Papers by Cinzia Franceschini
Nutrients
The current study reports an ethnobotanical field investigation of traditionally gathered and con... more The current study reports an ethnobotanical field investigation of traditionally gathered and consumed wild greens (Chorta) in one of the five so-called Blue Zones in the world: Ikaria Isle, Greece. Through 31 semi-structured interviews, a total of 56 wild green plants were documented along with their culinary uses, linguistic labels, and locally perceived tastes. Most of the gathered greens were described as bitter and associated with members of Asteraceae and Brassicaceae botanical families (31%), while among the top-quoted wild greens, species belonging to these two plant families accounted for 50% of the wild vegetables, which were consumed mostly cooked. Cross-cultural comparison with foraging in other areas of the central-eastern Mediterranean and the Near East demonstrated a remarkable overlapping of Ikarian greens with Cretan and Sicilian, as well as in the prevalence of bitter-tasting botanical genera. Important differences with other wild greens-related food heritage were ...
arXiv (Cornell University), Mar 25, 2019
Skewness plays a relevant role in several multivariate statistical techniques. Sometimes it is us... more Skewness plays a relevant role in several multivariate statistical techniques. Sometimes it is used to recover data features, as in cluster analysis. In other circumstances, skewness impairs the performances of statistical methods, as in the Hotelling's one-sample test. In both cases, there is the need to check the symmetry of the underlying distribution, either by visual inspection or by formal testing. The R packages MaxSkew and Mul-tiSkew address these issues by measuring, testing and removing skewness from multivariate data. Skewness is assessed by the third multivariate cumulant and its functions. The hypothesis of symmetry is tested either nonparametrically, with the bootstrap, or parametrically, under the normality assumption. Skewness is removed or at least alleviated by projecting the data onto appropriate linear subspaces. Usages of MaxSkew and MultiSkew are illustrated with the Iris dataset.
Nutrients
The current study reports an ethnobotanical field investigation of traditionally gathered and con... more The current study reports an ethnobotanical field investigation of traditionally gathered and consumed wild greens (Chorta) in one of the five so-called Blue Zones in the world: Ikaria Isle, Greece. Through 31 semi-structured interviews, a total of 56 wild green plants were documented along with their culinary uses, linguistic labels, and locally perceived tastes. Most of the gathered greens were described as bitter and associated with members of Asteraceae and Brassicaceae botanical families (31%), while among the top-quoted wild greens, species belonging to these two plant families accounted for 50% of the wild vegetables, which were consumed mostly cooked. Cross-cultural comparison with foraging in other areas of the central-eastern Mediterranean and the Near East demonstrated a remarkable overlapping of Ikarian greens with Cretan and Sicilian, as well as in the prevalence of bitter-tasting botanical genera. Important differences with other wild greens-related food heritage were ...
Dottorato di ricerca in statistica. 12. ciclo. A.a. 1998-99. Coordinatore e tutore Mauro ColiCons... more Dottorato di ricerca in statistica. 12. ciclo. A.a. 1998-99. Coordinatore e tutore Mauro ColiConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7 , Rome; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale - P.za Cavalleggeri, 1, Florence / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal
Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance
Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN), Sep 20, 2021
Plants, 2022
The high morphological variability of Viola arvensis may hinder the proper identification of the ... more The high morphological variability of Viola arvensis may hinder the proper identification of the closely related species with an implication for biodiversity surveys. Variation in floral and vegetative morphology was explored in V. arvensis, compared to V. kitaibeliana, based upon 14 wild Italian populations, to provide new insights into their diagnostic features. Species were characterized using 32 morphological descriptors assessed on 272 flowers and as many leaves and scored as quantitative and categorical variables. Statistical methods, including Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), were applied to test species delimitation. Data highlighted variations in sepal size, petal size, leaves shape, stylar dark spot, and pollen magazine higher within V. arvensis than between V. arvensis and V. kitaibeliana. LDA partitioned the V. arvensis samples into two distinct clusters; no clear distinction was found between the cluster combining individuals from grasslands and V. kitaibeliana. The ...
Ecology and Society, 2020
National parks in mountain areas are biodiversity hotspots in which implementing the sustainabili... more National parks in mountain areas are biodiversity hotspots in which implementing the sustainability goals of Agenda 2030 is particularly urgent. Ecotourism provides an opportunity to convey bio-ecological and economic sustainability principles to the public, focusing on nature conservation and a reduction of the negative impacts of tourism. We investigated four national parks in the Apennines, Italy using the insights of hiking guides with park accreditation to assess sustainability issues. Multivariate analyses of questionnaires revealed that most of the interviewed hiking guides across the Apennines were sensitive toward the theme of sustainability. Limiting the ecological footprint of tourism was identified as the main challenge. Interesting feedback on management issues was given by hiking guides, indicating innovations such as food, waste-disposal management, accommodation, and transport as critical areas with the potential to impact sustainable development. Certification schemes were also recognized as an important tool with which to encourage ecologically responsible tourism. Hiking guides themselves revealed an interest in improving national parks’ scientific communication and the provision of lifelong learning initiatives regarding old-growth forests and nature conservation. Overall, the research highlights the key role of hiking guides as an effective means of conveying conservation messaging to ecotourists, while also encouraging sustainable development and the adoption of agro-environmental measures on the part of local communities. Hiking guides could, therefore, contribute toward both improving cultural awareness of conservation issues and encouraging local, low-impact economic practices.
Projection pursuit is a multivariate statistical technique aimed at finding interesting low-dimen... more Projection pursuit is a multivariate statistical technique aimed at finding interesting low-dimensional data projections. It deals with three major challenges of multivariate analysis: the curse of dimensionality, the presence of irrelevant features and the limitations of visual perception. In particular, kurtosis-based projection pursuit looks for interesting data features by means of data projections with either minimal or maximal kurtosis. Its applications include independent component analysis, cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, multivariate normality testing and outliers detection. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper constitutes the first application of kurtosis-based projection pursuit to the exploratory analysis of multivariate financial time series.
Projection pursuit is a multivariate statistical technique aimed at finding interesting low-dimen... more Projection pursuit is a multivariate statistical technique aimed at finding interesting low-dimensional data projections. A projection pursuit index is a function which associates a data projection to a real value measuring its interestingness: the higher the index, the more interesting the projection. Consequently, projection pursuit looks for the data projection which maximizes the projection pursuit index. The absolute value of the fourth standardized cumulant is a prominent projection pursuit index. In the general case, a projection achieving either minimal or maximal kurtosis poses computational difficulties. We address them by an algorithm which converges to the global optimum, whose computational advantages are illustrated with air pollution data.
Animals, 2021
Winter resources are crucial for wildlife, and, at a local scale, some anthropogenic and environm... more Winter resources are crucial for wildlife, and, at a local scale, some anthropogenic and environmental factors could affect their availability. In the case of wolves, it is known that vocalisations in response to unfamiliar howls are issued to defend their territory and the important resources within it. Then, we studied the characteristics of winter response sites (WRS) during the cold season, aiming to assess their eventual ability to provide insights into the distribution of valuable resources within their territories. Within this scope, we planned a wolf-howling survey following a standardised approach. The study covered an Apennine (Central Italy) area of 500 km2. A hexagonal mesh was imposed on the area, in order to determine the values of different variables at the local scale. A logistic LASSO regression was performed. WRS were positively related to the presence of thermal refuges (odds = 114.485), to patch richness (odds = 1.153), wild boar drive hunting areas (odds = 1.015...
Symmetry, 2019
The R packages MaxSkew and MultiSkew measure, test and remove skewness from multivariate data usi... more The R packages MaxSkew and MultiSkew measure, test and remove skewness from multivariate data using their third-order standardized moments. Skewness is measured by scalar functions of the third standardized moment matrix. Skewness is tested with either the bootstrap or under normality. Skewness is removed by appropriate linear projections. The packages might be used to recover data features, as for example clusters and outliers. They are also helpful in improving the performances of statistical methods, as for example the Hotelling’s one-sample test. The Iris dataset illustrates the usages of MaxSkew and MultiSkew.
Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance, 2010
Skewness of a random vector can be evaluated via its third cumulant, i.e., a matrix whose element... more Skewness of a random vector can be evaluated via its third cumulant, i.e., a matrix whose elements are central moments of order three. In the general case, modelling third cumulants might require a large number of parameters, which can be substantially reduced if skew-normality of the underlying distribution is assumed. We propose a multivariate GARCH model with constant conditional correlations
Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance, 2014
The extended skew-normal (ESN) distribution includes the normal one as a special case. Unfortunat... more The extended skew-normal (ESN) distribution includes the normal one as a special case. Unfortunately, its information matrix is singular under normality, thus preventing application of standard likelihood-based methods for testing the null hypothesis of normality. The paper shows that for univariate ESN distributions the sample skewness provides the locally most powerful test for normality among the location and scale invariant ones. The generalization to multivariate ESN distributions considers projections of the data onto the direction corresponding to maximal skewness. Related computational problems simplifies for the multivariate ESN distribution, where the direction maximizing skewness is shown to have a simple parametric interpretation.
Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance, 2012
The kurtosis of a random variable is often measured by its fourth standardized moment. Similarly,... more The kurtosis of a random variable is often measured by its fourth standardized moment. Similarly, measures of multivariate kurtosis are often functions of a matrix containing all the fourth order moments which can be obtained from a standardized random vector. This paper examines some properties of the fourth moment matrix, and uses them to establish some inequalities between well-known scalar measures of multivariate kurtosis. Theoretical results are applied to multivariate financial returns.
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Papers by Cinzia Franceschini