, at provincial level in the contemporary Italy. We show that mortality data are a straightforward and powerful tool for driving policy makers in planning appropriate interventions

Minority Segregation Processes in an Urban Context: a Comparison between Paris and Rome Recent trends in ethnic segregation in cities: Paris and Rome compared

Il processo di segregazione delle minoranze etniche assume caratteristiche diverse nei paesi di antica immigrazione (Francia, Gran Bretagna, Paesi Bassi, Germania) rispetto a quanto osservato in quelli di nuovo accoglimento (Italia, Spagna, Grecia e Portogallo). L'analisi condotta nel contributo mette a confronto due città globali (Parigi e Roma, aree urbane appartenenti a due diversi gruppi di paesi tra quelli citati) che ospitano una consistenza presenza straniera. Contrariamente alle attese non sembra emergere un aumento della segregazione etnica nelle due città, dove anzi sembrerebbe manifestarsi un contenimento delle differenze tra le modalità insediative della popolazione straniera e di quella autoctona.The process of minority segregation within global cities is a complex phenomenon. In the European urban context, the process of minority segregation seems to differ in the old immigration countries (France, UK, Netherlands, Germany) from the new immigration countries (Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal). The analysis compares two global cities (Paris and Rome), taking into consideration the current evolution of the minority segregation pattern. The study shows that no traces of increasing segregation emerge in either of the cities

Policy Enforcement with Proactive Libraries

Software libraries implement APIs that deliver reusable functionalities. To correctly use these functionalities, software applications must satisfy certain correctness policies, for instance policies about the order some API methods can be invoked and about the values that can be used for the parameters. If these policies are violated, applications may produce misbehaviors and failures at runtime. Although this problem is general, applications that incorrectly use API methods are more frequent in certain contexts. For instance, Android provides a rich and rapidly evolving set of APIs that might be used incorrectly by app developers who often implement and publish faulty apps in the marketplaces. To mitigate this problem, we introduce the novel notion of proactive library, which augments classic libraries with the capability of proactively detecting and healing misuses at run- time. Proactive libraries blend libraries with multiple proactive modules that collect data, check the correctness policies of the libraries, and heal executions as soon as the violation of a correctness policy is detected. The proactive modules can be activated or deactivated at runtime by the users and can be implemented without requiring any change to the original library and any knowledge about the applications that may use the library. We evaluated proactive libraries in the context of the Android ecosystem. Results show that proactive libraries can automati- cally overcome several problems related to bad resource usage at the cost of a small overhead.Comment: O. Riganelli, D. Micucci and L. Mariani, "Policy Enforcement with Proactive Libraries" 2017 IEEE/ACM 12th International Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2017, pp. 182-19

Social Intelligence Design in Ambient Intelligence

This Special Issue of AI and Society contains a selection of papers presented at the 6th Social Intelligence Design Workshop held at ITC-irst, Povo (Trento, Italy) in July 2007. Being the 6th in a series means that there now is a well-established and also a growing research area. The interest in this research area is growing because, among other things, current computing technology allows other than the traditional efficiency-oriented applications associated with computer science and interface technology. For example, in Ambient Intelligence (AmI) applications we look at sensor-equipped environments and devices (robots, smart furniture, virtual humans and pets) that support their human inhabitants during their everyday activities. These everyday activities also include computer-mediated communication, collaboration and community activities