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The broad objective of this the chapter is to investigate corporate brand identity and social media in the transportation industry. To do so, considering that passenger transportation includes similar structures regardless of the means used, we chose to analyze air transportation precisely because it is considered the most competitive in the transportation industry.

Background: Mpox virus (MPXV) has recently spread outside of sub-Saharan Africa. This large multicentre study was conducted in Lombardy, the most densely populated Italian region accounting for more than 40% of Italian cases. The present study aims to: i) evaluate the presence and the shedding duration of MPXV DNA in different body compartments correlating the MPXV viability with the time to onset of symptoms; ii) provide evidence of MPXV persistence in different body compartment as a source of infection and iii) characterize the MPXV evolution by whole genome sequencing (WGS) during the outbreak occurred in Italy. Material and methods: The study included 353 patients with a laboratory-confirmed diagnosis of MPXV infection screened in several clinical specimens in the period May 24th - September 1st, 2022. Viral isolation was attempted from different biological matrices and complete genome sequencing was performed for 61 MPXV strains. Results: MPXV DNA detection was more frequent in the skin (94.4%) with the longest median time of viral clearance (16 days). The actively-replicating virus in cell culture was obtained for 123/377 (32.6%) samples with a significant higher viral quantity on isolation positive samples (20 vs 31, p < 0.001). The phylogenetic analysis highlighted the high genetic identity of the MPXV strains collected, both globally and within the Lombardy region. Conclusion: Skin lesion is gold standard material and the high viral load and the actively-replicating virus observed in genital sites confirms that sexual contact plays a key role in the viral transmission.

Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) is generally characterized by low-FDG avidity, and [18F]FDG-PET/CT is not recommended to stage the primary tumor. However, its role to assess metastases is still unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of [18F]FDG-PET/CT in correctly identifying RCC lung metastases using histology as the standard of truth. The records of 350 patients affected by RCC were retrospectively analyzed. The inclusion criteria were: (a) biopsy- or histologically proven RCC; (b) Computed Tomography (CT) evidence of at least one lung nodule; (c) [18F]FDG-PET/CT performed prior to lung surgery; (d) lung surgery with histological analysis of surgical specimens; (e) complete follow-up available. A per-lesion analysis was performed, and diagnostic accuracy was reported as sensitivity and specificity, using histology as the standard of truth. [18F]FDG-PET/CT semiquantitative parameters (Standardized Uptake Value [SUVmax], Metabolic Tumor Volume [MTV] and Total Lesion Glycolysis [TLG]) were collected for each lesion. Sixty-seven patients with a total of 107 lesions were included: lung metastases from RCC were detected in 57 cases (53.3%), while 50 lesions (46.7%) were related to other lung malignancies. Applying a cut-off of SUVmax ≥ 2, the sensitivity and the specificity of [18F]FDG-PET/CT in detecting RCC lung metastases were 33.3% (95% CI: 21.4–47.1%) and 26% (95%CI: 14.6–40.3%), respectively. Although the analysis demonstrated a suboptimal diagnostic accuracy of [18F]FDG-PET/CT in discriminating between lung metastases from RCC and other malignancies, a semiquantitative analysis that also includes volumetric parameters (MTV and TLG) could support the correct interpretation of [18F]FDG-PET/CT images.

According to the national balance sheets of the most advanced economies, despite a recent sharp decline in per capita net wealth, Italian private households present a higher rate among the wealthiest and least indebted in Europe. Recently, the COVID-19 outbreak caused a new leap in households' savings worldwide, particularly in advanced economies and Italy. This study underlines that using advanced analytics tools, household saving behaviour information, and big data analytics may support data-driven decision approaches addressing the management of complex relationships in the financial arena. More specifically, using exploratory and predictive analyses based on big data analytics and machine learning, this study aims to provide extensive customer profiling in the household saving sector in Italy, supporting a data-driven decision-making approach. A profiling of household savings has been defined using the information provided by big data analysis. To proceed in this direction, the hardware and software requirements necessary to perform data processing were considered in the first phase of the study. Data collection was performed according to the so-called extract, transform, load (ETL) process. The contribution of this study lies in the results obtained in terms of data analytics over a dataset that accounts for the purchasing behaviour of almost 20 million postal savers. The clustering algorithm is highly efficient and scales well for large datasets. K-means clustering can be implemented within the MapReduce computational framework. Therefore, the overall procedure proposed here can be easily extended to big data using parallel computing and software implementing MapReduce, such as Hadoop and Spark.

he recent outbreak of novel coronavirus (Covid-19) has led to a global panic due to its fatal nature which has harshly impacted the tourist sector and on the place reputation in general. This study aims to compare the factors that develop tourist preferences in terms of (i) what drives the favorability of tourist preferences? (ii) what relationship exists between tourist expectations, proximity, and favorable reputation? and (iii) what are the main influences of tourist preferences on hospitality system competitiveness pre and post Covid-19? By employing structural equation modeling, this study advances knowledge into the research variables’ relationships and advances reputation and marketing performance and practices in the hospitality industry.

The COVID-19 outbreak has brought several sectors closer to collapse. One of the main sectors to suffer has been the tourism industry, which had to reposition its offer by launching virtual destinations as new tourism experiences through the use of platformed technologies, such as video conferencing platforms, to remain competitive. In this chapter, we explore and critically reflect on how digital visual content strategies can evolve in order to launch and promote new techno-enabled tourist experiences. We do that by conducting a case study in the context of gastronomy tourism. Specifically, we illustrate how Cozymeal – the leading gastro-tourism supplier in United States and Canada – has transformed its digital and social content strategies to promote a new e-gastro tourism format: Zoom cooking class. With the support of our case study, we finally suggest some managerial advice for tourism and gastro-tourism suppliers to be applied in digital branding practices of e-Tourism experiences.

Food represents one of the most discussed topics on social networks, arriving at giving voice to real virtual communities, vertically specific or transversally generic, with reference to peculiar food behaviors and / or food preferences. This study aims to understand if and how social networks can contribute to bringing out subcultures, food subcultures in this specific case, from underground situations to mainstream levels. The survey was carried out on Instagram, with a focus on the vegan subculture and with an emphasis on the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing Instagram posts from mid-October 2020 to mid-November 2020. The results show that the Instagram users associated with posts that can be classified as "#vegan food porn" show traits of content and sentiment in line with an emerging subculture, finding a sense of identity and affirmation in their posts and in those linked by consistent hashtags. Despite the limitations that are pointed out in the research, the study is specifically intended for enterprises in the food sector that seek to develop consumer marketing actions on social networks with a predominantly cultural and subcultural slant.

he recent outbreak of novel coronavirus (Covid-19) has led to a global panic due to its fatal nature which has harshly impacted the tourist sector and on the place reputation in general. This study aims to compare the factors that develop tourist preferences in terms of (i) what drives the favorability of tourist preferences? (ii) what relationship exists between tourist expectations, proximity, and favorable reputation? and (iii) what are the main influences of tourist preferences on hospitality system competitiveness pre and post Covid-19? By employing structural equation modeling, this study advances knowledge into the research variables’ relationships and advances reputation and marketing performance and practices in the hospitality industry.

Digital transformation has completely changed the demand/offering interaction in the travel industry, as well as largely affecting the customer journey. In this direction, “big social data” and user-generated content have become key sources of well-timed and rich knowledge supporting data driven decision approaches addressed the managing of complex relationships. Based on this theoretical framework, the paper suggests how to apply “big social data” in the tourist experience co-design, providing an increased value for the visitors and a better decision making approach for managers. In this respect, the field analysis concentrated specifically on user-generated content regarding the Pompeii Archaeological Site (P.A.S.), to trace valuable insights for the tourist experience. Based on double stage of research – netnographic analysis and a supplementary online survey – the study aimed to detect: (a) tourist perception on the P.A.S.; (b) random chat on the part of internet users (tourists and other browsers, not necessarily visitors) on the topic of the P.A.S.; (c) the main characteristics of the P.A.S. that attract internet user attention; (d) the main topics debated by influencers/opinion leaders managing online discussions on the P.A.S. managerial and theoretical implications were investigated highlighting the main limitations of the study as well.

This chapter sets the scene for discussions on the relevance of climate change and its impact on corporate and brand strategies, especially in terms of environmental tools to mitigate climate risks (i.e., environmental auditing). In particular, this chapter identifies the main challenges and recommendations linked with this framework.

Purpose Taking jointly into account social commerce and online brand community, this paper aims to investigate how the growth of social commerce and the fast adoption of online brand communities have given firms the opportunity to establish a new kind of community, namely, the social commerce brand community. Adopting a managerial perspective, the research aims to identify the core dimensions of social commerce brand community and shed light on how they contribute in engaging customers and transform them into brand advocates. Design/methodology/approach Five social commerce retailers operating into five different sectors of activity have been involved in a multiple case study. Data retrieved from semi-structured interviews have been triangulated with information gathered from different sources to provide depth to the cases and enhance data validity. Findings – This study substantiates the rise of social commerce brand community as a new phenomenon that differs from traditional online brand communities and provides firms with concrete support in selling activities and in managing relationships with customers. The multiple case study allows also to detect social commerce brand community core pillars, namely, participants’ identification, participation, conversation and social support. These four elements turned out to be crucial to develop an effective social commerce brand community. Research limitations/implications This study extends existing theory on social commerce an online brand community by investigating the social commerce brand community as a new phenomenon and clarifying the fundamental pillars on which it relies. Originality/value This study extends existing theory on social commerce and online brand community by investigating the social commerce brand community as a new phenomenon and clarifying the fundamental pillars on which it relies.