Beware of the Small-World neuroscientist!

The SW has undeniably been one of the most popular network descriptors in the neuroscience literature. Two main reasons for its lasting popularity are its apparent ease of computation and the intuitions it is thought to provide on how networked systems operate. Over the last few years, some pitfalls of the SW construct and, more generally, of network summary measures, have widely been acknowledged

Logistics and Agri\u2010Food: Digitization to Increase Competitive Advantage and Sustainability. Literature Review and the Case of Italy

This paper examines the current challenges faced by logistics with a focus on the agri\u2010food sector. After outlining the context, a review of the literature on the relationship between logistics and strategic management in gaining and increasing competitiveness in the agri\u2010food sector is con-ducted. In particular, the flow of the paper is as follows: after examining the aforementioned managerial problem and its broader repercussions, the paper proceeds to address two main research questions. First, how and by which tools can digitization contribute to improving supply chain management and sustainability in logistics? Second, what are the main managerial and strategic implications and consequences of this for the agri\u2010food sector in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, cost reduction, and supply chain optimization? Finally, the paper presents Italy as a case study, chosen both for its peculiar internal differences in logistical infrastructures and entrepreneurial management between Northern and Southern regions (which could be at least partially overcome with the use of new technologies and frameworks) and for the importance of the agri\u2010food sector for the domestic economy (accounting about 25% of the country\u2019s GDP), on which digitization should have positive effects in terms of value creation and sustainability

Passenger-Oriented Enhanced Metrics

We report on a project building the first European ATM simulation combining flight and passenger trip data. New propagation-centric and passenger-centric performance metrics are described. The new metrics will be compared with existing, classical metrics, to compare their respective intelligibility, sensitivity and consistency. The trade-offs in performance across the metrics under a range of flight and passenger prioritisation scenarios will be examined. The corresponding regulatory and socio-political contexts are described. Complexity science techniques demonstrate the need to extend flight-centric network representations to include the passenger perspective

Delay propagation – new metrics, new insights

Network delay propagation is intimately linked with the challenges of managing passenger itineraries and corresponding connections. Airline decision-making governing these processes is driven by operational and regulatory factors. Using the first European network simulation model with explicit passenger itineraries and full delay cost estimations, we explore these factors through various flight and passenger prioritisation rules, assessing the performance impacts. Delay propagation is further characterised under the different prioritisation rules using complexity science techniques such as percolation theory and network attack. The relative effects of randomised and targeted disruption are compared

New perspectives for air transport performance

The average delays of flights and passengers are not the same. The air transport industry is lacking passenger-centric metrics; its reporting is flight-centric. We report on the first European network simulation model with explicit passenger itineraries and full delay cost estimations. Trade-offs in performance are assessed using passenger-centric and flight-centric metrics, under a range of novel flight and passenger prioritisation scenarios. The need for passenger-centric metrics is established. Delay propagation is characterised under the scenarios using, inter alia, Granger causality techniques

Topological Measure Locating the Effective Crossover between Segregation and Integration in a Modular Network

We introduce an easily computable topological measure which locates the effective crossover between segregation and integration in a modular network. Segregation corresponds to the degree of network modularity, while integration is expressed in terms of the algebraic connectivity of an associated hyper-graph. The rigorous treatment of the simplified case of cliques of equal size that are gradually rewired until they become completely merged, allows us to show that this topological crossover can be made to coincide with a dynamical crossover from cluster to global synchronization of a system of coupled phase oscillators. The dynamical crossover is signaled by a peak in the product of the measures of intra-cluster and global synchronization, which we propose as a dynamical measure of complexity. This quantity is much easier to compute than the entropy (of the average frequencies of the oscillators), and displays a behavior which closely mimics that of the dynamical complexity index based on the latter. The proposed toplogical measure simultaneously provides information on the dynamical behavior, sheds light on the interplay between modularity vs total integration and shows how this affects the capability of the network to perform both local and distributed dynamical tasks