Benchmarking in Tourism Destination, Keeping in Mind the Sustainable Paradigm

Tourism destination benchmarking and the assessment of tourism management performances are a crucial and challenging task in the direction of evaluating tourism sustainability and reshaping tourism activities. However, assessing tourism management efficiency per se may not provide enough information concerning long-term performances, which is what sustainability is about. Natural resources management should therefore be included in the analysis to provide a more exhaustive picture of long-run sustainable efficiency and tourism performances. Indeed, while the environmental endowment of a site is a key feature in tourism destination comparison, what really matters is its effective management. Therefore, in this paper we assess and compare tourism destinations, not only in terms of tourism services supply, but also in terms of the performance of environmental management. The proposed efficiency assessment procedure is based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). DEA is a methodology for evaluating the relative efficiency when facing multiple input and output. Although the methodology is extremely versatile, for the sake of exemplification, in this paper it is applied to the valuation of sustainable tourism management of the twenty Italian regions.Data envelopment analysis, Sustainable tourism indicators

How Consistent are Alternative Short-Term Climate Policies with Long-Term Goals?

Choosing long-term goals is a key issue in the climate policy agenda. Targets should be easily measurable and feasible, but also effective in damage control. Once goals are set globally, given the uncertainty affecting long-term strategies and region-specific preferences for different policy instruments, policies will be better represented by a diversified portfolio to be revised over time, rather than “once and forever” decisions. It therefore becomes crucial to understand to what extent different strategies (or policy portfolios) are consistent with long-term targets, that is, when they imply emission paths which do not irreversibly diverge from globally set goals. The present paper aims to investigate emission paths implied by plausible policy scenarios against those derived by imposing alternative long-term targets, comparing, for example, differences in peak periods. Plausible policy scenarios are for instance Kyoto-type targets with or without participation by the U.S. and/or by developing countries. Different long-term targets considered focus on stabilisation of CO2 concentrations, radiative forcing and the increase in atmospheric temperature relative to pre-industrial levels. In order to account for the uncertainty surrounding the climate cycle, for each long-term goal multiple paths of emission - the most probable, the optimistic and the pessimistic ones - are considered in the comparison exercise. Comparative analysis is performed using a newly developed version of the FEEM-RICE model, a regional economy-climate model of optimal economic growth which is based on Nordhaus and Boyer’s RICE model crucially extended in order to account for induced technical change. In particular, both carbon and energy intensity are affected by a new endogenous variable – Technical Progress – which captures both the role of Learning by Researching and of Learning by Doing. These are in turn determined by the optimal levels of Research and Development and of Emission Abatement.Climate policy, Long-term climate targets, Climate sensitivity uncertainty, Capping radiative forcing

Using Data Envelopment Analysis to Evaluate Environmentally Conscious Tourism Management

This paper discusses a methodology to assess the performances of tourism management of local governments when economic and environmental aspects are considered as equally relevant. In particular, the focus is on the comparison and efficiency assessment of Italian municipalities located on the costal areas. In order to assess the efficiency status of the considered management units, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a methodology for evaluating the relative efficiency of decision making units, is applied. The efficiency index measure used in DEA analysis accounts for both environmental and economic features correlated to the tourism industry. Further, potential managerial improvements for those areas resulting far from the efficiency frontier can be investigated.Data envelopment analysis, Sustainable tourism

Judeo-arabic commentary on the Song of Songs. A digital edition

Questa ricerca propone uno studio sul giudeo-arabo, varietà linguistica di particolare rilievo, considerando l’importante produzione di testi redatti in giudeo-arabo nell’ambito della cultura letteraria delle comunità ebraiche che vivevano nei paesi di lingua araba. La ricerca si è basata sull’analisi di un testimone inedito (ms. 5491, Jewish Theological Seminary, New York) del 15° secolo. Il testo è trilingue, e contiene il Cantico dei Cantici, la sua traduzione aramaica (targum), la traduzione del Cantico in giudeo-arabo, ed un commentario, sempre in giudeo-arabo. Oltre ad un'indagine linguistica, si è prodotta un'edizione digitale del testo contenuto in JTS, ms. 5491, in formato TEI

Amplitude and phase equations for nonlinear oscillators with noisy interactions

We give a description in terms of phase and amplitude deviation for networks of nonlinear oscillators with noise. The case of white Gaussian noise is considered. The equations for the amplitude and the phase are rigorous, and their validity is not limited to the weak noise limit. We show that using Floquet theory, a partial decoupling between the amplitude and the phase is obtained. The decoupling can be exploited to describe the oscillator's dynamics solely by the phase variable. We discuss to what extent the reduced model is appropriate and some implications on the role of noise on the frequency and the synchronization of the oscillators

THE ROLE OF NOISE ON THE SYNCHRONIZATION OF OSCILLATORS

Synchronization of coupled oscillators is a paradigm for complexity in many areas of science and engineering. Any realistic network model should include noise effects. For long time, noise has been considered a nuisance for synchronization, but recent developments, e.g. stochastic resonance, reveals that noise can play an active role to enhance self organization. Traditionally, phase noise has been described as a diffusion process, i.e. noise is responsible for phase diffusion, leaving the oscillation frequency unchanged. We show that phase noise in oscillator is best described as a convection diffusion problem, i.e. noise is responsible for both phase diffusion and frequency drift. We derive a simplified model to study the influence if noise on the oscillation frequency, and we discuss the implication to the synchronization of coupled and periodically driven oscillator

LOCALIZED OSCILLATIONS IN DIFFUSIVELY COUPLED CYCLIC NEGATIVE FEEDBACK SYSTEMS

Oscillations in networks composed of Cyclic Negative Feedback systems (CNF systems) are widely used to mimic many periodic phenomena occurring in systems biology. In particular, the possible coexistence of different attractors permits to suitably describe the differentiating processes arising in living cells. The aim of the manuscript is to characterize, through a spec- tral based technique, the complex global dynamical behaviors emerging in arrays of diffusively coupled CNF systems

Synchronous primary papillary breast cancer, medullary thyroid carcinoma and neuroendocrine tumor in postmenopausal woman.

Multiple endocrine neoplasia are syndromes involving two or more endocrine tissues, often correlated to RET proto-oncogene mutations. We herein present the first reported case of a 57-years-old woman with three synchronous primary cancers of breast (papillary), thyroid (medullary) and pancreas (neuroendocrine), the latter with liver metastasis. The patient first underwent surgery for papillary breast cancer with axillary lymph nodes metastases. A staging whole body computerized tomography (CT) showed a right lateral cervical lymph node, pancreatic inhomogeneity, peri-pancreatic nodes and a single liver metastasis. The poor response to an antracycline and taxane-based chemotherapy, the good performance status of patient, and associated symptoms, suggested a different origin for pancreatic and hepatic lesions. A careful re-evaluation of clinical history, an octreotide-labeled scan and an immunohistochemical analysis, on both hepatic and pancreatic tissues and on laterocervical lymph node, determined the diagnosis of synchronous papillary breast cancer, pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (pNET) with liver metastasis and an occult medullary thyroid carcinoma in a patient who had proto-oncogene RET wild type

Effect of different dietary tannin extracts on lamb growth performances and meat oxidative stability: comparison between mimosa, chestnut and tara.

Little information is available on the effects of different sources of tannins on ruminant product quality. Nowadays several tannin-rich extracts, produced from different plants, are available and contain tannins belonging to different chemical groups, but most of these have not been used so far as feed supplements. The present study aimed at comparing the effects of feeding three tannin extracts (one containing condensed tannins and two containing hydrolysable tannins) to lambs on growth performances and meat oxidative stability. Comisana male lambs were divided into four groups (n=9 each) and were fed for 75 days: a concentrate-based diet (CON), or CON supplemented with 4% tannin extracts from either mimosa (MI; Acacia mearnsii, De Wild; condensed tannins), chestnut (CH; Castanea sativa, Mill; hydrolysable ellagitannins) or tara (TA; Cesalpinia spinosa, (Molina) Kuntze; hydrolysable gallotannins). Only CH reduced growth rate, final weight, carcass weight and feed intake (P0.05). The TA diet increased (P<0.001) the concentration of γ-tocopherol in muscle and tended to increase that of α-tocopherol (P=0.058). Oxidative stability of raw and cooked meat, or of meat homogenates incubated with pro-oxidants, was not affected by the extracts. These results, compared with those reported in the literature, highlight that some effects of tannins cannot be easily generalized, but may strictly depend on their specific characteristics and on conditions inherent to the basal diet and the metabolic status of the animals