Analysis of Online Conversations for Giving Sense to Sustainable Tourism in the Adriatic-Ionian Region

The role of online conversation analysis on tourism and sustainability is underrated, especially in policymaking and management of sustainability of tourist destinations. The paper reports an analysis of online conversations retrieved from Twitter during the 2016 peak season, referring to four main destinations located in the Adriatic-Ionian region. The focus is analyzing the meaning of the expression “sustainable tourism” as emerging from online texting. Findings are that private users do not talk about sustainability and features of sustainable tourism while using Twitter, enforcing the idea that sustainable tourism has popular “meaning” and “appeal” possibly different from scientific approach. Users tell exclusively on leisure features of destinations, and public bodies neglect the opportunity of using Twitter for image building and web listening. Private companies, public administrators, and policymakers should benefit from the exposed procedures for online conversation analyses in designing and organizing their respective tasks. Researchers and destination managers would be also interested in the existing divide between official documents and statements on sustainability and sustainable tourism and reality of popular perception of the issue

Land, Labour and Capital Markets in European Agriculture: Diversity under a Common Policy. CEPS Paperback. October 2013

Well-functioning factor markets are an essential condition for the competitiveness and sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas. At the same time, the functioning of the factor markets themselves is influenced by changes in agriculture and the rural economy. Such changes can be the result of progress in technology, globalisation and European market integration, changing consumer preferences and shifts in policy. Changes in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) over the last decade have particularly affected the rural factor markets. This book analyses the functioning of factor markets for agriculture in the EU-27 and several candidate countries. Written by leading academics and policy analysts from various European countries, these chapters compare the different markets, their institutional framework, their impact on agricultural development and structural change, and their interaction with the CAP. As the first comparative study to cover rural factor markets in Europe, highlighting their diversity − despite the Common Agricultural Policy and an integrated single market − Land, Labour & Capital Markets in European Agriculture provides a timely and valuable source of information at a time of further CAP reform and the continuing transformation of the EU's rural areas

Colorectal Cancer Stage at Diagnosis Before vs During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy

IMPORTANCE Delays in screening programs and the reluctance of patients to seek medical attention because of the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 could be associated with the risk of more advanced colorectal cancers at diagnosis. OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was associated with more advanced oncologic stage and change in clinical presentation for patients with colorectal cancer. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This retrospective, multicenter cohort study included all 17 938 adult patients who underwent surgery for colorectal cancer from March 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021 (pandemic period), and from January 1, 2018, to February 29, 2020 (prepandemic period), in 81 participating centers in Italy, including tertiary centers and community hospitals. Follow-up was 30 days from surgery. EXPOSURES Any type of surgical procedure for colorectal cancer, including explorative surgery, palliative procedures, and atypical or segmental resections. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was advanced stage of colorectal cancer at diagnosis. Secondary outcomes were distant metastasis, T4 stage, aggressive biology (defined as cancer with at least 1 of the following characteristics: signet ring cells, mucinous tumor, budding, lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion, and lymphangitis), stenotic lesion, emergency surgery, and palliative surgery. The independent association between the pandemic period and the outcomes was assessed using multivariate random-effects logistic regression, with hospital as the cluster variable. RESULTS A total of 17 938 patients (10 007 men [55.8%]; mean [SD] age, 70.6 [12.2] years) underwent surgery for colorectal cancer: 7796 (43.5%) during the pandemic period and 10 142 (56.5%) during the prepandemic period. Logistic regression indicated that the pandemic period was significantly associated with an increased rate of advanced-stage colorectal cancer (odds ratio [OR], 1.07; 95%CI, 1.01-1.13; P = .03), aggressive biology (OR, 1.32; 95%CI, 1.15-1.53; P < .001), and stenotic lesions (OR, 1.15; 95%CI, 1.01-1.31; P = .03). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE This cohort study suggests a significant association between the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the risk of a more advanced oncologic stage at diagnosis among patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer and might indicate a potential reduction of survival for these patients

The role of water vapor observations in satellite-based rainfall information highlighted by a Deep Learning approach

Rain-fed agriculture is the main source of food in Ghana therefore improving quantitative rainfall estimates is essential for local farmers to predict crop growth using vegetation models. Rainfall dynamics in the tropics is an ongoing topic of research due to their complexity and sub-grid precipitation variability. At the same time, tropical areas such as Ghana are the most affected by a lack of proper rain gauge network coverage. Traditional methods rely on empirical assumptions and statistical theories that require continuous calibration and still struggle to accurately represent local variability. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of a Deep Learning (DL) approach using bi-spectral information of water vapor imagery (WV) and thermal infrared (TIR) as a starting point to develop an effective alternative to the Cold Cloud Duration (CCD)method which is a widely applied statistical technique by satellite rainfall products like Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) and Tropical Applications ofMeteorology using SATellite data (TAMSAT) that are specifically designed for Africa.WV inhibition of low-level features assures the correct depiction of strong convective motions usually related to heavy rainfall which is crucial in tropical areas where convective rainfall is dominant. The addition of WV 7.3𝜇m is particularly beneficial in North Ghana as tropical systemsare advecting dry air from the nearby Sahara desert creating discontinuities in precipitation events which translates into dry intrusions and dry slots seen in the images of the WV channel.The developed Deep learning model showed strong performances in binary classification where it outperformed IMERG-Final false alarms count resulting in lower rainfall overestimation (FBias < 2.0), although further research is needed to overcome the very poor relation between GEO-IR images and actual rainfall estimates at the surface.Civil Engineering | Environmental Engineerin

A che cosa serve conoscere le recensioni online dei turisti? Il caso degli hotel di Macerata

Il lavoro riguarda l\u2019analisi dei commenti rilasciati dagli utenti di TripAdvisor sugli alberghi situati nel comune di Macerata. Il caso studio ha un valore pi\uf9 ampio perch\ue9 ha rivelato empiricamente che l\u2019analisi quantitativa dei commenti deve essere approfondita con l\u2019analisi qualitativa dei testi e dell\u2019intero contesto espressivo, data il possibile significato polarizzato del delle parole.L\u2019analisi testuale dei commenti di due alberghi della stessa categoria, rispettivamente localizzati in zona urbana e extraurbana della citt\ue0 di Macerata, ha dimostrato come la soddisfazione dei clienti sia senza dubbio collegata anche alla localizzazione, ma molto di pi\uf9 alla corrispondenza tra qualit\ue0 dichiarata del servizio alberghiero e quella effettivamente percepita e goduta dei clienti durante il soggiorno. Ogni caratteristica dei sevizi alberghieri \ue8 facilmente oggetto dei commenti che i clienti rilasciano in rete, sia in termini postivi sia negativi. Pi\uf9 in generale, la ricerca svolta \ue8 stata utile per dimostrare come sia ormai sempre pi\uf9 diffuso l\u2019atteggiamento attivo da parte dei turisti nella progettazione dei soggiorni, nella prenotazione dell\u2019albergo e nelle produzione di informazione sull\u2019esperienza turistica, che viene facilmente resa disponibile on line. Sia altri utenti che i proprietari degli hotel hanno quindi la possibilit\ue0 di accedere a questa informazione e di partecipare allo scambio di commenti. La risposta ai commenti sia positivi che negativi \ue8 un\u2019occasione per stabilire relazioni con i clienti, che non sempre \ue8 utilizzata in questo senso, come uno dei due esempi riportati dimostra. Oltretutto, anche le risposte sono visibili per altri turisti che senza dubbio traggono un\u2019impressione sulla qualit\ue0 dell\u2019attenzione prestata ai clienti

Emission free maintenance dredging in a harbour environment

On request of Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. a comprehensive research was performed regarding emission free maintenance dredging in a harbour environment. The project site is the Maasmond at the port of Rotterdam. It covers an area of almost 10 km2 and, on average, a monthly volume of 400.000 cubic meters of sediment needs to be dredged. The operations are currently performed using trailing suction hopper dredgers (TSHD). Several new fully working emission free concept work methods were designed. These were assessed using a multi-criteria analysis, where emphasis was placed on energy reduction, reliability, interference, risk and safety. Given the scope of this research, costs are not decisive. General conclusions for the solutions contain the splitting of the total process. As the energy consumption of a conventional hopper is too high to operate on a battery cell, the work method is split into three different processes being:(i) gathering, (ii) pumping and (iii) transportation. Two work methods scored best in this research, Sloped Water Injection Dredging (SWID) and the Fully Autonomous Submerged Dredger (FASD). SWID consists of Water Injection Dredging vessels, fixed structures and autonomous barges. FASD contains the design of a submerged dredging vessel. It can be concluded that a harbour environment is suitable to perform emissions free maintenance dredging with only small alterations to the current technology

The Role of Water Vapor Observations in Satellite Rainfall Detection Highlighted by a Deep Learning Approach

West African food systems and rural socio-economics are based on rainfed agriculture, which makes society highly vulnerable to rainfall uncertainty and frequent floods and droughts. Reliable rainfall information is currently missing. There is a sparse and uneven rain gauge distribution and, despite continuous efforts, rainfall satellite products continue to show weak correlations with ground measurements. This paper aims to investigate whether water vapor (WV) observations together with temporal information can complement thermal infrared (TIR) data for satellite rainfall retrieval in a Deep Learning (DL) framework. This is motivated by the fact that water vapor plays a key role in the highly seasonal West African rainfall dynamics. We present a DL model for satellite rainfall detection based on WV and TIR channels of Meteosat Second Generation and temporal information. Results show that the WV inhibition of low-level features enables the depiction of strong convective motions usually related to heavy rainfall. This is especially relevant in areas where convective rainfall is dominant, such as the tropics. Additionally, WV data allow us to detect dry air masses over our study area, that are advected from the Sahara Desert and create discontinuities in precipitation events. The developed DL model shows strong performance in rainfall binary classification, with less false alarms and lower rainfall overdetection (FBias <2.0) than the state-of-the-art Integrated MultisatellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) Final Run

Multimodality imaging approach to paradoxical embolism: a cauliflower mass on the Eustachian valve

The Eustachian valve was first described by Bartolomeo Eustachio (Italian anatomist) at 1552. It is an embryological remnant of the inferior vena cava valve that prenatally directs the oxygenated blood from inferior vena cava across the patent foramen ovale (PFO) into systemic circulation. Generally, following birth, after the closure of the foramen ovale it gradually regresses and not have a specific function, but it may persist in some patients as a floating membrane in the right atrium (RA), a nonpathological functionless structure.1 The prevalence of Eustachian valve in the normal population is unknown. Generally, it is an incidental finding without any significant pathophysiological consequences, but in some particular cases, unfortunately, it can become the site of thrombus formation and paradoxical embolic source.1 In our case report we describe a particular case of paradoxical systemic embolism due to a giant cauliflower thrombus on Eustachian valve, which caused ischemic stroke, pulmonary embolism and splenic infarctio