A multivariate analysis of tourists’ spending behaviour

According to the micro-economic theories regarding consumption behaviour, the determinants affecting the joint propensity of purchasing different goods and services are investigated. For this purpose, a copula-based model is suggested. This is in fact a suitable model to understand whether and how different expenditure categories are dependent with each other. A real application drawn from the tourism field is used to illustrate how the proposed approach works and to demonstrate its flexibility. The findings could guide local practitioners and managers in creating new promotional campaigns able to attract visitors willing to pay on a bundle of goods and services correlated with each other

Optimization of CCUS supply chains in the UK: A strategic role for emissions reduction

The UK is the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide in Europe. It aims to take urgent actions to achieve the 2030 target for CO_{2} emissions reduction imposed by EU environmental policies. Three different carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) supply chains are developed giving economic indicators for CO_{2} utilization routes not implying carbon dioxide hydrogenation (i.e. with high TRL). The study presents an innovative proposal to reduce CO_{2} impact in the UK, a country rich in coal, which requires reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from flue gases as the easiest and best performing solution. Bunter Sandstone, Scottish offshore and Ormskirk Sandstone are the storage sites considered, while several attractive potential utilization options are considered. Through minimization of total costs, the CCUS supply chain with Bunter Sandstone as storage site results in the most economically profitable solution due to the highest value of net present value (€ 0.554 trillion) and lowest value of pay back period (2.85 years). Only carbon tax is considered. The total cost is € 1.04 billion/year. Across the supply chain, 6.4 Mton/year of carbon dioxide emissions are avoided, to be either stored or used for calcium carbonate production. Future work should consider uncertainty, dynamics of market demand and social aspects

Effects of photoperiod on epididymal and sperm morphology in a wild rodent, the viscacha (Lagostomus maximus maximus)

The viscacha (Lagostomus maximus maximus) is a seasonal South American wild rodent. The adult males exhibit an annual reproductive cycle with periods of maximum and minimum gonadal activity. Four segments have been identified in the epididymis of this species: initial, caput, corpus, and cauda. The main objective of this work was to relate the seasonal morphological changes observed in the epididymal duct with the data from epididymal sperm during periods of activity and gonadal regression using light and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Under light and electron microscopy, epididymal corpus and cauda showed marked seasonal variations in structural parameters and in the distribution of different cellular populations of epithelium. Initial and caput segments showed mild morphological variations between the two periods. Changes in epididymal sperm morphology were observed in the periods analyzed and an increased number of abnormal gametes were found during the regression period. During this period, anomalies were found mainly in the head, midpiece, and neck, while in the activity period, defects were found only in the head. Our results confirm that the morphological characteristics of the epididymal segments, as well as sperm morphology, undergo significant changes during the reproductive cycle of Lagostomus.Fil: Cruceño, A. M.. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Química, Bioquímica y Farmacia. Cátedra de Histología; ArgentinaFil: De Rosas, J. C.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnicas. Centro Cientifico Tecnologico Mendoza. Instituto Histologia y Embriologia de Mendoza "Dr. M. Burgos"; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas; ArgentinaFil: Foscolo, Mabel Rosa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnicas. Centro Cientifico Tecnologico Mendoza. Instituto Histologia y Embriologia de Mendoza "Dr. M. Burgos"; ArgentinaFil: Chaves, E. M.. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Química, Bioquímica y Farmacia. Cátedra de Histología; ArgentinaFil: Scardapane, L.. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Química, Bioquímica y Farmacia. Cátedra de Histología; ArgentinaFil: Dominguez, S.. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Química, Bioquímica y Farmacia. Cátedra de Histología; ArgentinaFil: Aguilera Merlo, C.. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Química, Bioquímica y Farmacia. Cátedra de Histología; Argentin

An analysis of the dependence among financial markets by spatial contagion

Spatial contagion between two financial markets X and Y appears when there is more dependence between X and Y when they are doing badly than when they exhibit typical performance. In this paper, we introduce an index to measure the contagion effects. This tool is based on the use of suitable copulas associated with the markets and on the calculation of the related conditional Spearman's correlation coefficients. As an empirical application, the proposed index is used to create a clustering of European stock market indices to assess their behavior in the recent years. The whole procedure is expected to be useful for portfolio diversification in crisis periods

Handling weak dependence structures with copulas

We provide a method to construct a class of n-copulas C defined as C(u) = D(u_1 , . . . , u_n-1 ) u_n + A(u_1 , . . . , u_n-1) f(u_n). These copulas are obtained from a (n-1)-copula D and some suitable auxiliary functions A and f. Members of this class have been fully characterized in terms of properties of the auxiliary functions. The proposed copulas may model some weak dependence and a non-exchangeable behavior among the components of a random vector. Moreover, they can be easily simulated and fitted to real data

A multivariate nonlinear analysis of tourism expenditures

Independence among different tourism expenditure categories is the most convenient hypothesis for modeling decision–making processes. Nevertheless, the best-suited framework would require dependence among expenditures in order to face individual budget and ordered choices. To this end we provide a new multivariate copula-based logit model with explanatory variables. We applied our tools to the expenditures of the foreign tourists visiting South–Tyrol (Northern Italy), and we underlined the need to go beyond usual independence assumption in order to get more realistic results. The obtained findings are useful for policy makers, marketing experts, and local government in order to know how visitors allocate their travel budget; moreover, they can been exploited to improve the touristic supply by means of ad–hoc promotions, advertising, touristic packages, and attractions