Search

While branched polyglycerol (PG)-based molecules are well established as hydrophilic particles, the capacity of utilizing PG in bulk materials and opportunities arising by their further surface functionalization have only recently been considered. Here we investigated how the mold used in PG network synthesis may affect surface composition and how the permeability of substances through PG can be controlled by altering network structure, i.e. introducing 20mol% oligoethylene glycol (OEG) bifunctional spacer molecules. Overall, PG-based bulk network materials were shown to be tailorable, hydrophilic, low swelling and relatively stiff polyether-based materials, with low impact of salt onto material properties. Based on these features, but also on the principal capacity of free hydroxyl groups to be used for functionalization reactions, these materials may be an interesting platform for medical and technical applications, e.g. as diffusion-rate controlling membrane in aqueous environment. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Using a hedonic pricing model, this paper investigates the pricing implications of two broadly defined wine reputation strategies: private and collective. While the former consists of an individual quality differentiation strategy relying on an individual wine producer's own reputation, the latter mainly relies on the reputation of a group of wineries belonging to a particular geographic denomination. To this aim, wine purchases made by a nationally representative panel of Italian households were analyzed. Estimates based on quantile regression reveal that the effects of the two reputation strategies (private and collective) have a different weight according to the price segment of the wines in question. While private reputation plays a major role in both low and high priced wines, collective reputation in terms of geographical designations seems especially important for high priced wines., The IFAMR is published quarterly my IFAMA. For more information visit: www.ifama.org.

This paper addresses the dynamics of world wine consumption over the past 50 years in 26 countries, verifying whether or not there is a macro-tendency towards a common consumption style, despite differences in taxation, economic policies and distribution systems among countries. From an empirical point of view, the σ and β convergence hypotheses were formally tested. Model results confirm the existence of both types of convergences. Per capita consumption of wine first experienced a reduction in differences between countries and then converged toward a central value. "Traditional" countries, with historically high levels of consumption, showed a decrease in wine consumption, while emerging countries with historically lower consumption levels showed an increase. These findings not only provide further support to the theory of international convergence of wine consumption on a volume basis, as already observed by other researchers in the European market, but they also offer support for the theory in major world markets. Furthermore, convergence appears to be happening not only at a quantitative level but at qualitative level as well, and this phenomenon may very well reflect the changing tastes of worldwide consumers towards a generalized structure of wine consumption. Este paper compara las dinámicas del consumo internacional de vino de los últimos 50 años en 26 países, con el objetivo de averiguar si existe una tendencia global hacia un estilo de consumo común, al margen de las diferencias impositivas y arancelarias, políticas económicas y sistemas de distribución de cada país. Los resultados del modelo confirman las hipótesis de convergencia de tipo σ y de tipo β: se observa una disminución en la diferencia d-el consumo per capita de vino entre países y posteriormente un aumento hacia un valor central, en términos de litros. Los países "tradicionales", con niveles de consumo históricamente altos, han experimentado una disminución del mismo, mientras que países emergentes con menor tradición de consumo de vinos han registrado un crecimiento. Estos resultados no solo apoyan la teoría del consumo internacional del vino desde un punto de vista cuantitativo, ya verificada en mercados europeos, sino que extiende su alcance hacia otros mercados. Se observa también una convergencia cualitativa, fenómeno que podría reflejar un cambio mundial en los gustos de los consumidores hacia un modelo con tendencias a la uniformidad. Fil: Dal Bianco, Andrea. Padova, Italia. Universidad de Padua. Fil: Boatto, Vasco. Padova, Italia. Universidad de Padua. Fil: Caracciolo, Francesco. Portici (Italia). Universidad de Naples Federico II

Quando pensamos em atividades para crianças precisamos inevitavelmente levar em conta que elas brincam. O jogo é, de fato, uma das atividades mais espontâneas para uma criança, à qual as crianças estão mais familiarizadas. No entanto, não é só um passatempo ou uma maneira como qualquer outra para se divertir. O jogo é, acima de tudo, uma das principais formas de aprendizagem das crianças. Basicamente, podemos izer que o jogo se converte no principal instrumento à disposição da criança para explorar o mundo. Se é assim, o que acontece então quando queremos fazer filosofia com as crianças? O que a filosofia tem a ver com o jogo? Qual é o papel da dimensão lúdica do filosofar? Podemos brincar de filosofar? Vamos tratar de responder a essas perguntas, levando em conta o caso concreto da Filosofia para Crianças. Lipmann não teorizou nem considerou diretamente a questão do papel do jogo dentro de seu currículo, mas pode-se ver claramente a partir de uma leitura cuidadosa de seus materiais, que as novelas e manuais dirigidos às crianças apontavam a aprendizagem e a diversão. O mesmo se aplica à leitura literatura secundária sobre P4C: parece que o elemento “jogo” está presente de maneira implícita, tomando suas dimensões básicas, apesar de não ser um tema explícito de estudo. Este trabalho é uma tentativa de fazer explícita a importância do brincar na Filosofia para Crianças e de mostrar quão divertido é o filosofar se ele se fizer a partir das crianças compartilhando sua admiração na comunidade de inversigação. Quando pensiamo ad attività rivolte ai bambini siamo inevitabilmente portati a prendere in considerazione il gioco. Il gioco è infatti una delle attività più spontanee per un bambino, ciò che più gli è familiare. Tuttavia esso non è solo un passatempo o un modo come un altro per divertirsi. Il giocare è soprattutto una delle sue principali forme di apprendimento. In sostanza possiamo dire che il gioco diventa lo strumento privilegiato di cui dispone il bambino per esplorare il mondo. Cosa accade allora quando ci proponiamo di fare filosofia con i bambini? Quale ruolo assume la dimensione ludica? Possiamo fare filosofia giocando? Prendendo in analisi il caso specifico della Philosophy for Children, Lipman non ha teorizzato e messo a tema il ruolo del gioco all’interno del suo curricolo, ma lo si può evincere chiaramente da una lettura attenta e mirata dei materiali scritti dal nostro autore. Lo stesso vale per la letteratura secondaria: sembra che l’elemento “gioco” sia presente in maniera implicita, assumendone le dimensioni fondamentali, ma che non sia mai stato tematizzato. Questo lavoro è proprio un tentativo di rendere esplicita la valenza dell’attività ludica nella Philosophy for Children. Cuando pensamos en actividades para niños necesitamos inevitablemente tener en cuenta que juegan. El juego es, de hecho, una de las actividades más espontáneas para un niño, lo que los niños están más familiarizados. Sin embargo, no es sólo un pasatiempo o una manera como cualquier otra para divertirse. El juego es, por encima de todo, una de las principales formas de aprendizaje de los niños. Básicamente, podemos decir que el juego se convierte en el principal instrumento a disposición del niño para explorar el mundo. Si es así, ¿qué sucede entonces cuando queremos hacer filosofía con niños? ¿Qué tiene la filosofía que ver con el juego? ¿Cuál es el papel de la dimensión lúdica del filosofar? ¿Podemos jugar a filosofar? Vamos a tratar de responder a estas preguntas, teniendo en cuenta el caso concreto de Filosofía para Niños. Lipman no teorizó ni consideró directamente la cuestión del papel del juego dentro de su currículo, pero se puede ver claramente a partir de una lectura cuidadosa de sus materiales, que las novelas y manuales dirigidos a los niños, apuntaban al aprendizaje y la diversión. Lo mismo se aplica a la literatura secundaria sobre P4C: parece que el elemento "juego" está presente de manera implícita, tomando sus dimensiones básicas, a pesar de ser un tema explícito de estudio. Este trabajo es un intento de hacer explícita la importancia del jugar en Filosofía para Niños y de mostrar cuan divertido es el filosofar si se hace a partir de los niños compartidos su admiración en la comunidad de investigación. When we think about activities for children we inevitably take playing into account. Playing is in fact one of the most spontaneous and familiar activities of childhood. But play for children is not just a pastime, or a way simply to “have fun.” Playing is, above all, one of the main forms of children’s learning—in fact the major instrument available to the child for exploring the world. If this is so, what happens when we do philosophy with children? What does philosophy have to do with play? What is the role of the ludic dimension in philosophizing? Can we “play philosophy”? This paper addresses these issues, taking as a case in point an analysis of the Philosophy for Children program. P4C founder Matthew Lipman did not theorize or directly question the role of play within the curriculum he developed, but a careful reading of the program’s novels and manuals shows it to be saturated by a playful approach to philosophizing. The same applies to the secondary literature on P4C, where the element of play is almost universally implicitly understood as a basic dimension of doing philosophy together. This paper is an attempt to make the importance of playing in the progream explicit, and to show how playful children’s philosophizing can be, if it starts from an expression of wonder, shared in a community of inquiry.

International wine trade has gained a great importance during years, specially for our country, and there’s a raising interest in the study of its structure, functioning and the forces that govern it. In this work international wine export has been studied with a gravity model - an econometrical model with an increasing importance and acceptance among scientist - for the explication of transactional phenomenal. The study concerned bilateral trade of twelve of the main wine markets, both importers and exporters, from 1997 until 2010, utilizing a proper panel data for still and sparkling wine. According to previous works found in literature regarding gravity wines, in addition to the classical model estimation, it has been proposed an expanded model in order to obtain more accurate results. This expanded model include more variables than those traditionally included in literature (distance and GDP) like exchange rate and wine production of exporting country, language and trade barriers. The hypothesis that lead to variables election is tied to them growing importance in the economic policy intervention at international level, in particular in the market regulation of good and inside the WTO. In practice, the aim was to evaluate if these variables have a great impact also in the case of wine market. Results leads to believe that wine export are strongly conditioned by the income level of the importing country, while distance, even having a negative impact, doesn’t seem to have the same importance found in another goods. When countries have the same official language the model show a trade growth of more than twice, and also exporter exchange rate has a significant effect, with an increasing export when exporter currency devaluate. In order to better evaluate the role of trade barriers, that has growing relevance for alimentary goods and especially for wine, tariff and non tariff barriers have been taken into account. In addition, non tariff barriers have been divided into technical barriers and sanitary – phytosanitary barriers. The study has highlighted how sparkling wine, despite having higher duties levels on average, is less affected to tariffs applied by importing country, and seem to have a behavior more similar to luxury goods ones. Technical barriers seem to penalize mainly still bottled wine, while for sanitary and phytosanitary measures there isn’t any effect with statistical significance. In the light of WTO negotiate, the study seems to validate the importance of reducing effects of tariff and technical barriers to trade, especially for still bottled wine

The study analyses the theme of production potential regulation and of the planned abolishment of the planting rights regime considering the constraints defined by the CAP evolution, the current situation of the market, the role in the market of different regions and the structural complexity of the European wine industry. The study, starting from the analysis of the implementation of the planting rights regime across the EU and through an investigation of what could be the effects of the abolishment of the planting rights regime, defines which should be the policies to: a) counterbalance the effects of the liberalization of plantation; b) improve the functioning of the planting rights regime by implementing a new mechanism of functioning.

This study analyses the intra-EU trade of the world׳s chief wine exporters, namely Italy, France and Spain. Using an augmented version of the gravity model we empirically assess which of the three countries have experienced growth in intra-EU market trade. Effects of transportation costs, as well as demand and supply gaps between origin and destination countries, on the size of bilateral trade flows were specifically taken into account. Estimation results highlight the differences between bulk and bottled wine, providing useful information for European producers and policy-makers involved on regulation of wine sector. As concern bulk wine, Italy and Spain show no element of growth in competitiveness, while France shows a statistically significant annual decrease. In contrast, estimates for bottled wine all show a growth tendency, albeit with a different magnitude of coefficients. Italy is the country with the highest trend, followed by Spain and France which instead has a decidedly modest growth in export values. However, analysis of pricing policies shows that France does not appear to target an increase in export volumes so much as an increase in average unit price, while Italy, and especially Spain, have a tendency to increase export volumes, also to the detriment of prices.

This article empirically investigates the impact of trade barriers on the world wine trade, focusing on trade costs impeding exports, including transport, tariffs, technical barriers and sanitary and phytosanitarystandards. A gravity model is estimated using data from the main importing and exporting countries for the years 1997 to 2010. The Poison Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator accounts for heteroskedasticity and the presence of zero trade flows. Our results identify which regulations can adversely affect trade, providing useful information to policy-makers involved in negotiations on trade frictions. While sanitary and phytosanitary measures do not seem to obstruct exports, technical barriers have a varying impact on trade. A decreasing trend for tariffs has largely been compensated by more stringent technical barriers. The overall result is that frictions in the world wine trade have not changed during the past fifteen years.