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Benvenuti in queste pagine dedicate a scienza, storia ed arte. Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Torino

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Articolo del gruppo di ricerca su epidemiologia

Published: 17 November 2020

The κ-statistics approach to epidemiology

Giorgio Kaniadakis, Mauro M. Baldi, Thomas S. Deisboeck, Giulia Grisolia, Dionissios T. Hristopulos, Antonio M. Scarfone, Amelia Sparavigna, Tatsuaki Wada & Umberto Lucia 

Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 19949 (2020) 


A great variety of complex physical, natural and artificial systems are governed by statistical distributions, which often follow a standard exponential function in the bulk, while their tail obeys the Pareto power law. The recently introduced κ-statistics framework predicts distribution functions with this feature. A growing number of applications in different fields of investigation are beginning to prove the relevance and effectiveness of κ-statistics in fitting empirical data. In this paper, we use κ-statistics to formulate a statistical approach for epidemiological analysis. We validate the theoretical results by fitting the derived κ-Weibull distributions with data from the plague pandemic of 1417 in Florence as well as data from the COVID-19 pandemic in China over the entire cycle that concludes in April 16, 2020. As further validation of the proposed approach we present a more systematic analysis of COVID-19 data from countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom, obtaining very good agreement between theoretical predictions and empirical observations. For these countries we also study the entire first cycle of the pandemic which extends until the end of July 2020. The fact that both the data of the Florence plague and those of the Covid-19 pandemic are successfully described by the same theoretical model, even though the two events are caused by different diseases and they are separated by more than 600 years, is evidence that the κ-Weibull model has universal features.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Pubblicazioni

Per i miei articoli (su riviste internazionali con referee) sulla fisica dello stato solido, della materia condensata, cristalli liquidim image processing, e applicazioni del plasma a tessile e converting, vi chiedo la cortesia di utilizzare banche dati quali Web of Science  e Scopus, oppure il seguente link

https://www.disat.polito.it/personale/scheda/(nominativo)/amelia.sparavigna/(sezione)/ricerca_prodotti

Per i miei articoli su storia della scienza ed archeoastronomia (riviste internazionali con referee e working papers), elenco sarà forniti a breve.



A discussion of a geometric shape that became a symbol known as mandorla or vesica piscis, starting from a Pythagorean point of view

A discussion of a geometric shape that became a symbol known as mandorla or vesica piscis, starting from a Pythagorean point of view: Here we propose a discussion about the 'mandorla' or 'vesica piscis'. It is a type of 2-dimensional lens, that is, a geometric shape formed by the intersection of two circles with the same radius, intersecting in such a way that the centre of each circle lies on the perimeter of the other. The aim of the discussion is that of understanding when such a geometric shape became a symbol and when this symbol received a specific name. We will find that the name 'mandorla' was used long before the term 'vesica piscis', which is the Latin translation of the German 'fischblosen' (fish-bladder) used by Albrecht Dürer in his book on geometry. Therefore, the name invented by Dürer was not used by the painter for a sacred form. However, after the middle of the nineteenth century the term 'vesica piscis' exploded in literature. Its use was criticized and, at the same time, it was stressed that the proper term for the symbol is 'mandorla'.  Nonetheless, the 'vesica piscis' continues to be largely used in the sacred geometry, which ascribes symbolic and sacred meanings to certain geometric shapes and proportions. In the proposed discussion, we will also show that, recently, the 2-dimensional lenticular symbol has been related to the Pythagorean philosophy. It is told that the followers of this philosophy had the habit of using an apple for symbolic communications. Sliced across, the core of the apple is displaying a pentagram, but s...