1,721,120 research outputs found
Excess mortality and COVID-19 deaths in Italy: A peak comparison study
Full text linkDuring a sanitary crisis, excess mortality measures the number of all-cause deaths, beyond what we would have expected if that crisis had not occurred. The high number of COVID-19 deaths started a debate in Italy with two opposite positions: those convinced that COVID-19 deaths were not by default excess deaths, because many COVID-19 deaths were not correctly registered, with most being attributable to other causes and to the overall crisis conditions; and those who presented the opposite hypothesis. We analyzed the curve of the all-cause excess mortality, during the period of January 5, 2020–October 31, 2022, compared to the curve of the daily confirmed COVID-19 deaths, investigating the association between excess mortality and the recurrence of COVID-19 waves in Italy. We compared the two curves looking for the corresponding highest peaks, and we found that 5 out of the 6 highest peaks (83.3%) of the excess mortality curve have occurred, on average, just a week before the concomitant COVID-19 waves hit their highest peaks of daily deaths (Mean 6.4 days; SD 2.4 days). This temporal correspondence between the moments when the excess mortality peaked and the highest peaks of the COVID-19 deaths, provides further evidence in favor of a positive correlation between COVID-19 deaths and all-cause excess mortality
Reliability analysis of tree‐based networks and its application to fault‐tolerant VLSI systems
No full textA probabilistic model is proposed that allows one to solve stochastic network reliability problems for tree‐type networks of N nodes, taking O(log N) time. The considered networks are based on interconnection patterns consisting of complete binary trees in which spare edges are added according to different criteria. We show that the use of this probabilistic model allows one to evaluate, taking O(log N) time, The average connectedness (i.e., The expected number of processing elements still functioning in the presence of random faults) of dynamically reconfigurable fault‐tolerant VLSI systems which are based on such tree‐based structures. Finally, numerical results obtained from the model are provided that show that, given a fixed chip silicon area, several of the analyzed VLSI architectures have a notably greater expected number of working processing elements w.r.t. complete binary trees, in the presence of a given fault distribution. Copyright © 1995 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Compan
Predictive health intelligence: Potential, limitations and sense making
Full text linkWe discuss the new paradigm of predictive health intelligence, based on the use of modern deep learning algorithms and big biomedical data, along the various dimensions of: a) its potential, b) the limitations it encounters, and c) the sense it makes. We conclude by reasoning on the idea that viewing data as the unique source of sanitary knowledge, fully abstracting from human medical reasoning, may affect the scientific credibility of health predictions
Preface to the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Games and Simulation, GAME-ON 2007
No full textA preface to the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Games and Simulation, GAME-ON held in Bologna in 200
On Designing an Event Delivery Service for Multiplayer Networked Games: An Approach Based on Obsolescence
No full textIn this paper we discuss the design of an event delivery service devised to support multiplayer games on distributed computing architectures. The novelty of our approach is that obsolete events may be dropped with the aim of maintaining an acceptable interaction degree among remote players. The key concept on which our approach is based is to take into consideration events at the application level, and to avoid the delivery of those events that lose their importance due to obsolescence. We conducted several experiments that show that our approach is able to maintain the consistency of the distributed game state and, at the same time, reduces the overall communication traffic among distributed players
Drawing a parallel between the trend of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the winters of 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 in Italy, with a prediction
Full text linkWe studied the weekly number and the growth/decline rates of COVID-19 deaths of the period from October 31, 2022, to February 9, 2023, in Italy. We found that the COVID-19 winter wave reached its peak during the three holiday weeks from December 16, 2022, to January 5, 2023, and it was definitely trending downward, returning to the same number of deaths as the end of October 2022, in the first week February 2023. During this period of 15 weeks, that wave caused a number of deaths as large as 8,526. Its average growth rate was +7.89% deaths per week (10 weeks), while the average weekly decline rate was -15.85% (5 weeks). At the time of writing of this paper, Italy has been experiencing a new COVID-19 wave, with the latest 7 weekly bulletins (October 26, 2023 – December 13, 2023) showing that deaths have climbed from 148 to 322. The weekly growth rate had risen by +14.08% deaths, on average. Hypothesizing that this 2023/2024 wave will have a total duration similar to that of 2022/2023, with comparable extensions of both the growth period and the decline period and similar growth/decline rates, we predict that the number of COVID-19 deaths of the period from the end of October 2023 to the beginning of February 2024 should be less than 4100. A preliminary assessment of this forecast, based on 11 of the 15 weeks of the period, has already confirmed the accuracy of this approach
Responsive protocols for distributed multimedia applications
No full textA relevant class of Distributed MultiMedia Applications (DMMAs) can be implemented to support critical activities from which either financial investments, or human lives, or both, may depend. These DMMAs can be distributed across wide geographical distances; owing to their critical nature, the principal requirements they exhibit include the need for scalable services that be both timely and highly available (i.e. responsive). In order to provide support to these DMMAs, we have designed and developed a communication software architecture that meets effectively these requirements. In this paper, we introduce that architecture, and discuss its performance as resulting from a prototype implementation we have developed. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000
Synchronization support and group-membership services for reliable distributed multimedia applications
No full textWe describe a collection of algorithms designed to support reliable synchronization and group membership services for distributed multimedia applications. In particular, we consider those applications that require interactivity, isochronous rendering of multimedia data, and high reliability. We show that the algorithms we propose (i) provide reliable support for the synchronization of multimedia data streams, despite the occurrence of possible communication failures, (ii) maintain a consistent view of the relative group membership of all the nonfaulty application components, (iii) guarantee time-bounded delay of component failure detection and join, and (iv) meet effectively possible scalability requirements of the applications
Event synchronization for interactive cyberdrama generation on the web: A distributed approach
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