Wine tourism in Italy: New profiles, styles of consumption, ways of touring

Italy has always been a wine country: it produces 20% of the world and 33% of the European wine production; in 2008 it has produced more wine grapes than France. More, Italy is also a country with an ancient tradition in tourism. But there are weakness in these sectors: Italy is, among the big touristic countries, the one with the more fragmented accommodation capacity; in the last 20 years it moved from the fourth to the fifth place as tourism destination, according to the World Tourism rankings. The wine tourism is still at beginning and there is lack of data and information about it. Starting from this situation, the aim of this paper is to present a new approach to study wine tourism, explaining the proposed methodology trough the data collected in surveys on tourism and wine tourism in Italy, with a focus on Tuscany. Data used are along to the topic, starting from Italian situation where there is a strong connection among wine, food, territory, art and culture, considering both potential and real wine tourist. Analyzing data of Italian and foreigners tourists we demonstrate that in Italy wine tourism is not a niche tourism, but it is a subset of the same travel, with a strong evidence of a mix of tourisms. Results obtained in several field researches are exposed to show how studying attitudes and values of tourists, but also their mobility on a territory, could give new perspectives for promoting wine events in Italy; furthermore, differences between Italian and foreigners tourists are taken into account

Leptomeningitis in a person with radiologically isolated syndrome and latent tuberculosis. A case report with implications for clinical research

A 39-year-old man, followed with serial MRI of CNS for a radiologically isolate syndrome (RIS, a recently described condition considered a subclinical form of MS), was hospitalized for the occurrence of a leptomeningitis. Routine blood tests and contrast enhanced total body CT scan were unremarkable. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) examination showed increase of cells (22 mononuclear cells/mm3), albumin (294 mg/L), immunoglobilins G (161 mg/L) and Link Index (1.9), with 17 oligoclonal bands. Microbiological examinations of CSF (including those for Koch’s Bacillus) were negative. The Mantoux reaction and the QuantiFERON test were positive, featuring a latent tuberculosis (TB). The patient started prophylaxis with rifampicin and isoniazid for four months, until a new MRI showed the disappearance of the leptomeningeal enhancement, and the stability of white matter brain and spinal cord lesions. Two other MRI scans showed a new brain Gd-enhancing lesion nine month after anti-tubercular therapy and, after additional six months, new cerebral and spinal cord areas. This case provides the following suggestions about the effects of TB infection and related therapies on the underlying autoimmune status: the infection, while actively present, did not exacerbate the RIS condition; the worsening nine months after the prophylaxis discontinuation might have been the ‘natural’ evolution of RIS condition. Alternative speculative hypotheses include a remote effect of the infection, of isoniazid (that was reported in some cases to trigger MS), or the result of the clearance of the infection itself. Irrespective of the existence of any interaction between RIS and TB infection, It seems important to collect cases with MS-related diseases and concomitant infections, that may provide clues about disease pathogenesis and treatment

VGI AND WEB 2.0: POLITICS IN THE TIME OF TWITTER

Il presente contributo si articola in due parti che mirano a esplorare la rappresentazione del luogo attraverso informazioni georeferenziate generate dagli utenti. La prima parte, a carattere teorico e metodologico, analizza il contesto dell’informazione geografica e le recenti innovazioni della cartografia online, con particolare attenzione alla Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). La seconda parte dello studio verte sul caso di studio: verrà infatti mostrato come le informazioni generate dall’utente possano essere utilizzate per analisi di carattere sociopolitico e come possano essere create mappe tematiche con strumenti di mappatura differenti. L’analisi prende in considerazione i tweet con geocode presenti su Twitter relativi ad alcune delle principali personalità politiche italiane al fine di mostrare una valutazione della popolarità e della percezione degli italiani nei confronti di alcune delle principali personalità politiche italiane attuali. L’articolo si conclude con una riflessione sulle potenzialità e i limiti, le opportunità e le difficoltà, delle nuove applicazioni Web 2.0 con l’intento di mostrare che il dato e l’informazione generati dall’utente possono svolgere un ruolo importante nella ricerca geografica e nella cartografia, per aiutare a comprendere meglio fenomeni, nel nostro caso politici, ma anche sociali ed economici.In this paper there are two main parts, which aim at exploring the representation of place through georeferenced user-generated information. The first part focuses on the main features of volunteered geographic information (VGI) and open source mapping tools. The second part of the paper develops a case study. It will be shown how user-generated information might be used for investigating a social and political topic and how thematic maps representing the analysis may be obtained with different mapping tools. That analysis has been developed using geocoded tweets from Twitter, concerning some of the most important Italian politicians. The paper closes with some remarks on the potentialities and the limits, the opportunities and the difficulties of the emerging Web 2.0 applications and it aims at showing that user-generated data and information can play an important role in geographical research and in mapping activities, to help to better understand political as well as social and economical phenomenon

The airification of cities: making sense of the impact of peer to peer short term letting on urban functions and economy

This paper explores spatial and economic dynamics arising from the diffusion of short termnletting across Italian cities. The study is based on a vast dataset comprising of all the properties listed on the AirBnB website in 14 cities, during the year 2015. We start by examining the relationship between airbnb´s offer and general tourist flows, and demonstrate a strong correlation between the two in all the cities considered, suggesting that airbnb accommodation is how a well established, integral component of the Italian tourist offer. The core objective of the study is to look into the role of short term letting within the general dynamics of urban capital valorisation, and gain insight on the possible evolution of the urban functions of historic centres. To this purpose we identified urban areas with the highest economic advantage of short-term letting versus traditional long-term residential letting. Our analysis suggests that landlords in the urban cores of art cities may already be moving properties from the residential market to short term letting in great numbers, contributing to the decade-old social desertification and disneyfication of Italian historic centres. This finding is also supported by the surprisingly high proportion of residential units in historic centres listed on airBnB and, among these, the overwhelming predominance of entire homes versus single and private rooms. Such observations also seem to contradict AirBnB Inc.´s narrative regarding the actors that mostly benefit from the platform - reportedly younger tenants struggling with high rents, and families making an extra income. Our results suggest that landlords may be those more interested in the opportunities afforded by the platform, rather than resident tenants. The article concludes with a focus on two cities, Florence and Milan, which display extremely different spatial patterns of short term letting supply and demand, and an interesting relationship between the distribution of airbnb clusters and urban phenomena of different nature, such as gentrification

Collaboration between a human group and artificial intelligence can improve prediction of multiple sclerosis course. A proof-of-principle study

Background: Multiple sclerosis has an extremely variable natural course. In most patients, disease starts with a relapsing-remitting (RR) phase, which proceeds to a secondary progressive (SP) form. The duration of the RR phase is hard to predict, and to date predictions on the rate of disease progression remain suboptimal. This limits the opportunity to tailor therapy on an individual patient's prognosis, in spite of the choice of several therapeutic options. Approaches to improve clinical decisions, such as collective intelligence of human groups and machine learning algorithms are widely investigated. Methods: Medical students and a machine learning algorithm predicted the course of disease on the basis of randomly chosen clinical records of patients that attended at the Multiple Sclerosis service of Sant'Andrea hospital in Rome. Results: A significant improvement of predictive ability was obtained when predictions were combined with a weight that depends on the consistence of human (or algorithm) forecasts on a given clinical record. Conclusions: In this work we present proof-of-principle that human-machine hybrid predictions yield better prognoses than machine learning algorithms or groups of humans alone. To strengthen this preliminary result, we propose a crowdsourcing initiative to collect prognoses by physicians on an expanded set of patients

Coincident onset of multiple sclerosis and herpes simplex virus 1 encephalitis. a case report

Background: Along with vitamin D, smoking, body mass index and others, Epstein Barr virus, other herpesviruses and human endogenous retroviruses represent plausible environmental risk factors for multiple sclerosis. However, it is difficult to obtain direct proof of their involvement in the etiology of this condition. Case presentation: In order to contribute further evidence of the importance of these viruses, and speculate about disease-relevant interactions between these agents and a predisposed genetic background of the host, we describe the temporal association between multiple sclerosis onset and Herpes simplex 1-encephalitis in a female patient. Conclusions: This case illustrates a possible relationship between HSV-1 encephalitis and multiple sclerosis. Bearing in mind that association does not imply causation, some speculations about the etiology and pathophysiology of the two diseases can be made. The hypothesis of a genetic background predisposing to HSV-1 encephalitis and to immune-mediated demyelination is supported by the coincidence of the two conditions in this patient, along with data from animal models and genetic studies

Patch Testing in Non-Immediate Drug Eruptions

<p/> <p>The present review addresses the literature regarding the sensitivity and specificity of the various diagnostic methods for evaluating non-immediate (ie, occurring more than 1 hour after drug administration) hypersensitivity reactions associated with β-lactams and other antibiotics, anticonvulsants, heparins, iodinated contrast media, etc. Such reactions include several clinical entities, which range from mild reactions, such as maculopapular rash and delayed-appearing urticaria, to severe ones, such as acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis (AGEP), Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). Clinical and laboratory studies indicate that a cell-mediated pathogenic mechanism is often involved in maculopapular rashes. However, this mechanism has also been demonstrated in other non-immediate reactions, such as urticarial and/or angioedematous manifestations, TEN, bullous exanthems, and AGEP. Patch tests, together with delayed-reading intradermal tests, lymphocyte transformation tests, and challenges, are useful tools for evaluating non-immediate drug eruptions. Patch tests can be performed with any form of commercial drugs and are safer than intradermal tests. However, patch tests are less sensitive than intradermal tests, and their sensitivity may vary, depending on the vehicle used.</p

Novel homozygous GBA2 mutation in a patient with complicated spastic paraplegia

Hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSPs) are a heterogeneous group of neurological disorders characterized primarily by a pyramidal syndrome with lower limb spasticity, which can manifest as pure HSP or associated with a number of neurological or non-neurological signs (i.e., complicated HSPs). The clinical variability of HSPs is associated with a wide genetic heterogeneity, with more than eighty causative genes known. Recently, next generation sequencing (NGS) has allowed increasing genetic definition in such a heterogeneous group of disorders. We report on a 56- year-old man affected by sporadic complicated HSP consisting of a pyramidal syndrome, cerebellar ataxia, congenital cataract, pes cavus, axonal sensory-motor peripheral neuropathy and cognitive decline. Brain MRI showed cerebellar atrophy and thin corpus callosum. By NGS we found a novel homozygous biallelic c.452-1G > C mutation in the b-glucosidase 2 gene (GBA2), known to be causative for autosomal recessive hereditary spastic paraplegia type 46 (SPG46). The rarity of this inherited form besides reporting on a novel mutation, expands the genetic and clinical spectrum of SPG46 related HSP

Genome-Wide Multiple Sclerosis Association Data and Coagulation

The emerging concept of a crosstalk between hemostasis, inflammation, and immune system prompt recent works on coagulation cascade in multiple sclerosis (MS). Studies on MS pathology identified several coagulation factors since the beginning of the disease pathophysiology: fibrin deposition with breakdown of blood brain barrier, and coagulation factors within active plaques may exert pathogenic role, especially through the innate immune system. Studies on circulating coagulation factors showed complex imbalance involving several components of hemostasis cascade (thrombin, factor X, factor XII). To analyze the role of the coagulation process in connection with other pathogenic pathways, we implemented a systematic matching of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) data with an informative and unbiased network of coagulation pathways. Using MetaCore (version 6.35 build 69300, 2018) we analyzed the connectivity (i.e., direct and indirect interactions among two networks) between the network of the coagulation process and the network resulting from feeding into MetaCore the MS GWAS data. The two networks presented a remarkable over-connectivity: 958 connections vs. 561 expected by chance; z-score = 17.39; p-value < 0.00001. Moreover, genes coding for cluster of differentiation 40 (CD40) and plasminogen activator, urokinase (PLAU) shared both networks, pointed to an integral interplay between coagulation cascade and main pathogenic immune effectors. In fact, CD40 pathways is especially operative in B cells, that are currently a major therapeutic target in MS field. The potential interaction of PLAU with a signal of paramount importance for B cell pathogenicity, such as CD40, suggest new lines of research and pave the way to implement new therapeutic targets

Cell Line Data Base: structure and recent improvements towards molecular authentication of human cell lines

The Cell Line Data Base (CLDB) is a well-known reference information source on human and animal cell lines including information on more than 6000 cell lines. Main biological features are coded according to controlled vocabularies derived from international lists and taxonomies. HyperCLDB (http://bioinformatics.istge.it/hypercldb/) is a hypertext version of CLDB that improves data accessibility by also allowing information retrieval through web spiders. Access to HyperCLDB is provided through indexes of biological characteristics and navigation in the hypertext is granted by many internal links. HyperCLDB also includes links to external resources. Recently, an interest was raised for a reference nomenclature for cell lines and CLDB was seen as an authoritative system. Furthermore, to overcome the cell line misidentification problem, molecular authentication methods, such as fingerprinting, single-locus short tandem repeat (STR) profile and single nucleotide polymorphisms validation, were proposed. Since this data is distributed, a reference portal on authentication of human cell lines is needed. We present here the architecture and contents of CLDB, its recent enhancements and perspectives. We also present a new related database, the Cell Line Integrated Molecular Authentication (CLIMA) database (http://bioinformatics.istge.it/clima/), that allows to link authentication data to actual cell lines