Changing mega-events’ spatial strategies and cultural policy: scaling down, spacing out, and assembling organizations in the cases of London and Milan

Despite the proposed ‘certainty’ in a city or region hosting a mega-event, there has long been issues of uncertainty surrounding the planning and implementation of what have until now essentially been mega-projects. Large events have found a variety of ways to adapt and respond to unforeseen circumstances due to political conflicts, planning of oversize venues, limited time of implementation, and legacies that are difficult to manage. Considering the further increased uncertainty surrounding the planning of mega-events as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper examines how an accompanying cultural component—e.g., the Cultural Olympiad—may help cities that plan for events like the Olympics transition toward diversified drivers and long-term legacy. In particular, the case of cultural offering in Milan between the two mega-events of Expo 2015 and the upcoming 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympic Games shows how host cities can address growing uncertainty through the expanded role of a cultural programme combined with the rescaling of traditional mega-event formats. With this purpose, 2012 London Cultural Olympiad has been selected as an antecedent example—with positive and negative outcomes—to critically review the relationships between the Olympics and the Cultural Olympiad, as well as their widespread spatial strategy and public engagement. In addition, the paper offers more general conclusions regarding learning potentials of jointly studying mega-events and cultural policy

Variety seeking behavior in the wine domain: A consumers segmentation using big data

This study investigates variety seeking behavior in the wine domain. Since variety seeking depends on brand strategies and consumers’ preferences for different types of vines and denominations, a bi-dimensional perspective is adopted. Two new variety seeking measures are defined, namely the Wine Index of Diversity and Brand Index of Diversity. A finite mixture regression model is implemented to identify and characterize groups of households sharing similar variety seeking behavior in a statistically representative sample of 8,313 Italian households. Four groups are identified based on consumer characteristics and their purchasing behavior. The largest group is “switchers,” which includes consumers showing a relatively higher wine diversity than brand diversity. Estimates reveal the “habitual” group, that lives in the southern Italy and consumes wine less frequently than all other groups. The “loyal” group includes the youngest consumers with an above average income, who reside in the northern regions. Finally, the “variety seekers” are older, have the highest incomes, and live in the central regions. This grouping provides insights into the effects of brand and wine typology on consumers’ choices

Duration reproduction in regular and irregular contexts after unilateral brain damage: Evidence from voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping and atlas-based hodological analysis

It has been proposed that not completely overlapping brain networks support interval timing depending on whether or not an external, predictable temporal cue is provided during the task, aiding time estimation. Here we tested this hypothesis in a neuropsychological study, using both a topological approach – through voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM), that assesses the relation between continuous behavioral scores and lesion information on a voxel-by-voxel basis – and a hodological approach, using an atlas-based tractography. A group of patients with unilateral focal brain lesions and their matched controls performed a duration reproduction task assessing time processing in two conditions, namely with regularly spaced stimuli during encoding and reproduction (Regular condition), and with irregularly spaced stimuli during the same task (Irregular condition). VLSM analyses showed that scores in the two conditions were associated with lesions involving partly separable clusters of voxels, with lower performance only in the Irregular condition being related to lesions involving the right insular cortex. Performance in both conditions correlated with the probability of disconnection of the right frontal superior longitudinal tract, and of the superior and middle branches of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus. These findings suggest that the dissociation between timing in regular and irregular contexts is not complete, since performance in both conditions relies on the integrity of a common suprasecond timing network. Furthermore, they are consistent with the hypothesis that tracking time without the aid of external cues selectively relies on the integration of psychophysiological changes in the right insula

MicroRNA deregulation in thyroid cancer

In cancer microRNAs are often dysregulated with their expression patterns being correlated with clinically relevant tumor characteristics. Recently, microRNAs were shown to be directly involved in cancer initiation and progression. Despite the large amount of data showing strong correlations between cancer phenotype and microRNAs aberrant expression, very little is known about the molecular mechanisms inducing such deregulation. Thyroid carcinomas comprise a heterogeneous group of neoplasms with distinctive clinical and pathological characteristics. Activating mutations in Ras genes are frequently found in poorly differentiated and in anaplastic thyroid carcinomas. We have recently shown that oncogenic activation of Ras is able to change the expression of several microRNAs in thyroid epithelial cells. One of the top aberrantly expressed ones is miR-21, a microRNA prevoiusly reported overexpressed in a wide variety of cancers and causally linked to cellular proliferation, survival and migration. By using an inducible Ras oncogene we demonstrated that constitutively active Ras induce overexpression of miR-21 at very early times after its activation, and that such overexpression is maintained at later times as well as in chronically Ras-transformed cells. Analysis of a panel of thyroid tumors with different hystotypes revealed that miR-21 is overexpressed mainly in anaplastic carcinomas, thus correlating with the most aggressive phenotype. Interestingly, this induction seems to be cell-type specific, since the inducible Ras oncogene is unable to increase miR-21 levels in cultured fibroblasts. Moreover, our data show that at least two different Ras downstream pathways are necessary to induce miR-21 expression. We then asked if the ability of Ras in inducing miR-21 overexpression is verified in vivo. To answer this question we analyzed the expression of this microRNA in a mouse model of Ras-induced lung tumorigenesis, showing that Ras constitutive activation is able to increase miR-21 levels in normal lung and that the Ras-initiated lung cancer progression is accompained by a further increase in miR-21 expression. Taken together, our data strongly suggest that the oncogenic activation of Ras could be responsible for the increased expression of miR-21 frequently observed in human cancers

Early results of fissurectomy and advancement flap for resistant chronic anal fissure without hypertonia of the internal anal sphincter

The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of fissurectomy with skin advancement flap in healing chronic anal fissures without hypertonia of the internal anal sphincter. Twenty-six consecutive patients who failed healing after well-practiced topical medical therapy were enrolled. Anorectal manometry was performed preoperative and 6 months postoperatively. All patients were treated with fissurectomy and advancement flap through healthy skin tissue. All patients healed completely within 30 days from operation. The intensity and the duration of pain postdefecation was reduced significantly with respect to the preoperative values starting from the first defecation. One patient suffered urinary retention, two patients suffered infections, and two partial breakdowns were recorded. At 6 months the maximum resting pressure values were similar to those were detected preoperatively. One month after surgery, anal incontinence was reported in seven patients, four of whom complained about it preoperatively. At 12 months, only three subjects reported incontinence. No patients needed reoperation and no recurrences were detected. The fissurectomy, in combination with advancement flap, is a safe sphincter-saving procedure for the treatment of chronic anal fissures without hypertonia of internal anal sphincter that fails medical conservative treatment