Are circular economy policies actually reaching organizations? Evidence from the largest Spanish companies

The Circular Economy (CE) model has recently gained a lot of attention as an effective way to cope with the urgent issues related to Climate Change and sustainability. The European Union (EU) has launched a series of reports, plans and activities known as the Circular Economy package which main goal is to expand the CE model throughout Europe, with large companies leading the initiative. This paper aims at assessing their engagement with the CE model, and if their actual understanding, practice and reporting of CE corresponds to the standards and principles promoted by the EU CE Action Plan. The research does also analyse if large companies’ reporting in terms of CE can be assimilated to their environmental sustainability reporting or if they consider it a different topic, with different drivers. The reports of the largest companies in Spain (IBEX35) were studied in full detail as well as their environmental scores (ESG) from DataStream database, and activity sector. Results show interesting implications highlighting how companies’ perception over CE, as reported, differs from the EU CE Action Plan approach and from the environmental sustainability framework, especially when taking into account the type of activity

Triple oral beta-lactam containing therapy for Buruli ulcer treatment shortening

The potential use of clinically approved beta-lactams for Buruli ulcer (BU) treatment was investigated with representative classes analyzed in vitro for activity against Mycobacterium ulcerans. Beta-lactams tested were effective alone and displayed a strong synergistic profile in combination with antibiotics currently used to treat BU, i.e. rifampicin and clarithromycin; this activity was further potentiated in the presence of the beta-lactamase inhibitor clavulanate. In addition, quadruple combinations of rifampicin, clarithromycin, clavulanate and beta-lactams resulted in multiplicative reductions in their minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) values. The MIC of amoxicillin against a panel of clinical isolates decreased more than 200-fold within this quadruple combination. Amoxicillin/clavulanate formulations are readily available with clinical pedigree, low toxicity, and orally and pediatric available; thus, supporting its potential inclusion as a new anti-BU drug in current combination therapies

Screening of conditions controlling spectrophotometric sequential injection analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite its potential benefits over univariate, chemometrics is rarely utilized for optimizing sequential injection analysis (SIA) methods. Specifically, in previous vis-spectrophotometric SIA methods, chemometrically optimized conditions were confined within flow rate and reagent concentrations while other conditions were ignored.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The current manuscript reports, for the first time, a comprehensive screening of conditions controlling vis-spectrophotometric SIA. A new diclofenac assay method was adopted. The method was based on oxidizing diclofenac by permanganate (a major reagent) with sulfuric acid (a minor reagent). The reaction produced a spectrophotometrically detectable diclofenac form. The 2⁶full-factorial design was utilized to study the effect of volumes of reagents and sample, in addition to flow rate and concentrations of reagents. The main effects and all interaction order effects on method performance, i.e. namely sensitivity, rapidity and reagent consumption, were determined. The method was validated and applied to pharmaceutical formulations (tablets, injection and gel).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Despite 64 experiments those conducted in the current study were cumbersome, the results obtained would reduce effort and time when developing similar SIA methods in the future. It is recommended to critically optimize effective and interacting conditions using other such optimization tools as fractional-factorial design, response surface and simplex, rather than full-factorial design that used at an initial optimization stage. In vis-spectrophotometric SIA methods those involve developing reactions with two reagents (major and minor), conditions affecting method performance are in the following order: sample volume > flow rate ≈ major reagent concentration >> major reagent volume ≈ minor reagent concentration >> minor reagent volume.</p

Design indicators for better accommodation environments in hospitals: inpatients’ perceptions

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Intelligent Buildings International, 2012, [© Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17508975.2012.701186Several studies have found an association between the physical environment and human health and wellbeing that resulted in the postulation of the idea of evidence-based and patient-centred design of healthcare facilities. The key challenge is that most of the underpinning research for the evidence base is context specific, the use of which in building design is complex, mainly because of the difficulties associated with the disaggregation of findings from the context. On the other hand, integrating patients’ perspectives requires an understanding of the relative importance of design indicators, which the existing evidence base lacks to a large extent. This research was aimed at overcoming these limitations by investigating users’ perception of the importance of key design indicators in enhancing their accommodation environments in hospitals. A 19-item structured questionnaire was used to gather inpatients' views on a 5-point scale, in two Chinese hospitals. A principal component analysis (PCA) resulted in five constructed dimensions with appropriate reliability and validity (Cronbach’s alpha=0.888). The item, design for cleanliness, was ranked as most important, closely followed by environmental and safety design indicators. The item, entertainment facilities, was ranked lowest. The indicator, pleasant exterior view had the second lowest mean score, followed by the item, ability to customise the space. Age, accommodation type and previous experience of hospitalisation accounted for statistically significant differences in perceptions of importance of various constructed design dimensions

Application de l'analyse multidimensionnelle des données a la reconnaissance des vins rouges de la Rioja

L'application de l'analyse multidimensionnelle des données à la reconnaissance des vins de trois appellations de la Rioja, permet de choisir huit variables physico-chimiques, facilement accessibles, comme étant hautement significatives. En plus de ces paramètres analytiques, le cépage et les données climatiques ont un rôle important. Les meilleurs résultats sont obtenus au moyen de la méthode d'analyse discriminante linéaire des données avec laquelle le pourcentage d'attribution correcte des vins atteint 91,3 p. 100. +++ Application of multidimensional data analysis to the recognition of three Rioja appellation wines led to selecting 8 easly-obtained physicochemical variables as being highly significant. In addition to these analytical parameters, variety and climatic conditions play an important role. The best results were obtained using linear discriminant analysis of the data, which gave 91,3 p. 100 correct recognition of the wines