The third mission of universities, the one that allows the commercialization of research results, has assumed a strategic role and primary importance in government policies, in Europe as well as in the rest of the world. Although this attention has raised interest around topics such as technology transfers and university spin-offs (USOs), the scarcity of available resources and the conventional university culture still did not allow us an optimal use of the opportunities related to this type of activity. It is necessary to develop a network among university, business and finance to create value and transform into business projects the result of years of academic research. The aim of this work is to investigate the phenomenon of USOs and the possible link with the private equity, emphasizing the strategies that such USOs can implement for the development of a network that creates value for universities, investors and the community itself.
This research project is supposed to face up viticulture in a complex, epistemological framework. As Dickenson and Salt affirm the geography of the wine «may be studied from a variety of perspectives and encompasses the influence of the physical environment, historical diffusion of the vine and viticulture, economic geographies of cultivation and marketing, political influences on trade and production, and cultural perceptions of landscapes, product and people». After all, already in the Latin etymology of viticulture exists a deep content hiatus that imposes to consider two fair enough different concepts; indeed, culture may refer to cultivation and care. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how viticulture must be considered and to show the way its dichotomic nature may suggest distant methodologies of investigation. After having underlined the epistemological framework of viticulture in relationship to geography and given the interpretative tools of the research, I analyzed the construction and the evolution of some viticultural landscapes (Montalcino, Barolo, Bolgheri and the Côte d'Or) whose choice depends on the dynamics that regarded their production (characterized by a particular propensity to commercialization), the relationships and the differences among them and finally the essential relationship that wine creates with its territory of origin. The role of the tradition represents the fil rouge that links these experiences and it declines in a different perspective according to the realities I analyzed. However, for each of them, it has been fundamental the role developed by a forerunner; indeed, Ferruccio Biondi for Brunello di Montalcino, Juliette Colbert-Falletti for Barolo and Mario Incisa della Rocchetta for the Sassicaia have not only contributed to the creation of a wine but generally to the development of a whole territory that is identified today in the cultivation of the grapevine. Finally, in virtue of such a rooted and shared historical construction, these territories take part in the processes of patrimonialization that are characterizing some wine regions to a global scale. Following different criterions of classification, where however viticulture covers a preponderant aspect, Val d'Orcia, Langhes and the climats de Bourgogne are considered from the UNESCO a human world heritage to safeguard while Bolgheri has been inserted by Regione Tuscana in the catalog of the historical rural landscapes; in all these cases, independently from who promoted the patrimonialization, the aim is clear: to allow the future generations to enjoy the cultural and environmental wealth that distinguish them. The wine landscapes are reported to be the ones that underwent fast and important transformations. Moving from this, I underline the debate around the relationship between patrimonialization (considered as a specific process of conservation) and the general transformation of the landscape. From this perspective, the criterions of patrimonialization adopted for the viticultural landscapes seem not to consider the eventuality of one change in the case wine shouldn't play the social and economic role that it has nowadays. What would it happen in that case?
Questa ricerca indaga gli aspetti culturali e materiali della storia della costruzione di uno spencer Liberty, che viene qui esaminato come documento storico. Questo capo faceva parte di un vestito da sposa e fu indossato il 12 ottobre 1912, giorno delle nozze, da una quindicenne a Villa Platina, entro i confini di Minas Gerais, regione del sud est del Brasile. La ricerca prende le mosse dalla cultura materiale per svilupparsi poi nel campo della storia, considerando aspetti economici, culturali e politici, della società platinense: una società rurale e tradizionale che si trovava agli albori del sistema repubblicano (periodo denominato di Republica Velha) e coincidente con il movimento artistico dell'Art Nouveau, in Italia denominato Liberty. La tesi indaga dunque le relazioni tra la società, il suo sistema di vestiario e il suo collegamento con la moda occidentale, tenendo sempre presente la storia dell'oggetto. La tesi si struttura su cinque assi: ¬la persona che ha posseduto l'oggetto stesso, l'ambiente produttivo, l'ambiente formativo dei sarti, la stampa e le comunicazioni e, infine l'oggetto. La ricerca si basa su diverse fonti: iconografiche, censimenti, libri contabili, periodici e riviste di moda, manuali tecnici della manifattura degli abiti (modellistica, taglio e cucito), periodici politici ed economici, archivi, testimonianze orali, oggetti manufatti del periodo, materie prime, la ricostruzione filologica dell'oggetto, ecc. L'obiettivo principale di tale indagine è comprendere processi e problematiche proprie delle materie prime, della commercializzazione, dei procedimenti di lavorazione, dei costi, delle mode e delle gerarchie sociali che questo manufatto presenta nelle varie fasi di lavorazione, di taglio ed assemblaggio. ; This research questions the material and cultural aspects of a Liberty Spencer construction, which is examined here as a historical document. This clothing was part of a wedding dress and was used about 12 October 1912, the wedding day, by a 15 years old girl. The weeding took place on the border of Minas Gerais, southeast region of Brazil. This research starts from material culture perspective to develop into the fields of history, considering economic, political and cultural aspects of the platinense society. That was a rural and traditional society on the beginning of republican system (so called Republica Velha), the same period of the Art Nouveau artistic movement, named Liberty movement in Italy. Thus, the thesis questions the relationship between society, its vesture system and its link with occidental fashion, considering the object history. This thesis is structured on five axes: the person who owned the object; the productive environment; the dressmakers professional qualification environment; the press; and finally, the object. This research is based on several sources: iconographic, census, accounting books, fashion newspapers and magazines, technical manuals of clothes manufacturing (modeling, cutting and sewing), political and economic periodicals, archives, oral testimonies, artifacts of the period, raw materials, the philological reconstruction of the object, etc. The main object is to understand the process and the raw materials, commercialization, manufacturing, cost, fashion and social hierarchy problematics that this artifact represents in the various manufacturing stages, of cutting and assembly.
L'aumento dell'attività di pesca a livello mondiale e il depauperamento delle risorse nazionali in risposta all'incremento della domanda di mercato dei prodotti ittici hanno determinato il progressivo aumento delle importazioni, sia da Paesi Comunitari che da Paesi Terzi, in particolar modo dalla Cina. Nel settore ittico, la Cina produce, allo stato attuale, oltre il 38% del fatturato mondiale, grazie soprattutto alla promozione di strategie commerciali estremamente concorrenziali. Tali livelli produttivi non sono supportati, però, dalla messa in atto di procedure efficienti, ai fini di una corretta tracciabilità dei prodotti alimentari lungo la filiera produttiva, con notevoli ripercussioni a livello commerciale e sanitario. Inoltre, in risposta alla crescente domanda da parte del consumatore di alimenti pronti al consumo e di facile utilizzo, negli ultimi anni si è assistito ad un aumento della commercializzazione di prodotti ittici trasformati e precotti. Il riconoscimento di specie assume un'importanza fondamentale per la prevenzione di fenomeni di falsificazione e contraffazione a tutela e protezione del consumatore. Considerando che la tecnica di identificazione di specie su base morfologica, unica riconosciuta in Italia in sede legale, risulta inapplicabile in tali tipologie di prodotto, l'attenzione è stata rivolta all'individuazione di strumenti analitici alternativi. Le metodiche analitiche basate sull'analisi del DNA finalizzate all'identificazione di specie sono quelle maggiormente utilizzate in virtù dell'elevato grado di resistenza dell'acido nucleico a trattamenti fisico-chimici e a fenomeni di degradazione, offrendo un valido strumento per il controllo della tracciabilità nelle diverse tipologie di prodotto (fresco, trasformato, conservato). In quest'ottica, i progetti di studio sviluppati sono stati rivolti sia al miglioramento delle tecniche per l'estrazione del DNA in matrici fresche o conservate, in grado di garantire soddisfacenti caratteristiche quali-quantitative dell'acido nucleico ottenuto ed un minore impegno dell'operatore, sia allo sviluppo di strumenti analitici basati sull'utilizzo della PCR per la discriminazione di specie diretta o post sequenziamento del target selezionato. Sono state sviluppate con successo metodiche per la discriminazione diretta tra specie di provenienza cinese e specie mediterranee o atlantiche di maggior valore commerciale e realizzati studi di caratterizzazione di prodotti ittici reperibili in esercizi commerciali etnici e di mangimi per animali domestici, ai fini del controllo di conformità su quanto dichiarato in etichetta. Infine, le metodiche sviluppate sono state utilizzate per effettuare controlli su prodotti commerciali acquistati presso la piccola e grande distribuzione, evidenziando come il fenomeno di sostituzione di specie, volontaria o involontaria, rappresenti una problematica reale, la cui entità suggerisce la necessità di potenziare le attività di controllo da parte degli organi ufficiali e ulteriori studi. In questo contesto, un adeguato livello di tutela del consumatore non può prescindere dallo sviluppo di metodiche analitiche sempre più rapide e performanti. The global increase of fishing activities, together with the depletion of national marine resources, in response to the rising demand for seafood, led to a progressive growth in imports, both from European Union countries and Third countries, particularly from China. In the fishery sector, China produces, at present, over 38% of the world output, thanks to the promotion of very competitive commercial strategies. These production rates are not supported, however, by the implementation of efficient systems of traceability of food products along the supply chain, with significant repercussions on trade and health issues. In addition, in recent years the commercialization of processed and precooked fish products has increased, in response to the growing demand for ready to cook and ready to eat food products. Thus, species identification acquires fundamental importance in the prevention of phenomena of counterfeiting and adulteration for consumer protection. Considering that the morphological identification of seafood species, the only official method approved in Italy, is inapplicable in these types of products, alternative analytical tools are needed. DNA-based analytical methods are the most applied for species identification due to the high resistance of nucleic acid to physical-chemical treatments and degradation, representing a valuable tool for traceability in different types of products (fresh, processed, canned). In this perspective, the research activities were aimed: I) to the improvement of DNA extraction techniques in fresh or processed matrices , in order to ensure satisfactory qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the obtained nucleic acid and simplify the laboratory workflow, II) to the development of analytical tools based on PCR for direct or post sequencing species discrimination using selected targets. Methods for direct discrimination between Chinese fish species and Mediterranean or Atlantic species of higher commercial value have been successfully developed, as well as studies on the identification of fish products sold in ethnic shops and of pet food, with the aim of evaluating the label correctness. Finally, the developed methods have been used to carry out analysis on commercial products directly purchased in small and large retailers, highlighting that the phenomenon of species substitution, whether deliberate or accidental, represents a real problem, suggesting the need for the implementation of further Official control activities and research studies. In this context, the development of rapid and performing analytical tools is essential to ensure an adequate level of consumer protection
