Building a Luxury Global Luxury Brand: Forum at Georgetown University

It’s rare to have five CEOs from some of the world’s top luxury brands in one room discussing their thoughts on the growing luxury market. Georgetown University was lucky enough to have Kara Ross, CEO of Kara Ross, Gildo Zegna, CEO Ermenegildo Zegna Group, John Idol, CEO Michael Kors, Domenico de Sole, Chairman, Tom Ford and former CEO Gucci Group, and Fabrizio Freda, CEO Estee Lauder Companies, joined together in a panel in front of university leaders and the student body. Led by moderator Ricardo Ernst, the CEO’s discussedthe similarities they face in the global luxury market in an online forum available on YouTube

Honey vs. Mite—a trade-off strategy by applying summer brood interruption for Varroa destructor control in the Mediterranean region

Ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor with its associated viruses is a common global threat to the health of honey bee colonies. If colonies are not treated, the vast majority die in a 3-year period. Existing acaricides used for treatment are becoming less effective, and new approaches to honey bee protection are required. A reliable method is to create a broodless condition in a colony by preventing the queen from laying eggs, and after 25 days all mites will be exposed to the treatment with organic acids or essential oils. The focus of our study, performed on 178 colonies in six Mediterranean countries, was to compare different periods of queen caging on honey production, colony development, and the effect of treatment. Queen caging had no negative effect on colony strength before the wintering period, while it affected honey production; colonies in which queens were caged two weeks before the main summer nectar flow produced significantly less honey. However, tested colonies ten weeks after the treatment had significantly lower infestation with V. destructor mites. This study shows that caging the queen with subsequent oxalic acid treatment 25 days after caging is an efficient method to control V. destructor infestation, while the starting point of queen caging in relation to the main summer nectar flow affects honey production

Development of a cognitive robotic system for simple surgical tasks

The introduction of robotic surgery within the operating rooms has significantly improved the quality of many surgical procedures. Recently, the research on medical robotic systems focused on increasing the level of autonomy in order to give them the possibility to carry out simple surgical actions autonomously. This paper reports on the development of technologies for introducing automation within the surgical workflow. The results have been obtained during the ongoing FP7 European funded project Intelligent Surgical Robotics (I-SUR). The main goal of the project is to demonstrate that autonomous robotic surgical systems can carry out simple surgical tasks effectively and without major intervention by surgeons. To fulfil this goal, we have developed innovative solutions (both in terms of technologies and algorithms) for the following aspects: fabrication of soft organ models starting from CT images, surgical planning and execution of movement of robot arms in contact with a deformable environment, designing a surgical interface minimizing the cognitive load of the surgeon supervising the actions, intra-operative sensing and reasoning to detect normal transitions and unexpected events. All these technologies have been integrated using a component-based software architecture to control a novel robot designed to perform the surgical actions under study. In this work we provide an overview of our system and report on preliminary results of the automatic execution of needle insertion for the cryoablation of kidney tumours

Large-scale analysis of structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia via the ENIGMA consortium

Left-right asymmetry is an important organizing feature of the healthy brain that may be altered in schizophrenia, but most studies have used relatively small samples and heterogeneous approaches, resulting in equivocal findings. We carried out the largest case-control study of structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia, using MRI data from 5,080 affected individuals and 6,015 controls across 46 datasets in the ENIGMA consortium, using a single image analysis protocol. Asymmetry indexes were calculated for global and regional cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume measures. Differences of asymmetry were calculated between affected individuals and controls per dataset, and effect sizes were meta-analyzed across datasets. Small average case-control differences were observed for thickness asymmetries of the rostral anterior cingulate and the middle temporal gyrus, both driven by thinner left-hemispheric cortices in schizophrenia. Analyses of these asymmetries with respect to the use of antipsychotic medication and other clinical variables did not show any significant associations. Assessment of age- and sex-specific effects revealed a stronger average leftward asymmetry of pallidum volume between older cases and controls. Case-control differences in a multivariate context were assessed in a subset of the data (N = 2,029), which revealed that 7% of the variance across all structural asymmetries was explained by case-control status. Subtle case-control differences of brain macro-structural asymmetry may reflect differences at the molecular, cytoarchitectonic or circuit levels that have functional relevance for the disorder. Reduced left middle temporal cortical thickness is consistent with altered left-hemisphere language network organization in schizophrenia

Calcite-Bearing Foiditic Lavas Of Colli Albani Volcanic District (Central Italy): New Petrographic And Geochemical Data.

8. The Colli Albani volcanic district, near the city of Rome, represents one of the most peculiar volcanic districts on the Earth because of its liquid line of descent characterized by differentiated K-foiditic magmas. Field, geochemical and experimental studies have demonstrated that such a differentiation trend is mainly due to magma-carbonate interaction. One impressive evidence of this process is the occurrence of magmatic calcite in the lava flows groundmass. Despite many studies have investigated petrological and geochemical features of the Colli Albani magmas, several questions remain unanswered. One of these concerns the 87Sr/86Sr and 143Nd/144Nd ratio trends observed in products representative of the whole Colli Albani eruptive history. Another open question concerns the role of fluorine in the magmatic system and its effects on phase relationships. Starting from these questions we have started a petrographic and geochemical study on lava flows emplaced during the whole Colli Albani activity with the aim to better understand the processes of genesis and evolution of magmas. Here we present preliminary petrographic and geochemical data on those lava flows. In particular, the oldest lava flow studied (≥560 ka) is a lithic fragment in the Trigoria Tor de’ Cenci pyroclastic flow that has the highest 87Sr/86Sr ratio (0.711196) among all those studied. Young lava flows present low 87Sr/86Sr (0.709879) and high 143Nd/144Nd ratios and some of these are characterized by the occurrence of strontian fluoro-magnesiohastingsite in the groundmass and lack of calcite, probably linked to changes in fluorine and CO2 activity. We interpret the variations in fluorine activity and isotope values as due to changes in the metasomatic component (i.e. phlogopite) of the mantle source

Calcite-Bearing Foiditic Lavas Of Colli Albani Volcanic District (Central Italy): New Petrographic And Geochemical Data.

8. The Colli Albani volcanic district, near the city of Rome, represents one of the most peculiar volcanic districts on the Earth because of its liquid line of descent characterized by differentiated K-foiditic magmas. Field, geochemical and experimental studies have demonstrated that such a differentiation trend is mainly due to magma-carbonate interaction. One impressive evidence of this process is the occurrence of magmatic calcite in the lava flows groundmass. Despite many studies have investigated petrological and geochemical features of the Colli Albani magmas, several questions remain unanswered. One of these concerns the 87Sr/86Sr and 143Nd/144Nd ratio trends observed in products representative of the whole Colli Albani eruptive history. Another open question concerns the role of fluorine in the magmatic system and its effects on phase relationships. Starting from these questions we have started a petrographic and geochemical study on lava flows emplaced during the whole Colli Albani activity with the aim to better understand the processes of genesis and evolution of magmas. Here we present preliminary petrographic and geochemical data on those lava flows. In particular, the oldest lava flow studied (≥560 ka) is a lithic fragment in the Trigoria Tor de’ Cenci pyroclastic flow that has the highest 87Sr/86Sr ratio (0.711196) among all those studied. Young lava flows present low 87Sr/86Sr (0.709879) and high 143Nd/144Nd ratios and some of these are characterized by the occurrence of strontian fluoro-magnesiohastingsite in the groundmass and lack of calcite, probably linked to changes in fluorine and CO2 activity. We interpret the variations in fluorine activity and isotope values as due to changes in the metasomatic component (i.e. phlogopite) of the mantle source

Large mafic eruptions at Alban Hills Volcanic District (Central Italy): Chronostratigraphy, petrography and eruptive behavior

Despite its ultra-potassic, basic geochemistry (40 ≤ SiO2 ≤ 50 wt.%), the Alban Hills Volcanic District was characterized by a highly explosive phase of activity, the Tuscolano-Artemisio phase, which emplaced very large volumes (several tens of km3 each cycle) of pyroclastic-flow deposits, mafic in composition (SiO2 ≤ 45 wt.%) in the time span 600-350 ka. In contrast to the abundance of pyroclastic-flow deposits, very scarce basal Plinian deposits and, more in general, fallout deposits are associated to these products. While some of the pyroclastic-flow deposits have been described in previous literature, no specific work on the Tuscolano-Artemisio phase of activity has been published so far. In particular, very little is known on the products of the early stages, as well as of the final, post-caldera activity of each eruptive cycle. Here we present a comprehensive stratigraphic and geochronologic study of the Tuscolano-Artemisio phase of activity, along with new textural and petrographic data. We describe the detailed stratigraphy and petrography of five reference sections, where the most complete suites of products of the eruptive cycles, comprising the initial through the final stages, are exposed. We assess the geochronology of these sections by means of 18 new 40Ar/39Ar age determinations, integrating them with 16 previously performed, aimed to describe the eruptive behavior of the Alban Hills Volcanic District during this phase of activity, and to assess the recurrence time and the duration of the dormancies. The overall explosive activity appears to be strictly clustered in five eruptive cycles, fairly regularly spaced in time and separated by very long dormancies, in the order of several ten of kyr, during which no volumetrically appreciable eruption occurred, as the lack of deposits dated to this time-interval testify. We propose a volcano-tectonic model that explains this peculiar eruptive behavior, unparalleled in the other coeval volcanic districts of the Tyrrhenian margin of Italy, as related to the local transpressive tectonic regime. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved