Heritage and relationship marketing per le imprese agroalimentari italiane

The paper addresses two issues that are becoming increasingly important within the business management literature and in relation to which good practices are implemented: i) building and management long-term relationships with the main stakeholders through relationship marketing strategies; ii) enhancing the firm\u2019s historical and cultural heritage for promoting relevant stakeholder engagement processes, through heritage marketing strategies. The aim is to highlight the relevance of these strategies for Italian companies operating in the agrifood sector. Due to its specific features, this sector is suitable to verify how heritage enhancement can take place thanks to a system of relationships among different organizations; through their interaction and mutual functionality, they generate an overall value, improving not only local firms\u2019 performance, but also the whole territory. For this purpose, the case study of a distributor specialized in promotion and online distribution of typical local products of Marche region is analyzed. It represents an emblematic example of relationship marketing, where degree of involvement and role of stakeholders (producers first of all) have realized effective strategies, aimed at valuing both the products and the whole territory. The theoretical background and the analysis of the case study can provide some meaningful thoughts for the scientific debate on heritage marketing, seen as a strategy suitable to develop not only the firm\u2019s strategy and competitiveness, but also its legitimacy as promoter of a specific economic and cultural context

Bioarchaeological analysis of Castelsardo’s Mummies

In the early months of 2011, during the restoration of Sant’Antonio Abate’s Cathedral in Castelsardo came to light environments remained hidden so far, which aroused considerable interest both for the archaeological and anthropological point of view for the discovery of a cemetery crypt with numerous human remains dating from the eighteenth to nineteenth century. Archaeological investigations took place at different times and in different ways during the months of January to April of 2011, which allowed to detect a burial site, with a great number of individuals organized in several layers piled up at the bottom of the crypt, and to define some stages in the building of the church, mainly in its monumental transition from Romanesque structure to new cathedral seat of the diocese. Eighteen individuals of both sexes, were finally identified at different levels, including 16 partially mummified and 2 almost entirelly mummified deposited on a sort of open plank, that, from the archeological point of view, represented the crypt closing point. The found remains were studied in order to obtain interesting bioarchaeological information determining some peculiar characteristics regarding the medical and the scientific aspects, more precisely age of death, sex, stature in life, pathological conditions, and to evaluate the state of conservation of mummified tissues, describing the morphological characteristics by histological, immunohistochemical and ultrastructural techniques

Vitamin D supplementation and breast cancer prevention : a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

In recent years, the scientific evidence linking vitamin D status or supplementation to breast cancer has grown notably. To investigate the role of vitamin D supplementation on breast cancer incidence, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials comparing vitamin D with placebo or no treatment. We used OVID to search MEDLINE (R), EMBASE and CENTRAL until April 2012. We screened the reference lists of included studies and used the “Related Article” feature in PubMed to identify additional articles. No language restrictions were applied. Two reviewers independently extracted data on methodological quality, participants, intervention, comparison and outcomes. Risk Ratios and 95% Confident Intervals for breast cancer were pooled using a random-effects model. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I2 test. In sensitivity analysis, we assessed the impact of vitamin D dosage and mode of administration on treatment effects. Only two randomized controlled trials fulfilled the pre-set inclusion criteria. The pooled analysis included 5372 postmenopausal women. Overall, Risk Ratios and 95% Confident Intervals were 1.11 and 0.74–1.68. We found no evidence of heterogeneity. Neither vitamin D dosage nor mode of administration significantly affected breast cancer risk. However, treatment efficacy was somewhat greater when vitamin D was administered at the highest dosage and in combination with calcium (Risk Ratio 0.58, 95% Confident Interval 0.23–1.47 and Risk Ratio 0.93, 95% Confident Interval 0.54–1.60, respectively). In conclusions, vitamin D use seems not to be associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer development in postmenopausal women. However, the available evidence is still limited and inadequate to draw firm conclusions. Study protocol code: FARM8L2B5L

T and B lymphocytes: two different cell populations for the "first defence barrier" at cutaneous and mucosal levels?

Data on lymphocyte biology indicate that the humoral system of B-cells is specifically active with precise analogies at all mucosal levels. Might there be a corresponding function for T-lymphocytes at the cutaneous structure level? Certain physiological findings appear to suggest that the two main lymphocyte populations share the role of "first defence barrier"

RITUALS. New audience development strategies in archaeological open air museums

RITUALS is an interdisciplinary project, being focused first on Cultural heritage, including Tangible culture - Museums and Intangible culture, but exploiting also Performing arts, with specific attention to Theatre. More in detail, RITUALS relates to the fields selected since: - it is a project aiming at elaborating and testing audience development and public involvement plans in archaeological open air museums, organisations that, by their nature, promote both tangible and intangible culture. In fact, they propose to the visitors true-to-scale architectural reconstructions primarily based on archaeological sources, but intend also to provide an interpretation of how people lived and acted in the past and to communicate to the visitors information and data regarding intangible aspects of the ancient civilisations such as religion, social organization, economy and politics; - concerning Intangible culture, more specifically, in RITUALS archaeological open air museums will go beyond the presentation and demonstration of those material actions, which belong to their traditional offer, like the demonstration of ancient crafts and skills. They want to take on a new challenge: to offer to their visitors the knowledge of specific ritual contexts through the reconstruction of material and immaterial actions, supported by specific scientific evidences; - theatre and performing arts in museums represent, together with ICT tools, effective instruments incouraging the public involvement on the complexity of actions, symbols and atmospheres of rituality. They also encourage an active role of the visitors that can be engaged in laboratories and performances, participating in the production of cultural events. Dialogue between theatre and museums create a virtuous mutual short circuit, in which theatre helps museums to stimulate the emotional factor of knowledge and museums push theatre to find new forms that strengthen its function of communication and educational tool