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Herculaneum, buried by Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, was only extensively excavated during the twentieth century, revealing a remarkable level of preservation but also fragility of what had survived of this Roman seaside town. By the turn of the century, the conservation challenges, paired with the limited capacity of the authorities to respond, was putting the archaeological site at risk. The Herculaneum Conservation Project (HCP), a public-private project underway since 2001, has helped turnaround this situation with the presence of an interdisciplinary team working all year round alongside the public authority, today the Archaeological Park of Herculaneum. With the site in a more stable condition, HCP's attention in the last ten years shifted to building up knowledge and competencies for the self-sufficiency of the Park authority in the face of core long-term management obligations. A new focus on conservation proposals that meet the site's needs but are suited to public tendering found its maximum expression in planning long-term site maintenance cycles. Through the voices of the practitioners involved, the paper recounts the resources and approaches that have been developed in this regard, in particular the specific GIS module that breaks down the archaeological site into the items to be maintained and their relative importance. This massive register of objects – walls, architraves, doors, frescoes, mosaics, etc. – is the backbone of the three-year maintenance cycles developed by HCP adopting an innovative procurement framework for co-sourcing services and works in Italy, the first of which is now being implemented by the Park. A web-based application accessible by operators on site allows real time transmission of monitoring data and records of site-works underway to the database and GIS platform, satisfying immediate administrative needs and quality controls but also delineating the scope of subsequent maintenance cycles. Technological and management tools, shaped by, and responsive to, the needs of the site and their users (the heritage practitioners involved), have been put at the service of the entire life cycle of programmed maintenance at an urban scale, both administrative and technical aspects. This is part of a wider upward spiral of management improvements for the long-term sustainability of this important archaeological site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the digital strategies developed in the study of the corpus of “flower woman" terracotta figurines found in the excavations carried out by Paola Zancani Montuoro and Umberto Zanotti Bianco at the Foce Sele Hera Sanctuary and stored in the National Archaeological Museum of Paestum. The “flower woman" definition identifies the best known structure of the statuettes composed of a female bust supporting a flower orthogonal to the base. Actually, the scientific literature about these peculiar artifacts reveals a diffused vagueness and ambiguity in the definition, formalization, and functional exegesis, encouraging a new comprehensive study. The main results come from: digital management of the information; seriation analysis supported by a quantitative approach; visualization of occurrences in the Mediterranean Basin based on Fusion Tables; testing of multidisciplinary approaches to cooperative content building in archaeology. The study developed a whole technology-enhanced workflow, including multimedia data digital management and sharing; statistical techniques for the analysis of terracotta shrinkage in moulded coroplastic figurines seriation; webGIS visualization of occurrences in the ancient Mediterranean Basin and their relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the design and implementation of an educational testbed developed for a course on industrial communication networks at the Engineering Faculty, University of Catania. The aim is to realize a platform capable of emulating various network configurations, thus enabling students to find out by themselves through practical experiments how different design choices, parameter settings, network configurations, and algorithms impact on the overall network performance. The test-bed comprises a number of basic components (hosts, routers, and access points) implemented on nodes equipped with operating systems and open source software, which together make up a modular system. Each router can be loaded with data flows and monitored over preestablished time windows so as to evaluate its performance in a wide range of operating conditions. The wireless part makes it possible to configure environments with different levels of noise and bandwidth utilization so as to emulate a broad spectrum of real operating environments. The testbed can be used via remote access through a web interface that not only allows the operating conditions to be configured but also permits real-time monitoring. Students can configure the testbed on the basis of the network they are studying and can measure its performance for evaluation purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Regional Meteorological Service for the Emilia-Romagna Region manages a network of automatic weather stations equipped with electronic sensors suitable for measuring meteorological parameters. The automatic stations consist of electronic instruments, which are subject to failures at more or less frequent intervals. A summary of their performance is necessary. In this paper, we compare the results of the summary, such as the contiguous absence or simultaneous inactivity of different stations, with theoretical simulations in order to evaluate the nature and recurrence of the failures. A single- and multi-server queue simulation model was also used to evaluate the performance of the data transmission system, so as to optimize the communications system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data communication networks have large importance for the immediate post-earthquake emergency management and community resilience. In this study, the framework of simulation-based probabilistic seismic risk analysis of data communication infrastructure is applied to the real case of the inter-university data network of the Campania region (southern Italy). The network is constituted by point-like facilities (racks located within buildings and containing the device routing and managing traffic) and distributed links (buried fiber optic cables). The seismological, geological, and geotechnical features of the region were characterized together with the seismic vulnerability of each element of the network. The network performance is quantified in terms of traffic loss before and after the seismic event. Results are provided in terms of annual rate of events exceeding traffic loss thresholds and allow to identify the portion of the network mostly contributing to the seismic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vector-valued ground-motion intensity measures (IMs) have been the focus of a significant deal of research recently. Proposed measures are mainly functions of spectral ordinates, which have been shown to be useful in the assessment of structural response. This is especially appropriate in the case of structures following modem earthquake-resistant design principles, in which structural damage is mainly caused by peak displacements experienced during nonlinear dynamics. On the other hand, there may be cases in which the cumulative damage potential of the earthquake is also of concern, even if it is generally believed that integral ground-motion IMs, associated with duration, are less important with respect to peak parameters of the record. For these IMs, it seems appropriate to develop conditional hazard maps, that is, maps of percentiles of a secondary IM (e.g., duration-related) given the occurrence or exceedance of a primary parameter (e.g., peak acceleration), for which a design hazard map is often already available. In this paper, this concept is illustrated, and conditional hazard is developed for a parameter, which may account for the cumulative damage potential of ground motion, the so-called Cosenza and Manfredi index (ID), given peak ground acceleration (PGA). To this aim, a ground-motion prediction relationship was derived for ID first. Subsequently, the residuals of PGA and ID were tested for correlation and for joint normality. Finally, the study obtained analytical distributions of ID conditional on PGA and on the corresponding design earthquake in terms of magnitude and distance from hazard disaggregation. As shown by the application to the Campania region (southern Italy), ID maps conditional on the code design values of PGA may be useful, for example, for a more refined ground-motion record selection as an input for nonlinear dynamic analysis of structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we describe LiveMonitor, an integrated system realized for the distribution of information in fusion environments. The software tool is based on a client–server approach, where the server side consists of a set of Web Services that collect data from a variety of data sources. LiveMonitor has been successfully used at FTU, replacing and enhancing part of the core of the current message broadcasting system. The tool integrates all the information needed by the control room personnel during the experiments, namely the shot sequence status coming from the FTU Control System, videos of the plasma discharge from the FTU ports cameras, and fresh data from the databases. From the hardware point of view, the new system is made of a Linux node running the Web Services, while clients running on other machines can display information on large () LCD monitors. The tool has been tested during FTU experiments and can be further expanded to match the needs of the control room personnel and experimental physicists. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Understanding how people perceive risk has become increasingly important for improving risk communication and reducing risk associated conflicts. This paper builds upon findings, methodologies and lessons learned from other fields to help understand differences between scientists, authorities and the public. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyse underlying attitudes and judgements during an ongoing volcanic crisis on the Caribbean Island of Montserrat. Specific differences between the public, authorities and scientists were found to have been responsible for misunderstandings and misinterpretations of information and roles, resulting in differing perceptions of acceptable risk. Difficulties in the articulation and understanding of uncertainties pertaining to the volcanic risk led to a situation in which the roles of hazard monitoring, risk communication and public protection became confused. In addition, social, economic and political forces were found to have distorted risk messages, leading to a public reliance upon informal information networks. The implications of these findings for volcanic risk management and communication are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We apply optimal control theory to a generalized SEIR-type model. The proposed system has three controls, representing social distancing, preventive means, and treatment measures to combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze such optimal control problem with respect to real data transmission in Italy. Our results show the appropriateness of the model, in particular with respect to the number of quarantined/hospitalized (confirmed and infected) and recovered individuals. Considering the Pontryagin controls, we show how in a perfect world one could have drastically diminish the number of susceptible, exposed, infected, quarantined/hospitalized, and death individuals, by increasing the population of insusceptible/protected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) based technique to predict intensity measurements (IMs) of earthquake ground shaking. The input data to the CNN model consists of multistation, 3C acceleration waveforms recorded during the 2016 Central Italy earthquake sequence for M  ≥ 3.0 events. Using a 10 s window starting at the earthquake origin time, we find that the CNN is capable of accurately predicting IMs at stations far from the epicentre which have not yet recorded the maximum ground shaking. The CNN IM predictions do not require previous knowledge of the earthquake source (location and magnitude). Comparison between the CNN model predictions and those obtained with the Bindi et al. GMPE (which requires location and magnitude) shows that the CNN model features similar error variance but smaller bias. Although the technique is not strictly designed for earthquake early warning, we find that it can provide useful estimates of ground motions within 15–20 s after earthquake origin time depending on various setup elements (e.g. times for data transmission, computation, latencies). The technique has been tested on raw data without any initial data pre-selection in order to closely replicate real-time data streaming. When noise examples were included with the earthquake data the CNN was found to be stable, accurately predicting the ground shaking intensity corresponding to the noise amplitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During recent years, the availability of innovative monitoring instrumentation has been a fundamental component in the development of efficient and reliable early warning systems (EWS). In fact, the potential to achieve high sampling frequencies, together with automatic data transmission and elaboration are key features for a near-real time approach. This paper presents a case study located in Central Italy, where the realization of an important state route required a series of preliminary surveys. The monitoring system installed on site included manual inclinometers, automatic modular underground monitoring system (MUMS) inclinometers, piezometers, and geognostic surveys. In particular, data recorded by innovative instrumentation allowed for the detection of major slope displacements that ultimately led to the landslide collapse. The implementation of advanced tools, featuring remote and automatic procedures for data sampling and elaboration, played a key role in the critical event identification and prediction. In fact, thanks to displacement data recorded by the MUMS inclinometer, it was possible to forecast the slope failure that was later confirmed during the following site inspection. Additionally, a numerical analysis was performed to better understand the mechanical behavior of the slope, back-analyze the monitored event, and to assess the stability conditions of the area of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we report on the research activity that has been recently carried out in Italy on secure transmission by using chaotic carriers in the framework of a national and two international projects. Transmission of both analog and digital signals has been demonstrated, as well as theoretically and numerically investigated. Close-loop digital transmission over 100 km distance has been achieved for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a calendar of events, related to the telecommunication industry. SIP 2004--6th IASTED International, the conference on Signal and Image Processing, is to be held from August 23-25, 2004, in Hawaii. CSIMTA 2004--Complex Systems, intelligence and Modern Technology Applications, will be held from September 19-22, 2004, in France. Allerton Conference 2004--42nd Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, will be held from September 29- October 1, 2004, in France. ISITA 2004--International Symposium on Information Theory and Its Applications, will be held from October 10-13, 2004. ISSSE 2004--International Symposium on Signals, Systems, and Electronics, from August 10-13. SOFTCOM 2004--International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks, will be held from October 11-13, in Italy. WNCG 2004--Wireless Networking Symposium, from October 2004. NCSBB 2004--Technology for Life,--North Carolina Symposium on Biotechnology, from October 13-15, 2004, in North Carolina.

The article discusses the relevant role of Italy in the field of optical communications. It notes that one of the first countries to introduce wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission in the core network with the use of optical add/drop multiplexers and optical cross connects in Italy. It further cites that one of the first operators in the world to implement an access network based on the fiber to the home (FTTH) and TV over IP (IPTV) was FASTWEB in Milan in 2000.