Gbellocchi

Gianni Bellocchi (born July 22, 1969) is a researcher in agricultural and related sciences. He is credited with the development of approaches and tools in validation of estimates and measurements. Introduction of fuzzy logic in the context of validation is often considered to be the most significant contribution to the field of model and method validation (Agronomy Journal, volume 94, pages 1222-1233).

He also helped spark the validation issues in agro-ecological modelling and analytical methods through his reviews of specialistic literature. His approach to the aggregation of multiple validation metrics has influenced the way on how to look at validation results. In this respect he is credited with the establishment of hierarchy of preferences in validation and classification of models and methods in terms of aggregated, weighted metrics.

Along with his research work, Bellocchi is also known for his political activism. Moving from his Catholic background, he is a supporter of Italian politician Rocco Buttiglione and the Italian party Democrats' Centre Union (Unione dei Democratici Cristiani e dei Democratici di Centro).

Biography

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Gianni Bellocchi was born in Acquapendente and spent infancy and adolescence in San Lorenzo Nuovo, Viterbo (Italy), the son of Giuseppe and Adriana. His parents were farmers. He attended at primary and middle schools in his village, and at agricultural high school in Bagnoregio. Starting in 1988, he studied agricultural sciences at the University of Pisa and at the Sant'Anna School for Advanced Studies and Doctoral Research. He graduated in 1993 and got a PhD in 1997. He learned statistical data processing and modelling approaches from entomologist Fabio Quaglia, physicist Franco Martorana, and modellers Frits W.T. Penning de Vries (University of Wageningen, The Netherlands) and Claudio O. Stockle (Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA). Gianni joined the staff of agronomy and agro-meteorology modelers of the Research Institute for Industrial Crops of Bologna in 1999, and developed a large number of scientific contributions under the leaderhsip of Marcello Donatelli. In 2006 he was appointed contractual agent at European Commission - Joint Research Centre of Ispra (Italy). He is member of the Italian Society for Agronomy, European Society for Agronomy, and American Society for Agronomy.

It was during the '90s that he became more publicly engaged in politics, but without institutional involvement. With his writings he became a supporter of Rocco Buttiglione and those Catholic Italian politicians placing themselves as alternative to the left-wing parties.

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Bellocchi's name

The name Gianni is a male name that is commonly believed to be of Italian origin, but it is more likely a Hebrew name. Gianni is abbreviation of Giovanni, Italian form of John ("God is gracious", "God is merciful"), and is also related to Gian (in the Middle Ages Ianni or Janni). Name-day is June 24th (John the Baptist), in association with Lion, lucky number 5, color yellow, stone topaz, metal gold. The name Gianni was not ranked among 1219 first names for males of all ages in the 1990 U.S. Census. The name Gianni ranked 24641 out of 88799 (Top 28%) as a surname for males and females of all ages in the 1990 U.S. Census. Bellocchi is an Italian surname meaning "beautiful eyes" (possibly originarily a nickname).

Contributions to model/method validation

Bellocchi's work in validation has had implications for model and analytical method assessment. Genuine insights in model results, as well as results from an analytical method, imply concomitant understandings of multiple aspects of quality assessment to be taken into account and formalized. The fuzzy set theory formalised by Professor Lofti Zadeh at the University of California in 1965 was pointed out as having a direct use to assess numerical outcomes for its ability to aggregate multiple, possiblly contradictory, evaluation measures. Many of the more basic principles of this theory are now generally accepted in many areas. Its application in a context of validation opened up to a new way to investigate results from a modelling process or an analytical method. In 2001, Bellocchi and co-workers firstly introduced the possibility to use fuzzy logic to evaluate model estimates at the Second International Symposium on Modelling Cropping Systems (Florence, Italy), and in 2002 published the first peer-reviewed paper (Agronomy Journal, volume 94, pages 1222-1233).

Fuzzy logic

Fuzzy logic is derived from fuzzy set theory dealing with reasoning that is approximate rather than precisely deduced from classical predicate logic. It can be thought as the application side of fuzzy set theory dealing with well thought out real world expert values for a complex problem.

Degrees of truth are vaguely often confused with probabilities. However, they are conceptually distinct; fuzzy truth represents membership in defined sets, not likelihood of some event or condition. To illustrate the difference, consider this scenario: Bob is in a house with two adjacent rooms: the kitchen and the dining room. In many cases, Bob's status within the set of things "in the kitchen" is completely plain: he's either "in the kitchen" or "not in the kitchen". What about when Bob stands in the doorway? He may be considered "partially in the kitchen". Quantifying this partial state yields a fuzzy set membership. With only his little toe in the dining room, we might say Bob is 0.99 "in the kitchen", for instance. No event (like a coin toss) will resolve Bob to being completely "in the kitchen" or "not in the kitchen", as long as he's standing in that doorway. Fuzzy sets are based on vague definitions of sets, not randomness.

Fuzzy logic allows for set membership values between and including 0 and 1, shades of gray as well as black and white, and in its linguistic form, imprecise concepts like "slightly", "quite" and "very". Specifically, it allows partial membership in a set. It is related to fuzzy sets and possibility theory.

Fuzzy logic is controversial despite wide acceptance: it is rejected by some control engineers for validation and other reasons, and by some statisticians who hold that probability is the only rigorous mathematical description of uncertainty. Critics also argue that it cannot be a superset of ordinary set theory since membership functions are defined in terms of conventional sets.

Authorship (selected)

• Fila G., Donatelli M., Bellocchi G., 2006. PTFIndicator: an IRENE_DLL-based application to evaluate estimates from pedotransfer functions by integrated indices. Environmental Modelling and Software, 21, 107-110.

• Rivington M., Bellocchi G., Matthews K.B., Buchan K., 2005. A detailed evaluation of methods to estimate solar radiation data for use in simulation models and experimental analysis. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 135, 228-243.

• Bellocchi G., 2004. Appendix A: Numerical indices and test statistics for model evaluation. In Y. Pachepsky, W. Rawls (eds.) Development of pedotransfer functions in soil hydrology. Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 394-400.

• Bellocchi G., Smith J., Donatelli M., Smith P., 2004. Improvements in time mismatch analysis of model estimates. VIII European Society for Agronomy Congress, 11-15 July, Copenhagen, Denmark, 221-222.

• Donatelli M., Wösten J.H.M., Bellocchi G., 2004. Evaluation of pedotransfer functions. In Y. Pachepsky, W. Rawls (eds.) Development of pedotransfer functions in soil hydrology. Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 400-405.

• Fila G., Bellocchi G., 2004. Appendix B: Fuzzy expert systems. In Y. Pachepsky, W. Rawls (eds.) Development of pedotransfer functions in soil hydrology. Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 357-363.

• Fila G., Donatelli M., Bellocchi G., 2004. An IRENE_DLL application to evaluate estimates from pedotrasnfer functions by integrated indices. VIII European Society for Agronomy Congress, 11-15 July, Copenhagen, Denmark, 253-254.

• Fila G., Bellocchi G., Acutis M., Donatelli M., 2003. IRENE: a software to evaluate model performance. European Journal of Agronomy, 18, 369-372.

• Fila G., Bellocchi G., Donatelli M., Acutis M., 2003. IRENE_DLL: A class library for evaluating numerical estimates. Agronomy Journal, 95, 1330-1333.