Can Practical Wisdom Mitigate the Negative Effects of Rule-following and Hyper-codification?

This article sets out to explain how practical wisdom, supported by rationality, can play a fundamental role in management and combat the main problems of rule-following and hyper-codification. The systematic use of Big Data, collected via the ever-increasing adoption of technology, has generated a large increase in the degree of standardisation of company procedures concerning not only physical and technical issues but above all decision-making. Applied to the solution of repetitive, easily codified problems, standardisation increases the level of efficiency, but when used for the resolution of complex problems it may partially, or even completely, preclude the pursuance of the common good. This may occur through the setting of rules which are not capable of fully describing reality, and their inappropriate use, which may lead, through their unthinking application, to a lack of morality, and even to the side-lining of earnings opportunities. We believe that practical wisdom is able to interact with necessary, unavoidable codification systems and rules to provide the right interface with circumstances, becoming a part of the decision-making process in its own right and not just a viewing lens for use retrospectively to verify whether the outcomes of decisions taken have been effective in pursuing the common good

Linear circuit models for on-chip quantum electrodynamics

We present equivalent circuits that model the interaction of microwave resonators and quantum systems. The circuit models are derived from a general interaction Hamiltonian. Quantitative agreement between the simulated resonator transmission frequency, qubit Lamb shift and experimental data will be shown. We demonstrate that simple circuit models, using only linear passive elements, can be very useful in understanding systems where a small quantum system is coupled to a classical microwave apparatus

Spatial ecology of moose in Sweden: Combined Sr-O-C isotope analyses of bone and antler

The study of spatial (paleo)ecology in mammals is critical to understand how animals adapt to and exploit their environment. In this work we analysed the 87Sr/86Sr, δ18O and δ13C isotope composition of 65 moose bone and antler samples from Sweden from wild-shot individuals dated between 1800 and 1994 to study moose mobility and feeding behaviour for (paleo)ecological applications. Sr data were compared with isoscapes of the Scandinavian region, built ad-hoc during this study, to understand how moose utilise the landscape in Northern Europe. The 87Sr/86Sr isoscape was developed using a machine-learning approach with external geo-environmental predictors and literature data. Similarly, a δ18O isoscape, obtained from average annual precipitation δ18O values, was employed to highlight differences in the isotope composition of the local environment vs. bone/antler. Overall, 82% of the moose samples were compatible with the likely local isotope composition (n = 53), suggesting that they were shot not far from their year-round dwelling area. ‘Local’ samples were used to calibrate the two isoscapes, to improve the prediction of provenance for the presumably ‘non-local’ individuals. For the latter (n = 12, of which two are antlers and ten are bones), the probability of geographic origin was estimated using a Bayesian approach by combining the two isoscapes. Interestingly, two of these samples (one antler and one bone) seem to come from areas more than 250 km away from the place where the animals were hunted, indicating a possible remarkable intra-annual mobility. Finally, the δ13C data were compared with the forest cover of Sweden and ultimately used to understand the dietary preference of moose. We interpreted a difference in δ13C values of antlers (13Cenriched) and bones (13C-depleted) as a joint effect of seasonal variations in moose diet and, possibly, physiological stresses during winter-time, i.e., increased consumption of endogenous 13C-depleted lipids

Minibond and earnings management: leveraging the signaling effect of minibond listing

Minibonds are a hybrid between bank debt and bond issuance introduced in Italy to expand the range of possible financing resources available to unlisted enterprises. This peculiar debt security was introduced as part of a regulatory reform in 2012 to diversify funding sources and facilitate access to capital markets for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). In this study, we investigate whether firms that decide to issue and list a minibond engage in earnings management (EM) to leverage the growth-signaling effect generated by the listing of this security. Listing bonds on a financial market is not mandatory, but a strategic choice. Collecting a sample of 136 minibond listings during 2013–2020, we use panel analysis to show that issuers tend to manage their earnings in the year of listing. We argue that this behavior is undertaken in order to provide a better representation of their economic and financial situation and consequently to better impress current or future stakeholders. Moreover, we also find that larger minibond size partially discourages EM, thus confirming the role of debt as a means of control over management. Overall, we argue that stakeholders should be aware that, even though minibond issuers are sound firms on average, they tend to inflate their earnings in the year of listing in order to reinforce the signaling effect of the quotation

Strontium Isotope MC-ICP-MS Analysis of Hair Strands from Human Mummies: Transhumance Pastoralism of Early-Modern Individuals between Northern and Central Italy

Mammal hair is formed by a scleroprotein, namely keratin, composed by some major elements (C, N, H, O, S), but including also trace elements such as Sr, Pb, Fe, K, Na and Ca. The latter are fixed through diet and exposure to exogenous sources, mainly water and air. Given that the average human scalp hair growth is ~1 cm/month, timeresolved hair sampling yields information about a specific period, reflecting the elemental and isotopic composition of the diet and environment at that time. The 87Sr/86Sr ratio of mammal tissues is generally directly correlated to the local bioavailable strontium, providing the chance to reconstruct the individual movements in a given time interval. In this work, we developed our protocol to analyse low-Sr concentration mammal hairs for their 87Sr/86Sr ratio by Neptune MC-ICP-MS. We tested the method on a modern individual who traveled cyclically between Italy and Brazil. Hair strands were sampled with a time resolution of 1 to 2 months, yielding time resolved isotopic variations from the highest radiogenic ratios of the São Paulo area to the lower ones of Modena waters. Thus, the Sr analysis of hair has been applied to human mummies (Roccapelago, Modena, 16th-18th cent.). Hair strands were cut in several sub-samples with different length (time-resolution) in relation to the amount of available material. The best achieved time-resolution was of 3 months in a 12-cm-long strand. These samples revealed cyclical human movements from Roccapelago to the high radiogenic area of the Tuscan Magmatic Province. Historical documents attest a high frequency of human seasonal travels to Tuscany, up to the Grosseto area, likely linked to the exploitation of transhumance pastoralism

Melt-Rock Interaction at Mantle Conditions: Evidences from Finero Gabbroic Dykes

The Finero Phlogopite-Peridotite (FPP) is a worldwide famous mantle massif recrystallized through several events of melt migrations. These events have enriched the FPP in hydrous phases and crustal components and have been commonly interpreted as related to a subduction/post orogenic geodynamic setting. The last of these metasomatic events has produced composite sapphirine-bearing gabbroic dykes, interpreted as the result of the interaction of channelized migrating melts with the host rock in a two-steps intrusion process. In the first step, the melt reacted with the FPP rocks and evolved by fractional crystallization of amphibole cumulates. In the second step, the evolved melt reacted with the first cumulates producing magmatic sapphirine and segregating plagioclase-rich bands containing abundant apatites at the nucleus of the dike. New data suggest, however, a more complex evolution. New O and in situ Sr isotopes on minerals suggest that the gabbroic dykes have evolved from melt(s) that progressively were contaminated by the interaction with the FPP rocks during its fractionation. The δ18O increases from 5.81‰ in orthopyroxenes at the dykes border to ~6.90‰ in cumulitic amphiboles and 8.60‰ in plagioclases. The 87Sr/86Sr values for plagioclase and coexisting apatite show isotopic disequilibrium between the two phases (plagioclases at 0.70474 ± 0.00033, n=23, and apatites at 0.70369 ± 0.00025, n=6). These isotopic variations could be explained with an AFC-like process between mantle-derived melt(s) and a crustal-enriched host (the FPP). In situ Sr isotope analyses were performed at the CIGS laboratory of the Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia using a Thermo Fisher Scientific Neptune™ coupled to a 213 nm Nd:YAG laser ablation system (New Wave Research™). During the analytical sessions a new in house plagioclase reference material for Rb-Sr systematic, named BC84, has been successfully tested and used

Constraining the fluid source of Miocene seep carbonates using radiogenic Sr isotopes (Corella outcrop, northern Apennines, Italy)

Analisi isotopiche e biostratigrafiche su corpi carbonatici metanoderivati dell'Appennino settentrional

Suspected limited mobility of a Middle Pleistocene woman from Southern Italy: strontium isotopes of a human deciduous tooth

We present the Sr isotopic composition of enamel of the most ancient deciduous tooth ever discovered in Italy to assess human mobility in Middle Pleistocene. Reconstructing ancient mobility is crucial for understanding human strategy at exploiting temporally and spatially patchy resources, with most studies focusing on indirect evidences, ultimately affecting our interpretation on hominin territoriality and energetic costs invested by hominin groups. Here, we use the high spatial resolution and micro-destructivity options offered by the Laser Ablation Multi-Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry technique, to determine the (87)Sr/ (86)Sr intra-tooth variability of a human deciduous incisor from the Middle Pleistocene layers of the Isernia La Pineta site (Italy). We compared these data with the Sr isotopic signature of local micro-mammals, the broadest home-range of the macro-mammals and with modern plant samples. Our study reveals that while macro-mammals have possibly migrated through the landscape for up to 50\u2009km, the pregnant woman from Isernia was probably local, given that the isotopic ratio of the enamel falls within the local range and is comparable with the signature of the local plants in a radius of 10\u2009km. This is the first case study of Sr isotopic composition determination in such ancient deciduous tooth