A generalization of periodic autoregressive models for seasonal time series

Many nonstationary time series exhibit changes in the trend and seasonality structure, that may be modeled by splitting the time axis into different regimes. We propose multi-regime models where, inside each regime, the trend is linear and seasonality is explained by a Periodic Autoregressive model. In addition, for achieving parsimony, we allow season grouping, i.e. seasons may consists of one, two, or more consecutive observations. Since the set of possible solutions is very large, the choice of number of regimes, change times and order and structure of the Autoregressive models is obtained by means of a Genetic Algorithm, and the evaluation of each possible solution is left to an identication criterion such as AIC, BIC or MDL. The comparison and performance of the proposed method are illustrated by a real data analysis. The results suggest that the proposed procedure is useful for analyzing complex phenomena with structural breaks, changes in trend and evolving seasonality

Identification of multiregime periodic autotregressive models by genetic algorithms

.This paper develops a procedure for identifying multiregimePeriodic AutoRegressive (PAR) models. In each regime a possibly dif-ferent PAR model is built, for which changes can be due to the seasonalmeans, the autocorrelation structure or the variances. Number and lo-cations of changepoints which subdivide the time span are detected bymeans of Genetic Algorithms (GAs), that optimize an identification cri-terion. The method is evaluated by means of simulation studies, and isthen employed to analyze shrimp fishery data

"Mammà, tutto è fatto!". Impotenza maschile e unioni coniugali in Italia alla fine dell'ottocento

La disciplina del matrimonio civile nell'Italia post-unitaria comporta la possibilità di annullare una unione a causa dell'impotenza sessuale di uno dei coniugi. Il saggio prende in esame una serie di procedimenti giudiziari di annullamento per impotenza maschile e, in modo particolare, le perizie medico-legali che vengono prodotte nel corso del processo. L'incapacità sessuale di un marito e le sue conseguenze lasciano emergere il fitto intreccio tra soggettività, appartenenze familiari e norme sociali che si realizza nella dimensione corporea. Inoltre, le difficoltà della prova medico-legale sollevano il problema del rapporto tra medici e giudici in tribunale e, soprattutto, permettono di indagare sul mutamento che la crescente influenza degli psichiatri (e della loro visione dei generi) comporta rispetto all'esito dei procedimenti

CORENup: a combination of convolutional and recurrent deep neural networks for nucleosome positioning identification

Background: Nucleosomes wrap the DNA into the nucleus of the Eukaryote cell and regulate its transcription phase. Several studies indicate that nucleosomes are determined by the combined effects of several factors, including DNA sequence organization. Interestingly, the identification of nucleosomes on a genomic scale has been successfully performed by computational methods using DNA sequence as input data. Results: In this work, we propose CORENup, a deep learning model for nucleosome identification. CORENup processes a DNA sequence as input using one-hot representation and combines in a parallel fashion a fully convolutional neural network and a recurrent layer. These two parallel levels are devoted to catching both non-periodic and periodic DNA string features. A dense layer is devoted to their combination to give a final classification. Conclusions: Results computed on public data sets of different organisms show that CORENup is a state of the art methodology for nucleosome positioning identification based on a Deep Neural Network architecture. The comparisons have been carried out using two groups of datasets, currently adopted by the best performing methods, and CORENup has shown top performance both in terms of classification metrics and elapsed computation time

First report of Stephanitis lauri Rietschel, 2014 (Heteroptera, Tingidae) in Italy

The first report of Stephanitis lauri Rietschel, 2014 (Heteroptera, Tingidae) in Tuscany and Liguria (Italy). The species has been observed in Pisa (Pisa, Tuscany) and Piano di Vezzano (La Spezia, Liguria) on bay laurel plants. S. lauri has been firstly described in Greece and it was recorded in Cote d’Azur (France) in 2017

Residual Stress and Tribological Performance of ZrN Coatings Produced by Reactive Bipolar Pulsed Magnetron Sputtering

In the past few decades, ZrN thin films have been identified as wear resistant coatings for tribological applications. The mechanical and tribological properties of ZrN thin layers depend on internal stress induced by the adopted deposition techniques and deposition parameters such as pressure, temperature, and growth rate. In sputtering deposition processes, the selected target voltage waveform and the plasma characteristics also play a crucial influence on physical properties of produced coatings. In present work, ZrN thin films, obtained setting different values of duty cycle in a reactive bipolar pulsed dual magnetron sputtering plant, were investigated to evaluate their residual stress through the substrate curvature method. A considerable progressive increase of residual stress values was measured at decreasing duty cycle, attesting the significant role of voltage waveform in stress development. An evident correlation was also highlighted between the values of the duty cycle and those of wear factor. The performed analysis attested an advantageous effect of internal stress, having the samples with high compressive stress, higher wear resistance. A downward trend for wear rate with the increase of internal residual stress was observed. The choice of suitable values of duty cycle allowed to produce ceramic coatings with improved tribological performance