Economic sustainability of pig slaughtering firms in the production chain of denomination of origin hams in italy

Pork meat in Italy is one of the largest agri-food chains in Italy. In the swine production chain, slaughter plays an important role, because it has an impact on animal welfare, food safety and the sustainability of the agri-food chain. These companies also deal with pigs destined for typical Denomination of Origin products and therefore play an important role in the production chain of typical products and in the field of EU agricultural policy. In this context, the research aims to analyze the economic sustainability of the major pig slaughter firms in Italy, through data analysis of the annual account statement (AAS) on a sample of eight companies analyzed over a ten-year historical series. Financial ratios and margins (FRM) analysis is applied in the research. FRM analysis shows that firms have the largest absorption of financial resources in the net working capital cycle. The research highlights the high incidence of raw materials in companies in the sector. Consequently, the profit margins of the companies in the sample are modest and in some cases are lower than the cost of debt, suggesting a moderate capacity to attract capital. This result appears as a negative signal of the economic sustainability of the companies in the sector. The research, now limited to a small number of large companies, opens a line of research that can be developed by expanding the sample to small and medium-sized enterprises of the chain of Denomination of Origin hams in Italy to suggest improvement interventions, in particular for rural or marginal areas of production

Geografie marginali: la mappa e il tempo del piccolo globo virale. (Dialogo tra AB e GdS)

Marginal Geographies: the Map and the Time of the Little Viral Globe. (Dialogue Between AB and GdS) Starting from Paul Celan’s Meridian, between geography and rhetoric, a relation between the viral phase of capitalism and the viral pandemic has been established. In the rhetorical area, the meridian echoes the language of medias and official communications that use the term map to help visualise the spreading of Covid-19. This term, for geographers, has a technical meaning of cloth of the world. Namely, it points to something that surrounds and envelops the world with creases and intensity in a temporal register of a crisis irreducible to reticular reason and the contemporary synchronic space (Olsson, 2007). It is the projection of such a  viral mappamundi  that redesigns the content of a current globe. The relation between the two globes – analogous in their nature of hybrid metaphysical whims – is established by a line of margin or crisis that renegotiates the promise of the immunological limits of the current globalisation phase by intersecting two projections and two geographical imaginations (Sloterdijk, 2007). This is the margin, and the marginality, that our geography shows when intersected with plural pandemic temporalities.G ographies marginales : la carte et le temps du petit globe viral. (Dialogue entre AB et GdS) A partir du M ridien de Paul Celan, entre g ographie et rh torique, une relation s’ tablit entre la phase virale du capitalisme et la pand mie virale. Du c t  rh torique, le m ridien est li  au langage des m dias et des communications officielles qui utilise le terme carte pour illustrer la propagation du Covid-19. Un terme qui pour les g ographes signifie techniquement tissu du monde, c’est- -dire quelque chose qui enveloppe et entoure le monde de plis et d’intensit  dans un registre temporel de crise irr ductible   la raison r ticulaire et   l'espace synchronique contemporain (Olsson, 2007). C’est la projection d’une   mappamundi virale   similaire qui redessine le contenu du globe actuel. La relation entre les deux globes – de nature analogue   des caprices m taphysiques hybrides – s’ tablit par une ligne de marge ou de crise qui, en croisant deux projections et deux imaginaires g ographiques, ren gocie la promesse des limites immunitaires de la phase actuelle de mondialisation (Sloterdijk, 2007). C’est la marge, et la marginalit , que notre g ographie d tecte en croisant les temporalit s pand miques plurielles

NARRAZIONI MARGINALI DA UN’ESCURSIONE “INDI-SCIPLINARE” ALLA BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2021

L'articolo indaga le potenzialità dell’oggetto marginalità a partire dal “buco nella trama” (Negarestani, 2021, p. 106) o nel tema che si aggirava in maniera fantasma-gorica nel titolo della Biennale Architettura 2021 (How we will live together?) e segnalava lo scarto tra la declinazione della domanda e la topografia dello spazio espositivo, che “nutriva le altre trame” (ivi) dei pochi geografi che per due giorni ne hanno condiviso l’esplorazione. “Buco” o assenza che sta per il mancato incontro tra Geografia (il materiale in mostra) e disciplina geografica (con due sole eccezioni) e che qui viene utilizzato come esercizio di marginalità potenziale per immaginare trame, narrazioni e alleanze “indisciplinari” a venire

NARRAZIONI MARGINALI DA UN’ESCURSIONE “INDISCIPLINARE” ALLA BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2021

If Neil Smith and David Harvey find space at the Arsenale, if at the Giardini the exercise is to dis-explore the Earth, it is because the Bien-nale is about surveying the crisis space of globalisation: it forces us to in-terrogate the geopolitical map of contemporaneity between the Anthropo-cene, techno-capitalism, encroachments and adaptations. This is why we thought of sharing a visit to the Biennale with those geographers for whom the exercise proposed by Architects is essential to our theoretical, disciplinary, ethical, civil and very human present of being geographers. Our notes in the margin depend on this invitation to investigate the po-tential of the object of marginality starting from the concept of “hole in the plot - which - nourishes the other plots” (Negarestani, 2021, p. 106). Hole or absence that stands for the missed encounter between Geogra-phy (the material on display) and geographical discipline to imagine plots, narratives and “undisciplined” alliances to come

Eliopoulosite, V7S8, A New Sulfide from the Podiform Chromitite of the Othrys Ophiolite, Greece

The new mineral species, eliopoulosite, V7S8, was discovered in the abandoned chromium mine of Agios Stefanos of the Othrys ophiolite, located in central Greece. The investigated samples consist of massive chromitite hosted in a strongly altered mantle tectonite, and are associated with nickelphosphide, awaruite, tsikourasite, and grammatikopoulosite. Eliopoulosite is brittle and has a metallic luster. In plane-reflected polarized light, it is grayish-brown and shows no internal reflections, bireflectance, and pleochroism. It is weakly anisotropic, with colors varying from light to dark greenish. Reflectance values of mineral in air (Ro, Re’ in %) are: 34.8–35.7 at 470 nm, 38–39 at 546 nm, 40–41.3 at 589 nm, and 42.5–44.2 at 650 nm. Electron-microprobe analyses yielded a mean composition (wt.%) of: S 41.78, V 54.11, Ni 1.71, Fe 1.1, Co 0.67, and Mo 0.66, totali 100.03. On the basis of Σatoms = 15 apfu and taking into account the structural data, the empirical formula of eliopoulosite is (V6.55Ni0.19Fe0.12Co0.07Mo0.04)Σ = 6.97S8.03. The simplified formula is (V, Ni, Fe)7S8 and the ideal formula is V7S8, which corresponds to V 58.16%, S 41.84%, total 100 wt.%. The density, based on the empirical formula and unit-cell volume refined form single-crystal structure XRD data, is 4.545 g·cm−3. The mineral is trigonal, space group P3221, with a = 6.689(3) Å, c = 17.403(6) Å, V = 674.4(5) Å3, Z = 3, and exhibits a twelve-fold superstructure (2a × 2a × 3c) of the NiAs-type subcell with V-atoms octahedrally coordinated by S atoms. The distribution of vacancies is discussed in relation to other pyrrhotite-like compounds. The mineral name is for Dr. Demetrios Eliopoulos (1947–2019), a geoscientist at the Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration (IGME) of Greece and his widow, Prof. Maria Eliopoulos (nee Economou, 1947), University of Athens, Greece, for their contributions to the knowledge of ore deposits of Greece and to the mineralogical, petrographic, and geochemical studies of ophiolites, including the Othrys complex. The mineral and its name have been approved by the Commission of New Minerals, Nomenclature, and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association (No. 2019-96).© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Effects of quarantine on Physical Activity prevalence in Italian Adults: a pilot study

Background: COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that caused a global pandemic status in March 2020. Due to its fast diffusion, many governments adopted forced solutions including social restrictions, which could negatively affect citizens’ habits as physical activity. Our study aimed to investigate how and why the physical activity prevalence varied from the period before the quarantine up to the period after it, and understand what citizens thought of physical inactivity COVID-19 related to and whether they were satisfied with physical activity promotion during the lockdown. Methods: A new questionnaire was created and administered online. A sample of 749 interviews (female = 552 (73.7%), male = 197 (26.3%)) was collected and analysed. Results: The prevalence of people who were older than 50 years reduced both during and after the lockdown (P < 0.05) and the most common reason for which they have quitted physical activity practice was related to psychological problems (lockdown = 64.57%; post-lockdown = 62.17%). In addition, youngers seemed to be more sensitive than elders to unhealthy consequences generated by forced isolation (P < 0.05), and they believed that children/adolescents and older adults practised an insufficient amount of physical activity and/or sport, which could negatively impact public health. Conclusions: Although many strategies were implemented during the lockdown to promote regular physical activity practice, several results suggested that quarantine negatively affected citizens’ habits. The future government should focus on adequate measures to improve health behaviours

Five-dimensional structure refinement of natural melilite, (Ca1.89Sr0.01Na0.08K0.02)(Mg0.92Al0.08)-(Si1.98Al0.02)O-7

The structure of a crystal of natural melilite from San Venanzo, Umbria (Italy) of the general formula X(2)T1(T2)(2)O-7, where X = Ca0.945Sr0.005Na0.04K0.01, T1 = Mg0.92Al0.08 and T2 = Si0.99Al0.01, has been solved and refined as an incommensurate structure in five-dimensional superspace. The structure is tetragonal, superspace group P (4) over bar2(1)m:p4mg, cell parameters a = 7.860 (1), c =5.024 (1) Angstrom, modulation vectors q(1) = 0.2815 (3)(a* +b*), q(2) = 0.2815 (3)(-a* +b*). The data collection was performed on a KumaCCD diffractometer. The structure was refined from 7606 reflections to final R = 0.0481. A special modification of the refinement program Jana2000 was necessary to take into account overlapping of satellite reflections m x n = +/- 1, which could not be properly separated in the integration procedure. The final model includes modulations of the atomic positions as well as modulations of the thermal parameters. The latter are induced by strong differences in the neighbourhood of the actual modulated positions. The occupational modulation was neither significant for X nor for T1 sites and the sites were supposed to be occupied only by Ca and Mg, respectively. As a consequence of the Ca and O positional modulations six-, seven- and eightfold Ca coordination occur throughout the structure and the thermal ellipsoid changes its shape correspondingly. The positional modulation of the atoms causes variations in the interatomic distances which, however, do not affect bond-valence sums considerably, but induce flattening and rotation in T1 and T2 tetrahedra, respectively. [References: 23] 2

Inefficient skeletal muscle oxidative function flanks impaired motor neuron recruitment in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis during exercise

This study aimed to evaluate muscle oxidative function during exercise in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients (pALS) with non-invasive methods in order to assess if determinants of reduced exercise tolerance might match ALS clinical heterogeneity. 17 pALS, who were followed for 4 months, were compared with 13 healthy controls (CTRL). Exercise tolerance was assessed by an incremental exercise test on cycle ergometer measuring peak O2 uptake ([Formula: see text]O2peak), vastus lateralis oxidative function by near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and breathing pattern ([Formula: see text]E peak). pALS displayed: (1) 44% lower [Formula: see text]O2peak vs. CTRL (p\u2009<\u20090.0001), paralleled by a 43% decreased peak skeletal muscle oxidative function (p\u2009<\u20090.01), with a linear regression between these two variables (r2\u2009=\u20090.64, p\u2009<\u20090.0001); (2) 46% reduced [Formula: see text]Epeak vs. CTRL (p\u2009<\u20090.0001), achieved by using an inefficient breathing pattern (increasing respiratory frequency) from the onset until the end of exercise. Inefficient skeletal muscle O2 function, when flanking the impaired motor units recruitment, is a major determinant of pALS clinical heterogeneity and working capacity exercise tolerance. CPET and NIRS are useful tools for detecting early stages of oxidative deficiency in skeletal muscles, disclosing individual impairments in the O2 transport and utilization chain

Monoclonal anti-CD18 antibody prevents transcellular biosynthesis of cysteinyl leukotrienes in vitro and in vivo and protects against leukotriene-dependent increase in coronary vascular resistance and myocardial stiffness

Background - Cysteinyl leukotrienes (cys-LT) can constrict small and large vessels and increase vascular permeability. Formation of cys-LT arising from polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNL) and endothelial cell cooperation (transcellular synthesis) led to the hypothesis that PMNL-endothelial cell adhesion may represent a key step toward the formation of vasoactive cys-LT. Methods and Results - We studied the effect of pretreatment with a monoclonal antibody directed against the CD18 subunit of PMNL \u3b22-integrin on the synthesis of cys-LT in a PMNL-perfused isolated rabbit heart in vitro and in a model of permanent ligature of the left descending coronary artery in the rabbit in vivo. Challenge of PMNL-perfused rabbit hearts with formyl-met-leu- phe (0.3 \u3bcmol/L) caused synthesis of cys-LT and increase in coronary perfusion pressure that were prevented by the anti-CD18 antibody. Similar results were obtained with the use of A-23187 (0.5 \u3bcmol/L) as a challenge. Persistence of PMNL-associated myeloperoxidase activity in the perfusion buffer was observed in the presence of the anti-CD18 antibody, indicating decreased PMNL infiltration. Coronary artery ligature in vivo increased urinary excretion of leukotriene E4, supporting the activation of the 5- lipoxygenase pathway during experimental acute myocardial infarction. Pretreatment with the anti-CD18 antibody (1 mg/kg) prevented the increase in leukotriene E4 excretion. Conclusions - These data support the importance of adhesion in promoting cys-LT formation, originating from PMNL-endothelial cell cooperation, and contributing to myocardial stiffness and increased coronary resistance