Changing Style in Style-Changing Industries: The Role of Critics as Gatekeepers in High-End Fashion

Mastering aesthetics is a precious source of competitive advantage in creative industries. In fashion, innovation is reflected by how and how much styles change. Elite designers claim to be the only endogenous force shaping fashion innovation season by season. Yet, each season, fashion critics vet the new collections these designers introduce, assessing what is original as opposed toreworked and uninspired, in this way playing a fundamental role as gatekeepers in setting taste within the industry. In this research, we document how stylistic innovation, vis-`a-vis the styles premier design houses introduced each season, is impacted, among the others, by the specific exogenous force of critics’ assessments of designers’ past work. Our data, which include 61 measures detailing the styles introduced by 38 prestigious Italian and French design houses over a nine-year period, suggest designers move further away from styles reviewed less favourably while adhering more closely to styles reviewed more positively. Additionally, the styles a designer introduces are shown to depend on critical assessments of competing designers’ styles, revealing how design houses attend to each other’s work. This work documents the strong correlation between style dynamics and critics’ feedback. It also has important implications for any company trying to find a balance between independence and conformity in setting its own unique positioning into the market

Conformational altered p53 affects neuronal function: relevance for the response to toxic insult and growth-associated protein 43 expression

The role of p53 in neurodegenerative diseases is essentially associated with neuronal death. Recently an alternative point of view is emerging, as altered p53 conformation and impaired protein function have been found in fibroblasts and blood cells derived from Alzheimer's disease patients. Here, using stable transfected SH-SY5Y cells overexpressing APP751wt (SY5Y-APP) we demonstrated that the expression of an unfolded p53 conformation compromised neuronal functionality. In particular, these cells showed (i) augmented expression of amyloid precursor protein (APP) and its metabolites, including the C-terminal fragments C99 and C83 and β-amyloid peptide (ii) high levels of oxidative markers, such as 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal Michael-adducts and 3-nitro-tyrosine and (iii) altered p53 conformation, mainly due to nitration of its tyrosine residues. The consequences of high-unfolded p53 expression resulted in loss of p53 pro-apoptotic activity, and reduction of growth-associated protein 43 (GAP-43) mRNA and protein levels. The role of unfolded p53 in cell death resistance and lack of GAP-43 transcription was demonstrated by ZnCl(2) treatment. Zinc supplementation reverted p53 wild-type tertiary structure, increased cells sensitivity to acute cytotoxic injury and GAP-43 levels in SY5Y-APP clone

Keep them alive! Design and Evaluation of the “Community Fostering Reference Model”

Firms host online communities for commercial purposes, for example in order to integrate customers into ideation for new product development. The success of these firm-hosted online communities depends entirely on the cooperation of a high number of customers that constantly produce valuable knowledge for firms. However, in practice, the majority of successfully implemented communities suffers from stagnation and even a decrease of member activities over time. Literature provides numerous guidelines on how to build and launch these online communities. While these models describe the initial steps of acquiring and activating a community base from scratch very well and explicitly, they neglect continuous member activation and acquistion after a successful launch. Against this background, the authors propose the Community Fostering Reference Model (CoFoRM), which represents a set of general procedures and instruments to continuously foster member activity. In this paper, the authors present the theory-driven design as well as the evaluation of the CoFoRM in a practical use setting. The evaluation results reveal that the CoFoRM represents a valuable instrument in the daily working routine of community managers, since it efficiently helps activating community members especially in the late phases of a community’s LifeCycle

Conformational Altered p53 as an Early Marker of Oxidative Stress in Alzheimer's Disease

In order to study oxidative stress in peripheral cells of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, immortalized lymphocytes derived from two peculiar cohorts of patients, referring to early onset AD (EOSAD) and subjects harboured AD related mutation (ADmut), were used. Oxidative stress was evaluated measuring i) the typical oxidative markers, such as HNE Michel adducts, 3 Nitro-Tyrosine residues and protein carbonyl on protein extracts, ii) and the antioxidant capacity, following the enzymatic kinetic of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione reductase (GRD). We found that the signs of oxidative stress, measured as oxidative marker levels, were evident only in ADmut but not in EOSAD patients. However, oxidative imbalance in EOSAD as well as ADmut lymphocytes was underlined by a reduced SOD activity and GRD activity in both pathological groups in comparison with cells derived from healthy subjects. Furthermore, a redox modulated p53 protein was found conformational altered in both EOSAD and ADmut B lymphocytes in comparison with control cells. This conformational altered p53 isoform, named “unfolded p53”, was recognized by the use of two specific conformational anti-p53 antibodies. Immunoprecipitation experiments, performed with the monoclonal antibodies PAb1620 (that recognizes p53wt) and PAb240 (that is direct towards unfolded p53), and followed by the immunoblotting with anti-4-hydroxynonenal (HNE) and anti- 3-nitrotyrosine (3NT) antibodies, showed a preferential increase of nitrated tyrosine residues in unfolded p53 isoform comparing to p53 wt protein, in both ADmut and EOSAD. In addition, a correlation between unfolded p53 and SOD activity was further found. Thus this study suggests that ROS/RNS contributed to change of p53 tertiary structure and that unfolded p53 can be considered as an early marker of oxidative imbalance in these patients

L'analisi desk iniziale: lo scenario di riferimento.

Il capitolo mette a fuoco l'impatto delle tecnologie digitali sul settore del banking, focalizzandosi in particolare sulle implicazioni legate agli sviluppi del mobile

Il presidio della Customer Satisfaction alla Xerox Corporation

L'articolo approfondisce il presidio dei processi orientati alla customer satisfaction all'interno della XEROX Corporation, valorizzandoli in una logica di gestione integrat

L’efficacia delle promozioni nel settore della stampa quotidiana: Un’indagine empirica

L'articolo approfondisce il tema dell'efficacia di diversi strumenti promozionali nel settore della stampa quotidiana, al fine di ottenere una significativa espansione delle vendite, utile ad allargare il mercato complessivo dei quotidiani, piuttosto che a sottrarre quote di mercato ai competitor. Il data set si basa su un'analisi estensiva delle vendite di tutti i quotidiani nazionali italiani e delle relative promozioni, riferita a un arco temporale di tre anni

Oltre la notizia. Economia e gestione delle imprese editrici di quotidiani in Italia

Il volume si focalizza, da un lato, sui processi di gestione e organizzazione interna delle imprese editrici di quotidiani e dei loro complessi rapporti con gli interlocutori esterni; dall'altro, sulle precondizioni da soddisfare per il rispetto dei principi di economicità nel business dell'editoria

La progettazione e lo sviluppo di nuovi prodotti

Il capitolo si apre con la definizione del rapporto intercorrente tra progresso tecnologico e innovazione nei prodotti e nei processi industriali, riprendendo alcuni concetti già espressi nel Capitolo 2. Si propone, quindi, una sintetica descrizione del processo di sviluppo di un nuovo prodotto e ne vengono illustrate le fasi principali, segnatamente: la generazione dell’idea; il design e lo sviluppo; la costruzione del prototipo e il testing; l’industrializzazione; il ramp up e il lancio commerciale. Poiché il processo di sviluppo di un nuovo prodotto rappresenta una delle atttività dell'impresa che più beneficiano dell'interazione con un network di relazioni intra ed extra aziendali, vengono successivamente illustrate le caratteristiche delle fonti dell'innovazione per l'impresa. Particolare attenzione viene rivolta al cliente come fonte dell'innovazione e alle logiche con le quali questo può essere coinvolto nel processo di sviluppo del prodotto, approfondendo anche il contributo oggi offerto dalla Rete e dall'emergere delle cosiddette comunità. Infine, vengono illustrati gli assetti organizzativi classici con i quali si gestiscono i singoli progetti di sviluppo nuovo prodotto, riservando particolare attenzione al ruolo - centrale fra quelli che vengono citati - del project manager. Tutti i paragrafi sono integrati da specifiche considerazioni sui contributi potenziali, in parte già attualmente espressi, dell'introduzione e dell'utilizzo delle tecnologie ICT, ponendo particolare enfasi sulle fasi iniziali dell'innovazione del prodotto, dove l’impatto dell’evoluzione delle tecnologie in oggetto risulta particolarmente rilevante

Il profilo dell’utenza individuale Internet in Italia

L'articolo sintetizza i risultati si un'indagine estensiva condotta nell'ambito del centro di ricerca I-LAB dell'Università Bocconi in merito alle caratteristiche dell'utenza in Internet in Italia e i principali driver di adozione dell'ecommerc