Consumer preferences and labelling: an empirical analysis of the beef sector in Italy

Within the framework of European food safety measures, Reg. 1760/2000 and 1825/2000 have introduced mandatory traceability and relevant labeling into the beef sector. The paper analyses whether information on meat labels can be considered a useful instrument for consumers, facilitating the verification of quality. The purpose of the paper is, first, to evaluate if meat information is used during food purchase. Second, focusing on specific meat information, we assess the interest of consumer for some mandatory and voluntary information cues and identify the determinants affecting the use of them. Data were collected by a survey conducted in the Lombardy, region of the northern Italy, and employed a telephone questionnaire. The sample is composed by 1,025 consumers. We estimate 4 models based on the literature and for all the equations we used a binary logit model. The analyses revealed that meat label is widely used by Italian consumers in the formulation of their purchasing preferences. The use of the meat label is also positively connected to consumer attention towards quality signaling such as certification, expiry date and so on. The origin is confirmed to be an important information for a large part of interviewed. Among the voluntary information the system of cattle breeding is related to a consumer who pays particular attention in general to quality indicators whereas the cattle feeding seems to interest young consumers with high level of education.traceability, meat, consumer preferences, logit, Demand and Price Analysis,

The quantum Cartan algebra associated to a bicovariant differential calculus

We associate to any (suitable) bicovariant differential calculus on a quantum group a Cartan Hopf algebra which has a left, respectively right, representation in terms of left, respectively right, Cartan calculus operators. The example of the Hopf algebra associated to the $4D_+$ differential calculus on $SU_q(2)$ is described.Comment: 20 pages, no figures. Minor corrections in the example in Section 4

A Parallel Hamiltonian Eigensolver for Passivity Characterization and Enforcement of Large Interconnect Macromodels

Best Paper Award Nominatio

Leptoquarks, Dark Matter, and Anomalous LHC Events

Leptoquarks with mass in the region of $550-650$ GeV are a possible candidate for the recent excess seen by CMS in the $eejj$ and $e \nu jj$ channels. We discuss models where leptoquarks decay primarily to dark matter and jets, thereby giving a branching to charged lepton and jet final states that can match data. The confluence of proton decay constraints, dark matter indirect and direct detection data, and Higgs invisible decay bounds results in a handful of predictive models that will be conclusively verified or excluded in upcoming direct detection experiments. Along the way, we present robust limits on such leptoquark models stemming from the muon magnetic moment using current and projected experiment sensitivities, as well as from $K$ and $B$ meson mixing, and leptonic and semi-leptonic meson decays.Comment: Section on muon g-2 and references updated. 9 pages, 6 figure