Research | mysite

Here follows a list of my main research projects

(a list of publications can also be found on my Google Scholar profile )

Main PhD projects

My PhD thesis, that basically list my main 4 works, can be found here

FoodRepo: An Open Food Repository of Barcoded Food Products

Here, we present this system, which we call FoodRepo (https://www.foodrepo.org), an openly accessible database of barcoded food products, and we describe the data-acquisition framework, its quality control and maintenance.

Figure 2. Schematic overview of FoodRepo data collection and validation processes. The two workflows are illustrated here. The bootstrap workflow (A) was based on the joint work of the FoodRepo team and crowd-sourced workers collecting and validating the data. This allowed the storage of the first 14,000 or so products in the database. The community-based workflow (B) allows for long-term sustainability of the database thanks to customers uploading new products through FoodRepo mobile app and the continuous support of the FoodRepo team.

Link to the original paper

Assessing the Dynamics and Control of Droplet- and Aerosol-Transmitted Influenza Using an Indoor Positioning System

In this work we assess the effect of improved ventilation in a school setting, on the spread of influenza, using previously recorded contact among school students and workers.

we find that bringing ventilation to recommended levels had the same mitigating effect as a vaccination coverage of 50% to 60%. Ventilation is an easy-to-implement strategy that has the potential to support vaccination efforts for effective control of influenza spread

Comparison of the effect of ventilation (boxplots) and vaccination coverage (horizontal lines) on outbreak size. Colors refer to different vaccination coverages. Results are reported for aerosol-based (A) and combined transmission models (B,C). For (A,B), air change rate varies from 0.5 to 3.0 changes/h, while (C) assumes an air change rate of 0.5 changes/h. (C) Comparison of partially improved ventilation strategies (boxplots) in the school. Classrooms for improved ventilation were selected by ranking them according to the amount of inhaled infectious particles (optimal), their occupancy according to the school roster (schedule-based), or occupancy corrected by room size (size-corrected). Effect of vaccination coverage is also reported (median outbreak sizes under corresponding vaccination coverages, reported as horizontal lines).

Link to the original paper

Code and plots can be found in the related GitHub repo

A digital reconstruction of the 1630–1631 large plague outbreak in Venice

Here, we present an analysis of the 1630–1631 plague outbreak in the city of Venice, using newly collected daily death records. We identify the presence of a two-peak pattern, for which we present two possible explanations based on computational models of disease dynamics.

Illustration of the data collection workflow and datasets, including an example page from a death records book. The zoomed-in registration reads as follows: “Messer Piero pasamaner de anni 40 febre et mal mazuccho giorni 5”, which roughly translates to “Mister Piero passementerie’s weaver aged 40 fever and plague 5 days.” What is meant is that Mister Piero, a passementerie’s weaver forty of age (approximately), died of fever and plague after five days of sickness. This occurred on the 23rd of October, 1630 (as it can be read at the top of the page).

Link to the original paper

Breaking Apart Contact Networks with Vaccination

In this work we assessed the effect of 'social segregation' on the sperad of higly-infectious diseases, like measles, in order to propose an explanation for variability observed in outbreak size, across countries with similar vaccination coverages.

We find the largest effects to be in the regime of relatively high vaccination coverages of around 80%, where despite vaccination being random, outbreak sizes can vary by a factor of 20.