A novel approach based on rough set theory for analyzing information disorder.

The paper presents and evaluates an approach based on Rough Set Theory, and some variants and extensions of this theory, to analyze phenomena related to Information Disorder. The main concepts and constructs of Rough Set Theory, such as lower and upper approximations of a target set, indiscernibility and neighborhood binary relations, are used to model and reason on groups of social media users and sets of information that circulate in the social media. Information theoretic measures, such as roughness and entropy, are used to evaluate two concepts, Complexity and Milestone, that have been borrowed by system theory and contextualized for Information Disorder. The novelty of the results presented in this paper relates to the adoption of Rough Set Theory constructs and operators in this new and unexplored field of investigation and, specifically, to model key elements of Information Disorder, such as the message and the interpreters, and reason on the evolutionary dynamics of these elements. The added value of using these measures is an increase in the ability to interpret the effects of Information Disorder, due to the circulation of news, as the ratio between the cardinality of lower and upper approximations of a Rough Set, cardinality variations of parts, increase in their fragmentation or cohesion. Such improved interpretative ability can be beneficial to social media analysts and providers. Four algorithms based on Rough Set Theory and some variants or extensions are used to evaluate the results in a case study built with real data used to contrast disinformation for COVID-19. The achieved results allow to understand the superiority of the approaches based on Fuzzy Rough Sets for the interpretation of our phenomenon.

Toward reliable machine learning with Congruity: a quality measure based on formal concept analysis.

The spreading of machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) methods in different and critical application domains, like medicine and healthcare, introduces many opportunities but raises risks and opens ethical issues, mainly attaining to the lack of transparency. This contribution deals with the lack of transparency of ML and DL models focusing on the lack of trust in predictions and decisions generated. In this sense, this paper establishes a measure, namely Congruity, to provide information about the reliability of ML/DL model results. Congruity is defined by the lattice extracted through the formal concept analysis built on the training data. It measures how much the incoming data items are close to the ones used at the training stage of the ML and DL models. The general idea is that the reliability of trained model results is highly correlated with the similarity of input data and the training set. The objective of the paper is to demonstrate the correlation between the Congruity and the well-known Accuracy of the whole ML/DL model. Experimental results reveal that the value of correlation between Congruity and Accuracy of ML model is greater than 80% by varying ML models.

A method based on Graph Theory and Three Way Decisions to evaluate critical regions in epidemic diffusion:: An analysis of COVID-19 in Italy.

The paper reports the results of an analysis of COVID-19 diffusion in Italy. The analysis was carried out with a new method based on the combined use of a 3 Way Decisions model and graph theory. Specifically, the data about infected people in the Italian regions is assessed by means of an evaluation function which allows the tri-partitioning of Italy and the identification of high, medium or low critical regions. The tri-partition is performed, along the temporal evolution of the COVID-19 diffusion, by calculating two threshold values which take into account the containment actions that, from time to time, the decision makers have implemented. The effects of a containment action are related to a reduction in the centrality value of a region. To estimate the effect of containment actions, we evaluated two approaches. The first is based on a uniform reduction in the centrality values of the regions, the second estimates the effects of containment actions starting from the mobility changes data provided by the Google Community Mobility reports. The results of our evaluation based on real data of the COVID-19 diffusion in Italy are encouraging and represent a good starting point for future extensions of the method.

A comprehensive model and computational methods to improve Situation Awareness in Intelligence scenarios.

This paper presents a comprehensive model for representing and reasoning on situations to support decision makers in Intelligence analysis activities. The main result presented in the paper stems from a work of refinement and abstraction of previous results of the authors related to the use of Situation Awareness and Granular Computing for the development of analysis methods and techniques to support Intelligence. This work made it possible to derive the characteristics of the model from previous case studies and applications with real data, and to link the reasoning techniques to concrete approaches used by intelligence analysts such as, for example, the Structured Analytic Techniques. The model allows to represent an operational situation according to three complementary perspectives: descriptive, relational and behavioral. These three perspectives are instantiated on the basis of the principles and methods of Granular Computing, mainly based on the theories of fuzzy and rough sets, and with the help of further structures such as graphs. As regards the reasoning on the situations thus represented, the paper presents four methods with related case studies and applications validated on real data.

Patterns for Visual Management in Industry 4.0.

The technologies of Industry 4.0 provide an opportunity to improve the effectiveness of Visual Management in manufacturing. The opportunity of improvement is twofold. From one side, Visual Management theory and practice can inspire the design of new software tools suitable for Industry 4.0; on the other side, the technology of Industry 4.0 can be used to increase the effectiveness of visual software tools. The paper first explores how the theoretical result on Visual Management can be used as a guideline to improve human-computer interaction, then a methodology is proposed for the design of visual patterns for manufacturing. Four visual patterns are presented that contribute to the solution of problems frequently encountered in discrete manufacturing industries; these patterns help to solve planning and control problems thus providing support to various management functions. Positive implications of this research concern people engagement and empowerment as well as improved problem solving, decision-making and management of manufacturing processes.

Active Camera Relocalization from a Single Reference Image without Hand-Eye Calibration.

This paper studies active relocalization of 6D camera pose from a single reference image, a new and challenging problem in computer vision and robotics. Straightforward active camera relocalization (ACR) is a tricky and expensive task that requires elaborate hand-eye calibration on precision robotic platforms. In this paper, we show that high-quality camera relocalization can be achieved in an active and much easier way. We propose a hand-eye calibration free approach to actively relocating the camera to the same 6D pose that produces the input reference image. We theoretically prove that, given bounded unknown hand-eye pose displacement, this approach is able to rapidly reduce both 3D relative rotational and translational pose between current camera and the reference one to an identical matrix and a zero vector, respectively. Based on these findings, we develop an effective ACR algorithm with fast convergence rate, reliable accuracy and robustness. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness and feasibility of our approach on both laboratory tests and challenging real-world applications in fine-grained change monitoring of cultural heritages.

Resilience Analysis of Critical Infrastructures: A Cognitive Approach Based on Granular Computing.

A great impetus for the study of resilience in critical infrastructures (CIs) is found in the large number of initiatives and international research programmes from U.S., EU, and Asia. Politicians, decision makers, and citizens are now aware of the drastic consequences that can have the cascading effects of an adverse event in these large scale infrastructures. However, the study of resilience in CIs is challenging for several reasons, among which their large scale and interdependencies. We have to consider also that adverse events, e.g., attacks, natural hazards, or man-made disasters, suddenly occur and evolve rapidly, giving us little time to take decisions and react to them. Approximate reasoning and rapid decision making have to be considered requirements for resilience analysis of CIs. The main result presented in this paper relates to a systemic integration of granular computing (GrC) and resilience analysis for CIs. Each phase of our approach presents distinctive aspects but, overall, we argue the merit of this paper consists in the originality of the study, being this the first work that combines GrC and resilience analysis of CIs. This paper reports an illustrative example that shows how to apply our results, and a discussion on the necessary contextualizations and extensions of the GrC results to be better adapted for CIs resilience.

Trust-Based Cooperative Social System Applied to a Carpooling Platform for Smartphones.

One of the worst traffic problems today is the existence of huge traffic jams in almost any big city, produced by the large number of commuters using private cars. This problem has led to an increase in research on the optimization of vehicle occupancy in urban areas as this would help to solve the problem that most cars are occupied by single passengers. The solution of sharing the available seats in cars, known as carpooling, is already available in major cities around the world. However, carpooling is still not considered a safe and reliable solution for many users. With the widespread use of mobile technology and social networks, it is possible to create a trust-based platform to promote carpooling through a convenient, fast and secure system. The main objective of this work is the design and implementation of a carpool system that improves some important aspects of previous systems, focusing on trust between users, and on the security of the system. The proposed system guarantees user privacy and measures trust levels through a new reputation algorithm. In addition to this, the proposal has been developed as a mobile application for devices using the Android Open Source Project.

A pervasive visual-haptic framework for virtual delivery training.

Thanks to the advances of voltage regulator (VR) technologies and haptic systems, virtual simulators are increasingly becoming a viable alternative to physical simulators in medicine and surgery, though many challenges still remain. In this study, a pervasive visual-haptic framework aimed to the training of obstetricians and midwives to vaginal delivery is described. The haptic feedback is provided by means of two hand-based haptic devices able to reproduce force-feedbacks on fingers and arms, thus enabling a much more realistic manipulation respect to stylus-based solutions. The interactive simulation is not solely driven by an approximated model of complex forces and physical constraints but, instead, is approached by a formal modeling of the whole labor and of the assistance/intervention procedures performed by means of a timed automata network and applied to a parametrical 3-D model of the anatomy, able to mimic a wide range of configurations. This novel methodology is able to represent not only the sequence of the main events associated to either a spontaneous or to an operative childbirth process, but also to help in validating the manual intervention as the actions performed by the user during the simulation are evaluated according to established medical guidelines. A discussion on the first results as well as on the challenges still unaddressed is included.