Cultured meat may be a novel food that would overcome the limits of conventional meat production. This paper assesses the willingness to try, buy and pay for cultured meat among a sample of Italian ...consumers, unveiling the attitudes towards an engineered food on the part of a consumer oriented in favour of the Mediterranean diet. A survey was conducted by submitting a questionnaire to 525 Italian consumers. Consumers showed higher agreement with the statements concerning positive externalities than the intrinsic characteristics of cultured meat, and more than half of the respondents (54%) stated that they would be willing to try cultured meat. The profile for a potential consumer of cultured meat was young, highly educated, somewhat familiar with cultured meat, a meat consumer and willing to reduce meat consumption. However, the survey findings may be biased by the unavailability of the product on the market and the information provided to the respondents focused on the potential benefits of cultured meat.
•Participants’ perception is more positive towards extrinsic than intrinsic attributes of cultured meat.•Consumers need to be reassured on the product’s quality and taste of cultured meat.•Positive perception is not necessarily predictive of the potential willingness to pay for cultured meat.•Meat consumers rather than vegetarians/vegans seem to be willing to pay for cultured meat.
The global meat production system is currently under pressure, particularly for its environmental and animal wellbeing impacts, as well as for the increasing protein demand worldwide. In this regard, ...cultured meat is currently a hot topic in the industrial, political, and societal arenas, revealing itself as the potential relief for the issues above. However, its high degree of novelty may hamper the extent of consumers' acceptance. This research assesses for which beliefs concerning intrinsic attributes and positive externalities, the provision of information is a sufficient tool for affecting the perception and acceptance of cultured meat on a panel of Italian consumers. Changes in perception and willingness to try, buy, and pay are assessed by measuring the variation before and after the provision of positive information related to the product. The results show that perception is affected by positive information concerning safety and nutritional characteristics, whereas the opposite occurs regarding the product flavor. Furthermore, findings reveal that, while the willingness to buy increases after providing positive information, the willingness to try does not. Finally, information on intrinsic attributes and positive externalities of the cultured meat would have to be combined with different approaches for further enhancement of consumers' perception and acceptance.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
We propose two nonparametric tests for investigating the pathwise properties of a signal modeled as the sum of a Lévy process and a Brownian semimartingale. Using a nonparametric threshold estimator ...for the continuous component of the quadratic variation, we design a test for the presence of a continuous martingale component in the process and a test for establishing whether the jumps have finite or infinite variation, based on observations on a discrete-time grid. We evaluate the performance of our tests using simulations of various stochastic models and use the tests to investigate the fine structure of the DM/USD exchange rate fluctuations and SPX futures prices. In both cases, our tests reveal the presence of a non-zero Brownian component and a finite variation jump component.
We consider a stochastic process driven by diffusions and jumps. Given a discrete record of observations, we devise a technique for identifying the times when jumps larger than a suitably defined ...threshold occurred. This allows us to determine a consistent non-parametric estimator of the integrated volatility when the infinite activity jump component is Lévy. Jump size estimation and central limit results are proved in the case of finite activity jumps. Some simulations illustrate the applicability of the methodology in finite samples and its superiority on the multipower variations especially when it is not possible to use high frequency data.
When the covariance between the risk factors of asset prices is due to both Brownian and jump components, the realized covariation (RC) approaches the sum of the integrated covariation (IC) with the ...sum of the co-jumps, as the observation frequency increases to infinity, in a finite and fixed time horizon. In this paper the two components are consistently separately estimated within a semimartingale framework with possibly infinite activity jumps. The threshold (or truncated) estimator $I\hat C_n $ is used, which substantially excludes from RC all terms containing jumps. Unlike in Jacod (2007, Universite de Paris-6) and Jacod (2008, Stochastic Processes and Their Applications 118, 517–559), no assumptions on the volatilities’ dynamics are required. In the presence of only finite activity jumps: 1) central limit theorems (CLTs) for $I\hat C_n $ and for further measures of dependence between the two Brownian parts are obtained; the estimation error asymptotic variance is shown to be smaller than for the alternative estimators of IC in the literature; 2) by also selecting the observations as in Hayashi and Yoshida (2005, Bernoulli 11, 359–379), robustness to nonsynchronous data is obtained. The proposed estimators are shown to have good finite sample performances in Monte Carlo simulations even with an observation frequency low enough to make microstructure noises’ impact on data negligible.
We consider the test statistic devised by Christensen, Oomen and Renò in 2020 to obtain insight into the causes of flash crashes occurring at particular moments in time in the price of a financial ...asset. Under an Ito semimartingale model containing a drift component, a Brownian component and finite variation jumps, it is possible to identify when the cause is a drift burst (the statistic explodes) or otherwise (the statistic is asymptotically Gaussian). We complete the investigation showing how infinite variation jumps contribute asymptotically. The result is that the jumps never cause the explosion of the statistic. Specifically, when there are no bursts, the statistic diverges only if the Brownian component is absent, the jumps have finite variation and the drift is non-zero. In this case the triggering is precisely the drift. We also find that the statistic could be adopted for a variety of tests useful for investigating the nature of the data generating process, given discrete observations.
Common genetic risk factors are associated with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Intermediate repeat expansions at the Ataxin-2 locus (ATXN2) are a risk factor ...for ALS and influence the phenotype. We assessed whether ATXN2 is a risk factor for FTD or modify clinical features in a data set of Italian patients. Three hundred sixty-eight unrelated FTD cases and 342 controls were enrolled. The frequency of intermediate CAG repeats in ATXN2 gene was not different comparing patients and controls. CAG repeats were interrupted by CAA in all patients carrying intermediate repeats. Interestingly, patients with an increased number of CAG repeats had an earlier onset of the disease than those without expansions (p = 0.011), and presented more frequently with parkinsonism (p = 0.010), and psychotic symptoms (p = 0.013) at disease onset. Our study does not support a major role of ATXN2 intermediate CAG expansions in predisposing to FTD but suggests that ATXN2 may act as a phenotype modifier.
Inherited retinal degeneration (IRD) represents a clinically variable and genetically heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by photoreceptor dysfunction. These diseases typically present ...with progressive severe vision loss and variable onset, ranging from birth to adulthood. Genomic sequencing has allowed to identify novel IRD-related genes, most of which encode proteins contributing to photoreceptor-cilia biogenesis and/or function. Despite these insights, knowledge gaps hamper a molecular diagnosis in one-third of IRD cases. By exome sequencing in a cohort of molecularly unsolved individuals with IRD, we identified a homozygous splice site variant affecting the transcript processing of TUB, encoding the first member of the Tubby family of bipartite transcription factors, in a sporadic case with retinal dystrophy. A truncating homozygous variant in this gene had previously been reported in a single family with three subjects sharing retinal dystrophy and obesity. The clinical assessment of the present patient documented a slightly increased body mass index and no changes in metabolic markers of obesity, but confirmed the occurrence of retinal detachment. In vitro studies using patient-derived fibroblasts showed the accelerated degradation of the encoded protein and aberrant cilium morphology and biogenesis. These findings definitely link impaired TUB function to retinal dystrophy and provide new data on the clinical characterization of this ultra-rare retinal ciliopathy.
The TWIK-related spinal cord potassium channel (TRESK) is encoded by KCNK18, and variants in this gene have previously been associated with susceptibility to familial migraine with aura (MIM ...#613656). A single amino acid substitution in the same protein, p.Trp101Arg, has also been associated with intellectual disability (ID), opening the possibility that variants in this gene might be involved in different disorders. Here, we report the identification of KCNK18 biallelic missense variants (p.Tyr163Asp and p.Ser252Leu) in a family characterized by three siblings affected by mild-to-moderate ID, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopment-related features. Functional characterization of the variants alone or in combination showed impaired channel activity. Interestingly, Ser252 is an important regulatory site of TRESK, suggesting that alteration of this residue could lead to additive downstream effects. The functional relevance of these mutations and the observed co-segregation in all the affected members of the family expand the clinical variability associated with altered TRESK function and provide further insight into the relationship between altered function of this ion channel and human disease.
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