The value of traditional rural landscape and nature protected areas in tourism demand: A study on agritourists' preferences

This study focuses on how traditional rural landscape and proximity to a Natura 2000 Site of Community Importance (SCI) might influence consumers\u2019 choice of an agritourism farm for a weekend stay. Data were collected in Umbria region\u2019s (Italy) agritourism farms in 2014 by interviewing 160 tourists. Results from a discrete choice experiment reveal that the most important feature affecting the interviewees\u2019 propensity to pay a premium price to stay in an agritourism farm is the well-preserved traditional landscape (willingness to pay 32.32\u20ac/night for two people), followed by the availability of a swimming pool (willingness to pay 20.95\u20ac/night for two people), the proximity to a historical village (willingness to pay 18.37\u20ac/night for two people) and, the location in a Natura 2000 SCI (willingness to pay 13.57\u20ac/night for two people). Furthermore, the results underline how the preservation of the traditional landscape and protection of the surrounding environment play a strategic role in developing agritourism and provide economic benefits to local communities

Central mechanisms mediating the hypophagic effects of oleoylethanolamide and N-acylphosphatidylethanolamines: different lipid signals?

The spread of "obesity epidemic" and the poor efficacy of many anti-obesity therapies in the long-term highlight the need to develop novel efficacious therapy. This necessity stimulates a large research effort to find novel mechanisms controlling feeding and energy balance. Among these mechanisms a great deal of attention has been attracted by a family of phospholipid-derived signaling molecules that play an important role in the regulation of food-intake. They include N-acylethanolamines (NAEs) and N-acylphosphatidylethanolamines (NAPEs). NAPEs have been considered for a long time simply as phospholipid precursors of the lipid mediator NAEs, but increasing body of evidence suggest a role in many physiological processes including the regulation of feeding behavior. Several observations demonstrated that among NAEs, oleoylethanolamide (OEA) acts as a satiety signal, which is generated in the intestine, upon the ingestion of fat, and signals to the central nervous system. At this level different neuronal pathways, including oxytocinergic, noradrenergic, and histaminergic neurons, seem to mediate its hypophagic action. Similarly to NAEs, NAPE (with particular reference to the N16:0 species) levels were shown to be regulated by the fed state and this finding was initially interpreted as fluctuations of NAE precursors. However, the observation that exogenously administered NAPEs are able to inhibit food intake, not only in normal rats and mice but also in mice lacking the enzyme that converts NAPEs into NAEs, supported the hypothesis of a role of NAPE in the regulation of feeding behavior. Indirect observations suggest that the hypophagic action of NAPEs might involve central mechanisms, although the molecular target remains unknown. The present paper reviews the role that OEA and NAPEs play in the mechanisms that control food intake, further supporting this group of phospholipids as optimal candidate for the development of novel anti-obesity treatments

Exact Solvability of Superintegrable Systems

It is shown that all four superintegrable quantum systems on the Euclidean plane possess the same underlying hidden algebra $sl(3)$. The gauge-rotated Hamiltonians, as well as their integrals of motion, once rewritten in appropriate coordinates, preserve a flag of polynomials. This flag corresponds to highest-weight finite-dimensional representations of the $sl(3)$-algebra, realized by first order differential operators.Comment: 14 pages, AMS LaTe

Consumers demand for social farming products: An analysis with discrete choice experiments

This paper analyses the demand for social farming (SF) products. In particular, we investigate the preferences of consumers who buy their products from large retailers, rather than from solidarity purchasing groups or other niche markets using a sample of 225 consumers. In this regard, a discrete choice experiment (DCE) was carried out to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) a premium price for the purchase of a common product (i.e., eggs) from farms that employ disabled people. The attributes considered in our DCE design are the employment of disabled people and two additional attributes which may have ethical implications for the choices. The results indicate that consumers are interested in buying SF products, with about 74% of the sample willing to buy the eggs produced by social farms and the average WTP being equal to \u20ac1.36 for a pack of six eggs. Moreover, the average WTP for the use of labour of disabled people attribute amounted to \u20ac0.69 for a pack of six eggs

From autism to eating disorders and more: The role of oxytocin in neuropsychiatric disorders

Oxytocin (oxy) is a pituitary neuropeptide hormone synthesized from the paraventricular and supraoptic nuclei within the hypothalamus. Like other neuropeptides, oxy can modulate a wide range of neurotransmitter and neuromodulator activities. Additionally, through the neurohypophysis, oxy is secreted into the systemic circulation to act as a hormone, thereby influencing several body functions. Oxy plays a pivotal role in parturition, milk let-down and maternal behavior and has been demonstrated to be important in the formation of pair bonding between mother and infants as well as in mating pairs. Furthermore, oxy has been proven to play a key role in the regulation of several behaviors associated with neuropsychiatric disorders, including social interactions, social memory response to social stimuli, decision-making in the context of social interactions, feeding behavior, emotional reactivity, etc. An increasing body of evidence suggests that deregulations of the oxytocinergic system might be involved in the pathophysiology of certain neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism, eating disorders, schizophrenia, mood, and anxiety disorders. The potential use of oxy in these mental health disorders is attracting growing interest since numerous beneficial properties are ascribed to this neuropeptide. The present manuscript will review the existing findings on the role played by oxy in a variety of distinct physiological and behavioral functions (Figure 1) and on its role and impact in different psychiatric disorders. The aim of this review is to highlight the need of further investigations on this target that might contribute to the development of novel more efficacious therapies

Superintegrability in a two-dimensional space of nonconstant curvature

A Hamiltonian with two degrees of freedom is said to be superintegrable if it admits three functionally independent integrals of the motion. This property has been extensively studied in the case of two-dimensional spaces of constant (possibly zero) curvature when all the independent integrals are either quadratic or linear in the canonical momenta. In this article the first steps are taken to solve the problem of superintegrability of this type on an arbitrary curved manifold in two dimensions. This is done by examining in detail one of the spaces of revolution found by G. Koenigs. We determine that there are essentially three distinct potentials which when added to the free Hamiltonian of this space have this type of superintegrability. Separation of variables for the associated Hamilton–Jacobi and Schrödinger equations is discussed. The classical and quantum quadratic algebras associated with each of these potentials are determined

Group entropies, correlation laws and zeta functions

The notion of group entropy is proposed. It enables to unify and generalize many different definitions of entropy known in the literature, as those of Boltzmann-Gibbs, Tsallis, Abe and Kaniadakis. Other new entropic functionals are presented, related to nontrivial correlation laws characterizing universality classes of systems out of equilibrium, when the dynamics is weakly chaotic. The associated thermostatistics are discussed. The mathematical structure underlying our construction is that of formal group theory, which provides the general structure of the correlations among particles and dictates the associated entropic functionals. As an example of application, the role of group entropies in information theory is illustrated and generalizations of the Kullback-Leibler divergence are proposed. A new connection between statistical mechanics and zeta functions is established. In particular, Tsallis entropy is related to the classical Riemann zeta function.Comment: to appear in Physical Review

Two families of superintegrable and isospectral potentials in two dimensions

As an extension of the intertwining operator idea, an algebraic method which provides a link between supersymmetric quantum mechanics and quantum (super)integrability is introduced. By realization of the method in two dimensions, two infinite families of superintegrable and isospectral stationary potentials are generated. The method makes it possible to perform Darboux transformations in such a way that, in addition to the isospectral property, they acquire the superintegrability preserving property. Symmetry generators are second and fourth order in derivatives and all potentials are isospectral with one of the Smorodinsky-Winternitz potentials. Explicit expressions of the potentials, their dynamical symmetry generators and the algebra they obey as well as their degenerate spectra and corresponding normalizable states are presented.Comment: 22 pages, only four typos are correcte

Hamiltonians separable in cartesian coordinates and third-order integrals of motion

We present in this article all Hamiltonian systems in E(2) that are separable in cartesian coordinates and that admit a third-order integral, both in quantum and in classical mechanics. Many of these superintegrable systems are new, and it is seen that there exists a relation between quantum superintegrable potentials, invariant solutions of the Korteweg-De Vries equation and the Painlev\'e transcendents.Comment: 19 pages, Will be published in J. Math. Phy