Mass-Market Receiver for Static Positioning: Tests and Statistical Analyses

Nowadays, there are several low cost GPS receivers able to provide both pseudorange and carrier phase measurements in the L1band, that allow to have good realtime performances in outdoor condition. The present paper describes a set of dedicated tests in order to evaluate the positioning accuracy in static conditions. The quality of the pseudorange and the carrier phase measurements let hope for interesting results. The use of such kind of receiver could be extended to a large number of professional applications, like engineering fields: survey, georeferencing, monitoring, cadastral mapping and cadastral road. In this work, the receivers performance is verified considering a single frequency solution trying to fix the phase ambiguity, when possible. Different solutions are defined: code, float and fix solutions. In order to solve the phase ambiguities different methods are considered. Each test performed is statistically analyzed, highlighting the effects of different factors on precision and accurac

Digital construction and management the public’s infrastructures

The purpose of the present paper “Digital construction and management the public’s infrastructures” is to propose an interconnected development approach, in the management of public infrastructure asset, that through of digital modeling (BIM*) and interoperability provides tools to support decision-making processes. In detail, this work analyzes the innovative process of developing digital tools for the institutional tasks of supervision and support for the management of land transport infrastructure in the Italian national system. Therefore, trough of one assumed a georeferenced network of “digital twins” have been valued the scenarios obtainable whit the digitalization of the public works and of the territory’s surveys. The principles for managing information flows for Italian’s public transport infrastructures have been developed in accordance with national legislation and the reference UNI standards. The assumed flow is on the exchange of data between the managing subjects with the owners’ authorities and surveillance bodies, taking as pivot element the Index public work (IOP) code attributed to each public work. Finally, a conceptual model has been proposed for the energy analysis of the road section and the identification of the best areas to create the “green islands” to produce renewable energy, for the management of infrastructure and for the recharging of electric vehicles

Cerebellar structural variations in subjects with different hypnotizability

Hypnotizability-the proneness to accept suggestions and behave accordingly-has a number of physiological and behavioral correlates (postural, visuomotor, and pain control) which suggest a possible involvement of cerebellar function and/or structure. The present study was aimed at investigating the association between cerebellar macro- or micro-structural variations (analyzed through a voxel-based morphometry and a diffusion tensor imaging approach) and hypnotic susceptibility. We also estimated morphometric variations of cerebral gray matter structures, to support current evidence of hypnotizability-related differences in some cerebral areas. High (highs, N = 12), and low (lows, N = 37) hypnotizable healthy participants (according to the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, form A) were submitted to a high field (3 T) magnetic resonance imaging protocol. In comparison to lows, highs showed smaller gray matter volumes in left cerebellar lobules IV/V and VI at uncorrected level, with the results in left lobule IV/V maintained also at corrected level. Highs showed also gray matter volumes smaller than lows in right inferior temporal gyrus, middle and superior orbitofrontal cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, and supramarginal parietal gyrus, as well as in left gyrus rectus, insula, and middle temporal cortex at uncorrected level. Results of right inferior temporal gyrus survived also at corrected level. Analyses on micro-structural data failed to reveal any significant association. The here found morphological variations allow to extend the traditional cortico-centric view of hypnotizability to the cerebellar regions, suggesting that cerebellar peculiarities may sustain hypnotizability-related differences in sensorimotor integration and emotional contro

Applying acceptance requirements to requirements modeling tools via gamification: a case study on privacy and security.

Requirements elicitation, analysis and modeling are critical activities for software success. However, software systems are increasingly complex, harder to develop due to an ever-growing number of requirements from numerous and heterogeneous stakeholders, concerning dozens of requirements types, from functional to qualitative, including adaptation, security and privacy, ethical, acceptance and more. In such settings, requirements engineers need support concerning such increasingly complex activities, and Requirements Engineering (RE) modeling tools have been developed for this. However, such tools, although effective, are complex, time-consuming and requiring steep learning curves. The consequent lack of acceptance and abandonment in using such tools, by engineers, paves the way to the application of RE techniques in a more error-prone, low-quality way, increasing the possibility to have failures in software systems delivered. In this paper, we identify main areas of lack of acceptance, affecting RE engineers, for such tools, and propose an approach for making modeling tools more effective in engaging the engineer in performing RE in a tool-based way, receiving adequate feedback and staying motivated to use modeling tools. This is accomplished by performing acceptance requirements analysis (through the Agon Framework) and using gamification to increase the engagement of engineers during the usage of RE modeling tools. Towards this end, we performed a case study, within the VisiOn European Project, for enhancing a tool for modeling privacy and security requirements. Our case study provides preliminary evidence that our approach supports in making RE modeling tools more engaging from the engineer perspective

Evaluating the Prediction Bias Induced by Label Imbalance in Multi-label Classification

Prediction bias is a well-known problem in classification algorithms, which tend to be skewed towards more represented classes. This phenomenon is even more remarkable in multi-label scenarios, where the number of underrepresented classes is usually larger. In light of this, we hereby present the Prediction Bias Coefficient (PBC), a novel measure that aims to assess the bias induced by label imbalance in multi-label classification. The approach leverages Spearman's rank correlation coefficient between the label frequencies and the F-scores obtained for each label individually. After describing the theoretical properties of the proposed indicator, we illustrate its behaviour on a classification task performed with state-of-the-art methods on two real-world datasets, and we compare it experimentally with other metrics described in the literature

FIRST RESULTS ON THE PRESENCE AND THE MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF ANISAKID NEMATODES IN MARINE FISH CAUGHT OFF NORTHERN SARDINIA

Anisakidosis is a parasitic zoonosis caused by nematodes of the family Anisakidae, belonging to the genera Anisakis, Contracaecum and Pseudoterranova. Molecular studies have shown that Anisakis larvae comprise a number of sibling species, which have different genetic structures, hosts and geographical distribution. A great variety of fish species can harbour infectious third stage larvae of this nematode. The preliminary results of a study carried out to evaluate the occurrence of this parasite in commercial fish caught off northern Sardinia are herein reported. From October 2008 to November 2009, 599 specimens of 8 commercial fish species were examined for anisakid larvae through visual inspection of body cavity and peptic digestion of the muscle. Isolated Anisakis sp. larvae were observed at light microscope and identified as Type I or Type II (sensu Berland, 1961). Out of 599 fish examined, 239 (40%) were infected by 1187 anisakid larvae, belonging to the genera Anisakis (1169 Type I and 18 Type II) and Hysterothylacium (692). The molecular identification of Anisakis spp. was carried out on a subsample of 30% of Type I larvae and all Type II larvae. Specimens were firstly examined using a species-specific PCR, with primers designed for Anisakis pegreffii (APEF) and Anisakis physeteris (APHF), and ITS-2 of nuclear rDNA. The results were confirmed by the analysis of the ITS region of nuclear rDNA (ITS-1, 5.8S and ITS-2) using the restriction enzymes HinfI and HhaI in PCR-RFLP. Type I larvae examined were all identified as A. pegreffii, and Type II were all A. physeteris. This is the first contribution to the epidemiology and molecular characterization of Anisakis spp. in commercial fish caught off Sardinia

Distributed hydrologic modeling of a sparsely monitored basin in Sardinia, Italy, through hydrometeorological downscaling

The water resources and hydrologic extremes in Mediterranean basins are heavily influenced by climate variability. Modeling these watersheds is difficult due to the complex nature of the hydrologic response as well as the sparseness of hydrometeorological observations. In this work, we present a strategy to calibrate a distributed hydrologic model, known as TIN-based Real-time Integrated Basin Simulator (tRIBS), in the Rio Mannu basin (RMB), a medium-sized watershed (472.5 km2) located in an agricultural area in Sardinia, Italy. In the RMB, precipitation, streamflow and meteorological data were collected within different historical periods and at diverse temporal resolutions. We designed two statistical tools for downscaling precipitation and potential evapotranspiration data to create the hourly, high-resolution forcing for the hydrologic model from daily records. Despite the presence of several sources of uncertainty in the observations and model parameterization, the use of the disaggregated forcing led to good calibration and validation performances for the tRIBS model, when daily discharge observations were available. The methodology proposed here can be also used to disaggregate outputs of climate models and conduct high-resolution hydrologic simulations with the goal of quantifying the impacts of climate change on water resources and the frequency of hydrologic extremes within medium-sized basins

Hippocampal abnormalities and memory deficits in Parkinson disease: a multimodal imaging study

Investigating in a case-control study whether the performance scores of a group of patients with Parkinson disease (PD) without dementia on tests of declarative memory could be predicted by hippocampal volume reduction (as assessed by automatic segmentation of cerebral magnetic resonance [MR] images) or by the rate of microstructural alterations (as evaluated by diffusion tensor analysis of MR images)