Influencing decision-makers as the next step for entrepreneurship educators: lessons from entrepreneurship education in challenging economies

Based on research into the challenging and emerging economies of Peru and Egypt, this study explores how the potential role for entrepreneurship educators is evolving. Interviews and questionnaires with 70 participants from two strands of entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship in Peru and social entrepreneurship in Egypt, are used to assess entrepreneurship in such challenging economies. Both regions, Latin America and Africa, need successes in entrepreneurship to help establish social, economic and political stability in their nation states. However, the relationship between entrepreneurship and national stability is complex and symbiotic, as national stabilities also help catalyse success in entrepreneurial and enterprise initiatives. The relevance of enterprise and entrepreneurial education and its impact on connected issues such as graduate attributes and employability is complex. This research indicates that, while entrepreneurship education is certainly an asset for individuals in terms of creating new ventures and in enhancing their employability, entrepreneurship educators should also focus on influencing the national decision-makers in challenging and emerging economies. This includes politicians, financiers and other leaders across the public, private and third-sectors of society, as it is often these individuals who create the necessary atmosphere and ethos for entrepreneurial initiatives to flourish

Climate-induced conservation risks of historic reinforced concrete buildings: Preliminary results from literature review

Environmental conditions can favour different kinds of deterioration in historic reinforced concrete structures. This preliminary results from literature review are focused on the climate-induced risks affecting reinforced concrete buildings with respect to mechanical, chemical, and biological deterioration. To this purpose, a three-step process defined by the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) flow diagram, was used leading to the inclusion of 45 documents identified via the search engines Scopus and Web of Science. The outcomes highlight that chemical and mechanical decays are the most investigated ones, being mainly triggered by salt weathering and freezing-thawing cycles. It was found that experimental and theoretical approaches are often coupled to estimate climate-induced deterioration mechanisms, also considering environmental parameters. Finally, the literature search provides some milestones which can be used to evaluate gaps and research needs in the field of climate-induced conservative risks affecting reinforced concrete structures

3D HDO-CLEM: cellular compartment analysis by correlative light-electron microscopy on cryosections.

Fundamental to obtaining a depth-understanding of the function and structure of cells is the ability to study and correlate their molecular topography with the ultrastructural morphology, for example, to visualize the position of a given protein relative to a given cell compartment and its morphology. Standard fluorescence light microscopy (FLM) relies on simple sample preparations, and localizes proteins in living or fixed cells with a resolution in the range of few hundred nanometers, allowing large field of view. However, FLM is unable to visualize the unlabeled cellular context. On the other hand, electron microscopy (EM) techniques reveal protein topology with the resolution in a range of a few tens of nanometer, retains the cellular context, but can only be applied on a limited field of view. Therefore, both approaches present shortcomings, in terms of field of view, statistical output, resolution, sample preparation, and context analysis, that can likely complement each other. To bridge the gap between FLM imaging and EM, several laboratories have developed methods for correlative light-electron microscopy (CLEM). In a nutshell, CLEM enables one to investigate the same exact region of interest utilizing the two microscope platforms, and thereby virtually combine their capabilities. We describe a protocol based on immunolabeling of Tokuyasu cryosections that allows correlation of LM and EM images with excellent preservation of cellular ultrastructure. We will refer to this method as high-data-output CLEM (HDO-CLEM). The major benefits of HDO-CLEM are the possibility to (1) correlate several hundreds of events at the same time, (2) perform three-dimensional (3D) correlation, (3) immunolabel both endogenous and recombinantly tagged proteins at the same time, and (4) combine the high data analysis capability of FLM with the high precision of transmission EM in a CLEM hybrid morphometric analysis. We have identified and optimized critical steps in sample preparation, defined routines for sample analysis and retracing of regions of interest, developed software for semi/fully automatic 3D FLM reconstruction and set the basis for a hybrid light/EM morphometry approach

Identification and characterization of Vitis vinifera subsp sylvestris populations in north-western Italy

The Italian peninsula, for its favorable environmental and geo-morphological conditions, can be considered an ultimate area for survival and development of Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris (Gmelin) Hegi, even though severely affected by human impact. Large surveys started in early 1990 throughout the country. At the time few regions, like Piedmont located in the north-west of the country, were considered lacking of wild vinifera. More recent prospection started several years ago, leading to the discovering of five vinifera sylvestris populations plus other sites with few individuals. The sites of discovery were described for their ecological features and the identified plants were referenced and characterized by morphology (18 descriptors from the OIV list) and genetics (14 n-SSR loci). The esteemed consistency of each population ranged from 20 to 150 individuals. Morphological and biological traits (dioecious plants, females producing very small roundish black berries), as well as genetic profiles, indicated the observed plants are true vinifera sylvestris. As to the ecological requirements, plants were confirmed to be highly dependent on water availability into the soil. The neighbor-joining (NJ) dendrogram resulting from SSR allelic pattern of the individuals belonging to the five populations and to one location with isolated plants, indicated population's genetic similarity broadly reflects site's geographic distance. Considering the numerous reports in the past, spreading and consistency of wild grape germplasm from the region of Piedmont severely decreased over a period of 100-150 years. The relative short distance from wild population's sites and vineyards must also be regarded as a worrying condition because of contamination risks. All means to avoid the loss of this native Vitis germplasm must be undertaken by protection policy and proper land management

A dataset of criteria on the use of thermal insulation solutions in building facades located in Norway, Portugal and Italy

The building sector is responsible for a significant percentage of the energy consumption in Europe. The level of thermal insulation of the building envelope leads to decrease energy consumption, thus contributing towards a sustainable and efficient built environment. As a result, the choice of the most suitable thermal insulation solution to be applied both in new construction and in retrofitting of building facades is fundamental for a satisfactory thermal performance of the building. Nevertheless, the thermal insulation solution should not be chosen considering only the thermal performance, but rather based on a set of performance parameters (i.e., water resistance, fire performance, impact on the environment and human health, among others) and climate-related requirements. This data article includes a dataset on criteria adopted in three European countries (namely Norway, Portugal, and Italy) considering a PESTE analysis (i.e., criteria related to Political, Economic, Social, Technological, and Environmental questions). The main objective was to evaluate the knowledge and perception of people living and/or working in these countries about the use and the performance of thermal insulation solutions in building facades. To this aim a questionnaire was developed within the scope of the EEA Granted EFFICACY research project (November 2022 – February 2023), whose overall objective is to create a database that serves as a reference for the choice of thermal insulation solutions to be applied in building facades for thermal and energy performances optimization. This database contributes to systemize criteria and can be extended by other researchers or professionals in the area, as well as in other countries

Heart rate and arterial pressure changes during whole-body deep hypothermia

Whole-body deep hypothermia (DH) could be a new therapeutic strategy for asphyxiated newborn. This retrospective study describes how DH modified the heart rate and arterial blood pressure if compared to mild hypothermia (MH). Fourteen in DH and 17 in MH were cooled within the first six hours of life and for the following 72 hours. Hypothermia criteria were gestational age 6536 weeks; birth weight 651800\u2009g; clinical signs of moderate/severe hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Rewarming was obtained in the following 6-12 hours (0.5\ub0C/h) after cooling. Heart rates were the same between the two groups; there was statistically significant difference at the beginning of hypothermia and during rewarming. Three babies in the DH group and 2 in the MH group showed HR 520\u2009ms. Infant submitted to deep hypothermia had not bradycardia or Qtc elongation before cooling and after rewarming. Blood pressure was significantly lower in DH compared to MH during the cooling, and peculiar was the hypotension during rewarming in DH group. Conclusion. The deeper hypothermia is a safe and feasible, only if it is performed by a well-trained team. DH should only be associated with a clinical trial and prospective randomized trials to validate its us

Second-order grey-scale texture analysis of pleural ultrasound images to differentiate acute respiratory distress syndrome and cardiogenic pulmonary edema

Discriminating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) from acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema (CPE) may be challenging in critically ill patients. Aim of this study was to investigate if gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) analysis of lung ultrasound (LUS) images can differentiate ARDS from CPE. The study population consisted of critically ill patients admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) with acute respiratory failure and submitted to LUS and extravascular lung water monitoring, and of a healthy control group (HCG). A digital analysis of pleural line and subpleural space, based on the GLCM with second order statistical texture analysis, was tested. We prospectively evaluated 47 subjects: 16 with a clinical diagnosis of CPE, 8 of ARDS, and 23 healthy subjects. By comparing ARDS and CPE patients’ subgroups with HCG, the one-way ANOVA models found a statistical significance in 9 out of 11 GLCM textural features. Post-hoc pairwise comparisons found statistical significance within each matrix feature for ARDS vs. CPE and CPE vs. HCG (P ≤ 0.001 for all). For ARDS vs. HCG a statistical significance occurred only in two matrix features (correlation: P = 0.005; homogeneity: P = 0.048). The quantitative method proposed has shown high diagnostic accuracy in differentiating normal lung from ARDS or CPE, and good diagnostic accuracy in differentiating CPE and ARDS. Gray-level co-occurrence matrix analysis of LUS images has the potential to aid pulmonary edemas differential diagnosis

Fizeau interferometric imaging of Io volcanism with LBTI/LMIRcam

The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) houses two 8.4-meter mirrors separated by 14.4 meters on a common mount. Coherent combination of these two AO-corrected apertures via the LBT Interferometer (LBTI) produces Fizeau interferometric images with a spatial resolution equivalent to that of a 22.8-meter telescope and the light- gathering power of single 11.8-meter mirror. Capitalizing on these unique capabilities, we used LBTI/LMIRcam to image thermal radiation from volcanic activity on the surface of Io at M-Band (4.8 μm) over a range of parallactic angles. At the distance of Io, the M-Band resolution of the interferometric baseline corresponds to a physical distance of ~135 km, enabling high-resolution monitoring of Io volcanism such as ares and outbursts inaccessible from other ground-based telescopes operating in this wavelength regime. Two deconvolution routines are used to recover the full spatial resolution of the combined images, resolving at least sixteen known volcanic hot spots. Coupling these observations with advanced image reconstruction algorithms demonstrates the versatility of Fizeau interferometry and realizes the LBT as the first in a series of extremely large telescopes