eWOM and growth strategies for the tourism industry in maritime museum networks. The case of the ARCA Adriatica tourist product

Museum networks are proliferating in the Mediterranean area showing new forms of collaboration between public and private institutions. Museums and heritage conservation play a fundamental role in tourism development. The purpose of the present working paper is to provide an analysis of the museum network experience in order to define a set of useful and viable marketing strategies to be adopted by the museum management with respect to the relative tourist context. The case of the Arca Adriatica maritime museum network - a network of eight maritime museums representing the core asset of an elaborated tourist product - has been analyzed and considered particularly relevant and of peculiar interest. After the analysis of the museum network and its most important related points of interest, managerial recommendations within strategic and tactical perspectives are hence presented

eWom and sentiment analysis to support decision processes within maritime heritage museum networks. The case of Arca Adriatica

Museum networks are proliferating in the Mediterranean area showing new forms of collaboration between public and private institutions. Museums and heritage conservation play a fundamental role in tourism development. The purpose of the present working paper is to provide an analysis of the museum network experience in order to define a set of useful and viable marketing strategies to be adopted by the museum management with respect to the relative tourist context. The case of the Arca Adriatica maritime museum network - a network of eight maritime museums representing the core asset of an elaborated tourist product - has been analyzed and considered particularly relevant and of peculiar interest. After the analysis of the museum network and its most important related points of interest, managerial recommendations within strategic and tactical perspectives are hence presented

La virtù di Creonte. Qualche osservazione sul rapporto tra epieikeia e dike

This note is a critical discussion of Francesca Piazza's excellent paper. More precisely, under discussion is the virtual identification between what is legal and what is just. For it is correct that the legal notion of justice is compatible with Aristotle's emphasis on epieikeia, but it is controversial that the same applies to cases in which an absolute (ie divine, natural) notion of justice is at stake, as the analysis of Sophocles' fr. 703 shows. A comparison between Plato and Creon in Sophocles' Antigones shows a further difficulty: when it is not clear who is legitimated to subordinate law and justice to epieikeia, it is perhaps better to conform to law (nomos)

Antigone contro il sofista

Aim of the paper is to show that a correct interpretation of Sophocles Antigones has to take into account also its polemical targets. More precisely, it is a comparison with Protagoras that may prove useful. Indeed, the main reason of disagreement between Antigones and Creon does not regard so much the opposition between family and the State as two different accounts of reality and of human being. Antigones, on the one hand, advocates for a world ruled by divine laws, whose meaning can escape human understanding, but which men must nevertheless respect. Creon, on the other hand, emphasizes the political capacity, which enables human beings to create a human world in which to live. This view is clearly dependent on Protagoras humanism and relativism, a philosophy well known in V century Athens. But the problem, for Sophocles, is that a world in which man is the only misure risks to become a world without measure, or, even worse, a world with strenght as the only measure, as the example of Creon will show in the second part of the tragedy

Antigone contro il sofista

Aim of the paper is to show that a correct interpretation of Sophocles Antigones has to take into account also its polemical targets. More precisely, it is a comparison with Protagoras that may prove useful. Indeed, the main reason of disagreement between Antigones and Creon does not regard so much the opposition between family and the State as two different accounts of reality and of human being. Antigones, on the one hand, advocates for a world ruled by divine laws, whose meaning can escape human understanding, but which men must nevertheless respect. Creon, on the other hand, emphasizes the political capacity, which enables human beings to create a human world in which to live. This view is clearly dependent on Protagoras humanism and relativism, a philosophy well known in V century Athens. But the problem, for Sophocles, is that a world in which man is the only misure risks to become a world without measure, or, even worse, a world with strenght as the only measure, as the example of Creon will show in the second part of the tragedy

Sciatic neuropathy in an acromegalic cat without concurrent diabetes mellitus

Case summary: A 17-year-old neutered male European Shorthair cat was presented owing to an inability to jump and respiratory stridor. The owner did not report any other clinical signs. On physical examination, the main findings were plantigrade stance, broad facial features and inspiratory stridor. Neurological examination revealed posterior paraparesis, hypotonia and right hindlimb muscle atrophy. Laboratory findings were unremarkable and glycaemia was normal. Serum insulin-like growth factor 1 concentration was elevated (>1000 ng/ml). A total body CT scan showed an enlarged pituitary gland, thickening of the nasal turbinates and an L7–S1 right foraminal stenosis. Electrodiagnostic testing confirmed the presence of a neuropathy affecting both sciatic nerves. The cat was treated with gabapentin only and was still alive and euglycaemic 16 months after the diagnosis. Relevance and novel information: This case describes for the first time sciatic neuropathy, an occasional complication of acromegaly in people, as a possible clinical presentation in acromegalic cats without concurrent diabetes mellitus

Economic sustainability of pig slaughtering firms in the production chain of denomination of origin hams in italy

Pork meat in Italy is one of the largest agri-food chains in Italy. In the swine production chain, slaughter plays an important role, because it has an impact on animal welfare, food safety and the sustainability of the agri-food chain. These companies also deal with pigs destined for typical Denomination of Origin products and therefore play an important role in the production chain of typical products and in the field of EU agricultural policy. In this context, the research aims to analyze the economic sustainability of the major pig slaughter firms in Italy, through data analysis of the annual account statement (AAS) on a sample of eight companies analyzed over a ten-year historical series. Financial ratios and margins (FRM) analysis is applied in the research. FRM analysis shows that firms have the largest absorption of financial resources in the net working capital cycle. The research highlights the high incidence of raw materials in companies in the sector. Consequently, the profit margins of the companies in the sample are modest and in some cases are lower than the cost of debt, suggesting a moderate capacity to attract capital. This result appears as a negative signal of the economic sustainability of the companies in the sector. The research, now limited to a small number of large companies, opens a line of research that can be developed by expanding the sample to small and medium-sized enterprises of the chain of Denomination of Origin hams in Italy to suggest improvement interventions, in particular for rural or marginal areas of production

Characterization of yeasts isolated from parmigiano reggiano cheese natural whey starter: From spoilage agents to potential cell factories for whey valorization

Whey is the main byproduct of the dairy industry and contains sugars (lactose) and proteins (especially serum proteins and, at lesser extent, residual caseins), which can be valorized by the fermentative action of yeasts. In the present study, we characterized the spoilage yeast population inhabiting natural whey starter (NWS), the undefined starter culture of thermophilic lactic acid bacteria used in Parmigiano Reggiano (PR) cheesemaking, and evaluated thermotolerance, mating type, and the aptitude to produce ethanol and bioactive peptides from whey lactose and proteins, respectively, in a selected pool of strains. PCR-RFLP assay of ribosomal ITS regions and phylogenetic analysis of 26S rDNA D1/D2 domains showed that PR NWS yeast population consists of the well-documented Kluyveromyces marxianus, as well as of other species (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Wickerhamiella pararugosa, and Torulaspora delbrueckii), with multiple biotypes scored within each species as demonstrated by (GTG)5-based MSP-PCR. Haploid and diploid K. marxianus strains were identified through MAT genotyping, while thermotolerance assay allowed the selection of strains suitable to grow up to 48◦C. In whey fermentation trials, one thermotolerant strain was suitable to release ethanol with a fermentation efficiency of 86.5%, while another candidate was able to produce the highest amounts of both ethanol and bioactive peptides with potentially anti-hypertensive function. The present work demonstrated that PR NWS is a reservoir of ethanol and bioactive peptides producer yeasts, which can be exploited to valorize whey, in agreement with the principles of circularity and sustainability

Ocean ensemble forecasting. Part I: Ensemble Mediterranean winds from a Bayesian hierarchical model

A Bayesian hierarchical model (BHM) is developed to estimate surface vector wind (SVW) fields and associated uncertainties over the Mediterranean Sea. The BHM–SVW incorporates data-stage inputs from analyses and forecasts of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and SVW retrievals from the QuikSCAT data record. The process-model stage of the BHM–SVW is based on a Rayleigh friction equation model for surface winds. Dynamical interpretations of posterior distributions of the BHM–SVW parameters are discussed. Ten realizations from the posterior distribution of the BHM–SVW are used to force the data-assimilation step of an experimental ensemble ocean forecast system for the Mediterranean Sea in order to create a set of ensemble initial conditions. The sequential data-assimilation method of the Mediterranean forecast system (MFS) is adapted to the ensemble implementation. Analyses of sample ensemble initial conditions for a single data-assimilation period in MFS are presented to demonstrate the multivariate impact of the BHM–SVW ensemble generation methodology. Ensemble initial-condition spread is quantified by computing standard deviations of ocean state variable fields over the ten ensemble members. The methodological findings in this article are of two kinds. From the perspective of statistical modelling, the process-model development is more closely related tophysicalbalances than inpreviousworkwithmodels for the SVW.Fromthe ocean forecast perspective, the generation of ocean ensemble initial conditions via BHM is shown to be practical for operational implementation in an ensemble ocean forecast system. Phenomenologically, ensemble spread generated via BHM–SVW occurs on ocean mesoscale time- and space-scales, in close association with strong synoptic-scale wind-forcing events. A companion article describes the impacts of the BHM–SVW ensemble method on the ocean forecast in comparisons with more traditional ensemble methods