Rethinking the marketing of World Heritage Sites: Giving the past a sustainable future

Despite significant global prestige and a strong brand presence, UNESCO World Heritage Sites remain underfunded with many unable to self-sustain. Increasing government budget constraints have further restricted funds and UNESCO's “World Heritage Fund”—UNESCO's sole source of financial assistance available to sites—has fallen to approximately $3M USD per annum. Few sites are able to fully offset these budget constraints through tourist revenue alone, and those able to do so often require additional repairs due to damage from visitors exceeding the site's capacity. Although this situation is widely acknowledged within the heritage literature, few papers have proposed long-term strategic solutions beyond marketing and management plans for individual sites. The authors address this pressing issue by questioning whether World Heritage Sites in general are currently being marketed in an optimized manner and proposing a new framework for creating stronger and more appropriate relationships between visitors and sites using Berthon et al.'s the Aesthetics and Ontology model. The authors argue that clarifying and optimizing the marketing of World Heritage through this lens with its focus on the consumption experience of visitors and other stakeholders will yield positive results for both the management of the sites and for their impact on surrounding communities. Furthermore, the authors recommend that policies surrounding the management of these valuable resources and sources of tourist revenue be modified to reflect these findings.     

microRNA Detection in Blood,Urine, Semen,and Saliva Stains After Compromising Treatments

Evaluation of microRNA (miRNA) expression as a potential method for forensic body fluid identification has been the subject of investigation over the past several years. Because of their size and encapsulation within proteins and lipids, miRNAs are inherently less susceptible to degradation than other RNAs. In this work, blood, urine, semen, and saliva were exposed to environmental and chemical conditions mimicking sample compromise at the crime scene. For many treated samples, including 100% of blood samples, miRNAs remained detectable, comparable to the untreated control. Sample degradation varied by body fluid and treatment, with blood remarkably resistant, while semen and saliva are more susceptible to environmental insult. Body fluid identification using relative miRNA expression of blood and semen of the exposed samples was 100% and 94%, respectively. Given the overall robust results herein, the case is strengthened for the use of miRNAs as a molecular method for body fluid identification.