Guest editorial: Creating, managing and marketing gastronomy experiences in hospitality and tourism

Gastronomy experiences are increasingly becoming major drivers of tourism flows worldwide as they allow travelers to get more familiar with the local culture and traditions of the places visited. As such, gastronomy experiences have propelled gastronomic hospitality and tourism experiences which are attracting the attention of a high and expanding number of hospitality and tourism firms and fostering regional tourism development. Gastronomic tourism experiences entail the visit to food-themed events and festivals, primary and secondary producers, cooking classes, restaurants and places for which food tasting are the prevailing travel motivating factors. Research on this socio-cultural and economic phenomenon has been consolidating over more than three decades as an area of tourism research, often named interchangeably “gastronomic tourism”, “culinary tourism” and “food tourism”. The purpose of this special issue is to broaden and deepen our knowledge of gastronomy experiences in hospitality and tourism, from a managerial perspective, in a rapidly changing world

Top Management Evaluation in Italian Food & Beverage Industry

The standard ISO 9001: 2015 “Quality Management System. Requirements” states that the success of a company’s quality certification system is closely linked to the quality of its top management. The aim of the present work is to develop a model of top management quality evaluation useful for the ends of this certification. The model is calibrated for the Italian Food & Beverage Industry and it follows a multidisciplinary approach. The evaluation model is formed by two parts. In the first, the quality of top management is associated with an estimate of the probability of default and the related average expected life of a company in the Italian Food & Beverage Industry. These parameters are calculated using an original, easy-to-apply methodology that is especially useful for small and medium-sized companies that do not have an official rating. The second part of the model provides a system to estimate the quality of top managers' management styles based on seven qualitative organizational variables, which are then summarized by the attribution of a score ranging from 1 to 10. The judgments formulated in the two parts of the model must be considered as a system to arrive at an integrated final evaluation

The competitive productivity (CP) of tourism destinations: an integrative conceptual framework and a reflection on big data and analytics

Purpose: The purpose of this study is twofold. First, this study elaborates an integrative conceptual framework of tourism destination competitive productivity (TDCP) by blending established destination competitiveness frameworks, the competitive productivity (CP) framework and studies pertaining to big data and big data analytics (BDA) within destination management information systems and smart tourism destinations. Second, this study examines the drivers of TDCP in the context of the ongoing 4th industrial revolution by conceptualizing the destination business intelligence unit (DBIU) as a platform able to create sustained destination business intelligence under the guise of BDA, useful to support destination managers to achieve the tourism destination’s economic objectives. Design/methodology/approach: In this work, the authors leverage both extant literature (under the guise of research on CP, tourism destination competitiveness [TDC] and destination management information systems) and empirical work (in the form of interviews and field work involving destination managers and chief executive officers of destination management organizations and convention bureaus, as well as secondary data) to elaborate, develop and present an integrative conceptual framework of TDCP. Findings: The integrative conceptual framework of TDCP elaborated has been found helpful by a number of destination managers trying to understand how to effectively and efficiently manage and market a tourism destination in today’s fast-paced, digital and hypercompetitive environment. While DBIUs are at different stages of implementation, often as part of broader smart destination initiatives, it appears that they are increasingly fulfilling the purpose of creating sustained destination business intelligence by means of BDA to help tourism destinations achieve their economic goals. Research limitations/implications: This work bears several practical implications for tourism policymakers, destination managers and marketers, technology developers, as well as tourism and hospitality firms and practitioners. Tourism policymakers could embed TDCP into tourism and economic policies, and destination managers and marketers might build and make use of platforms such as the proposed DBIU. Technology developers need to understand that designing destination management information systems in general and more specifically DBIUs requires an in-depth analysis of the stakeholders that are going to contribute, share, control and use BDA. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study constitutes the first attempt to integrate the CP, TDC and destination management information systems research streams to elaborate an integrative conceptual framework of TDCP. Second, the authors contribute to the Industry 4.0 research stream by examining the drivers of tourism destination CP in the context of the ongoing 4th industrial revolution. Third, the authors contribute to the destination management information systems research stream by introducing and conceptualizing the DBIU and the related sustained destination business intelligence

Non-precious metal carbamates as catalysts for the aziridine/CO2coupling reaction under mild conditions

The catalytic potential of a large series of easily available metal carbamates (based on thirteen different non-precious metal elements) was explored for the first time in the coupling reaction between 2-aryl-aziridines and carbon dioxide, working under solventless and ambient conditions and using tetraalkylammonium halides as co-catalysts. The straightforward synthesis of novel [NbCl3(O2CNEt2)2],NbCl, and [NbBr3(O2CNEt2)2],NbBr, is reported. The niobium complexNbCl, in combination with NBu4I, emerged as the best catalyst of the overall series to convert aziridines with smallN-alkyl substituents into the corresponding 5-aryl-oxazolidin-2-ones

Sheep predation : characteristics and risk factors

Predation has always been an important problem in extensive sheep farms, causing serious economic losses to the farmers. Official predation reports have recently been decreasing in the District of Pisa, in spite of the presence of two wolf packs in the area. The aim of the present research was to obtain reliable information on the characteristics of predation and to estimate the effectiveness of existing prevention methods in sheep farms of the southern District of Pisa, in order to set up predictive models for an improved and more focused prevention plan and support interventions by public authorities. On-farm surveys were carried out in 73 semi-extensive sheep farms. Predation events were reported by 75.3% of the farmers. Wolves seemed to be responsible for most of those events, although their actual role could be confirmed only in 34% of cases. Most of the events occurred in spring and 85.1% of them were concentrated during night time. The average number of sheep killed during each attack was 7.05. In 22.3% of cases, the number of sheep killed was 65 10. Proximity to protected areas and the presence of thick vegetation cover significantly affected the probability of a farm being subjected to chronic predation. Farm size was significantly higher in those cases. No clear indication about the effectiveness of prevention methods could be obtained from our survey. The results of this investigation highlighted the impact of predation in the Southern District of Pisa and emphasized the need for finding technical and political solutions to this problem. Attention should be focused on large farms, with thick vegetation cover and located close to protected areas. Further investigations should be carried out in order to test the effectiveness of suitable prevention methods in these farms

Diiron bis-cyclopentadienyl complexes as transfer hydrogenation catalysts: The key role of the bridging aminocarbyne ligand

The catalytic activity of a series of diiron complexes based on the {Fe2Cp2(CO)(x)} core (x = 2-3) and containing a bridging aminocarbyne ligand was screened in transfer hydrogenation reaction of cyclohexanone from isopropanol. The series includes cationic tricarbonyl complexes, [1a-d]CF3SO3, and neutral derivatives obtained by substitution of one carbonyl with hydride (2a-c), cyanide (3a-d) or chloride (4a) ligands. The novel compounds 2a-b, 3a-b and 4a were characterized by analytical and spectroscopic techniques, and the single crystal X-ray structure of one isomer of 4a was determined. In general, diiron complexes exhibited a moderate activity in combination with potassium hydroxide; [Fe2Cp2(CN)(CO)(mu-CO){mu-CN (Me)(4-C6H4OMe)}], 3a, emerged as the best catalyst, and the study of its activity was extended to a range of other ketones. DFT calculations suggest an unusual carbyne-centred mechanism, and the better performance displayed by 3a is ascribable to the stabilizing effect provided by the cyanide co-ligand, which is experimentally supported by IR analyses

Bypassing the Inertness of Aziridine/CO2 Systems to Access 5-Aryl-2-Oxazolidinones: Catalyst-Free Synthesis Under Ambient Conditions

The development of sustainable synthetic routes to access valuable oxazolidinones via CO2 fixation is an active research area, and the aziridine/carbon dioxide coupling has aroused a considerable interest. This reaction features a high activation barrier and thus requires a catalytic system, and may present some other critical issues. Here, the straightforward gram-scale synthesis of a series of 5-aryl-2-oxazolidinones was developed at ambient temperature and atmospheric CO2 pressure, in the absence of any catalyst/co-catalyst. The key to this innovative procedure consists in the direct transfer of the pre-formed amine/CO2 adduct (carbamate) to common aziridine precursors (dimethylsulfonium salts), replacing the classical sequential addition of amine (intermediate isolation of aziridine) and then CO2. The reaction mechanism was investigated by NMR spectroscopy and DFT calculations applied to model cases

Interaction of perceptual grouping and crossmodal temporal capture in tactile apparent-motion

Previous studies have shown that in tasks requiring participants to report the direction of apparent motion, task-irrelevant mono-beeps can "capture'' visual motion perception when the beeps occur temporally close to the visual stimuli. However, the contributions of the relative timing of multimodal events and the event structure, modulating uni- and/or crossmodal perceptual grouping, remain unclear. To examine this question and extend the investigation to the tactile modality, the current experiments presented tactile two-tap apparent-motion streams, with an SOA of 400 ms between successive, left-/right-hand middle-finger taps, accompanied by task-irrelevant, non-spatial auditory stimuli. The streams were shown for 90 seconds, and participants' task was to continuously report the perceived (left-or rightward) direction of tactile motion. In Experiment 1, each tactile stimulus was paired with an auditory beep, though odd-numbered taps were paired with an asynchronous beep, with audiotactile SOAs ranging from -75 ms to 75 ms. Perceived direction of tactile motion varied systematically with audiotactile SOA, indicative of a temporal-capture effect. In Experiment 2, two audiotactile SOAs-one short (75 ms), one long (325 ms)-were compared. The long-SOA condition preserved the crossmodal event structure (so the temporal-capture dynamics should have been similar to that in Experiment 1), but both beeps now occurred temporally close to the taps on one side (even-numbered taps). The two SOAs were found to produce opposite modulations of apparent motion, indicative of an influence of crossmodal grouping. In Experiment 3, only odd-numbered, but not even-numbered, taps were paired with auditory beeps. This abolished the temporal-capture effect and, instead, a dominant percept of apparent motion from the audiotactile side to the tactile-only side was observed independently of the SOA variation. These findings suggest that asymmetric crossmodal grouping leads to an attentional modulation of apparent motion, which inhibits crossmodal temporal-capture effects

Adding Diversity to a Diruthenium Biscyclopentadienyl Scaffold via Alkyne Incorporation: Synthesis and Biological Studies

We report the synthesis and the assessment of the anticancer potential of two series of diruthenium biscyclopentadienyl carbonyl complexes. Novel dimetallacyclopentenone compounds (2-4) were obtained (45-92% yields) from the thermal reaction(PhCCPh exchange) of [Ru2Cp2(CO)(& mu;-CO){& mu;-& eta;(1):& eta;(3)-C(Ph)C(Ph)C(O)}], 1, with alkynes HCCR [R = C5H4FeCp (Fc),3-C6H4(Asp), 2-naphthyl; Cp = & eta;(5)-C5H5, Asp = OC(O)-2-C6H4C(O)Me]. Protonation of 1-3 by HBF4 afforded the corresponding & mu;-alkenyl derivatives 5-7, in 40-86% yields. All productswere characterized by IR and NMR spectroscopy; moreover, cyclic voltammetry(1, 2, 5, 7) andsingle-crystal X-ray diffraction (5, 7)analyses were performed on representative compounds. Complexes 5-7 revealed a cytotoxic activity comparableto that of cisplatin in A549 (lung adenocarcinoma), SW480 (colon adenocarcinoma),and ovarian (A2780) cancer cell lines, and 2, 5, 6, and 7 overcame cisplatin resistancein A2780cis cells. Complexes 2, 5, and 7 (but not the aspirin derivative 6) inducedan increase in intracellular ROS levels. Otherwise, 6 strongly stabilizes and elongates natural DNA (from calf thymus,CT-DNA), suggesting a possible intercalation binding mode, whereas 5 is less effective in binding CT-DNA, and 7 isineffective. This trend is reversed concerning RNA, and in particular, 7 is able to bind poly(rA)poly(rU) showing selectivity forthis nucleic acid. Complexes 5-7 caninteract with the albumin protein with a thermodynamic signature dominatedby hydrophobic interactions. Overall, we show that organometallicspecies based on the Ru2Cp2(CO)( x ) scaffold (x = 2, 3) are activeagainst cancer cells, with different incorporated fragments influencingthe interactions with nucleic acids and the production of ROS

The role of universities in the Smart City innovation: Multistakeholder integration and engagement perspectives

During the past decades cities may have finally shaped the demand for “smart” and sustainable innovations calling for deep stakeholders' integration and engagement within Smart City Projects (SCPs). In this context, Universities are often involved with different tasks, but their stakeholder engagement and integrator role is still unclear. This paper aims to fulfill this gap on the role of Universities in SCPs utilising bottom-up collected quantitative and qualitative data. We found positive trend in University integrator role applying a mixed two-step methodology based on online survey of University students and interviews with decision-making stakeholders involved in SCPs (business, state, entrepreneurs and academia) in Italy and Russia. Our findings suggest significant new insights useful to reapply the mediating role of Universities and to highlight some newly arising opportunities in stakeholder engagement. At the same time, we propose related practical implications in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation defining further directions under the lens of multistakeholder management. © 2018 Elsevier Inc