Gianluca Bonifazi

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• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at Marche Polytechnic University

Threads is a new social network that was launched by Meta in July 2023 and conceived as a direct alternative to X. It is a unique case study in the social network landscape, as it is content-based like X, but has an Instagram-based growth model, which makes it significantly different from X. As it was launched recently, studies on Threads are still...

In this paper, we propose Multilayer network-based Visual Interpreter (MuVI), a framework for visual interpretability of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) based on their mapping into multilayer networks. The peculiarity of MuVI is that it constructs a pixel-level heatmap of the salient parts of an image processed by a CNN, where the importance o...

In this article, we propose a framework that uses a multimodal multilayer network to build, manage and compare User Histories in X. A User History not only considers the contents of interest to the user, as is generally the case with a User Profile. In fact, it also records the set of interactions she has made with contents, the timestamps when the...

The concept of “assortativity” was introduced to denote the preference of a network node to relate to other nodes similar in some way. This concept is closely related to that of homophily, which is used in Social Network Analysis to indicate that users tend to connect with others who have similar characteristics. It is possible to distinguish betwe...

Excess mortality is defined as an increase in the number of deaths above what is expected based on historical trends, hereafter called baseline. In a previous paper, we introduced a statistical method that allows an unbiased and robust determination of the baseline to be used for the computation of excesses. A good determination of the baseline all...

In recent literature, multilayer networks are increasingly being used to model and manage complex scenarios. One of them well suited to be modeled and managed using multilayer networks is represented by multimodal social networks, in which nodes and edges can be of different types. In fact, in this case, each layer of the multilayer network can be...

In this paper, we propose a framework that uses the theory and techniques of (Social) Network Analysis to investigate the learned representations of a Graph Neural Network (GNN, for short). Our framework receives a graph as input and passes it to the GNN to be investigated, which returns suitable node embeddings. These are used to derive insights o...

Electronic Word of Mouth (eWoM) has been largely studied for social platforms, such as Yelp and TripAdvisor, which are highly investigated in the context of digital marketing. However, it can also have interesting applications in other contexts. Therefore, it can be challenging to investigate this phenomenon on generic social platforms, such as Fac...

In recent years, the huge growth in the number and variety of blockchains has prompted researchers to investigate the cross-blockchain scenario. In this setting, multiple blockchains coexist, and wallets can exchange data and money from one blockchain to another. The effective and efficient management of a cross-blockchain ecosystem is an open prob...

Wash trading is considered a highly inopportune and illegal behavior in regulated markets. Instead, it is practiced in unregulated markets, such as cryptocurrency or NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) markets. Regarding the latter, in the past many researchers have been interested in this phenomenon from an “ex-ante” perspective, aiming to identify and clas...

Deep learning techniques and tools have experienced enormous growth and widespread diffusion in recent years. Among the areas where deep learning has become more widespread there are computational biology and cognitive neuroscience. At the same time, the need for tools able to explore, understand, and possibly manipulate, a deep learning model has...

In recent years different types of Residual Neural Networks (ResNets, for short) have been introduced to improve the performance of deep Convolutional Neural Networks. To cope with the possible redundancy of the layer structure of ResNets and to use them on devices with limited computational capabilities, several tools for exploring and compressing...

The concept of scope was introduced in Social Network Analysis to assess the authoritativeness and convincing ability of a user toward other users on one or more social platforms. It has been studied in the past in some specific contexts, for example to assess the ability of a user to spread information on Twitter. In this paper, we propose a new i...

Colors characterize each object around us. For this reason, the study of colors has played a key role in Artificial Intelligence (think, for instance, of image classification, object recognition and segmentation). However, there are some topics about colors still little explored. One of them concerns fabric colors. This is a particular topic since...

Modeling discussions on social networks is a challenging task, especially if we consider sensitive topics, such as politics or healthcare. However, the knowledge hidden in these debates helps to investigate trends and opinions and to identify the cohesion of users when they deal with a specific topic. To this end, we propose a general multilayer ne...

In just few years, TikTok has become a major player in the social media environment, especially with regard to teenagers. One of the key factors of this success is the idea of challenges, that is, video competitions/emulations on a certain topic, which a user can launch and other ones can join. Most of the challenges are fun and harmless. However,...

Information diffusion in social networks is a classic and, at the same time, very current problem. In fact, information diffusers are always looking for new techniques to disseminate information of their interest by creating backbones among them. In this paper, we focus on a specific, but very current and relevant, scenario regarding this way of pr...

This paper falls in the context of the interpretability of the internal structure of deep learning systems. In particular, we propose an approach to map a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) into a multilayer network. Next, to show how such a mapping helps to better understand the CNN, we propose a technique for comprising it. This technique detects...

One of the key aspects that distinguish TikTok from other social media is the presence of challenges. A challenge is a kind of competition that starts when a user posts a video with certain actions and a certain hashtag and invites other users to replicate the same video in their own way. Most challenges are fun and harmless, but sometimes dangerou...

The analysis of people's comments in social platforms is a widely investigated topic because comments are the place where people show their spontaneity most clearly. In this paper, we present a network-based data structure and a related approach to represent and manage the underlying semantics of a set of comments. Our approach is based on the extr...

In the last two years, we have seen a huge number of debates and discussions on COVID-19 in social media. Many authors have analyzed these debates on Facebook and Twitter, while very few ones have considered Reddit. In this paper, we focus on this social network and propose three approaches to extract information from posts on COVID-19 published in...

Purpose In this paper, we define the concept of user spectrum and adopt it to classify Ethereum users based on their behavior. Design/methodology/approach Given a time period, our approach associates each user with a spectrum showing the trend of some behavioral features obtained from a social network-based representation of Ethereum. Each class o...

In this paper, we present a Social Network Analysis based approach to investigate user behavior during a cryptocurrency speculative bubble in order to extract knowledge patterns about it. Our approach is general and can be applied to any past, present and future cryptocurrency speculative bubble. To verify its potential, we apply it to investigate...

In this article, we present a Social Network Analysis–based approach to investigate user behaviour during a cryptocurrency speculative bubble in order to extract knowledge patterns about it. Our approach is general and can be applied to any past, present and future cryptocurrency speculative bubble. To verify its potential, we apply it to investiga...

Since November 6th, 2020, Italian regions have been classified according to four levels, corresponding to specific risk scenarios, for which specific restrictive measures have been foreseen. By analyzing the time evolution of the reproduction number \(R_t\), we estimate how much different restrictive measures affect \(R_t\), and we quantify the com...

Since November 6$^{\mathrm{th}}$, 2020, Italian regions have been classified according to four levels, corresponding to specific risk scenarios, for which specific restrictive measures have been foreseen. By analyzing the time evolution of the reproduction number $R_t$, we estimate how much different restrictive measures affect $R_t$, and we quanti...

In the last few decades, we have witnessed an increasing focus on safety in the workplace. ICT has always played a leading role in this context. One ICT sector that is increasingly important in ensuring safety at work is the Internet of Things and, in particular, the new architectures referring to it, such as SIoT, MIoT and Sentient Multimedia Syst...

In a recent work, we introduced a novel method to compute the effective reproduction number R t and we applied it to describe the development of the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. The study is based on the number of daily positive swabs as reported by the Italian Dipartimento di Protezione Civile. Recently, the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanità...

A simplified method to compute $$R_t$$ R t , the effective reproduction number, is presented. The method relates the value of $$R_t$$ R t to the estimation of the doubling time performed with a local exponential fit. The condition $$R_t=1$$ R t = 1 corresponds to a growth rate equal to zero or equivalently an infinite doubling time. Different assum...

We analyze the data about casualties in Italy in the period 1 January 2015 to 30 September 2020 released by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). The aim of this article was the description of a statistically robust methodology to extract quantitative values for the seasonal excesses of deaths featured by the data, accompanying them...

We analyze the data about casualties in Italy in the period 01/01/2015 to 30/09/2020 released by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). Aim of this article is the description of a statistically robust methodology to extract quantitative values for the seasonal excesses of deaths featured by the data, accompanying them with correct es...

In a recent work [1] we introduced a novel method to compute Rt and we applied it to describe the development of the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. The study is based on the number of daily positive swabs as reported by the Italian Dipartimento di Protezione Civile. Recently, the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanit`a made available the data relative o...

A simplified method to compute $R_t$, the Effective Reproduction Number, is presented. The method relates the value of $R_t$ to the estimation of the doubling time performed with a local exponential fit. The condition $R_t = 1$ corresponds to a growth rate equal to zero or equivalently an infinite doubling time. Different assumptions on the probabi...

Slips, trips and falls are among the main causes of accidents in a workplace. For this reason, many fall detection approaches have been proposed in the literature. One of the most important categories of approaches is based on the usage of wearable devices. These devices have many advantages, but they also pose some challenging open issues. In part...

Slips, trips and falls are among the main causes of accidents in a workplace. For this reason, many fall detection approaches have been proposed in the literature. One of the most important categories of approaches is based on the usage of wearable devices. These devices have many advantages, but they also pose some challenging open issues. In part...