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The income gap is the negative margin between earned income and operating expenses: this is the main financial concern for not-for-profit entities (both public sector and nongovernmental organizations). Despite this, all over the world these entities are forced to use the standard profit-centered income statements format, with its focus on net income generation (the bottom line). This paper proposes an income statement format that uses the income gap to understand/discuss/present the financial viability of a not-for-profit entity in the arts sector, specifically a museum. We apply the framework to the British Museum’s income statements from 1999–2000 to 2018–2019. This allows us to analyze institutional narratives in the context of the evolution of the museum’s financial viability over two decades, and to assess the performance of the museum’s neoliberal reform agenda from the end of the 1990s. Enlarging the perspective, ad hoc adaptations of the framework can allow a better understanding of the financial viability of not-for-profit organizations, in the arts sector and possibly more broadly in public services and not-for-profit sector.

PurposeThe monetary valuation of cultural heritage of a selection of 16 major public, not-for-profit Australian cultural institutions is examined over a period of almost three decades (1992–2019) to understand how they have responded to the paradoxical tensions of heritage valuation for financial reporting purposes.Design/methodology/approachAccounting for cultural heritage is an intrinsically paradoxical practice; it involves a conflict of two opposite ways of attributing value: the traditional accounting and the heritage professionals (or curatorial) approaches. In analysing the annual reports and other documentary sources through qualitative content analysis, the study explores how different actors responded to the conceptual and technical contradictions posed by the monetary valuation of “heritage assets”, the accounting phraseology of accounting standards.FindingsFour phases emerge from the analysis undertaken of the empirical material, each characterised by a distinctive nature of the paradox, the institutional responses discerned and the outcomes. Although a persisting heterogeneity in the practice of accounting for cultural heritage is evident, responses by cultural institutions are shown to have minimised, so far, the negative impacts of monetary valuation in terms of commercialisation of deaccessioning decisions and distorted accountability.Originality/valueIn applying the theoretical lens of paradox theory in the context of the financial reporting of heritage, as assets, the study enhances an understanding of the challenges and responses by major public cultural institutions in a country that has led this development globally, providing insights to accounting standard setters arising from the accounting practices observed.

Launched in October 2018, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission is set to arrive at Mercury in late 2025. The modular S/C consists of two scientific Mercury orbiters and a cruise module with electric propulsion to support the 7-years cruise phase with planetary flybys at Earth (1x), Venus (2x) and Mercury (6x). Flight operations of the composite spacecraft are performed by ESOC Darmstadt, Germany. In the first year of flight, extensive near-Earth commissioning operations as well as two electric propulsion thrust arcs have taken place, with the S/C in excellent shape and well on its way to Mercury. Starting with a mission overview, the paper will present operations in the first year of flight, the current status of BepiColombo, as well as providing an outlook on upcoming activities and events.

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board of the International Federation of Accountants issued exposure draft ED78 Property Plant and Equipment in April 2021. It proposes valuing ‘heritage items’ for recognition as ‘heritage assets’ in statements of financial position. This proposed requirement for global application casts the spotlight on a highly controversial topic in regulated financial reporting. The monetary valuation of cultural, heritage and scientific collections of public not‐for‐profit museums, art galleries and similar repositories has been subject to considerable discussion and debate for the past three decades. Our purpose is to critically examine this perennial financial reporting controversary, in the context of the three conceptions of accounting: accounting as technical practice, social practice and moral practice as articulated in the definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021a, 2021b) for discussion, debate and potential adoption in the accounting profession, including by accounting standard setters in all sectors. This article is intended to challenge accounting to enhanced self‐awareness in reaching its full potential.

The debate on agencification in the public sector has traditionally overlooked the influence of space on how autonomy unfolds in practice. Starting with the contention that organizing and space are interweaved, the study analyses the early stages of the agencification process of three Italian museums and reveals that space is a constraint to, and an enabler of, de facto autonomy for newly created entities. Space is a constraint when spatial changes are temporally misaligned with the agencification process, including directorship cycles. On the other hand, space enables de facto autonomy, as it is purposely modified to accommodate new demands and needs by newly appointed managers. The paper maintains that policy makers and site managers should seriously consider space when dealing with agencification reforms, paying attention to the revenue and cost implications of spatial solutions, and the areas of responsibility concerning buildings and objects.

The paper focuses on the effect of business model and governance changes on conservation and access outcomes in three heritage sites in Poland: Ksiaz Castle, the Shrine of Our Lady of Grace Abbey and the Jelenia Gora Valley historic palaces. It argues that the interplay between business model and governance led by relevant political, administrative and economic changes has an impact on which historic buildings are conserved for future generations, in what form, and with which functions. Findings from the case studies allow us to design three ideal business models for the management of heritage sites. The paper also explores implications for management research regarding business model and public sector change.

International audience; PURPOSE. To describe the molecular epidemiology of nonsyndromic retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and Usher syndrome (US) in Italian patients. METHODS. A total of 591 probands (315 with family history and 276 sporadics) were analyzed. For 155 of them, we performed a family segregation study, considering a total of 382 relatives. Probands were analyzed by a customized multigene panel approach. Sanger sequencing was used to validate all genetic variants and to perform family segregation studies. Copy number variants of selected genes were analyzed by multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification. Four patients who tested negative to targeted next-generation sequencing analysis underwent clinical exome sequencing.RESULTS. The mean diagnostic yield of molecular testing among patients with a family history of retinal disorders was 55.2% while the diagnostic yield including sporadic cases was 37.4%. We found 468 potentially pathogenic variants, 147 of which were unpublished, in 308 probands and 66 relatives. Mean ages of onset of the different classes of RP were autosomal dominant RP, 19.3 ± 12.6 years; autosomal recessive RP, 23.2 ± 16.6 years; X-linked RP, 13.9 ± 9.9 years; and Usher syndrome, 18.9 ± 9.5 years. We reported potential new genotype-phenotype correlations in three probands, two revealed by TruSight One testing. All three probands showed isolated RP caused by biallelic variants in genes usually associated with syndromes such as PERCHING and Senior-Loken or with retinal dystrophy, iris coloboma, and comedogenic acne syndrome.CONCLUSIONS. This is the largest molecular study of Italian patients with RP in the literature, thus reflecting the epidemiology of the disease in Italy with reasonable accuracy.

The article presents preliminary findings from a family survey about children’s experiences during the COVID-19 lockdown, which was administered through the pediatric network SICuPP (Italian Society of Primary Care Pediatricians – Lombardy) in Northern Italy. The study involved 3443 parents with children aged from 1 to 5 years and from 6 to 10 years living in Lombardy region, the earliest and most severely affected by the COVID-19 emergency. All participants completed an online questionnaire and provided informed consent. Respondents generally displayed confidence and a sense of self-efficacy in relation to how they had coped with the COVID-19 emergency, despite the many difficulties encountered during the lockdown. They reported having observed some unexpected improvements and resources (e.g. parent/child and sibling relationships, adaptiveness and autonomy on the part of children). Parent-to-parent solidarity was commonly reported, although a small percentage of parents had experienced a greater sense of isolation and anxiety. Finally, the study indicated ‘key areas of vulnerability’ (concerning, for example, eating, rules, sleeping, use of technological devices, fears …) that should be monitored in future by strengthening the territorial network linking families, educational services, and health services.

The article aims to explore ways of theorizing in accounting history research. The article draws on findings originating from a semi-automated text analysis by means of topic modelling of 1,300 accounting history papers published between 1996 and 2015 across six journals most relevant to the discipline. Findings show the presence of a whole range of ways of theorizing at different levels of abstraction (from narrating to conceptualizing to theorizing settings to grand theorizing). Different ways of theorizing tend to be associated not only with specific research objects but also with specific journal types. Overall, both narrating and grand theorizing are relatively decreasing in favour of mid-range theorizing approaches, which seem to be on the rise.

The literature on university museums abounds with accounts of new initiatives to reposition these institutions by opening them up to the general public as they move away from core of university activities like teaching and research. However, what is seldom analyzed is the long-term impact of such initiatives, and whether they survive the initial phases and live up to expectations. The study reports on the administrative history of the museums and collections of the University of Bologna across a continuous period of more than four decades, starting in the late 1970s and ending in 2015. Using a holistic framework, attention is addressed to institutional changes, trends in human and financial resources management, activities and visitors' profiles across an extended period. The paper highlights the difficulties experienced in consistently supporting the vision developed in the late 1970s, and presents some proposals for change.

Texts are among the most relevant data sources for social scientists, and traditionally researchers adopt qualitative methods for dealing with them. Yet, new computer aided techniques offer promising methodological avenues for scholars, which can now deal with big corpora of texts. One of the techniques that recently gained more relevance is Topic Modelling, which permits extracting bag of words which co-occur often in texts. While Topic Modelling was fruitfully used in sociology and management, existing software for performing it requires coding skills, and are not user friendly. In this paper we present MITAO, a new graphic-based, user friendly, open source software for performing topic modelling and other analysis on textual data.

Drawing on the concept of an accountability web, this paper analyses the two-year long extraordinary administration of the archaeological site at Pompeii, where the Italian Prime Minister appointed a special Commissioner to deal with the alleged decay of the site in July 2008. Findings shed light on critical issues related to the appointment of ‘loyal experts’ in terms of strong personalisation, short-term thinking, and the influence of the media in the administration of public services. Moreover, the paper introduces patronage accountability as a distinct accountability dimension that is characterised by a hierarchical and informal nature, and which cannot be accessed by those who are not part of the transaction. We add to the literature by identifying patronage accountability as a separate accountability dimension that conflicts with more common ones, and examine the implications of this practice for public administration.

The International Rosetta Mission was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 year journey to rendezvous with comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta performed comet orbit insertion on the 6th of August 2014, after which it characterised the nucleus and orbited it at altitudes as low as a few kilometres. In November 2014 Rosetta delivered the lander Philae to perform the first soft landing ever on the surface of a comet. After this critical operation, Rosetta began the escort phase of the comet in its journey in the Solar System heading to the perihelion, reached in August 2015. Originally foreseen till the end of 2015, the mission was extended for another nine months to follow the comet on its outbound arc of the orbit. In view of the acquired experience and of the approaching end of mission the spacecraft was flown at much closer distances from the nucleus so that the scientific instruments had the chance to perform unique measurements. Following this phase of very close orbits, on the 30th of September 2016 Rosetta was set on a collision course trajectory with the comet to terminate the mission with a controlled impact. This paper describes the details of the extended mission phase and the issues encountered during these months. It also includes the changes implemented on the spacecraft and in the operations concept to optimise the remaining mission time. The paper also includes the lessons learned from this unique and complex mission phase.

The International Rosetta Mission was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 year journey to rendezvous with comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta performed comet orbit insertion on the 6th of August 2014, after which it characterised the nucleus and orbited it at altitudes as low as a few kilometres. In November 2014 Rosetta delivered the lander Philae to perform the first soft landing ever on the surface of a comet. The critical landing operations have been conducted with remarkable accuracy and will constitute one of the most important achievements in the history of spaceflight. After this critical operation, Rosetta began the escort phase of the comet in its journey in the Solar System heading to the perihelion, reached in August 2015. Throughout this period, the comet environment kept changing with increasing gas and dust emissions. A first phase of bound orbits was followed by a sequence of complex flyby segments which allowed the scientific instruments to perform in depth investigation of the comet environment and nucleus. The unpredictable nature of the comet activity forced the mission control team to implement unplanned changes to the flight plan prepared for this mission phase and to plan the whole mission in a more dynamic way than originally conceived. This paper describes the details of the landing operations and of the main comet escort phase. It also includes the mission status as achieved after perihelion and the findings about the evolution of the comet and its environment from a mission operations point of view. The lessons learned from this unique and complex operations phase and the plans for the next mission phases, which include a mission extension into 2016, are also described.

The paper discusses the role of hope in the construction of an accounting technology to realize a program, by looking at a process of choosing non-financial indicators in an effort to achieve healthier workplaces. By exploring the literature dealing with the concept of hope and by drawing on the debate on the relationship between accounting and action, we highlight the features of three hope-related concepts (hopelessness, naïve hope, and reflective hope). We also highlight how these concepts relate to different areas of uncertainty (validity, accuracy, and relevance) in the development of accounting technologies. Evidence collected through particiapant observation of a team involved in the construction of indicators offers empirical material to investigate the interplay between hopelessness, naïve hope, and reflective hope in relation to uncertainties concerning the link between accounting and action. Beyond analyzing how team members move from a naïve to a reflective hope in making the accounting–action link, the paper shows that among practitioners it is accepted that unintended consequences constitute the rule rather than the exception in the accounting–action link.

The International Rosetta Mission was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 year journey to comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko and has reached it early August 2014; it will now orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few kilometres and has delivered the Lander Philae onto its surface. Following the exit in January 2014 from a 2.5 years hibernation period, necessary due to the large heliocentric distances reached by the solar-powered spacecraft, which prevented full operation of the on-board electrical systems, Rosetta conducted the delicate approach phase during which it slowly discovered its unexpected irregular shape. The spacecraft is now flying in close proximity of the comet and has begun its main science phase. The comet has been characterised to the level necessary to perform a proper orbit insertion and proceed with the global mapping and close observation phases. During this phase the landing site for Philae has been selected with all operations focusing on this extremely delicate and risky mission phase. The mission has been conducted according to plan and the planning and operations concepts defined have revealed to be adequate for the environment encountered during the early comet phases. The performance of the spacecraft and of the whole operations teams have been very good; all the tools and processes developed to characterise and model the environment revealed to be adequate and provided results that are fully in line with the needs. This paper describes the flight operations conducted till November 2014, the results and the performance of the mission from an operations point of view, and some of the details of the landing phase. Finally it also addresses the lessons learned that can be drawn after this initial phase of comet operations.

Background\ud To evaluate functional visual parameters using photocromic and selective blue-violet light filtering spectacle lenses in patients affected by central or peripheral scotoma due to retinal diseases.\ud \ud Sixty patients were enrolled in this study: 30 patients affected by central scotoma, group 1, and 30 affected by peripheral scotoma, group 2.\ud \ud Black on White Best Corrected Visual Acuity (BW-BCVA), White on Black Best Corrected Visual Acuity (WB-BCVA), Mars Contrast Sensitivity (CS) and a Glare Test (GT) were performed to all patients.\ud \ud Test results with blue-violet filter, a short-pass yellow filter and with no filters were compared.\ud \ud Results\ud All scores from test results increased significantly with blue-violet filters for all patients.\ud \ud The mean BW-BCVA increased from 0.30 ± 0.20 to 0.36 ± 0.21 decimals in group 1 and from 0.44 ± 0.22 to 0.51 ± 0.23 decimals in group 2 (Mean ± SD, p < 0.0001 in both cases).\ud \ud The mean WB-BCVA increased from 0.31 ± 0.19 to 0.38 ± 0.23 decimals in group 1 and from 0.46 ± 0.20 to 0.56 ± 0.22 decimals in group 2 (Mean ± SD, p < 0.0001 in both cases).\ud \ud The letter count for the CS test increased from 26.7 ± 7.9 to 30.06 ± 7.8 in group 1 (Mean ± SD, p = 0.0005) and from 31.5 ± 7.6 to 33.72 ± 7.3 in group 2 (Mean ± SD, p = 0.031).\ud \ud GT was significantly reduced: the letter count increased from 20.93 ± 5.42 to 22.82 ± 4.93 in group 1 (Mean ± SD, p < 0.0001) and from 24.15 ± 5.5 to 25.97 ± 4.7 in group 2 (Mean ± SD, p < 0.0001).\ud \ud Higher scores were recorded with the Blue filter compared to Yellow filter in all tests (p < 0.05).\ud \ud No significant differences in any test results could be detected between the Yellow filter and the No filter condition.\ud \ud Conclusions\ud The use of a combination of photocromic lens with a selective blue-violet light filter showed functional benefit in all evaluated patients.

PurposeTo study the correlation of the local ganglion cell layer-inner plexiform layer (GCL-IPL) thickness with corresponding retinal sensitivity as studied with microperimetry in patients with Type 2 diabetes and no signs of diabetic retinopathy.Patients and methodsWe analyzed 35 healthy subjects (68 eyes) and 26 Type 2 diabetic patients (48 eyes) with no signs of diabetic retinopathy. We tested best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), monocular and binocular constrast sensitivity (CS, Pelli - Robson chart) and retinal sensitivity with microperimetry, and acquired dense macular SD-OCT scans. We then studied the correlation between local GCL-IPL thickness and local sensitivity.ResultsMean BCVA was 1.09 (±1.03) decimals in diabetic subjects and 1.02 (±0.15) decimals in healthy subjects. Only binocular CS was significantly higher in healthy subjects (1.18±0.42 for healthy subjects, 1.62±0.63 for diabetic subjects). In both local and global analysis we observed higher GCL-IPL thickness and higher sensitivity in normal compared with diabetic subjects, but no difference reached significance (p0.05). Using a mixed multivariate linear model, we found a significant correlation between retinal sensitivity and the correspondent GCL-IPL thickness in diabetic subjects (0.022±0.006 dB/μm, p=0.0007) but not in healthy subjects (-0.002±0.006 dB/μm, p=0.77).Conclusiondespite close similarities between the two groups, we found a significant difference in the structure-function relationship in diabetic subjects without diabetic retinopathy, suggesting that diabetes might act as an additional effect in the normal deterioration of the visual function related to the inner retina.

Over the last 20 years, the use of automated and semi-automated techniques for extracting meanings from text have been widely debated in the social sciences. Automated and semi-automated techniques can be employed in all research phases: data collection (e.g. scraping), data cleaning (e.g. lemmatization of words), analysis (e.g. Named Entity Recognition, Part-of-speech Tagging, Topic Modeling, Keyword Analysis, Semantic Network Analysis, Sentiment Analysis), and visualization. Far from forcing epistemological choices, these techniques can be inductively used to deal with big corpora of data, impossible to work with for a human being. The debate produced great expectations, but substantive research results and the development of actual user friendly tools are still relatively scarce. Social researchers usually lack the technical skills to develop and integrate new research tools as instruments able to radically change the way the research is devised and conducted. Computer scientists, on the other hand, often lack regular opportunities to interact with social scientists in ways that would enable greater understanding and more widespread use to be derived from the introduction of new tools. Moreover, in social and organizational sciences, different researchers use different techniques, but both a broader reflection on the advantages and disadvantages of each technique, and an integration/comparison of different tools, are lacking. A critical review of how these techniques are used in social sciences is a valuable and welcome contribution that would enable researchers working in these areas to disentangle the technicalities of these numerous and diverse techniques and showcase the research approaches they are used for. This call for papers follows an initial stream of research developed by the CATARSI project at the University of Bologna. CATARSI (Comprensione Automatica di Testi e ARticoli nelle scienze Sociali e Informatiche – automatic understanding of texts and articles in social sciences and computer sciences) aims at tackling the interface between social sciences and information science and improving both the knowledge and the development of computer-based techniques for analyzing texts and extracting meanings. The issue tackled by CATARSI, thus, is cultural and practical, and its results will impact both on information science, which deals more with ontological aspects, and on the social sciences, which stand to benefit from the use of new instruments to improve the way knowledge is analyzed and created. This Call for Papers (CfP) aims thus at collecting contributions able to shed light on the current use of semi-automatic and computer-aided techniques for understanding texts and extracting meanings from them, especially within the social sciences. Topics include, but are not limited to: application of one or more semi-automated techniques to organizational studies; critical reviews on how semi-automated techniques are used to elicit meanings from texts in organization science; comparison of qualitative and computer-aided techniques in conducting research; analysis of the ways different techniques are used to grasp meaning from texts; cross-field and interdisciplinary applications of automatic analysis techniques; description of new tools and systems for the use and application of these methods; critical reviews on the evolution of automatic reading within social and organization science. We welcome different theoretical and empirical methodologies. Qualitative, quantitative, and experimental methodologies are welcome. Full paper submission deadline: 31st October 2019

L’oggetto della presente volume è di indagare gli obiettivi, le modalità di azione e i risultati dell’intervento che viene messo in atto nel settore culturale italiano nei casi di presunta impossibilità o incapacità di azione da parte dell’amministrazione pubblica ordinaria. Con il termine commissariamento si intende infatti una modalità di gestione temporalmente limitata, caratterizzata da un processo decisionale centralizzato e discrezionale e finalizzata alla risoluzione di una situazione definita come emergenziale o critica. Nello studio non si guarda tanto all’agenda politica che favorisce il diffondersi del fenomeno del commissariamento (nel tempo si nota peraltro una tendenza “trasversale” all’utilizzo di tale modalità di governo) né agli aspetti più strettamente giornalistici della vicenda (si pensi allo scandalo che ha coinvolto la Protezione Civile dal marzo 2010), quanto piuttosto alle condizioni amministrative che ne consentono l’utilizzo, che ne plasmano le prerogative e che ne determinano i risultati. Questo porterà a riflettere in un secondo momento sul ruolo che nozioni come quella di performance, accountability e responsabilizzazione hanno all’interno dell’amministrazione pubblica italiana in particolar modo alla luce delle riforme ispirate al New Public Management (NPM) introdotte dagli anni ’90.

The International Rosetta Mission was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 years journey to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Rosetta will reach the comet in 2014, orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few kilometres and deliver the Lander Philae onto its surface. Following the fly-by of Asteroid (21-)Lutetia in 2010, Rosetta continued its travel towards the planned comet encounter in 2014. In this phase Rosetta became the solar-powered spacecraft that reached the largest Sun distances in history of spaceflight, up to an aphelion at 5.3 AU in October 2012. At distances above 4.5 AU the spacecraft's solar generator power is not sufficient to keep all spacecraft systems active. Therefore in June 2011 the spacecraft was spun up to provide gyroscopic stabilisation, and most of its on-board units, including those used for attitude control and communications, were switched off. Over this “hibernation” phase of about 2.5 years the spacecraft will keep a minimum of autonomy active to ensure maintenance of safe thermal conditions. After Lutetia fly-by, flight controllers had to tackle two anomalies that had significant impacts on the mission operations. A leak in the reaction control subsystem was confirmed and led to the re-definition of the operational strategy to perform the comet rendezvous manoeuvres planned for 2011 and 2014. Anomalous jumps detected in the estimated friction torque of two of the four reaction wheels used for attitude control forced the rapid adoption of measures to slow down the wheels degradation. This included in-flight re-lubrication activities and changes in the wheels operational speed regime. Once the troubleshooting of the two anomalies was completed, and the related operational scenarios were implemented, the first large (790 m/s) comet rendezvous manoeuvre was executed, split into several long burns in January and February 2011. The second burn was unexpectedly interrupted due to the anomalous behaviour of two thrusters, causing attitude off-pointing. Flight controllers modified the thrusters operation parameters in the on-board software and managed to re-start the sequence of burns and successfully complete the manoeuvre. After the manoeuvre, preparation for the critical spin-up and hibernation entry activities, planned for June 2011, began. This paper presents the activities carried out on Rosetta in the final year before hibernation entry. The major anomalies and the related troubleshooting and workaround solutions are detailed. Lessons learned from the operation of the first spacecraft operating with solar power at Jupiter-like distances from the Sun are presented and discussed.

The International Rosetta Mission, cornerstone of the European Space Agency Scientific Programme, was launched on 2nd March 2004 to its 10 years journey to comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Rosetta will reach the comet in summer 2014, orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few Kilometres and deliver the Lander Philae onto its surface. After its successful asteroid fly-by in September 2008, Rosetta came back to Earth, for the final gravity acceleration towards its longest heliocentric orbit, up to a distance of 5.3 AU. It is during this phase that Rosetta crossed for the second time the main asteroids belt and performed a close encounter with asteroid (21)Lutetia on the 10th of July 2010 at a distance of ca. 3160 km and a relative velocity of 15 km/s. The payload complement of the spacecraft was activated to perform highly valuable scientific observations. The approach phase to the celestial body required a careful and accurate optical navigation campaign that will prove to be useful also for the comet approach phase. The experience gained with first asteroid flyby in 2008 was fed back into the operations definition and preparation for this highly critical phase; this concerns in particular the operations of the navigation camera for the close-loop autonomous asteroid tracking and of the main scientific camera for high resolution imaging. It was shortly after the flyby that Rosetta became the solar-powered spacecraft to have flown furthest from the Sun (>2.72 AU). This paper presents the activities carried out and planned for the definition, preparation and implementation of the asteroid flyby mission operations, including the test campaign conducted to improve the performance of the spacecraft and payload compared to the previous flyby. The results of the flyby itself are presented, with the operations implemented, the achieved performance and the lessons learned.

This paper focuses on how Italian performing arts organizations were funded between 2003 and 2005. How does policy regulate the financing system for performing arts? What are the underlying logics that govern financing choices? In this paper the authors move beyond the simple examination of formal policies by analysing the funding data and organizational routines of the ministerial offices responsible for the allocation of grants. The authors implemented a multi-method research methodology consisting of document analysis, in-depth interviews, and quantitative analysis of funding data. The main findings can be summarized as follows. First, funds are continuously allocated to the same group of organizations. Second, although rigid, the system is imbued by a ‘rhetoric of the project’. Third, the system does not reward innovation. In conclusion, only by studying how the law is actually implemented can one capture the choices that underlie financing actions, and thus unravel unanticipated outcomes and inconsistencies between rhetoric and conduct.

The International Rosetta Mission, cornerstone of the European Space Agency Scientific Programme, was launched on 2 March 2004 on its 10 years journey towards a rendezvous with comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Rosetta will reach the comet nucleus in summer 2014, orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few kilometres and deliver the lander Philae onto its surface. After its successful Asteroid fly-by in September 2008, Rosetta is coming back to Earth, for the last gravity acceleration towards its longest heliocentric orbit, up to a distance of 5.3 AU, never reached before by a solar generator-powered spacecraft. This revolution around the Sun will last several years, during which the spacecraft will have to be spun-up and put into hibernation mode, with most of the systems deactivated, to minimise power consumption. This paper presents the preparation and implementation of the deep space phase of the Rosetta mission. Differences between operations performed until now, at moderate distances to Earth and Sun, and the upcoming ones, involving distances up to 800 million km from the Sun and almost 1 billion km from Earth, are analysed and their impact on the operational concept described. The ground tools required in support of the operations are presented.

The International Rosetta Mission, a cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency Scientific Programme, was launched on 2 March 2004 on its 10 years journey towards a rendezvous with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Once reached the comet nucleus in summer 2014, Rosetta will orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few kilometres and deliver a lander onto its surface. In the long cruise to its target, Rosetta performs four gravity assist manoeuvres, three times with Earth and once with Mars. During this flight Rosetta will cross twice the main asteroid belt, and in both occasions its trajectory is designed and controlled to flyby an asteroid at close distance. On 5 September 2008 the first of the two asteroid flybys has been conducted, with the spacecraft approaching asteroid 2867-Steins at a minimum distance of about 800 km, and a relative velocity of 8.6 km/s. Steins is an E-type asteroid with a diameter of about 5 km. This paper continues the period reporting of the operational experience from the Rosetta mission operations. Preparation and execution of the flyby activities are described including the first experience in optical navigation that will prove of utmost importance for the next asteroid flyby and for the comet approach phase.

The International Rosetta Mission, a cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency Scientific Programme, was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 years journey towards a rendezvous with comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Once reached the comet nucleus in summer 2014, Rosetta will orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few kilometres and deliver a Lander, named Philae, onto its surface. In the long cruise to its target, Rosetta performs four gravity assist manoeuvres, three times with Earth and once with Mars. After the first successful Earth swing-by in March 2005, the year 2007 started with a highly critical Mars swing-by, carried out in February at a target altitude over the planet's surface of only 250 km. This manoeuvre re-oriented the spacecraft trajectory towards the second Earth swing-by, planned for November 2007. During both swing-by phases the payload was operated to achieve a variety of scientific and calibration objectives. This paper continues the periodic reporting of the operational experience from the Rosetta mission operations. Preparation and execution of the swing-by activities are described. As derived from the lessons learned in this phase, a generic approach to be adopted for planning and execution of planets swing-by phases, including those of future missions like BepiColombo, is presented.

The International Rosetta Mission, a cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency Scientific Programme, was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 years journey towards a rendezvous with comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Once reached the comet nucleus in summer 2014, Rosetta will orbit it for about 1.5 years down to distances of a few kilometers and deliver a Lander, named Philae, onto its surface. In its first year of flight, the spacecraft and its payloads have gone through an extensive commissioning exercise, several trajectory correction manoeuvres, the first Earth gravity assist manoeuvre (1 year after launch), and some important scientific operations. The spacecraft has finally entered its first Passive Cruise phase end of July 2005. This paper describes the mission operations experiences collected during the first year of routine flight, after completion of the commissioning activities mid-October 2004. The two main mission events that occurred during this period are described: the first Earth swing-by in March 2005 and the scientific Deep Impact observation campaign in July 2005. An overview of the major in-flight anomalies is given and lessons learnt are presented.

The European Space Agency is preparing two major deep-space scientific missions for launch in 2003: Rosetta, a mission to comet P-Wirtanen, and Mars Express, a Mars Orbiter with a lander. In order to remain within the extremely tight budget available for the Mars Express ground segment development and operations, this mission will inherit and re-use as much as possible from what is developed and used for Rosetta. Although the two missions and spacecraft are very different from each other, the key to re-use of ground segment elements is in the identical interfaces to the space segment. This paper describes for the two missions the joint operations concept, the parallel mission preparation activities and the approach to achieve an integrated flight operations team. Cost savings in ground segment development and operations are identified and compared to a traditional solution. The initial implementation experiences are critically presented.

Mutations in more than 60 different genes have been associated with non-syndromic and syndromic retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a heterogeneous group of inherited retinal dystrophies. To increase the understanding of the molecular epidemiology of the disease in Italy, we analyzed 56 patients with syndromic and non-syndromic forms of RP attending the Retinitis Pigmentosa Center of San Paolo Hospital (Milan, Italy). Patients underwent detailed clinical examination. Genomic DNA isolated from peripheral blood samples was screened for mutations in different genes according to RP form by direct sequencing analysis. The impact of novel missense mutations on protein functions was predicted by in silico analysis and protein sequence alignment. Cosegregation analysis was performed between available family members. Forty-one of the 56 probands analyzed had non-syndromic and 15 had syndromic RP forms. Putative disease-causing mutations were identified in 19 of 56 unrelated RP probands. Mutation screening identified a total of 22 different heterozygous variants. Notably, 12 of these putative pathogenic mutations have not been previously reported. New variants were found to be located on the USH2A, RPGR, EYS, and RHO genes. All 3 new variants detected in X-linked RP probands were confirmed in other affected family members. We found a positivity rate of 24.4% and 60% for probands with non-syndromic and syndromic RP, respectively. This is the first report of RPGR X-linked RP proband-ORF15 mutations in Italian patients with X-linked (XL)-RP. In addition, this is the first report of data regarding the association between EYS mutations and non-syndromic RP forms in the Italian population.

This paper presents and discusses data on the use of technology in general and of Web 2.0 platforms and services in particular by students at the University of Milano-Bicocca. The data was obtained from a survey on media consumption habits and usage of new web technologies conducted by the university's Observatory on New Media, NuMediaBiOs. Research of this kind provides a valuable basis for the development, adaptation and improvement of existing services and offerings involving new technologies in educational contexts, given that for new technologies to be successfully integrated it is critical to have access to detailed information about how they are currently deployed by users (in this case, undergraduate students on basic degree programmes). Such analyses have implications for a range of contexts, not least for the public educational institution in which they are carried out, namely the university.

The current debate on the potential for change that the development of social media can bring to education seems to be based more on general and theoretical considerations than on systematic data. In order to contribute to the development of a more informed perspective, in this paper we present empirical evidence gathered from a 2008 and 2009 survey on undergraduate students at the University of Milan-Bicocca, concerning students' attitudes toward traditional and new media. In particular, we focus here on data concerning the diffusion of some specific tools and services that are commonly meant to represent the most important features of the "collaborative web". The comparison of the results obtained in the two surveys allows us to make some reflections on the path of diffusion of social media among young university students and to critically review their actual significance in an educational perspective.