Low dimensional interacting bosons. PhD Thesis defended on February 2013. ArXiv: 1211.3772.

The theory of ultracold, dilute Bose gases is the subject of intensive studies, driven by new experimental applications, which also motivate the study of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in low dimensions. From the theoretical point of view there are few, quite special, models in which we are able to prove BEC for interacting bosons. With the aim of studying the condensation problem I considered a simplified model for a three and two dimensional system of bosons interacting with a repulsive s...

Uncertainty analysis of biological systems: towards a digital twin of the human heart

The human heart has always been a challenge for doctors and scientists with its amazing complexity and individual variability. Owing to recent decades increase in computational power, it has been possible to develop in-silico duplicates of reality that greatly extend the possible analyses. However, such models have a main limitation: their results do not directly account for individual variability. Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) methodologies integrate elements of probability theory and stat...

Advanced search for neutrinoless double beta decay in selenium-82 with CUPID-0

The CUPID-0 detector hosted at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS), is the first large array of enriched scintillating cryogenic detectors for the investigation of 82Se neutrinoless double-beta decay (0⌫). The assembly of the experiment ended in October 2016 and after four months of commissioning, debugging and performance optimization the data taking has started in March 2017. No evidence of signal was found in a 1.83 kg · y 82Se exposure, setting the best lower limit on the 0⌫ ...

Exploring practices and spatialities of urban transformation: the role of power in urban governance

This PhD thesis is a qualitative study that attempts to broaden urban geography’s reach in regard to the forces affecting the production of the city. It focuses, in particular, on governance aspects and the local mechanisms of power that they underpin to provide a fresh look at central issues of urban transformation such as an actor’s capacity to act and collective action. As the thesis adopts a framework informed by urban politics, a crucial effort is that of accounting for the methodologic...

Exploiting Social Influence to Control Opinions in Social Networks

Social networks started as a place to comfortably connect with your friends. With them, we can communicate our thoughts and opinions over different topics and reach a large portion of users, even those who are not on your friend’s list. This has led to making social networks a crucial part of many of us, providing for example information, entertainment, and learning. Many users prefer to access social networks, like Facebook or Twitter, to have access to news as they provide faster means for ...

On the origin of high energy neutrinos detected by IceCube

From squatted public house to squatted public home: unpacking the informal occupation of public housing in Italy

This thesis aims at understanding the informal access to public housing within the broader context of Neapolitan housing system and investigate the numerous factors underlying the phenomenon. It aims at deepening our understanding about the constraints and the opportunities that shape people’s informal practices and strategies to respond to their housing-related needs, as they navigate the fragmented provision context of local housing welfare system. This thesis investigates the resource...

Formal design of performance-driven self-adapting systems under uncertainty

Performance evaluation is fundamental for modern software systems design since it heavily determines users satisfaction. However, although standard quantitative methods are effective for studying the performance behavior of software in the early stage, they may fail at runtime when systems are exposed to strong external and internal variability (e.g., workload fluctuations or hardware degradation). In this setting, performance-driven self-adaptation is a promising technique. It manages r...

City-to-city learning in transnational municipal climate networks: an exploratory study

Municipalities worldwide are increasingly exposed to the impacts of climate change manifesting in a higher incidence of natural hazards. In order to respond to these challenges, local governments need to search for solutions that proved to work elsewhere. Learning exchanges with peers from other municipalities - on the national and international level – appear to be a promising approach for local policymakers. Indeed, particularly in the last two decades cities were globally joining together ...