Deep Learning Forecasting for Supporting Terminal Operators in Port Business Development

Accurate forecasts of containerised freight volumes are unquestionably important for port terminal operators to organise port operations and develop business plans. They are also relevant for port authorities, regulators, and governmental agencies dealing with transportation. In a time when deep learning is in the limelight, owing to a consistent strip of success stories, it is natural to apply it to the tasks of forecasting container throughput. Given the number of options, practitioners can benefit from the lessons learned in applying deep learning models to the problem. Coherently, in this work, we devise a number of multivariate predictive models based on deep learning, analysing and assessing their performance to identify the architecture and set of hyperparameters that prove to be better suited to the task, also comparing the quality of the forecasts with seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average models. Furthermore, an innovative representation of seasonality is given by means of an embedding layer that produces a mapping in a latent space, with the parameters of such mapping being tuned using the quality of the predictions. Finally, we present some managerial implications, also putting into evidence the research limitations and future opportunities

Automatic security assessment for next generation wireless mobile networks

Abstract. Wireless networks are more and more popular in our life, but their increasing pervasiveness and widespread coverage raises serious security concerns. Mobile client devices potentially migrate, usually passing through very light access control policies, between numerous and heterogeneous wireless environments, bringing with them software vulnerabilities as well as possibly malicious code. To cope with these new security threats the paper proposes a new active third party authentication, authorization and security assessment strategy in which, once a device enters a new Wi-Fi environment, it is subjected to analysis by the infrastructure, and if it is found to be dangerously insecure, it is immediately taken out from the network and denied further access until its vulnerabilities have been fixed. The security assessment module, that is the fundamental component of the aforementioned strategy, takes advantage from a reliable knowledge base containing semantically-rich information about the mobile node under examination, dynamically provided by network mapping and configuration assessment facilities. It implements a fully automatic security analysis framework, based on AHP, which has been conceived to be flexible and customizable, to provide automated support for real-time execution of complex security/risk evaluation tasks which depends on the results obtained from different kind of analysis tools and methodologies. Encouraging results have been achieved utilizing a proof-of-concept model based on current technology and standard open-source networking tools

Energy-oriented models for WDM networks

A realistic energy-oriented model is necessary to formally characterize the energy consumption and the consequent carbon footprint of actual and future high-capacity WDM networks. The energy model describes the energy consumption of the various network elements (NE) and predicts their energy consumption behavior under different traffic loads and for the diverse traffic types, including all optical and electronic traffic, O/E/O conversions, 3R regenerations, add/drop multiplexing, etc. Besides, it has to be scalable and simple to implement, manage and modify according to the new architecture and technologies advancements. In this paper, we discuss the most relevant energy models present in the literature highlighting possible advantages, drawbacks and utilization scenarios in order to provide the research community with an overview over the different energy characterization frameworks that are currently being employed in WDM networks.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Energy-oriented denial of service attacks: an emerging menace for large cloud infrastructures

This work analyzes a new and very subtle kind of security threat that can affect large-scale cloud-based IT service infrastructures, by exploiting the computational resources of their component data center to waste as much energy as possible. The consequence of these threats ranges from increased costs in the energy bill, to penalization for exceeding the agreed quantity of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, up to complete denial of service caused by electrical outages due to power budget exhaustion. We analyzed different types of such attacks with their potential impacts on the energy consumption, modeled their behavior and quantified how current energy-proportional technologies may provide attackers with great opportunities for raising the target facility emissions and costs. These efforts resulted in a simple model with some parametric reference values that can be used to estimate the impact of such attacks also in presence of very large infrastructures containing thousands or millions of servers.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Does Systematic Preliminar Colour Doppler Study Reduce Kidney Biopsy Complication Incidence?

While ultrasonography is widely performed prior to biopsy, colour Doppler examination is often used only to discover post-biopsy complications. Aim of this paper was to evaluate the usefulness of colour Doppler examination in planning the optimal site of puncture for renal biopsy. Present analysis includes 561 consecutive percutaneous renal biopsies performed from the same operator. Until August 2000 332 biopsies were performed after a preliminary ultrasonography (Group A). From September 2000, 229 patients underwent even a preliminary colour Doppler study (Group B). Postbioptic bleeding were categorized as minor (gross hematuria or subcapsular perinephric hematoma < 4 cmq of greater diameter) or major (hematoma >4 cmq of greater diameter; requiring blood transfusion or invasive procedures; leading to acute renal failure, urine tract obstruction, septicaemia, or death). Major complications were seen in 2.1% in Group A while in Group B only one case was reported (0.43%). Minor clinically significant complications occur in 7.8% in Group A and in 3.4% of cases of Group B. Colour Doppler reduced drastically the incidence of complications observed before the introduction of routine colour Doppler examination prior to biopsy. In our opinion, these data support the use of preliminary colour Doppler study when a biopsy is planned

Assembly of Colloidal Semiconductor Nanorods in Solution by Depletion Attraction

Arranging anisotropic nanoparticles into ordered assemblies remains a challenging quest requiring innovative and ingenuous approaches. The variety of interactions present in colloidal solutions of nonspherical inorganic nanocrystals can be exploited for this purpose. By tuning depletion attraction forces between hydrophobic colloidal nanorods of semiconductors, dispersed in an organic solvent, these could be assembled into 2D monolayers of close-packed hexagonally ordered arrays directly in solution. Once formed, these layers could be fished onto a substrate, and sheets of vertically standing rods were fabricated, with no additional external bias applied. Alternatively, the assemblies could be isolated and redispersed in polar solvents, yielding suspensions of micrometer-sized sheets which could be chemically treated directly in solution. Depletion attraction forces were also effective in the shape-selective separation of nanorods from binary mixtures of rods and spheres. The reported procedures have the potential to enable powerful and cost-effective fabrication approaches to materials and devices based on self-organized anisotropic nanoparticles

Civiltà della Campania. Anno II, n. 2 (febbraio-marzo 1975)

A. II, n. 2 (febbraio-marzo 1975): M. Parrilli, All’Unesco Ravello e Castellabate, P. 3 ; L’anno santo in Campania, P. 7; B. Gatta, Videre Petrum, P. 8; B. Lucrezi, Gli itinerari sacri, P. 12 ; Il Duomo di Salerno: novecento anni di fede e storia », P. 24 ; R. Causa, Santuari nel Nocerino, P. 26 ; G. Giordano, Pacem in maribus, P. 32 ; R. Virtuoso, L’ambiente e il ruolo del turismo, P. 40 ; S. Pavia, I centri storici, P. 32 ; R. Di Stefano, Villa Campolieto, P. 48 ; R. De Simone, Feste popolari, P. 56 ; E. Corsi, II riassetto di Ischia, P. 60 ; C. Nazzaro, Rosmarino col pomodoro, P. 65 ; G. Doria, Il napoletano che cammina, P. 66 ; M. Stefanile, Raffaele Viviani, P. 68 ; A. Fratta, Amedeo Maiuri: una vita per l’archeologia, P. 80 ; E. Fiore, Gli Incontri del Cinema, P. 86 ; G. Blasi, Petrosino l’antipadrino, P. 90 ; I. Santoro, Il mistero di Velia di, P. 93 ; R. Senatore, La rinascita del Borgo Scacciaventi di, P. 97 ; P. Andria, Salerno: S. Pietro a Corte, P. 100 ; U. Abundo, Amalfi sempre di, P. 102 ; V. Gramignazzi Serrone, S. Agata dei Goti, P. 106 ; Attività congressuali in Campania, P. 108 ; Notiziario, P. 10

Multicentre Italian study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and adolescents, preliminary data as at 10 April 2020

Data on features of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in children and adolescents are scarce. We report preliminary results of an Italian multicentre study comprising 168 laboratory-confirmed paediatric cases (median: 2.3 years, range: 1 day-17.7 years, 55.9% males), of which 67.9% were hospitalised and 19.6% had comorbidities. Fever was the most common symptom, gastrointestinal manifestations were frequent; two children required intensive care, five had seizures, 49 received experimental treatments and all recovered

The Athena X-ray Integral Field Unit: a consolidated design for the system requirement review of the preliminary definition phase

The Athena X-ray Integral Unit (X-IFU) is the high resolution X-ray spectrometer, studied since 2015 for flying in the mid-30s on the Athena space X-ray Observatory, a versatile observatory designed to address the Hot and Energetic Universe science theme, selected in November 2013 by the Survey Science Committee. Based on a large format array of Transition Edge Sensors (TES), it aims to provide spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy, with a spectral resolution of 2.5 eV (up to 7 keV) over an hexagonal field of view of 5 arc minutes (equivalent diameter). The X-IFU entered its System Requirement Review (SRR) in June 2022, at about the same time when ESA called for an overall X-IFU redesign (including the X-IFU cryostat and the cooling chain), due to an unanticipated cost overrun of Athena. In this paper, after illustrating the breakthrough capabilities of the X-IFU, we describe the instrument as presented at its SRR, browsing through all the subsystems and associated requirements. We then show the instrument budgets, with a particular emphasis on the anticipated budgets of some of its key performance parameters. Finally we briefly discuss on the ongoing key technology demonstration activities, the calibration and the activities foreseen in the X-IFU Instrument Science Center, and touch on communication and outreach activities, the consortium organisation, and finally on the life cycle assessment of X-IFU aiming at minimising the environmental footprint, associated with the development of the instrument. Thanks to the studies conducted so far on X-IFU, it is expected that along the design-to-cost exercise requested by ESA, the X-IFU will maintain flagship capabilities in spatially resolved high resolution X-ray spectroscopy, enabling most of the original X-IFU related scientific objectives of the Athena mission to be retained. (abridged).Comment: 48 pages, 29 figures, Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy with minor editin