SMART TECHNOLOGIES, DIGITALIZZAZIONE E CAPITALE INTELLETTUALE. Sinergie e opportunità

Il volume offre una visione d’insieme delle smart technologies, della digitalizzazione e del capitale intellettuale nelle aziende, al fine di delinearne i profili emergenti in chiave economico-aziendale. L’analisi di tali tematiche riveste particolare importanza nell’attuale scenario, in cui le aziende sono chiamate ad accogliere la quarta rivoluzione industriale e a fronteggiare un’emergenza mondiale di natura sociosanitaria ed economica. Pertanto, la riflessione scientifica su questioni relative all’analisi e alla definizione delle sfide e delle opportunità derivanti dalle smart technologies, dai processi e percorsi di digitalizzazione aziendali e dal capitale intellettuale rappresenta un contributo fondamentale per supportare le aziende nelle necessarie valutazioni di convenienza, nelle decisioni consapevoli e condivise, e nella attivazione di comportamenti coerenti. I contributi di ricerca raccolti in questo volume rappresentano il fruttuoso lavoro del Gruppo di Studio “Smart Technologies, Digitalization & Intellectual Capital” (STEDIC) della Società Italiana dei Docenti di Ragioneria e di Economia Aziendale (SIDREA) coordinato dai curatori del volume

Antismoking campaigns’ perception and gender differences: a comparison among EEG Indices

Human factors’ aim is to understand and evaluate the interactions between people and tasks, technologies, and environment. Among human factors, it is possible then to include the subjective reaction to external stimuli, due to individual’s characteristics and states of mind. These processes are also involved in the perception of antismoking public service announcements (PSAs), the main tool for governments to contrast the first cause of preventable deaths in the world: tobacco addiction. In the light of that, in the present article, it has been investigated through the comparison of different electroencephalographic (EEG) indices a typical item known to be able of influencing PSA perception, that is gender. In order to investigate the neurophysiological underpinnings of such different perception, we tested two PSAs: one with a female character and one with a male character. Furthermore, the experimental sample was divided into men and women, as well as smokers and nonsmokers. The employed EEG indices were the mental engagement (ME: the ratio between beta activity and the sum of alpha and theta activity); the approach/withdrawal (AW: the frontal alpha asymmetry in the alpha band); and the frontal theta activity and the spectral asymmetry index (SASI: the ratio between beta minus theta and beta plus theta). Results suggested that the ME and the AW presented an opposite trend, with smokers showing higher ME and lower AW than nonsmokers. The ME and the frontal theta also evidenced a statistically significant interaction between the kind of the PSA and the gender of the observers; specifically, women showed higher ME and frontal theta activity for the male character PSA. This study then supports the usefulness of the ME and frontal theta for purposes of PSAs targeting on the basis of gender issues and of the ME and the AW and for purposes of PSAs targeting on the basis of smoking habits

Eubiosis and dysbiosis: the two sides of the microbiota

The microbial ecosystem of the gastrointestinal tract is characterized by a great number of microbial species living in balance by adopting mutualistic strategies. The eubiosis/dysbiosis condition of the gut microbiota strongly influences our healthy and disease status. This review briefly describes microbiota composition and functions, to then focus on eubiosis and dysbiosis status: the two sides of the microbiot

Prevalence and time course of post-stroke pain: A multicenter prospective hospital-based study

OBJECTIVE: Pain prevalence data for patients at various stages after stroke. DESIGN: Repeated cross-sectional, observational epidemiological study. SETTING: Hospital-based multicenter study. SUBJECTS: Four hundred forty-three prospectively enrolled stroke survivors. METHODS: All patients underwent bedside clinical examination. The different types of post-stroke pain (central post-stroke pain, musculoskeletal pains, shoulder pain, spasticity-related pain, and headache) were diagnosed with widely accepted criteria during the acute, subacute, and chronic stroke stages. Differences among the three stages were analyzed with χ(2)-tests. RESULTS: The mean overall prevalence of pain was 29.56% (14.06% in the acute, 42.73% in the subacute, and 31.90% in the chronic post-stroke stage). Time course differed significantly according to the various pain types (P < 0.001). The prevalence of musculoskeletal and shoulder pain was higher in the subacute and chronic than in the acute stages after stroke; the prevalence of spasticity-related pain peaked in the chronic stage. Conversely, headache manifested in the acute post-stroke stage. The prevalence of central post-stroke pain was higher in the subacute and chronic than in the acute post-stroke stage. Fewer than 25% of the patients with central post-stroke pain received drug treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Pain after stroke is more frequent in the subacute and chronic phase than in the acute phase, but it is still largely undertreated

Neuropsychological functions and audiological findings in elderly cochlear implant users: the role of attention in postoperative performance

Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate in a group of elderly CI users working memory and attention, conventionally considered as predictors of better CI performance and to try to disentangle the effects of these cognitive domains on speech perception, finding potential markers of cognitive decline related to audiometric findings. Methods Thirty postlingually deafened CI users aged &gt;60 underwent an audiological evaluation followed by a cognitive assessment of attention and verbal working memory. A correlation analysis was performed to evaluate the associations between cognitive variables while a simple regression investigated the relationships between cognitive and audiological variables. Comparative analysis was performed to compare variables on the basis of subjects’ attention performance. Results: Attention was found to play a significant role in sound field and speech perception. Univariate analysis found a significant difference between poor and high attention performers, while regression analysis showed that attention significantly predicted recognition of words presented at Signal/Noise +10. Further, the high attention performers showed significantly higher scores than low attentional performers for all working memory tasks. Conclusion: Overall findings confirmed that a better cognitive performance may positively contribute to better speech perception outcomes, especially in complex listening situations. WM may play a crucial role in storage and processing of auditory-verbal stimuli and a robust attention may lead to better performance for speech perception in noise. Implementation of cognitive training in auditory rehabilitation of CI users should be investigated in order to improve cognitive and audiological performance in elderly CI users

Guidelines for setting-up transdisciplinary sustainability courses

This report, developed by the ERASMUS+ project EUSTEPs (Enhancing Universities’ Sustainability TEaching and Practices), presents Guidelines for the creation of a Sustainability Course. It proposes a transdisciplinary curricular unit that can be included within all University degree programs (both bachelor and master). The document includes possible reasons, procedures, contents, and opportunities connected to such didactic initiative, with the aim of creating an approach that can be replicated in many Universities around the world interested in its implementation. It builds on the multi-year experience of the University of Siena (Italy) as a reference point, and the positive feedback from the EUSTEPs’ academic consortium members (namely Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Aveiro and Universidade Aberta). Thanks to its flexibility, every University can interpret the proposal presented in this report in a different way and proceed according to its own preferences, conditions, knowledge, and rules.ERASMUS+, KA203 2019-2022, Agreement No. 2019-1-ELO1-KA203-062941info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Teaching sustainability within the context of everyday life: steps toward achieving the sustainable development goals through the EUSTEPs module

In a world characterized by Ecological Overshoot, education can nurture sustainability-minded citizens and future leaders to help accelerate the transition towards a one-planet compatible society. Despite the essential role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in contributing to a sustainable society, a holistic understanding of how to incorporate sustainability initiatives into HEIs is still lacking. Given the importance of HEIs in societies and considering the number of students, educators, and staff they host every day, ensuring that sustainability is both taught and practiced within campuses becomes fundamental. To this end, a strategic partnership was created in 2019 to set up the ERASMUS+ project EUSTEPs - Enhancing Universities’ Sustainability Teaching and Practices through Ecological Footprint. Among the main outputs of the project is a teaching module for introducing the sustainability concept to students. This module takes a 360-degree approach to teach sustainability, allowing students to endogenously realize the full complexity of sustainability, in an engaging and captivating manner. This paper thus aims to: 1) present the EUSTEPs Module, its pedagogical approach and structure, and the learning outcomes and competencies students are expected to gain; 2) review the outcomes of its first pilot teaching in four European HEIs, and 3) shed light on how this Module contributes to the development of competences and pedagogical approaches for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our findings show that 90% of the students were ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with the Module, rating the Ecological Footprint as the most useful teaching tool among those included in the Module, and appreciated the interactive nature of the proposed teaching. Feedback obtained from students during the pilot teaching contributed to shaping the Module’s final structure and content. The Module – an important interactive sustainability pedagogical tool – is now ready for use with students from different disciplines, thus contributing to progress towards the UN 2030 Agenda, particularly SDG 4, SDG 11, SDG 12, and SDG 13.Project “EUSTEPs: Enhancing Universities’ Sustainability Teaching and Practices through Ecological Footprint,” KA 203, Strategic Partnership in Higher Education 2019–2022, Agreement No. 2019-1-EL01-KA203-062941.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cardiovascular risk factors, anxiety symptoms and inflammation markers: Evidence of association from a cross-sectional study

Introduction Anxiety disorders and Cardiovascular (CV) diseases, among the most common disorders in Western World, are often comorbid. A chronic systemic inflammatory state might be a shared underlining pathophysiological mechanism. Aims To investigate the association between anxiety symptoms, CV risks factors and inflammatory markers in an outpatient sample. Methods Cross-sectional study. Inclusion criteria: outpatients aged ≥40 years, attending colonoscopy after positive faecal occult blood test, negative medical history for cancer. Collected data: blood pressure, glycaemia, lipid profile, waist circumference, BMI, PCR (C Reactive Protein), LPS (bacterial Lipopolysaccharide). Psychometric tests: HADS, TCI, IMSA, SF36. Statistical analysis performed with STATA13. Results Fifty four patients enrolled (27 males, 27 females). Sixteen patients (30.19%) were positive for anxiety symptoms. Thirty-three patients (61.11%) had hypertension, 14 (25.93%) hyperglycaemia and 64.81% were overweight, with frank obesity (BMI≥ 30) in 11 subjects (20.37%). Anxiety symptoms were associated with low hematic HDL values (OR = 0.01; P = 0.01) and high concentration of triglycerides (OR = 0.023; P = 0.02) at the multiple regression model. At the univariate logistic analysis, anxiety was associated with LPS (OR = 1.06; P = 0.04). Conclusions Further evidence over the epidemiological link between common mental disorders and CV diseases was collected, with possible hints on pathophysiology and causative mechanisms related to inflammation. The importance of screening for anxiety and depression in medical populations is confirmed. Suggestions on future availability of screening tools based on inflammatory-related indicators should be the focus of future research

Ecological footprint reduction recommendations for higher education Iistitutions

Obra editada por: Sara Moreno Pires, Federico Maria Pulselli, George Malandrakis, Sandra Caeiro e Alessandro GalliERASMUS+, KA203 2019-2022, Agreement No. 2019-1-ELO1-KA203-062941info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Maturation signatures of conventional dendritic cell subtypes in COVID‐19 suggest direct viral sensing

Growing evidence suggests that conventional dendritic cells (cDCs) undergo aberrant maturation in COVID-19, which negatively affects T-cell activation. The presence of effector T cells in patients with mild disease and dysfunctional T cells in severely ill patients suggests that adequate T-cell responses limit disease severity. Understanding how cDCs cope with SARS-CoV-2 can help elucidate how protective immune responses are generated. Here, we report that cDC2 subtypes exhibit similar infection-induced gene signatures, with the upregulation of interferon-stimulated genes and interleukin (IL)-6 signaling pathways. Furthermore, comparison of cDCs between patients with severe and mild disease showed severely ill patients to exhibit profound downregulation of genes encoding molecules involved in antigen presentation, such as MHCII, TAP, and costimulatory proteins, whereas we observed the opposite for proinflammatory molecules, such as complement and coagulation factors. Thus, as disease severity increases, cDC2s exhibit enhanced inflammatory properties and lose antigen presentation capacity. Moreover, DC3s showed upregulation of anti-apoptotic genes and accumulated during infection. Direct exposure of cDC2s to the virus in vitro recapitulated the activation profile observed in vivo. Our findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 interacts directly with cDC2s and implements an efficient immune escape mechanism that correlates with disease severity by downregulating crucial molecules required for T-cell activation