What you will find in this page
A collection of portfolio items to showcase the projects that I have been part of, either as an owner or as a contributor, throughout my academic career at university or simply for passion.

M.Sc. Thesis Project: The Role of Divisive Topics in Network Structure
“The Role of Divisive Topics in Network Structure”, is a large-scale analysis of controversial online conversations with socio-political backgrounds and contexts on Twitter. It aims at modeling the long-term effect of ideological polarization in mutually interacting users on social media platforms.
Links
- Source code: GitHub repository
- Final project PPT presentation
Abstract
Ideological polarization on social media reflects a crucial issue of contemporary societies. Several studies within social sciences and psychology tried to investigate the root causes and formulated theories to describe this phenomenon. Information retrieval through social media platforms like Twitter has the means to hinder a democratic approach towards political debates. This aspect fosters the creation of echo chambers that enhance the spreading and reinforcement of polarized opinions among ideologically similar individuals. The aim of this study was to find a scientific way to measure the impact of controversial topics on Twitter users’ behavior from a temporal perspective. By relying on third-party software and the Twitter Developer API, I collected a set of raw tweets from Twitter related to political controversies that took place between September 2013 and December 2016. Each controversy was related to a set of hashtags conventionally adopted by the users to express their political affiliation. A large network of Twitter users, mutually interacting in the same time window, along with the collection of tweets designated the subject of the study. I revealed evidence of a positive bonding effect on Twitter users mutually communicating as part of the global conversations represented by such controversial hashtags. This reflected into an increase of the mutual interaction consistency in both the short and long term, fostered by the online controversies. I further discovered that the mutual interactions network obeyed the laws of a precise topological structure which highlighted the presence of community clusters growing around the most influential users. The obtained results hinted the existence of the echo chamber phenomenon. The role of the community hubs and the high in-community communication suggests a clear resemblance of a realistic political debate between opposing groups. Further investigation within NLP suggested that predicting tweets’ political leaning is a viable task.

Sokoban puzzle solver using A.I.
As part of the Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems course offered by DTU during the A.Y. 2017/18, a mandatory final project involved the design and development of a Sokoban puzzle solver leveraging commonly known A.I. principles, both for Single and Multi-Agent systems. My groupmates and I worked together to create a solver in Java using a combination of HTN planning, optimization heuristics, and the Belief-Desire-Intention model, resulting in a fully autonomous system able to solve levels (i.e. maps) of different complexity.
The below videos show a running demo of our solver for two different levels.
Links
- Source code: Github repository

Balance Assessment with Microsoft’s Kinect V2 and Unity Game Engine
A prototype of a digital rehabilitation tool for patients with impaired balance and motion control, achieved by combining the potential offered by the Unity Game Engine and the Microsoft Kinect V2. In detail, the purpose of this game-oriented application, named Hell of Balance, is to assess balance improvement and rehabilitation, by letting the patients practice in an efficient and motivational way.
This application was developed as part of the final project for the Healthcare Technology course offered by DTU during the A.Y. 2017/18.
Another cool exercise carried out to practice with the Unity – Kinect integration was developing a revised version of the famous retro game Space Shooter, where hand gestures fully replaced the keyboard to control the spaceship.
Links
- Source code: Github repository

Data Analysis and Visualization of NYC 311 Service Requests
Applying Data Analysis, Machine Learning and Data Visualization on a large dataset using Python and Javascript D3 library. This was the final project of the Social Data Analysis and Visualization course offered by DTU, A.Y. 2017/18.
Links
- Interactive web page
- Source code: Github repository

Phrasebook Android App
Phrasebook is a mobile application for Android devices to help people memorize foreign language vocabulary. The app has been published on Google Play Store and it’s available for free to all Android users, you should definitely give it a try!
The application has been developed as part of the final project of the Personal Data Interaction for Mobile and Wearables in DTU, A.Y. 2016/17. Check out the demo below to get a feeling of how it works:
Links
- Android app on Google Play Store
- Source code: Github repository

Big Data Tools on Amazon Product Reviews Dataset
Data Mining on Amazon Product Reviews Dataset. This work was part of the final project for the Computational Tools for Big Data course offered by DTU, A.Y. 2016/17. By leveraging big data technologies such as Apache Spark, Neo4j, Pandas DataFrames, SQL, the overall goal was to exploit the potential of such tools to carry out an extensive analysis on an inconveniently large dataset, with all the drawbacks that kick in when it comes to storing, handling and processing the data.
Links
- Source code: Github repository
- Project report

Network Analysis and Natural Language Processing on LOTR universe
Analyzing the social networks obtained from the Lord of the Rings universe to study the most common patterns and behaviors when it comes to network theory and Natural Language Processing. This work was part of the final project for the Social Graphs & Interactions course offered by DTU, A.Y. 2016/17.
Core technologies
- Python NetworkX library for network analysis
- NLTK (Natural Language ToolKit) Python library for natural language processing
Links

Prototyping a new state of the art TIM Website
The project involved the design and development of a website with special attention on state-of-the-art design principles and web development cutting-edge technologies, such as HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, PHP, AJAX, and MySQL. All these resulted in a highly dynamic and responsive interface.
This work was carried out as part of the final project for the Hypermedia Applications course, offered by Politecnico di Milano, A.Y. 2015/16.
TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) is one of the leading Internet providers for mobile phones and home ADSL in Italy.
Links
- Project website
- Source code: Github repository

Council of Four: Online Multiplayer Board Game in Java
Council of Four (translated from the Italian version Il Consiglio dei 4) is a strategy board game published by Cranio Creations. The Software Engineering course final hand-in, run by Politecnico di Milano, required students divided into groups to develop an online multiplayer videogame, inspired by the aforementioned board game. This work also accounted for my Bachelor’s Degree final project.
The repository with source code is currently private.
Features
- Play modes: CLI or GUI
- Connectivity types to the server engine: Socket, RMI
- Configurable game map via built-in map editor
- In-game chat
Development
- Framework: Java 8 SE
- GUI: JavaFX with SceneBuilder support
Links

The Bike Trip Project Android App
I developed an Android mobile application that served one of the main data collection purposes for The Bike Trip Project. The app helped the project owners to collect weather information and a timeline of geo-locations that they crossed as part of the bike trip starting in Tallin (Estonia) and ending in Istanbul (Turkey).
The collected data was later processed by the owners to produce data visualizations and insights from the trip.
The project was part of a special course offered by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in the summer of 2017.
Links
- Project website: http://www.thebiketripproject.com/
- Android app source code: Github repository