La realizzazione di una Smart City è un processo molto complesso e di lungo periodo: è necessaria una profonda conoscenza della realtà locale, dei bisogni della collettività e dei singoli individui, delle criticità e dei servizi che devono essere gestiti e garantiti. I servizi di e-health sono un tassello fondamentale verso la realizzazione di una smart city dal punto di vista socio-sanitario. In questo contesto, il progetto e-SHS, non solo si occupa di servizi e-ealth, in particolare per soggetti fragili, ma propone strumenti innovativi per la loro inclusione sociale e l'incremento della solidarietà sociale. L'obiettivo principale di e-SHS è la realizzazione di un primo nucleo di una piattaforma per lo sviluppo di servizi personali e personalizzati basati sull'uso di tecnologie ICT innovative e non invasive nel settore della salute e della solidarietà sociale. Il centro del sistema è rappresentato dall'utente-paziente verso il quale sono definiti e sviluppati servizi di monitoraggio e supporto costante nella gestione della propria salute e del proprio stile di vita, al fine di migliorarne la qualità della vita ed aumentarne l'autonomia e l'indipendenza nelle attività quotidiane, sia in ambiente domestico che in ambienti esterni. Gli utenti verso i quali questo progetto si indirizza sono persone anziane, con problemi di riabilitazione motoria, con parametri vitali da tenere sotto controllo e con disturbi del sonno. Per la sperimentazione saranno coinvolti soggetti volontari. In particolare, e-SHS include servizi per: 1) il monitoraggio di parametri vitali degli utenti 2) il supporto all'esecuzione di attività riabilitative in ambiente domestico; 3) un supporto per monitorare le interazioni sociali degli utenti e migliorarne l'inclusione sociale nelle attività quotidiane; 4) lo sviluppo di reti di supporto sociale che coinvolgono pazienti, familiari, assistenti (i.e., caregivers), allo scopo di promuovere la continuità di assistenza socio-sanitaria in diversi ambienti. Le competenze presenti nel settore "ICT for health, care and well-being" negli 11 istituti del CNR partecipanti al progetto vanno ben oltre quelle che saranno utilizzate in questo progetto. In questo documento si intende presentare le principali attività di ricerca svolte nei singoli istituti ed attinenti al progetto e-SHS, cercando di evidenziare il filo conduttore che porterà alla definizione di un'unica architettura di sistema.

Background: The growth arrest-specific transcript 5 gene (GAS5) encodes a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) and hosts a number of small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) that have recently been implicated in multiple cellular processes and cancer. Here, we investigate the relationship between DNA damage, p53, and the GAS5 snoRNAs to gain further insight into the potential role of this locus in cell survival and oncogenesis both in vivo and in vitro. Methods: We used quantitative techniques to analyse the effect of DNA damage on GAS5 snoRNA expression and to assess the relationship between p53 and the GAS5 snoRNAs in cancer cell lines and in normal, pre-malignant, and malignant human colorectal tissue and used biological techniques to suggest potential roles for these snoRNAs in the DNA damage response. Results: GAS5-derived snoRNA expression was induced by DNA damage in a p53-dependent manner in colorectal cancer cell lines and their levels were not affected by DICER. Furthermore, p53 levels strongly correlated with GAS5-derived snoRNA expression in colorectal tissue. Conclusions: In aggregate, these data suggest that the GAS5-derived snoRNAs are under control of p53 and that they have an important role in mediating the p53 response to DNA damage, which may not relate to their function in the ribosome. We suggest that these snoRNAs are not processed by DICER to form smaller snoRNA-derived RNAs with microRNA (miRNA)-like functions, but their precise role requires further evaluation. Furthermore, since GAS5 host snoRNAs are often used as endogenous controls in qPCR quantifications we show that their use as housekeeping genes in DNA damage experiments can lead to inaccurate results. © 2014 Krell et al.

We analyze a peer-assisted Video-on-Demand (VoD) system in which users contribute their upload bandwidth to the redistribution of a video that they are downloading or that they have cached locally. Our target is to characterize the additional bandwidth that servers must supply to immediately satisfy all requests to watch a given video. We develop an approximate fluid model to compute the required server bandwidth in the sequential delivery case, as well as in controlled nonsequential swarms. Our approach is able to capture several stochastic effects related to peer churn, upload bandwidth heterogeneity, and nonstationary traffic conditions, which have not been documented or analyzed before. Finally, we provide important hints for the design of efficient peer-assisted VoD systems under server capacity constraints.

We study in what sense one can determine the flux functions k = k(x) and f = f(u), k piecewise constant, in the scalar hyperbolic conservation law u(t) + (k(x)f (u))(x) = 0 by observing the solution u(t, center dot) of the Cauchy problem with suitable piecewise constant initial data u vertical bar(t=0) = u(o).

We consider stochastic differential games with N players, linear-Gaussian dynamics in arbitrary state-space dimension, and long-time-average cost with quadratic running cost. Admissible controls are feedbacks for which the system is ergodic. We first study the existence of affine Nash equilibria by means of an associated system of N Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) and N Kolmogorov-Fokker-Planck (KFP) partial differential equations. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of quadratic-Gaussian solutions in terms of the solvability of suitable algebraic Riccati and Sylvester equations. Under a symmetry condition on the running costs and for nearly identical players, we study the large population limit, N tending to infinity, and find a unique quadratic-Gaussian solution of the pair of mean-field game HJB-KFP equations. Examples of explicit solutions are given, in particular for consensus problems.

The paper examines a particular class of nonlinear integro-differential equations consisting of a Sturm-Liouville boundary value problem on the half-line, where the coefficient of the differential term depends on the unknown function by means of a scalar integral operator. In order to handle the nonlinearity of the problem, we consider a fixed point iteration procedure, which is based on considering a sequence of classical Sturm-Liouville boundary value problems in the weak solution sense. The existence of a solution and the global convergence of the fixed-point iterations are stated without resorting to the Banach fixed point theorem. Moreover, the unique solvability of the problem is discussed and several examples with unique and non-unique solutions are given.

We consider a particular second-order integrodifferential boundary value problem arising from the kinetic theory of dusty plasmas, and we provide information on the existence and other qualitative properties of the solution that have been essential in the numerical investigation.

We examine spatially explicit models described by reaction-diffusion partial differential equations for the study of predator-prey population dynamics. The numerical methods we propose are based on the coupling of a finite difference/element spatial discretization and a suitable partitioned Runge-Kutta scheme for the approximation in time. The RK scheme here implemented uses an implicit scheme for the stiff diffusive term and a partitioned RK symplectic scheme for the reaction term (IMSP scheme). We revisit some results provided in literature for the classical Lotka-Volterra system and the Rosenzweig-MacArthur model. We then extend the approach to metapopulation dynamics in order to numerically investigate the effect of migration through a corridor connecting two habitat patches. Moreover, we analyze the synchronization properties of subpopulation dynamics, when the migration occurs through corridors of variable size.

This paper presents a new hybrid approach integrating the cross-entropy (CE) algorithm and the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) technique to solve the economic load dispatch (ELD) problem related to electrical power generating units. Due to the introduction of the valve-point effect in the ELD objective function, the optimization task requires tools appropriate for a nonconvex optimization landscape. In this respect, we employ the CE approach, which constructs a random sequence of solutions probabilistically converging to a near-optimal solution and, thus, facilitating the exploration capability. Additionally, to fine-tune the solution in promising basins of attraction, the SQP algorithm is invoked, which performs a local search. Despite its reliance on a global heuristic scheme, CE-SQP is vested with fast convergence capability, which may entail its use for online power dispatch. The effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed method in comparison with several state-of-the-art approaches have been demonstrated with four standard test systems that are widely reported in the ELD literature.

In a recent paper, we investigated the uniform convergence of Lagrange interpolation at the zeros of the orthogonal polynomials with respect to a Freud-type weight in the presence of constraints. We show that by a simple procedure it is always possible to transform the matrices of these zeros into matrices such that the corresponding Lagrange interpolating polynomial with respect to the given constraints well approximates a given function. Here, starting from the interest to construct a suitable interpolation operator with a preassigned node, we introduce an algorithm that allows us to obtain new matrices. For the Lagrange operator related to these new matrices that have the preassigned node among their elements, we prove results about the optimal rate of convergence as well as we apply successfully this method to some applications. © 2014 IMACS.

This paper aims at understanding the role of clients in the innovation of Creativity- Intensive Business Services (CIBS), namely advertising services, to provide useful managerial indications for the proactive management of the collaboration with clients for the purpose of innovation. We adopt a multi-stage approach. Firstly, we propose a conceptual multidimensional framework by combining three streams of research: a) research on customer involvement in New Service Development; b) service innovation studies with specific regard to CIBS; c) literature on business relationships marketing. Secondly, we refine such framework through an exploratory qualitative analysis based on a case study of a successful advertising agency. Thirdly, we undertake a large-scale survey of European advertising agencies. Our preliminary findings provide empirical evidence to the hidden and multidimensional nature of CIBS' innovation, and contribute to advance the understanding of the concept of "soft innovation" in creative services. Results also suggest that efforts to improve the interaction and collaborative work practices with clients are conducive to changes in other technological as well as non-technological dimensions. Moreover, the empirical analysis provides indications on additional innovation enabling characteristics of clients and on their potential roles as catalyst and co-developer of innovation.

In this paper we introduce the Mathematical Desk for Italian Industry, a project based on applied and industrial mathematics developed by a team of researchers from the Italian National Research Council in collaboration with two major Italian associations for applied mathematics, SIMAI and AIRO. The scope of this paper is to clarify the motivations for this project and to present an overview on the activities, context and organization of the Mathematical Desk, whose mission is to build a concrete bridge of common interests between the Italian scientific community of applied mathematics and the world of the Italian enterprises. Some final considerations on the strategy for the future development of the Mathematical Desk project complete the paper.

An algorithm for computing the solution of indefinite least squares problems and of indefinite least squares problems with equality constrained is presented. Such problems arise when solving total least squares problems and in H infinity-smoothing. The proposed algorithm relies only on stable orthogonal transformations reducing recursively the associated augmented matrix to proper block anti-triangular form. Some numerical results are reported showing the properties of the algorithm.