Federico Benvenuto

Sabrina Guastavino, Francesco Marchetti, Federico Benvenuto et al.

Operational flare forecasting aims at providing predictions that can be used to make decisions, typically at a daily scale, about the space weather impacts of flare occurrence. This study shows that video-based deep learning can be used for operational purposes when the training and validation sets used for the network optimization are generated while accounting for the periodicity of the solar cycle. Specifically, the paper describes an algorithm that can be applied to build up sets of active regions that are balanced according to the flare class rates associated to a specific cycle phase. These sets are used to train and validate a Long-term Recurrent Convolutional Network made of a combination of a convolutional neural network and a Long-Short Memory network. The reliability of this approach is assessed in the case of two prediction windows containing the solar storm of March 2015 and September 2017, respectively.

Federico Benvenuto, Michele Piana

In this paper we propose a new statistical stopping rule for constrained maximum likelihood iterative algorithms applied to ill-posed inverse problems. To this aim we extend the definition of Tikhonov regularization in a statistical framework and prove that the application of the proposed stopping rule to the Iterative Space Reconstruction Algorithm (ISRA) in the Gaussian case and Expectation Maximization (EM) in the Poisson case leads to well defined regularization methods according to the given definition. We also prove that, if an inverse problem is genuinely ill-posed in the sense of Tikhonov, the same definition is not satisfied when ISRA and EM are optimized by classical stopping rule like Morozov's discrepancy principle, Pearson's test and Poisson discrepancy principle. The stopping rule is illustrated in the case of image reconstruction from data recorded by the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI). First, by using a simulated image consisting of structures analogous to those of a real solar flare we validate the fidelity and accuracy with which the proposed stopping rule recovers the input image. Second, the robustness of the method is compared with the other classical stopping rules and its advantages are shown in the case of real data recorded by RHESSI during two different flaring events.

Sabrina Guastavino, Federico Benvenuto

In this paper we investigate the connection between supervised learning and linear inverse problems. We first show that a linear inverse problem can be view as a function approximation problem in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) and then we prove that to each of these approximation problems corresponds a class of inverse problems. Analogously, we show that Tikhonov solutions of this class correspond to the Tikhonov solution of the approximation problem. Thanks to this correspondence, we show that supervised learning and linear discrete inverse problems can be thought of as two instances of the approximation problem in a RKHS. These instances are formalized by means of a sampling operator which takes into account both deterministic and random samples and leads to discretized problems. We then analyze the discretized problems and we study the convergence of their solutions to the ones of the approximation problem in a RKHS, both in the deterministic and statistical framework. Finally, we prove there exists a relation between the convergence rates computed with respect to the noise level and the ones computed with respect to the number of samples. This allows us to compare upper and lower bounds given in the statistical learning and in the deterministic infinite dimensional inverse problems theory.

Chiara Curletto, Paolo Massa, Valeria Tagliafico et al.

Solar flares are the most explosive phenomena in the solar system and the main trigger of the events' chain that starts from Coronal Mass Ejections and leads to geomagnetic storms with possible impacts on the infrastructures at Earth. Data-driven solar flare forecasting relies on either deep learning approaches, which are operationally promising but with a low explainability degree, or machine learning algorithms, which can provide information on the physical descriptors that mostly impact the prediction. This paper describes a web-based technological platform for the execution of a computational pipeline of feature-based machine learning methods that provide predictions of the flare occurrence, feature ranking information, and assessment of the prediction performances.

Chiara Razzetta, Shahryar Noei, Federico Barbarossa et al.

"DHEAL-COM - Digital Health Solutions in Community Medicine" is a research and technology project funded by the Italian Department of Health for the development of digital solutions of interest in proximity healthcare. The activity within the DHEAL-COM framework allows scientists to gather a notable amount of multi-modal data whose interpretation can be performed by means of machine learning algorithms. The present study illustrates a general automated pipeline made of numerous unsupervised and supervised methods that can ingest such data, provide predictive results, and facilitate model interpretations via feature identification.

Margherita Lampani, Sabrina Guastavino, Michele Piana et al.

Supervised machine learning involves approximating an unknown functional relationship from a limited dataset of features and corresponding labels. The classical approach to feature-based machine learning typically relies on applying linear regression to standardized features, without considering their physical meaning. This may limit model explainability, particularly in scientific applications. This study proposes a physics-informed approach to feature-based machine learning that constructs non-linear feature maps informed by physical laws and dimensional analysis. These maps enhance model interpretability and, when physical laws are unknown, allow for the identification of relevant mechanisms through feature ranking. The method aims to improve both predictive performance in regression tasks and classification skill scores by integrating domain knowledge into the learning process, while also enabling the potential discovery of new physical equations within the context of explainable machine learning.

Michele Piana, Federico Benvenuto, Anna Maria Massone et al.

AI-FLARES (Artificial Intelligence for the Analysis of Solar Flares Data) is a research project funded by the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana and by the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica within the framework of the ``Attività di Studio per la Comunità Scientifica Nazionale Sole, Sistema Solare ed Esopianeti'' program. The topic addressed by this project was the development and use of computational methods for the analysis of remote sensing space data associated to solar flare emission. This paper overviews the main results obtained by the project, with specific focus on solar flare forecasting, reconstruction of morphologies of the flaring sources, and interpretation of acceleration mechanisms triggered by solar flares.

Francesco Marchetti, Sabrina Guastavino, Cristina Campi et al.

In many contexts, customized and weighted classification scores are designed in order to evaluate the goodness of the predictions carried out by neural networks. However, there exists a discrepancy between the maximization of such scores and the minimization of the loss function in the training phase. In this paper, we provide a complete theoretical setting that formalizes weighted classification metrics and then allows the construction of losses that drive the model to optimize these metrics of interest. After a detailed theoretical analysis, we show that our framework includes as particular instances well-established approaches such as classical cost-sensitive learning, weighted cross entropy loss functions and value-weighted skill scores.

Sabrina Guastavino, Valentina Candiani, Alessandro Bemporad et al.

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) correspond to dramatic expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the solar corona into the heliosphere. CMEs are scientifically relevant because they are involved in the physical mechanisms characterizing the active Sun. However, more recently CMEs have attracted attention for their impact on space weather, as they are correlated to geomagnetic storms and may induce the generation of Solar Energetic Particles streams. In this space weather framework, the present paper introduces a physics-driven artificial intelligence (AI) approach to the prediction of CMEs travel time, in which the deterministic drag-based model is exploited to improve the training phase of a cascade of two neural networks fed with both remote sensing and in-situ data. This study shows that the use of physical information in the AI architecture significantly improves both the accuracy and the robustness of the travel time prediction.

Sabrina Guastavino, Michele Piana, Marco Tizzi et al.

The problem of nowcasting extreme weather events can be addressed by applying either numerical methods for the solution of dynamic model equations or data-driven artificial intelligence algorithms. Within this latter framework, the present paper illustrates how a deep learning method, exploiting videos of radar reflectivity frames as input, can be used to realize a warning machine able to sound timely alarms of possible severe thunderstorm events. From a technical viewpoint, the computational core of this approach is the use of a value-weighted skill score for both transforming the probabilistic outcomes of the deep neural network into binary classification and assessing the forecasting performances. The warning machine has been validated against weather radar data recorded in the Liguria region, in Italy,

Sabrina Guastavino, Michele Piana, Federico Benvenuto

In this paper we propose a novel approach to realize forecast verification. Specifically, we introduce a strategy for assessing the severity of forecast errors based on the evidence that, on the one hand, a false alarm just anticipating an occurring event is better than one in the middle of consecutive non-occurring events, and that, on the other hand, a miss of an isolated event has a worse impact than a miss of a single event, which is part of several consecutive occurrences. Relying on this idea, we introduce a novel definition of confusion matrix and skill scores giving greater importance to the value of the prediction rather than to its quality. Then, we introduce a deep ensemble learning procedure for binary classification, in which the probabilistic outcomes of a neural network are clustered via optimization of these value-weighted skill scores. We finally show the performances of this approach in the case of three applications concerned with pollution, space weather and stock prize forecasting.

Federico Benvenuto, Cristina Campi, Anna Maria Massone et al.

Machine learning is nowadays the methodology of choice for flare forecasting and supervised techniques, in both their traditional and deep versions, are becoming the most frequently used ones for prediction in this area of space weather. Yet, machine learning has not been able so far to realize an operating warning system for flaring storms and the scientific literature of the last decade suggests that its performances in the prediction of intense solar flares are not optimal. The main difficulties related to forecasting solar flaring storms are probably two. First, most methods are conceived to provide probabilistic predictions and not to send binary yes/no indications on the consecutive occurrence of flares along an extended time range. Second, flaring storms are typically characterized by the explosion of high energy events, which are seldom recorded in the databases of space missions; as a consequence, supervised methods are trained on very imbalanced historical sets, which makes them particularly ineffective for the forecasting of intense flares. Yet, in this study we show that supervised machine learning could be utilized in a way to send timely warnings about the most violent and most unexpected flaring event of the last decade, and even to predict with some accuracy the energy budget daily released by magnetic reconnection during the whole time course of the storm. Further, we show that the combination of sparsity-enhancing machine learning and feature ranking could allow the identification of the prominent role that energy played as an Active Region property in the forecasting process.

Sabrina Guastavino, Michele Piana, Anna Maria Massone et al.

Image saturation has been an issue for several instruments in solar astronomy, mainly at EUV wavelengths. However, with the launch of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) as part of the payload of the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) image saturation has become a big data issue, involving around 10^$ frames of the impressive dataset this beautiful telescope has been providing every year since February 2010. This paper introduces a novel desaturation method, which is able to recover the signal in the saturated region of any AIA image by exploiting no other information but the one contained in the image itself. This peculiar methodological property, jointly with the unprecedented statistical reliability of the desaturated images, could make this algorithm the perfect tool for the realization of a reconstruction pipeline for AIA data, able to work properly even in the case of long-lasting, very energetic flaring events.

Federico Benvenuto, Michele Piana, Cristina Campi et al.

We introduce a hybrid approach to solar flare prediction, whereby a supervised regularization method is used to realize feature importance and an unsupervised clustering method is used to realize the binary flare/no-flare decision. The approach is validated against NOAA SWPC data.