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This paper explores a real-world fundamental theme under a data science perspective. It specifically discusses whether fraud or manipulation can be observed in and from municipality income tax size distributions, through their aggregation from citizen fiscal reports. The study case pertains to official data obtained from the Italian Ministry of Economics and Finance over the period 2007–2011. All Italian (20) regions are considered. The considered data science approach concretizes in the adoption of the Benford first digit law as quantitative tool. Marked disparities are found, - for several regions, leading to unexpected “conclusions”. The most eye browsing regions are not the expected ones according to classical imagination about Italy financial shadow matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• New COVID-19 mathematical model with lock-down effect. • New fractal-fractional differentiation. • New fractal-fractional integration. • Numerical scheme based on Newton polynomial. Countries around the world are implementing lock-down measures in a bid to flatten the curve of the new deadly COVID-19 disease. Our paper does not claim to have found the cure for COVID-19, neither does it claim that the suggested model have taken into account all the complexities around the spread of the disease. Nonetheless, the fundamental question asked in this paper is to know if within the conditions taken into account in this suggested model, the integral lock-down is effective in saving human lives. To answer this question, a mathematical model was suggested taking into account the possibility of transmission of COVID-19 from dead bodies to humans and the effect of lock-down. Three cases were considered. The first case suggested that there is transmission from dead to the living (medical staffs as they perform postmortem procedures on corpses, and direct contacts with during burial ceremonies). This case has no equilibrium points except for disease free equilibrium, a clear indication that care must be taken when dealing with corpses due to corona-19. In the second case we removed the transmission rate from dead bodies. This case showed an equilibrium point, although the number of deaths, carriers and infected grew exponentially up to a certain stability level. In the last case, we incorporated a lock-down and social distancing effect, using the next generation matrix. We could achieve a zero reproduction number, with number of deaths, infected and carriers decaying very rapidly. This is a clear indication that if lock-down recommendations are observed the threat of COVID-19 can be reduced to zero in few months.While our mathematical model agrees with the effectiveness of the lock-down, it is important to mention damaging effects of inadequate testing. The long waiting period of few days before confirmation of status, can only lead to more infections. The asymptomatic tested person could be positive and spread the infection, or could contact the virus in days after testing and will spread the disease further, after being given a false result. Testing kit that with immediate results are needed for more efficient measures. We used Italy's Data to guide the construction of the mathematical model. To include non-locality into mathematical formulas, differential and integral operators were suggested. Properties and numerical approximations were presented in details. Finally, the suggested differential and integral operators were applied to the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Z-control approach is applied on a SEIR model with an overexposure mechanism. • Awareness is considered as an indirect control on the class of infective individuals. • Z-control is used to detect what trend must awareness display to eradicate the disease. • The Z-procedure is generalized to treat high-dimensional uncontrolled models. • The awareness variable is qualitatively compared to Google Trends data on Covid19. In this paper, we use the Z-control approach to get further insight on the role of awareness in the management of epidemics that, just like Covid-19, display a high rate of overexposure because of the large number of asymptomatic people. We focus on a SEIR model including a overexposure mechanism and consider awareness as a time-dependent variable whose dynamics is not assigned a priori. Exploiting the potential of awareness to produce social distancing and self-isolation among susceptibles, we use it as an indirect control on the class of infective individuals and apply the Z-control approach to detect what trend must awareness display over time in order to eradicate the disease. To this aim, we generalize the Z-control procedure to appropriately treat an uncontrolled model with more than two governing equations. Analytical and numerical investigations on the resulting Z-controlled system show its capability in controlling some representative dynamics within both the backward and the forward scenarios. The awareness variable is qualitatively compared to Google Trends data on Covid-19 that are discussed in the perspective of the Z-control approach, inferring qualitative indications in view of the disease control. The cases of Italy and New Zealand in the first phase of the pandemic are analyzed in detail. The theoretical framework of the Z-control approach can hence offer the chance to reflect on the use of Google Trends as a possible indicator of good management of the epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first attempt by Italian scientists to carry on Astrophysical observations from Space can be traced back to the early 60ʼs just after the launch of the first satellites. Dominated by Physicists for decades, slowly space astrophysics has become one of the major fields of modern Astronomy. From the first experiments flown on balloons and rockets to the construction of todayʼs sophisticated satellites a historical scenario will be presented in the framework of Italian Science and, more generally, of European and World growth of the field. The first experiments in Universities, the setting of the CNR (National Research Council) labs, later transformed in institutes, to the recent merging of all Astronomical Observatories, will be discussed with mention to historical episodes. Main results and achievements will be outlined. How politics has affected the development of this branch of astronomical research will also be briefly considered within the limits assigned to the present talk. Some of the information contained in this paper comes from original documents, some from interviewing people who played a major role in the events, some from the literature but most of it is from personal reminiscences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is devoted to the study of extremely high energy cosmic rays by means of an array of particle detectors distributed all over the Italian territory. Each element of the array (called telescope in the following) is installed in a High School, with the further goal to introduce students to particle and astroparticle physics, and consists of three Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC), that have excellent time resolution and good tracking capability. In this paper the first results on the detection of extensive air showers by means of time coincidences between two telescopes are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion tRacking Apparatus) is a long baseline neutrino experiment aiming to detect for the first time the appearance of tau neutrinos in a pure muon neutrino beam. The OPERA detector is exposed to the CNGS beam (CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso), a high-intensity and high-energy beam of muon neutrinos produced at the CERN SPS and directed toward the Gran Sasso underground laboratory (LNGS), 730 km away. The LNGS laboratory is situated under an average depth of 3800 meters water equivalent, making OPERA the deepest experiment able to measure cosmic ray muons with a magnetized detector, e.g. the cosmic ray muon charge ratio. Cosmic ray events were observed, together with the first neutrino beam events, during the 2007 and 2008 CNGS runs. This paper reviews the experimental apparatus, presents the first results for neutrino data and describes the analysis of cosmic ray data. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We propose a generalization of the Dynamic Conditional Correlation multivariate GARCH model of Engle [R.F. Engle, Dynamic conditional correlation: a simple class of multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity models, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 20 (2002) 339–350] and of the Asymmetric Dynamic Conditional Correlation model of Cappiello et al.[L. Cappiello, R.F. Engle, K. Sheppard, Asymmetric dynamics in the correlations of global equity and bond returns, Journal of Financial Econometrics 25 (2006) 537–572]. The model we propose introduces a block structure in parameter matrices that allows for interdependence with a reduced number of parameters. Our model nests the Flexible Dynamic Conditional Correlation model of Billio et al. [M. Billio, M. Caporin, M. Gobbo, Flexible dynamic conditional correlation multivariate GARCH for asset allocation, Applied Financial Economics Letters 2 (2006) 123–130] and is named Quadratic Flexible Dynamic Conditional Correlation Multivariate GARCH. In the paper, we provide conditions for positive definiteness of the conditional correlations. We also present an empirical application to the Italian stock market comparing alternative correlation models for portfolio risk evaluation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The DAΦNE electron-positron collider at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati dell''INFN has made available a unique quality low-energy negative kaons “beam”. Two experiments, SIDDHARTA and AMADEUS, will use this kaon source to perform unprecedented precision measurements on kaonic atoms and kaonic nuclei. The scientific cases, together with the experimental setups, are briefly presented in this paper. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper a forecasting method for the extremely dangerous aqua alta phenomenon is developed. The city of Venice, which is located in the northeastern part of Italy, is often subjected to intense flooding, due to increasing of the sea level. The classical methods used in Geophysics generally failed in forecasting this phenomenon, because of the complexity of the physical modelling. Therefore, a method based on a non-linear auto-regressive moving average (ARMA) approach is proposed here. It is found that the time series, corresponding to the sea level data, present a Gaussian distribution, but during short periods, of order of few days, a strong non-Gaussian behaviour is evident, which is concomitant with aqua alta events. This suggests the development of a non-linear version of the usual ARMA models. An empirical orthogonal function technique is applied in order to avoid numerical pathologies of the model due to the particular characteristics of the time series. The encouraging results indicate that such technique is a good tool for forecasting and alarm purposes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Most contributions in the field of mathematical modelling of childhood infectious diseases transmission dynamics have focused on stationary or exponentially growing populations. In this paper an epidemiological model with realistic demography is used to investigate the impact of the non-equilibrium conditions typical of the transition to sustained below replacement fertility (BRF) recently observed in a number of western countries, upon the transmission dynamics of measles. The results depend on the manner we model the relation between the (changing) age distribution of the population and contacts. Under some circumstances the transitional ageing phase typical of BRF populations might complexly interact with epidemiological variables leading to (i) a substantial reduction in the amount of vaccination effort required for eliminating the disease; (ii) a significant magnification of the perverse impact of vaccination in terms of the burden of severe age related morbidity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• A model for the expansion of COVID-19 in Italy, Spain and the USA is considered. • Predictions on cumulative deaths due to COVID-19 are provided. • The effect of favourable seasonal conditions is assessed in the expansion of COVID-19 in different countries. • The effect of the relaxation of lockdown is assessed in the expansion of COVID- 19 in different countries. It is well-known that the classical SIR model is unable to make accurate predictions on the course of illnesses such as COVID-19. In this paper, we show that the official data released by the authorities of several countries (Italy, Spain and The USA) regarding the expansion of COVID-19 are compatible with a non-autonomous SIR type model with vital dynamics and non-constant population, calibrated according to exponentially decaying infection and death rates. Using this calibration we construct a model whose outcomes for most relevant epidemiological paramenters, such as the number of active cases, cumulative deaths, daily new deaths and daily new cases (among others) fit available real data about the first and successive waves of COVID-19. In addition to this, we also provide predictions on the evolution of this pandemic in Italy and the USA in several plausible scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel grey Richards model GERM(1,1, e a t) is proposed. • The optimal nonlinear terms and background value of the novel model are determined by Genetic algorithm. • The comparative study shows that the new model is superior to the other seven benchmark models. • The predict the daily number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 of four regions are projected. In 2020, a new type of coronavirus is in the global pandemic. Now, the number of infected patients is increasing. The trend of the epidemic has attracted global attention. Based on the traditional Richards model and the differential information principle in grey prediction model, this paper uses the modified grey action quantity to propose a new grey prediction model for infectious diseases. This model weakens the dependence of the Richards model on single-peak and saturated S-shaped data, making Richards model more applicable, and uses genetic algorithm to optimize the nonlinear terms and the background value. To illustrate the effectiveness of the model, groups of slowly growing small-sample and large-sample data are selected for simulation experiments. Results of eight evaluation indexes show that the new model is better than the traditional GM(1,1) and grey Richards model. Finally, this model is applied to China, Italy, Britain and Russia. The results show that the new model is better than the other 7 models. Therefore, this model can effectively predict the number of daily new confirmed cases of COVID-19, and provide important prediction information for the formulation of epidemic prevention policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Developed deep learning methods to forecast the COVID19 spread. • Five deep learning models have been compared for COVID-19 forecasting. • Time-series COVID19 data from Italy, Spain, France, China, the USA, and Australia are used. • Results demonstrate the potential of deep learning models to forecast COVID19 data. • Results show the superior performance of the Variational AutoEncoder model. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has significantly spread over the world and comes up with new challenges to the research community. Although governments imposing numerous containment and social distancing measures, the need for the healthcare systems has dramatically increased and the effective management of infected patients becomes a challenging problem for hospitals. Thus, accurate short-term forecasting of the number of new contaminated and recovered cases is crucial for optimizing the available resources and arresting or slowing down the progression of such diseases. Recently, deep learning models demonstrated important improvements when handling time-series data in different applications. This paper presents a comparative study of five deep learning methods to forecast the number of new cases and recovered cases. Specifically, simple Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), Long short-term memory (LSTM), Bidirectional LSTM (BiLSTM), Gated recurrent units (GRUs) and Variational AutoEncoder (VAE) algorithms have been applied for global forecasting of COVID-19 cases based on a small volume of data. This study is based on daily confirmed and recovered cases collected from six countries namely Italy, Spain, France, China, USA, and Australia. Results demonstrate the promising potential of the deep learning model in forecasting COVID-19 cases and highlight the superior performance of the VAE compared to the other algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

a mathematical model depicting the spread of covid-19 epidemic and implementation of population covid-19 intervention in Italy. The model has 8 components leading to system of 8 ordinary differential equations. In this paper, we investigate the model using the concept of fractional differential operator. A numerical method based on the Lagrange polynomial was used to solve the system equations depicting the spread of COVID-19. A detailed investigation of stability including reproductive number using the next generation matrix, and the Lyapunov were presented in detail. Numerical simulations are depicted for various fractional orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Two contrasting models are presented to understand and predict the spreading of COVID-19. • Estimation of turnaround (peak active cases) day is performed using a mathematical model for India, Italy and USA. • Trend and variability are extracted from the data for daily reported cases using DCT-based Fourier decomposition method. • Bi-modal Gaussian mixture model is fitted to the trend to predict the cases in near future. • End-dates for COVID-19 are predicted with 95% confidence interval in various parts of the world. COVID-19 is caused by a novel coronavirus and has played havoc on many countries across the globe. A majority of the world population is now living in a restricted environment for more than a month with minimal economic activities, to prevent exposure to this highly infectious disease. Medical professionals are going through a stressful period while trying to save the larger population. In this paper, we develop two different models to capture the trend of a number of cases and also predict the cases in the days to come, so that appropriate preparations can be made to fight this disease. The first one is a mathematical model accounting for various parameters relating to the spread of the virus, while the second one is a non-parametric model based on the Fourier decomposition method (FDM), fitted on the available data. The study is performed for various countries, but detailed results are provided for the India, Italy, and United States of America (USA). The turnaround dates for the trend of infected cases are estimated. The end-dates are also predicted and are found to agree well with a very popular study based on the classic susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model. Worldwide, the total number of expected cases and deaths are 12.7 × 106 and 5.27 × 105, respectively, predicted with data as of 06-06-2020 and 95% confidence intervals. The proposed study produces promising results with the potential to serve as a good complement to existing methods for continuous predictive monitoring of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The very first model to predict the minimum optimal time of the lockdown. • Deliberates salient features like silent carriers, sociability of newly infected person and unregistered deaths of coronavirus infectious people along with SIR model. • Based on the awareness and sustainability of disease, the number of suspected person varies with respect to time of spreading of virus. Hence, three phases are formed to define the suspected rate as it will not grow exponentially all the time. • At first Phase, when the awareness of newly discovered virus is at initial phases, the suspecting rate will grow exponentially. Suspected rate depends on sociability of infected person. • Second Phase is during lockdown when the social distancing is followed. In this phase, death cases are more as number of current infected person are at peak. Simultaneously, the number of recovered person per day will increase. • Third Phase is when there is reduction in number of active cases. Number of suspected cases will reduce depending upon the testing speed of medical team. • In order to calculate the optimal lockdown time T opt , the approach of proposed model is to find a situation when the number suspected people starts to reduce w.r.t. time, number of infected people increases for a while but start reducing with respect to time, and also the number of recovered people rises w.r.t. time. • The model is tested on China data and is efficient enough to propose a model very close to their actual figures of infected people, recovered people, died and active cases. The model predicts the optimal lockdown period as 73 days for China which is very close to their actual lockdown period (77 days). • Also, the model is implemented to predict the optimal lockdown period of India and Italy. • The programming part is done in C++ language with Linux OS. This paper proposes a three-phase Susceptible-Infected-Recovered-Dead (3P-SIRD) model to calculate an optimal lockdown period for some specific geographical regions that will be favorable to break not only the transmission chain but also will help country's economy to recover and support infrastructure in a fight against COVID-19. Proposed model is novel since it additionally includes parameters i.e. silent carriers, sociability of newly infected person and unregistered died coronavirus infected people along with the infection rate, suspected rate and death rate. These parameters contribute a lot to figure out the more clear model, along with essential parameters. The model takes the testing rate of suspected people into consideration and this rate varies with respect to phase of the epidemic growth. Proposed 3P-SIRD model is divided into three-phases based on the awareness and sustainability of disease. Time is divided into different periods as rate of infection and recovery fluctuates region to region. The model is tested on China data and is efficient enough to propose a model very close to their actual figures of infected people, recovered people, died and active cases. The model predicts the optimal lockdown period as 73 days for China which is very close to their actual lockdown period (77 days). Further, the model is implemented to predict the optimal lockdown period of India and Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OPERA is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment designed to observe oscillations by looking at the appearance of in an almost pure beam. The beam is produced at CERN and sent towards the Gran Sasso INFN Laboratories where the experiment is running. OPERA started its second year of data taking in June 2008. This paper reviews the status of the experiment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the past two years, we have developed 3D detector technologies at ITC-irst (Trento, Italy). We have proposed a new 3D architecture, having columnar electrodes of one doping type only, allowing for a simplified fabrication process. In this paper, we report on preliminary results from the electrical characterization of devices irradiated with neutrons, showing that low depletion voltage values can be achieved even after very large fluences. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]