Unintended Detrimental Effects of Environmental Policy: The Green Paradox and Beyond

Well-intended policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions may have unintended undesirable consequences. Recently, a large literature has emerged showing under what conditions this so-called 'Green Paradox' may occur. We review this literature and identify the key mechanisms behind these paradoxical policy outcomes and highlight avenues for future research

The Ideal Candidate. Analysis of Professional Competences through Text Mining of Job Offers

The aim of this paper is to propose analytical tools for identifying peculiar aspects of job market for graduates. We propose a strategy for dealing with daa tat have different source and nature

Communities of consumption and Made in Italy

The interest towards the role of user communities in innovation has grown among scholars and practitioners. Research has explored the role of communities in high‐tech and medium‐tech industries with a focus on innovation in the functional dimension of products. Less attention has been devoted to user communities' contribution in industries such as fashion, where innovation is much more related to communication and aesthetics. This paper provides a preliminary set of concepts and working hypotheses regarding the contribution of communities to the non‐functional dimension of product innovation in low‐tech industries and to the relationship between user involvement in brand communities and their incentives to contribute to innovation both tangible and intangible. The paper discusses two case studies of Made in Italy enterprises that refer to communities for their innovation strategies

CleAir monitoring system for particulate matter. A case in the Napoleonic Museum in Rome

Monitoring the air particulate concentration both outdoors and indoors is becoming a more relevant issue in the past few decades. An innovative, fully automatic, monitoring system called CleAir is presented. Such a system wants to go beyond the traditional technique (gravimetric analysis), allowing for a double monitoring approach: the traditional gravimetric analysis as well as the optical spectroscopic analysis of the scattering on the same filters in steady-state conditions. The experimental data are interpreted in terms of light percolation through highly scattering matter by means of the stretched exponential evolution. CleAir has been applied to investigate the daily distribution of particulate matter within the Napoleonic Museum in Rome as a test case

From local networks of SMEs to virtual districts?

Industrial districts as local networks of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) rooted their competitiveness in a mix of economic relationships and social ties. Recently, network technologies have promised gains of efficiency through a reduction in transaction costs and showed new commercial opportunities for small firms. Despite the morphological similarities between industrial districts and network technologies, a longitudinal analysis of ICT diffusion within Italian districts shows that the foreseen convergence between the district economic model and new technologies should not be taken for granted. The observed specific evolutionary paths concerning technology innovation in local systems also opens-up issues of economic policy

Actions fostering the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in manufacturing companies in European regions

Industry 4.0, a concept comprising a range of promising innovations enabled by the recent advancements in digital technologies, has become a priority of industrial policy in many European countries and regions. In this paper, we present actions undertaken by regional organisations (including the so-called Digital Innovation Hubs), fostering the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in manufacturing companies. Using examples from Germany, Italy and Poland, we show actions that enable the creation of general conditions for such implementations and help companies develop an individual strategy for adopting Industry 4.0 innovations

Nurturing International Business research through Global Value Chains literature: A review and discussion of future research opportunities

This article offers a comprehensive and systematic review of the literature on Global Value Chains (GVCs). The GVC framework has received growing attention in the last decade, providing theoretical concepts and analytical tools to understand and assess patterns of value creation in view of the new international division of labour. In this area, a broad overlap of research interest exists with the international business (IB) literature. Yet, few interactions between the two fields of study have been recorded so far. Performing a quantitative content analysis on all academic publications on GVCs in the period 1994−2018, this paper describes the evolution of GVC studies, emphasizing points of contact and potential synergies with the IB literature. It also identifies research opportunities along the four key dimensions of the GVC framework: geographical and industrial scope, governance, upgrading, and institutional context

A New Reconfigurable Agricultural Vehicle Controlled by a User Graphical Interface: Mechanical and Electronic Aspects

The use of innovative mobile vehicles with increasingly advanced mechatronic aspects in the agricultural sector is becoming, in recent years, a stimulating field of research and comparison. In particular, the problem addressed in the present work refers to improving the locomotion of mobile vehicles on agricultural terrain by reducing the soil damage and improve the overall performance. Agricultural vehicles generally use tracks and wheels for locomotion; the main difference between the two systems is the contact area with the ground and, consequently, the pressure distribution. The present work presents a new reconfigurable agricultural vehicle that can switch from one locomotion system to another, choosing the suitable configuration according to the terrain conditions. All the mechanical and electronic aspects of the prototype developed are analyzed together with an in-depth analysis of the management of the innovative functions through a user-friendly graphical interface able to control the vehicle

Physical activity and hypocaloric diet recovers osteoblasts homeostasis in women affected by abdominal obesity.

Obesity is a multifactorial disease linked to metabolic chronic disorders such as diabetes, and hypertension. Also, it has recently been associated with skeletal alterations and low bone mineral density. We previously demonstrated that exposure of osteoblasts to sera of sedentary subjects affected by obesity alters cell homeostasis in vitro, leading to disruption of intracellular differentiation pathways and cellular activity. Thus, the purpose of the present study has been to evaluate whether sera of sedentary obese women, subjected to physical activity and hypocaloric diet, could recover osteoblast homeostasis in vitro as compared to the sera of same patients before intervention protocol. To this aim, obese women were evaluated at time 0 and after 4, 6, and 12 months of individualized prescribed physical activity and hypocaloric diet. Dual-energy-X-ray absorptiometry measurements were performed at each time point, as well as blood was collected at the same points. Cells were incubated with sera of subjects before and after physical activity as described: obese at baseline and after for 4, 6, and 12 months of physical activity and nutritional protocol intervention. Osteoblasts exposed to sera of patients, who displayed increased lean and decreased fat mass (from 55.5 ± 6.5 to 57.1 ± 5.6% p ≤ 0.05; from 44.5 ± 1.1 to 40.9 ± 2.6% p ≤ 0.01 respectively), showed a time-dependent increase of Wnt/β-catenin signaling, versus cells exposed to sera of obese patients before intervention protocol, suggesting recovery of osteoblast homeostasis upon improvement of body composition. An increase in β-catenin nuclear accumulation and nuclear translocation was also observed, accompanied by an increase in Adiponectin receptor 1 protein expression, suggesting positive effect on cell differentiation program. Furthermore, a decrease in sclerostin amount and an increase of type 1 procollagen amino-terminal-propeptide were depicted as compared to baseline, proportionally to the time of physical activity, suggesting a recovery of bone remodeling modulation and an increase of osteoblast activity induced by improvement of body composition. In conclusion, our results show for the first time that sera of obese sedentary women who increased lean mass and decreased fat mass, by physical activity and hypocaloric diet, rescue osteoblasts differentiation and activity likely due to a reactivation of Wnt/β-catenin-pathway, suggesting that a correct life style can improve skeletal metabolic alteration induced by obesity