Artificial Intelligence: new data and new models in credit risk management

During the last decade, the increase in computational capacity, the consolidation of new data processing methodologies and the availability of access to new information concerning both individuals and organizations, aided by the widespread internet usage, has increased the development and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) within companies. The application of AI techniques in the banking sector attracts wide interest as the extraction of information from data is inherent to banks. As matter of fact, for many years now models play a crucial role in several banks processes and are strictly regulated when they drive capital measurement processes. Among banks’ risk models a special role is played by credit ones, as they manage the most relevant risk banks face and are often used in regulatory relevant processes. The new AI techniques, coupled with the usage of novel data, mostly unstructured ones related to borrowers’ behaviors, allow for an improvement of the accuracy of credit risk models, that so far relied on structured internal and external data. This paper takes inspiration from the Position Paper Aifirm 33/2022 and its English published translation (Locatelli, Pepe, Salis (eds), 2022. The paper is focused on literature review regarding the most common AI models in use in credit risk management, also adding a regulatory perspective due to the specific regime banking models are subject when they are used for regulatory purposes. Furthermore, the exploration of forthcoming challenges and future advancements considers a managerial perspective. It aims to uncover how credit risk managers can leverage the new AI toolbox and novel data to enhance the credit risk models’ predictive power, without overlooking the intrinsic problems associated with the interpretability of the results

La letteratura dal punto di vista degli scrittori

La storia della critica letteraria è stata generalmente esaminata dal punto di vista degli studiosi di teoria. Manca, a tutt’oggi, una visione d’insieme che esamini in maniera sistematica la critica letteraria dal punto di vista interno, ovvero degli autori stessi. Muovendo da tali premesse, il volume propone un’articolata analisi dei «discorsi» sulla letteratura prodotti da scrittori di lingua inglese, dalla seconda metà del Cinquecento a oggi. Allo scopo di dare ordine a una materia ampia e frastagliata, sono state individuate tre principali tipologie discorsive, o forme testuali, attraverso cui gli autori hanno dato voce alle proprie idee sulla letteratura. A tali tipologie discorsive corrispondono le tre sezioni in cui è stata suddivisa la materia critica del volume. La prima sezione, «Saggi e paratesti», esamina le teorie letterarie esposte in forma di saggi, prefazioni, commenti da parte dell’autore. La seconda sezione, «Disseminazioni», analizza le idee sulla letteratura sparse all’interno di romanzi, drammi, poesie. La terza sezione, infine, «Maschere d’autore», si concentra sulle teorie letterarie la cui esposizione è affidata a un alter ego dello scrittore, ovvero a una maschera parzialmente autobiografica. Ne emerge un quadro ricco e composito all’interno del quale teoria e prassi letteraria si arricchiscono reciprocamente, fino a fondersi in una più complessa unità i cui confini appaiono labili, indefiniti, negoziabili

RNA-Based Assay for Next-Generation Sequencing of Clinically Relevant Gene Fusions in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Gene fusions represent novel predictive biomarkers for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In this study, we validated a narrow NGS gene panel able to cover therapeutically-relevant gene fusions and splicing events in advanced-stage NSCLC patients. To this aim, we first assessed minimal complementary DNA (cDNA) input and the limit of detection (LoD) in different cell lines. Then, to evaluate the feasibility of applying our panel to routine clinical samples, we retrospectively selected archived lung adenocarcinoma histological and cytological (cell blocks) samples. Overall, our SiRe RNA fusion panel was able to detect all fusions and a splicing event harbored in a RNA pool diluted up to 2 ng/µL. It also successfully analyzed 46 (95.8%) out of 48 samples. Among these, 43 (93.5%) out of 46 samples reproduced the same results as those obtained with conventional techniques. Intriguingly, the three discordant results were confirmed by a CE-IVD automated real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis (Easy PGX platform, Diatech Pharmacogenetics, Jesi, Italy). Based on these findings, we conclude that our new SiRe RNA fusion panel is a valid and robust tool for the detection of clinically relevant gene fusions and splicing events in advanced NSCLC

Role of DNA repair machinery and p53 in the testicular germ cell cancer: a review

Notwithstanding the peculiar sensitivity to cisplatin-based treatment, resulting in a very high percentage of cures even in advanced stages of the disease, still we do not know the biological mechanisms that make Testicular Germ Cell Tumor (TGCT) "unique" in the oncology scene. p53 and MDM2 seem to play a pivotal role, according to several in vitro observations, but no correlation has been found between their mutational or expression status in tissue samples and patients clinical outcome. Furthermore, other players seem to be on stage: DNA Damage Repair Machinery (DDR) , especially Homologous Recombination (HR) proteins, above all Ataxia Telangiectasia Mutated (ATM), cooperates with p53 in response to DNA damage, activating apoptotic cascade and contributing to cell "fate". Homologous Recombination deficiency has been assumed to be a Germ Cell Tumor characteristic underlying platinum-sensitivity, whereby Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), an enzyme involved in HR DNA repair, is an intriguing target: PARP inhibitors have already entered in clinical practice of other malignancies and trials are recruiting TGCT patients in order to validate their role in this disease. This paper aims to summarize evidence, trying to outline an overview of DDR implications not only in TGCT curability, but also in resistance to chemotherapy

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO