Luisa Scaccia

University of Macerata | UNIMC · Department of Economics and Law

Transport externalities can strongly affect the attractiveness of tourist destinations. Tourists' multimodality at destination, reducing private motorised mobility, improves sustainability and city appeal. The paper explores tourists' intention to utilise multiple modes of transport via a survey of more than 1900 potential tourists in Italy. It rep...

We investigated the spectrum of density fluctuations of a liquid crystal, CB7CB, in two different orientations by using high-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering. Our analysis, based on Bayesian principles, revealed that high-frequency collective excitations propagate through this mesoscale-ordered sample in a peculiar manner that lies somewhere b...

We used inelastic x-ray scattering methods to measure the terahertz spectrum of density fluctuations of ethanol in both liquid and solid phases. The results of a Bayesian inference-based lineshape analysis with a multiple excitation model and the comparison with a previous similar analysis on water indicate that the different structures induced by...

We review recent inelastic neutron scattering experiments aimed at investigating still open issues in the microscopic dynamics of liquids. It is shown that the interpretation of experimental results is put on solid ground by the application of modern methods of analysis and lineshape modelling which ensure the fulfillment of fundamental physical pr...

Size-dependent tax enforcement is quite widespread worldwide, but the literature on its effects over firms’ behaviour is very scarce. By assuming different audit probabilities for small and large firms, we propose a dynamic model to study the consequences of size-dependent monitoring level on a firm’ fiscal compliance and its decision to invest and...

The success of marine protected areas (MPAs) in achieving conservation and sustainable development goals hinges on, among other things, their social acceptability by local communities. Small-scale fishing communities represent a key stakeholder category within and around MPAs. Although many authors have examined the social acceptability of MPAs, re...

Purpose: Scuba diving tourism is reputed to be a potential low-impact recreational activity that allow environmental conservation and socioeconomic benefits for local communities. Few studies have addressed the issue of sustainability of scuba diving tourism through the simultaneously investigation on the economic and socio-cultural aspects and its...

Understanding how molecules engage in collective motions in a liquid where a network of bonds exists has both fundamental and applied relevance. On the one hand, it can elucidate the ``ordering" role of long-range correlations in an otherwise strongly dissipative system; on the other hand, it can inspire new avenues to control such order to impleme...

As a contribution to the ongoing effort toward high-frequency sound manipulation in composite materials, we use Inelastic X-ray Scattering to probe the phonon spectrum of ice, either in a pure form or with a sparse amount of nanoparticles embedded in it. The study aims at elucidating the ability of nanocolloids to condition the collective atomic vi...

Understanding how molecules engage in collective motions in a liquid where a network of bonds exists has both fundamental and applied relevance. On the one hand, it can elucidate the ``ordering" role of long-range correlations in an otherwise strongly dissipative system; on the other hand, it can inspire new avenues to control such order to impleme...

Heterogeneity in agents’ preferences is generally analysed through mixed logit models, which assume taste parameters are distributed in the population according to a certain mixing distribution. As a result, if the utility function is linear in attributes, the willingness to pay is the ratio of two random parameters and is itself random. This paper...

The control of sound propagation in materials via the design of their elastic properties is an exciting task at the forefront of Condensed Matter. It becomes especially compelling at terahertz frequencies, where phonons are the primary conveyors of heat flow. Despite the increasing focus on this goal, this field of research is still in its infancy;...

One of the grand challenges of new generation Condensed Matter physicists is the development of novel devices enabling the control of sound propagation at terahertz frequency. Indeed, phonon excitations in this frequency window are the leading conveyor of heat transfer in insulators. Their manipulation is thus critical to implementing heat manageme...

Nowadays, an increasing number of scattering measurements rely on the use of large-scale research facilities, which is usually granted after highly competitive peer-reviewing and typically for short-time lapses. The optimal use of the allocated time requires rigorous estimates on the reliability of the data analysis, as inferred from the limited st...

50 days' free access to the paper via: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1gA6ohVEB4--U Heterogeneity in agents’ preferences is generally analysed through mixed logit models, which assume taste parameters are distributed in the population according to a certain mixing distribution. As a result, if the utility function is linear in attributes, the will...

We propose a model to describe the link between industrial structure and evasion dynamics in a heterogeneous setting, in which the monitoring efforts put in place by the State to fight evasion of firms depend on the market share of each firm. More precisely, while the convenience to evade taxes is determined as a Nash solution of an incomplete info...

In this work, we investigate the possibility of controlling the acoustic damping in a liquid when nanoparticles are suspended in it. To shed light on this topic, we performed Inelastic X-Ray Scattering (IXS) measurements of the terahertz collective dynamics of aqueous suspensions of nanospheres of various materials, size, and relative concentration...

When probed at nanometer and picosecond scales, the properties of a liquid present striking analogies with the ones of the corresponding solid, one of the most surprising is the ability of supporting shear wave propagation, as a rigid medium. Although this evidence is being reported by a growing number of terahertz scattering measurements, it remai...

We used inelastic x-ray scattering to gain insight into the complex terahertz dynamics of a diluted Au-nanoparticle suspension in glycerol. We observe that, albeit sparse, Au nanoparticles leave clear signatures on the dynamic response of the system, the main one being an additional mode propagating at the nanoparticle-glycerol interface. A Bayesia...

We used the high-resolution Inelastic X-ray Scattering beamline of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory to measure the terahertz spectrum of pure water and a dilute aqueous suspension of 15 nm diameter spherical Au nanoparticles (Au-NPs). We observe that, despite their sparse volume concentration of about 0.5%, the immersed NPs...

We consider here the possibility of shaping the high-frequency acoustic propagation in a liquid upon directional confinement. This hypothesis is investigated by Inelastic X-ray Scattering measurements on water confined in aligned multi-walled carbon nanotubes, in which the momentum transfer was either parallel or orthogonal to the confinement axis....

In the last few decades, experimental studies of the terahertz spectrum of density fluctuations have considerably improved our knowledge of the mesoscopic dynamics of disordered materials, which also have imposed new demands on the data modelling and interpretation. Indeed, lineshape analyses are no longer limited to the phenomenological observatio...

Following the stream of increasing scientific interest in condensed-matter systems under ultra-hydrophobic confinement, the present work reports the first incoherent neutron spin echo assessment of the dynamics of water axially confined inside single-wall carbon nanotubes of diameter d ∼ 1.4 nm. At the time scale of the nanosecond, two water popula...

We present a neutron spin echo study of the nanosecond dynamics of polyethylene glycol (PEG) functionalized nanosized gold particles dissolved in D 2 O at two temperatures and two different PEG molecular weights (400D and 2000D). The analysis of the neutron spin echo data was performed by applying a Bayesian approach to the description of time cor...

The ecological management effectiveness (EME) of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is the degree to which MPAs reach their ecological goals. The significant variability of EME among MPAs has been partly explained by MPA design, management and implementation features (e.g. surface area, enforcement, age of protection). We investigated EME variability by...

We present a neutron spin echo study (NSE) of the nanosecond dynamics of polyethylene glycol (PEG) functionalised nanosized gold particles dissolved in D$_2$O at two temperatures and two different PEG molecular weights. The analysis of the NSE data was performed by applying a Bayesian approach to the description of time correlation function decays...

Purpose Use rationally the Red Marrow (RM) and Whole Body (WB) dosimetry pre and during therapy in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer (DTC) focalinzing the relationship between clinical parameters. Methods We enrolled 120 patients (278 dosimetries-196 with complete clinical data) with DTC (March 2012–December 2017). We made double dosimetric study the...

The control of phonon propagation in nanoparticle arrays is one of the new frontiers of nanotechnology, potentially enabling the discovery of materials with unknown functionalities for potential innovative applications. The exploration of the terahertz window appears quite promising as phonons in this range are the leading carriers of heat transpor...

Policy-making on Urban Freight Transport (UFT) is complex because it requires dealing with heterogeneous stakeholders with different objectives. The often unforeseen and undesired results deriving from UFT policy implementation have induced many researchers to call for an in-depth analysis of specific stakeholders’ preferences. However, the structu...

We propose a nonparametric item response theory model for dichotomously-scored items in a Bayesian framework. The model is based on a latent class (LC) formulation, and it is multidimensional, with dimensions corresponding to a partition of the items in homogenous groups that are specified on the basis of inequality constraints among the conditiona...

When the dynamics of liquids and disordered systems at mesoscopic level is investigated by means of inelastic scattering (e.g., neutron or x ray), spectra are often characterized by a poor definition of the excitation lines and spectroscopic features in general and one important issue is to establish how many of these lines need to be included in t...

This paper systematically compares finite sample performances of methods to build confi- dence intervals for willingness to pay measures in a choice modeling context. It contributes to the field by also considering methods developed in other research fields. Various scenarios are evaluated under an extensive Monte Carlo study. Results show that the...

This paper investigates transport providers’ preferences for alternative loading bays and pricing policies. It estimates the importance of loading bays, the probability of finding them free and offers strategically relevant information to policy makers. The results underline the relevance of both preference heterogeneity and non-linear attribute ef...

This paper systematically compares methods to build confidence intervals for willingness to pay measures in a discrete choice context. It contributes to the literature by including methods developed in other research fields. Monte Carlo simulations are used to assess the performance of all the methods considered. The various scenarios evaluated rev...

Single-name Credit Default Swaps (CDS) are considered the main providers of direct information related with a reference entity’s creditworthiness and, for this reason, they have often been the core of news on the current financial crisis. The academic research has focused mainly on the capacity of CDS in anticipating agencies’ official rating chang...

In parallel with the development of credit derivatives market, researchers have begun to explore the relationship between Credit Default Swap (CDS) market and rating events. Many papers, via classical event-study methodology, show that CDS market is able to signal future negative rating events announced by credit rating agencies. In this work, we i...

We develop a Bayesian approach for selecting the model which is the most supported by the data within a class of marginal models for categorical variables formulated through equality and/or inequality constraints on generalised logits (local, global, continuation or reverse continuation), generalised log-odds ratios and similar higher-order interac...

Separable processes represent a convenient class of models for data collected on a regular rectangular lattice. Three model-based tests, for testing separability and testing axial symmetry and separability together, are presented. These are shown to be much more powerful than existing model-free tests using the sample periodogram, provided the mode...

Hidden Markov Models, also known as Markov Switching Models, can be considered an extension of mixture models, allowing for dependent observations. The main problem associated with Hidden Markov Models is represented by the choice of the number of regimes, i.e. the number of generating data processes, which differ one from another just for the valu...

The multinomial logit model has been used widely as a fundamental tool for the analysis of discrete choices and has found large application in transport studies. However, its restrictive assumptions, such as independence from irrelevant alternatives (IIA) and preference homogeneity across respondents, have motivated the development of more flexible...

Hidden Markov Models can be considered an extension of mixture models, allowing for dependent observations. In a hierarchical Bayesian framework, we show how Reversible Jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques can be used to estimate the parameters of a model, as well as the number of regimes. We consider a mixture of normal distributions character...

We propose a class of estimators of the Bayes factor which is based on an extension of the bridge sampling identity of Meng & Wong (1996) and makes use of the output of the reversible jump algorithm of Green (1995). Within this class we give the optimal estimator and also a suboptimal one which may be simply computed on the basis of the acceptance...

Data collected on a rectangular lattice are common in many areas, and models used often make simplifying assumptions. These assumptions include axial symmetry in the spatial process and separability. Some di0erent methods for testing axial symmetry and separability are considered. Using the sample periodogram is shown to provide some simple satisfa...

In many situations, the distribution of the error terms of a linear regression model departs significantly from normality. It is shown, through a simulation study, that an effective strategy to deal with these situations is fitting a regression model based on the assumption that the error terms follow a mixture of normal distributions. The main adv...

We illustrate the use of a mixture of multivariate Normal distributions for clustering genes on the basis of Microarray data. We follow a hierarchical Bayesian approach and estimate the parameters of the mixture using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques. The number of components (groups) is chosen on the basis of the Bayes factor, numericall...

There is little evidence on unemployment duration and its determinants in developing countries. This study is on the duration aspect of unemployment in a developing country, Turkey. We analyze the determinants of the probability of leaving unemployment for employment or the hazard rate. The effects of the personal and household characteristics and...

A well-known method for estimating the size, N, of a certain population is the capture-recapture method (for a review see Yip et al., 1995a and Schwarz and Seber, 1999). The first motivations to the development of these methods arose in biology where researchers were interested in estimating the number of animals of a certain species (see, for inst...

This paper shows that, when modelling freight demand, taking into consideration the presence of attribute cutoffs is important and has relevant repercussions on the estimates of service attributes coefficients. In this paper we focus on mode choice models for freight transport demand in the Marche region in Italy. Specific reference is paid to furn...

This paper shows that, when modelling freight demand, taking into consideration the presence of attribute cutoffs is important and has relevant repercussions on the estimates of service attributes coefficients. In this paper we focus on mode choice models for freight transport demand in the Marche region in Italy. Specific reference is paid to furn...

this paper provide an interesting new methodology for the estimate of growth curves. The main difficulty lies, in fact, in deciding whether a bump or dip observed on a centile curve at a particular age is a real feature of the 27 data, or whether it is simply sampling error. The Bayesian modelling approach, together with the flexible semiparametric...

In this paper we propose a Bayesian Latent Class model for capture-recapture data. Through two appliations, the first concerning a sample of snowshoe hares and the second concerning a sample of diabetics in a small Italian town, we show how the proposed approach may be effectively used to obtain point estimates and credibility intervals for the siz...

Data collected on a rectangular lattice occur frequently in many areas such as field trials, geostatistics, remotely sensed data, and image analysis. Models for the spatial process often make simplifying assumptions, including axial symmetry and separability. We consider methods for testing these assumptions and compare tests based on sample covari...