Competitive Advantage and Internationalization of Italian Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Firms

The paper aims at exploring the factors needed by small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises to obtain a successful positioning in the international market and at identifying what there is at the root of their competitive advantage. Using a sample of 519 small and medium sized firms, with 20 to 250 employees, operating in five Italian regions, the empirical evidence reveals that the competitive advantage of Italian small enterprises is based upon a combination of elements such as price, differentiation and high technical standards of the product. According to this study, to be competitive in respect of price remains however the imperative of Italian SMEs’ behaviour in international markets.Competitive Advantage, Internationalization, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Manufacturing Firms

Cinètica de la reacció de descomposició tèrmica de l’ascaridol en dissolució

Existen diferencias entre los valores de algunas propiedades físicas de ascaridol natural aislado del vegetal denominado vulgarmente «Paico» (Chenopodium ambrosioides L., Chenopodiaceae) y la sustancia sintética obtenida mediante la reacción de fotooxigenación de α-terpineno. Es más, el uso de decocciones de dicha planta, utilizadas como medicina antihelmíntica en los humanos, ha despertado un debate científico debido a las propiedades tóxicas atribuídas a su principio activo (ascaridol), el cual sería responsable de la muy conocida acción beneficiosa. En este trabajo se ha realizado la preparación de esa sustancia por el método de Schenck, pero trabajando a 0 ºC con alcohol isopropílico como solvente y efectuando su separación y purificación a temperatura ambiente por cromatografía en columna preparativa, a fin de prevenir su degradación térmica. De esta manera se obtuvieron excelentes rendimientos de ascaridol (ca. 99% GC-FID), de un alto grado de pureza (> 98% GC; RP-HPLC; 1 H y 13C RMN). Además, se informan aquí los parámetros de activación de la reacción de descomposición térmica de ascaridol en solución de n-hexano, alcohol isopropílico y metanol, en el ámbito de temperaturas de 120ºC a 170ºC. Es evidente también un efecto de solvente en la homólisis unimolecular de esa sustancia.Discrepancies exist between the values of some physical properties of ascaridole isolated from the vegetal named «Paico» (Chenopodium ambrosioides L., Chenopodiaceae) and the synthetic substance obtained by the photoxygenation reaction of α-terpinene. Moreover, the use of decoctions of the above mentioned plant as anthelmintic medicine in humans arouse a scientific debate because of toxic properties attributed to its main active drug (ascaridole), which would be responsible of the well-known beneficial action. This lead to perform here the preparation of that substance by Schenck’s method, but working at 0 ºC with isopropyl alcohol as solvent and doing its separation and purification at room temperature by preparative column chromatography to prevent its thermal degradation. Thus, excellent yields of ascaridole were obtained (ca. 99 % GC-FID) of high degree of purity (> 98% GC; RP-HPLC; 1 H and 13C NMR). Furthermore, the kinetics of the thermal stability of ascaridole in solution is now advanced, reporting the activation parameters values for their decomposition reactions in n-hexane, isopropyl alcohol and methanol, in the 120º170 ºC temperature range. A solvent effect on the unimolecular homolysis of that substance is also evident.  Hi ha diferències entre els valors d’algunes propietats fisiques de l’ascaridol natural, aïllat del vegetal dit vulgarment «Paico» (Chenopodium ambrosioides L., Chenopodiaceae), i la substància sintètica obtinguda mitjançant la reacció de fotooxigenació d’α-terpinè. Encara més, l’ús de decoccions de l’esmentada planta, emprades com a medicina antihelmíntica en humans, ha despertat un debat científic, donades les propietats tòxiques atribuïdes al seu principi actiu (ascaridol), que seria el responsable de la molt coneguda acció beneficiosa. En aquest treball, s’ha realitzat la preparació d’aquesta substància pel mètode de Schenck, però treballant a 0 ºC amb alcohol isopropílic com a dissolvent i efectuant la seva separació i purificació a temperatura ambient mitjançant cromatografia de columna preparativa, per tal de prevenir la seva degradació tèrmica. D’aquesta manera, s’obtenen excel.lents rendiments d’ascaridol (ca. 99% GC-FID), d’un alt grau de puresa (> 98% GC; RP-HPLC; 1 H i 13C RMN). A més, es presenten els paràmetres d’activació de la reacció de descomposició tèrmica de l’ascaridol en dissolució de n-hexà, alcohol isopropílic i metanol, en el marge de temperatures de 120ºC a 170 ºC. Així mateix, és evident un efecte del dissolvent en l’homòlisi unimolecular d’aquesta substància.Fil: Cafferata, Lazaro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Química. Laboratorio de Estudio de Compuestos Orgánicos; ArgentinaFil: Jeandupeux, R.. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Química. Laboratorio de Estudio de Compuestos Orgánicos; ArgentinaFil: Cañizo, Adriana Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Departamento de Química. Laboratorio de Estudio de Compuestos Orgánicos; Argentin

Quantitative Analyses on Non-Linearities in Financial Markets

"The brief market plunge was just a small indicator of how complex and chaotic, in the formal sense, these systems have become. Our nancial system is so complicated and so interactive [...]. What happened in the stock market is just a little example of how things can cascade or how technology can interact with market panic" (Ben Bernanke, IHT, May 17, 2010) One of the most important issues in economics is modeling and fore- casting the uctuations that characterize both nancial and real mar- kets, such as interest rates, commodities and stock prices, output growth, unemployment, or exchange rate. There are mainly two op- posite views concerning these economic uctuations. According to the rst one, which was the predominant thought in the 1930s, the economic system is mainly linear and stable, only randomly hit by exogenous shocks. Ragnar Frisch, Eugen Slutsky and Jan Tinbergen, to cite a few, are important exponents of this view, and they demon- strated that the uctuations observed in the real business cycle may be produced in a stable linear system subject to an external sequence of random shocks. This view has been criticized starting from the 1940s and the 1950s, since it was not able to provide a strong eco- nomic explanation of observed uctuations. Richard Goodwin,John Hicks and Nicholas Kaldor introduced a nonlinear view of the econ- omy, showing that even in absence of external shocks, uctuations might arise. The economists then suggested an alternative within the exogenous approach, at rst by using the stochastic real busi- ness cycle models (Finn E. Kidland and Edward C. Prescott, 1982) and, more recently, by the adoption of the New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models, very adopted from the most important institutions and central banks. These models, however, have also been criticized for the assumption of the rational- ity of agents' behaviour, since rational expectations have been found to be systematically wrong in the business cycle. Expectations are of fundamental importance in economics and nance, since the agents' decisions about the future depends upon their expectations and their beliefs. It is in fact very unlikely that agents are perfect foresighters with rational expectations in a complex world, characterized by an irregular pattern of prices and quantities dealt in nancial markets, in which sophisticated nancial instruments are widespread. In the rst chapter of this dissertation, I will face the machine learn- ing technique, which is a nonlinear tool used for a better tting, fore- casting and clustering of dierent nancial time series and existing information in nancial markets. In particular, I will present a collec- tion of three dierent applications of these techniques, adapted from three dierent joint works: "Yield curve estimation under extreme conditions: do RBF net- works perform better?, joint with Pier Giuseppe Giribone, Marco Neelli, Marina Resta, published Anna Esposito, Marcos Faundez- Zanuy, Carlo Francesco Morabito, Eros Pasero Edrs, Multidisci- plinary Approaches to Neural Computing/Vol. 69/ WIRN 2017 and Chapter 22 in book "Neural Advances in Processing Non- linear Dynamic Signals", Springer; Interest rates term structure models and their impact on actuarial forecasting, joint with Pier Giuseppe Giribone and Marina Resta, presented at XVIII Quantitative Finance Workshop, University of Roma 3, January 2018; Applications of Kohonen Maps in financial markets: design of an automatic system for the detection of pricing anomalies, joint with Pier Giuseppe Giribone and published on Risk Management Magazine, 3-2017. In the second chapter, I will present the study A nancial market model with conrmation bias, in which nonlinearity is present as a result of the formation of heterogeneous expectations. This work is joint with Fabio Tramontana and it has been presented during the X MDEF (Dynamic Models in Economics and Finance) Workshop at University of Urbino Carlo Bo. Finally, the third chapter is a rielaboration of another joint paper, "The eects of negative nominal risk rates on the pricing of American Calls: some theoretical and numerical insights", with Pier Giuseppe Giribone and Marina Resta, published on Modern Economy 8(7), July 2017, pp 878-887. The problem of quantifying the value of early ex- ercise in an option written on equity is a complex mathematical issue that deals with continuous optimal control. In order to solve the con- tinuous dynamic optimization problem that involves high non linearity in the state variables, we have adopted a discretization scheme based on a stochastic trinomial tree. This methodology reveals a higher reliability and exibility than the traditional approaches based on approximated quasi-closed formulas in a context where financial markets are characterized by strong anomalies such as negative interest rates

Financial bubbles: A study of co-explosivity in the cryptocurrency market

Cryptocurrencies have recently captured the interest of the econometric literature, with several works trying to address the existence of bubbles in the price dynamics of Bitcoins and other cryptoassets. Extremely rapid price accelerations, often referred to as explosive behaviors, followed by drastic drops pose high risks to investors. From a risk management perspective, testing the explosiveness of individual cryptocurrency time series is not the only crucial issue. Investigating co-explosivity in the cryptoassets, i.e., whether explosivity in one cryptocurrency leads to explosivity in other cryptocurrencies, allows indeed to take into account possible shock propagation channels and improve the prediction of market collapses. To this aim, our paper investigates the relationships between the explosive behaviors of cryptocurrencies through a unit root testing approach

Kinetics and Mechanism of Gas-Phase Thermolysis Using Headspace-Gas Chromatographic Analysis

Headspace gas chromatography is employed in order to study the thermal decomposition reaction of gaseous di-tert-butyl peroxide (DTBP) in the 130°C to 160°C temperature range and in the presence of n-hexane as the internal standard and nitrogen as the carrier gas. The reaction exclusively yields acetone and ethane as products. First-order kinetics are observed, including when the surface-to-volume ratio (S/V) of the Pyrex 20-mL vial employed as the reactor is increased by packing it with silanized glass wool. However, a small increase in the rate constant values is observed at each temperature, which supports a heterogeneous surface process in DTBP decomposition. The rate constant's dependence on the homogeneous unimolecular decomposition reaction corresponds to the O-O bond rupture of the DTBP molecule in a stepwise three-stage mechanism. Thus, the relevant question of the participation of a surface catalytic effect in the DTBP gas-phase thermolysis can easily be assessed through the procedure described in this work. In general, this is advantageous for the rapid investigation of the reaction kinetics of volatile compounds at different temperatures.Fil: Cafferata, Lazaro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Ciencias Aplicadas ; ArgentinaFil: Manzione, Carlos Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Ciencias Aplicadas ; Argentin

Personalized Virotherapy in Cancer

Fil: Cafferata Eduardo G. Fundación Instituto Leloir; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Podhajcer, Osvaldo Luis. Fundación Instituto Leloir; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Market-Driven Management and Intangible Assets in Global Television Set Manufacturers

The television set industry is a global sector where the most competitive companies are market-driven. Their competitive advantage is based not only on their ability to innovate products but also on their capability to develop and strengthen intangible assets, such as corporate culture, brand image and relationships between organisations.Television set industry, Market Driven Management, Competitiveness, Intangible Assets DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.4468/2010.2.07silvestrelli

Kinetics and mechanism of gas-phase thermolysis using headspace-gas chromatographic analysis

Headspace gas chromatography is employed in order to study the thermal decomposition reaction of gaseous di-tert-butyl peroxide (DTBP) in the 130°C to 160°C temperature range and in the presence of n-hexane as the internal standard and nitrogen as the carrier gas. The reaction exclusively yields acetone and ethane as products. First-order kinetics are observed, including when the surface-to-volume ratio (S/V) of the Pyrex 20-mL vial employed as the reactor is increased by packing it with silanized glass wool. However, a small increase in the rate constant values is observed at each temperature, which supports a heterogeneous surface process in DTBP decomposition. The rate constant's dependence on the homogeneous unimolecular decomposition reaction corresponds to the O-O bond rupture of the DTBP molecule in a stepwise three-stage mechanism. Thus, the relevant question of the participation of a surface catalytic effect in the DTBP gas-phase thermolysis can easily be assessed through the procedure described in this work. In general, this is advantageous for the rapid investigation of the reaction kinetics of volatile compounds at different temperatures.Laboratorio de Estudio de Compuestos Orgánico