Land cover mapping capability of multispectral thermal data: The TASI-600 case study

This study shows the land cover mapping accuracy retrievable by the TASI-600 thermal airborne multispectral sensor and describes some of the classification results tested on the thermal preprocessed data for a rural area. In the paper is provided an overview of the principal TASI-600 characteristics, i.e. 32 spectral bands in the 8.0-11.5 ?m spectral range, and land cover classification performances. A full assessment of the TASI-600 spectral bands has been also obtained by ranking them in order to understanding their role in land cover classification.

Solution of linear ill-posed problems by model selection and aggregation

We consider a general statistical linear inverse problem, where the solution is represented via a known (possibly overcomplete) dictionary that allows its sparse representation. We propose two different approaches. A model selection estimator selects a single model by minimizing the penalized empirical risk over all possible models. By contrast with direct problems, the penalty depends on the model itself rather than on its size only as for complexity penalties. A Q-aggregate estimator averages over the entire collection of estimators with properly chosen weights.

A 'power law' based method to reduce size-related bias in indicators of knowledge performance: An application to university research assessment

The knowledge production provided by universities is essential to sustaining a country's long-term economic growth and international competitiveness. Many nations are thus driving to create sustainable and effective funding environments. The evaluation of university knowledge, productivity and research quality becomes critical, with ever increasing share of public funding allocated on the basis of research assessment exercises.

Thermal imaging of time-varying longitudinal defects in the internal coating of a tube

We deal with the mathematical model of the incremental degradation of the internal coating (e.g. a polymeric material) of a metallic pipe in which a fluid flows relatively fast. The fluid drags solid impurities so that longitudinal scratches, inaccessible to any direct inspection procedure, are produced on the coating. Time evolution of this kind of defects can be reconstructed from the knowledge of a sequence of temperature maps of the external surface.

Valuation and Risk Assessment of a Portfolio of Variable Annuities: A Vector Autoregression Approach

This paper focuses on assessing the financial position of an insurer issuing a portfolio of Variable Annuities (VAs). Two multivariate models for the underlying and the interest rate are considered. The first model uses a single total rate of return for the basket of assets. The second one, jointly models the rates of return on the n assets in the basket. For simplicity, the insurer is assumed to be able to implement a static hedging programme to manage the risk.

Preventing the drop in security investments for non-competitive cyber-insurance market

The rapid development of cyber insurance market brings forward the question about the effect of cyber insurance on cyber security. Some researchers believe that the effect should be positive as organisations will be forced to maintain a high level of security in order to pay lower premiums. On the other hand, other researchers conduct a theoretical analysis and demonstrate that availability of cyber insurance may result in lower investments in security. In this paper we propose a mathematical analysis of a cyber-insurance model in a non-competitive market.

Comparing comparisons between vehicular traffic states in microscopic and macroscopic first-order models

In this paper we deal with the analysis of the solutions of traffic flow models at multiple scales, both in the case of a single road and of road networks. We are especially interested in measuring the distance between traffic states (as they result from the mathematical modeling) and investigating whether these distances are somehow preserved passing from the microscopic to the macroscopic scale.

Understanding Human Mobility Flows from Aggregated Mobile Phone Data

In this paper we deal with the study of travel flows and patterns of people in large populated areas. Information about the movements of people is extracted from coarse-grained aggregated cellular network data without tracking mobile devices individually. Mobile phone data are provided by the Italian telecommunication company TIM and consist of density profiles (i.e. the spatial distribution) of people in a given area at various instants of time.

Numerical analysis of the dynamics of rigid blocks subjected to support excitation

The dynamic behaviour of rigid blocks subjected to support excitation is represented by discontinuous differential equations with state jumps, which are not known in advance. In the numerical simulation of these systems, the jump times corresponding to the numerical trajectory do not coincide with the ones of the given problem. When multiple state jumps occur, this approximation may affect the accuracy of the solution and even cause an order reduction in the method. Focus here is on the stability and convergence properties of the numerical dynamic.