BoRin Kim, Assistant Professor of Social Work, COLA travels to South Korea

Professor Kim attended the Korea Health Panel conference, had collaborative meetings with scholars from Seoul National University and was a guest lecturer, and visited medical social workers at the Seoul National University Hospital

Fundraising Opportunities for Science and Technology Museums

The aim of this paper is to analyze the possibilities of private funding for a special kind of museums: science museums and technology centers. In the last years the economic crisis has impacted on the cultural sector, decreasing the public resources traditionally allocated to museums and arts and heritage in general. That has forced art professionals to develop alternative strategies to get the necessary financial support for museum’s activities. Although the crisis has affected also private companies and individuals, nowadays fundraising from the private sector seems to be the major alternative to the lack of public funds. I will start this paper analyzing the ethical problems in applying fundraising and marketing in general to museums and then proceed focusing on the main private sponsors of museums in general (foundations, private corporations and individuals). I will then concentrate on science museums addressing their peculiarities and characteristics; I will later deal with issues related to concrete private sponsorship for this type of museums. In the conclusion, I will delineate what some of the major future challenges for this sector are.Fundraising; Audience Analysis; Marketing; Science and Technology Museums

Performance Measurement Systems in Theatres: The Case of the Municipal Theatre of Ferrara

In recent years, cultural organisations have introduced and tested new management tools to achieve their institutional goals of efficiency, effectiveness and social cohesion. This process has been widely linked to New Public Management for public sector cultural organisations, but the introduction of these tools has been an interesting process in private cultural organisations too. This paper aims at considering more specifically one kind of management tools: performance measurement systems. Their goal is to give to the management a set of information of quantitative and qualitative nature that could guide the strategic choices in the long-term. With this work, we will consider the real possibilities of application of a good performance measurement system in cultural organisations, with a particular focus on theatres. Our research starts with the analysis of the theoretical framework of performance measurement systems and theatres management. The theoretical approach is supported by the analysis of a case study, the Municipal Theatre of Ferrara (Italy). In this way, we will try to verify and discuss opportunities and critical points implied by the introduction of a performance measurement system in theatres.New Public Management; Management Tools; Performance Measurement; Theatres; Municipal Theatre of Ferrara

Estimating Product Quality in International Trade

In recent years empirical studies offer clear evidence on the increasing importance of intra-industry trade in presence of vertically differentiated products. These are goods that, within the same industry, are distinguished by different quality levels. In the new trade theory and in the neoclassical literature there is not a well-established methodology to estimate good's quality in international trade; this contribution presents different methodologies starting from a review of the literature and proposing alternative solutions. In the first part of the paper classical indicators of intra-industry trade are presented as well as original measures, in the vein of Aw and Roberts, starting observing the evolution of export to identify the qualitative changes in absolute terms and relative to competitors. These indicators can be influenced not only by quality shifts but also by other cyclical and structural factors. To overcome these limitations and give a better interpretation of the underlying phenomenon we present a micro-founded model that attempts to evaluate the effect of quality on export demand. This model is based on the underlying relation between vertical product differentiation, goods substitution effect and market power of exporting firms. In the last part an econometric methodology is presented to estimate price elasticity of volume market share as function of the difference in price against competitors in an inter-temporal framework. The policy implications of this research moves from a better assessment of countries international market positioning and price setting strategy to the identifications of competitive dynamics based on quality rather than on prices.product quality, intra-industry trade, vertical differentiation, international trade, price elasticity

A Tool for the Evaluation of Irrigation Water Quality in the Arid and Semi-Arid Regions

In the Mediterranean arid and semi-arid regions, large amounts of low quality waters could be used for crop irrigation, but the adoption of articulated classifications with too rigid quality limits can often reduce the recoverable quantities of water and make the monitoring of water quality too much expensive. Therefore, an evaluation of irrigation water quality based on only a few crucial parameters, which consider the crop species to be irrigated and the type of irrigation system and management adopted, can be an easy and flexible method for maximizing the reuse of wastewater and low-quality water for agricultural purposes. In this view, an irrigation water quality tool (IWQT) was developed to support farmers of arid and semi-arid regions on evaluating the use of low quality water for crop irrigation. The most significant and cheapest parameters of irrigation water quality were identified and clustered in three quality classes according to their effects on crop yield and soil fertility (agronomic quality indicators), human health (hygiene and health quality indicators), and irrigation systems (management quality indicators). According to IWQT parameters, a tool reporting a series of recommendations, including water treatment types, was implemented to guide farmers on the use of low quality irrigation water

Assessing Stormwater Nutrient and Heavy Metal Plant Uptake in an Experimental Bioretention Pond

With the purpose to study a solution based on Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) to reduce and treat stormwater runoff in urban areas, a bioretention pond (BP) was realized in the Agripolis campus of the University of Padova, Italy. The BP collected overflow water volumes of the rainwater drainage system of a 2270 m2 drainage area consisting almost entirely of impervious surfaces. Sixty-six Tech-IA\uae floating elements, supporting four plants each, were laid on the water surface. Eleven species of herbaceous perennial helophyte plants, with ornamental features, were used and tested. The early growth results of the BP functioning showed that nearly 50% of the total inflow water volume was stored or evapotranspirated, reducing the peak discharge on the urban drainage system. Among plants, Alisma parviflora, Caltha palustris, Iris \u2018Black Gamecock\u2019, Lysimachia punctata \u2018Alexander\u2019, Oenanthe javanica \u2018Flamingo\u2019, Mentha aquatica, Phalaris arundinacea \u2018Picta\u2019, and Typha laxmannii had the best survival and growth performances. A. parviflora and M. aquatica appeared interesting also for pollutant reduction in runoff water