Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure in Italy: An Analysis of the Last Years

Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) is the process of communicating the social, ethical and environmental effects of organizations’ economic actions. It is a formal commitment to inform and involve stakeholders with an adequate flow of communication through suitable channels, focusing on relevant content. The aim is to study voluntary disclosure implemented by Italian listed companies in the last 9 years (2008-2016). The empirical survey covers data and information on 165 companies. We have analysed: 1) the extent of CSRD in Italy; 2) the characteristics of voluntary disclosure in terms of type of report published and guidelines or standards followed; 3) the main differences between the industrial sectors about the publication of non-financial reports and the types of report used. Our findings show a significant improvement in the practice of voluntary disclosure of Italian listed companies and a key role of industry in decisions regarding the quantity and quality of non-financial disclosure. The value of this research concern in the wide (in time, through the last nine years, and in space, through the different industries) point of view through which is investigated the phenomenon of CSRD in Italy before the shift from a voluntary to a legislative perspective

Biodiversity management approaches in small and innovative businesses: insights from a systems thinking perspective

Purpose – Amid the current global crisis, biodiversity remains a topic that is often relegated to a few disciplines. Many issues related to the relationship between organizations and the ecosystem remain unexplored. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the characteristics of the interrelationship between these two complex and dynamic systems. Design/methodology/approach – This research is conducted using a constructivist approach, with an interpretivist perspective and a case study methodology. Through this research perspective and an exploratory multiple case study (holistic), the authors assess the implications related to the concept of biodiversity and the impacts that organizational choices could have on the consideration and management of this complex concept. Findings – The desire of these entrepreneurs to change their ways of doing things and try to produce in a way that respects the ecosystem and enhances natural genetic diversity, while simultaneously drawing value from it in a healthy and sustainable manner, is evident. The orientation toward a sustainable and ecologically innovative business brings the concept of profit into the background on several occasions, leading these bakery entrepreneurs to be visionary green entrepreneurs (or ecopreneurs). The desire to be sustainable and to change the ways of ‘‘business as usual’’ makes these companies and their entrepreneurs an example of ‘‘sustainability-as-flourishing.’’ Originality/value – By adopting the systems thinking approach and multiple case studies, this study examines the interrelation between some innovative small companies (bakeries) and biodiversity, their motivations to actively engage in biodiversity protection and their roles in protecting agrobiodiversity as well as the natural wealth of the ecosystem

Fostering Social Impact Through Corporate Implementation of the SDGs: Transformative Mechanisms Towards Interconnectedness and Inclusiveness

The United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has considerable potential for achieving a more sustainable future. However, the concrete realisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is impeded by how they are implemented by a diverse set of competent agents. This conceptual paper draws on social impact theory to investigate how businesses can utilise the SDG framework to achieve positive social outcomes. We identify two pathways that can guide businesses to improve their SDGs interventions, which entail considering the interconnections between the goals that are directly or indirectly affected by the initiative at stake and the inclusiveness of the actors affected by the SDGs. Building on the literature on hybrid organising (to frame interconnectedness) and the literature on multi-stakeholder partnerships and deliberative governance (to frame inclusiveness), we discuss a set of organisational mechanisms and transformations that can help businesses ensure that their SDGs interventions are more socially impactful. By doing so, this paper extends the literature on the role of companies for sustainable development and provides some practical implications

Update on the Laboratory Diagnosis of Invasive Fungal Infections

Recent advances in the management of patients with haematological malignancies and transplant recipients have paralleled an increase in the incidence of fungal diseases due to pathogenic genera such as Candida and Aspergillus and the emergence of less common genera including Fusarium and Zygomycetes. Despite availability of new antifungal agents these opportunistic infections have high mortality. Rapid and reliable species identification is essential for antifungal treatment, but detection of the increasing diversity of fungal pathogens by conventional phenotypic methods remains difficult and time-consuming, and the results may sometimes be inconclusive, especially for unusual species. New diagnostic techniques (e.g., 1,3-beta-d-glucan detection) could improve this scenario, although further studies are necessary to confirm their usefulness in clinical practice

Ground Resistance of Buried Metallic Parts in Urban Areas: an Extensive Measurement Campaign

In urban and industrial areas, a relevant presence of buried metallic objects (e.g., gas and water pipes, etc.) can be detected. Usually, these elements are imagined as widespread meshed metallic grids in a good contact with the soil. In the last years, an arising interest on their role in the identification of a global earthing system has been expressed by the scientific community. Unfortunately, the geometrical and electrical properties of this kind of buried metallic parts cannot be provided by any documentations. This is mostly due to the fact that no trustworthy schemes are provided, as the management of these metallic parts is responsibility of different companies, which have installed them during several years. In order to characterize the buried metallic elements with reference to the electrical safety issue, the main quantity of interest is their resistance to earth. With this aim, a field measurement campaign was organized and the resistance to earth of more than 800 metallic objects has been evaluated through a simplified measurement protocol. In this paper, the measurement protocol, the setup, the results, and their analysis are reported

Global Earthing System: Can Buried Metallic Structures Significantly Modify the Ground Potential Profile?

Global earthing systems (GESs), which are created by the interconnection of local earthing systems, should guarantee the absence of dangerous touch voltages. According to international standards, one of the reasons for this safety characteristic of GESs is that medium-voltage and low-voltage grounding systems form a quasi-equipotential area. Typical examples of GESs are in city centers due to the high number of interconnected grounding systems in the area. For this reason, in addition to ground grids, other metallic parts with different primary functions shall be also considered, e.g., water and gas pipes, tramway tracks, and building foundations can modify the electric potential distribution in the area. In this paper, a model based on the Maxwell's subareas method (MaSM) is used to evaluate how buried metallic parts, which are not intentionally connected to ground grids, modify the electric potential on the soil surface. First, the MaSM model is validated with experimental measurements on a simple electrode configuration. The measured voltages are compared with the MaSM results and with the results obtained with a finite-element method model simulated with COMSOL Multiphysics. Then, the simulations are carried out on a realistic urban test case

Accuracy of the digital workflow for guided insertion of orthodontic palatal TADs: a step-by-step 3D analysis

BACKGROUND: The introduction in the orthodontic field of the digital workflow for guided insertion of palatal TADs and the development of the 1-visit protocol led to the reduction of chair time and the possibility of complete customization of designs and materials. Conversely, the reduction of operative steps implicates a lower tolerance of deviations between the planned and the actual position of the miniscrews, particularly when the orthodontic device is fixed on 4 palatal TADs or has a rigid structure. This study aims to analyze the influence of each step of the digital workflow on the deviation of the miniscrews' axis of insertion in a bicortical sample. The null hypothesis is that there are no significant differences in the deviations among the operative steps. METHODS: 33 subjects were selected for insertion of bicortical palatal miniscrews with a 1-visit protocol. Digital files were collected at the three stages of the workflow (i.e., digital planning, laboratory prototype, post-insertion impression). A 3D software analysis was performed on a total of 64 miniscrews. After automatic shape recognition of the guiding holes of the digital plan and the scanbodies of the laboratory prototype and post-insertion impression as geometric cylinders, their three-dimensional longitudinal axis was traced and the deviation among them was calculated. Friedman test with Bonferroni correction was performed to assess the significance of the deviations among the three steps, with significance set at p < 0.05. RESULTS: The laboratory step has a significantly lower degree of deviations (2.12° ± 1.62) than both the clinical step (6.23° ± 3.75) and the total deviations (5.70° ± 3.42). No significant differences were found between miniscrews inserted on the left or the right side. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that laboratory procedures such as surgical guide production or rapid prototyping don't play a significant role in the degree of deviations between the planned and the positioned palatal TADs. Conversely, the clinical steps have a bigger influence and need to be carefully evaluated. Despite this difference, there is a cumulative effect of deviations that can lead to the failure of the 1-visit protocol

Upregulation of the Adhesin Gene EPA1 Mediated by PDR1 in Candida glabrata Leads to Enhanced Host Colonization.

Candida glabrata is the second most common Candida species causing disseminated infection, after C. albicans. C. glabrata is intrinsically less susceptible to the widely used azole antifungal drugs and quickly develops secondary resistance. Resistance typically relies on drug efflux with transporters regulated by the transcription factor Pdr1. Gain-of-function (GOF) mutations in PDR1 lead to a hyperactive state and thus efflux transporter upregulation. Our laboratory has characterized a collection of C. glabrata clinical isolates in which azole resistance was found to correlate with increased virulence in vivo. Contributing phenotypes were the evasion of adhesion and phagocytosis by macrophages and an increased adhesion to epithelial cells. These phenotypes were found to be dependent on PDR1 GOF mutation and/or C. glabrata strain background. In the search for the molecular effectors, we found that PDR1 hyperactivity leads to overexpression of specific cell wall adhesins of C. glabrata. Further study revealed that EPA1 regulation, in particular, explained the increase in adherence to epithelial cells. Deleting EPA1 eliminates the increase in adherence in an in vitro model of interaction with epithelial cells. In a murine model of urinary tract infection, PDR1 hyperactivity conferred increased ability to colonize the bladder and kidneys in an EPA1-dependent way. In conclusion, this study establishes a relationship between PDR1 and the regulation of cell wall adhesins, an important virulence attribute of C. glabrata. Furthermore, our data show that PDR1 hyperactivity mediates increased adherence to host epithelial tissues both in vitro and in vivo through upregulation of the adhesin gene EPA1. IMPORTANCE Candida glabrata is an important fungal pathogen in human diseases and is also rapidly acquiring drug resistance. Drug resistance can be mediated by the transcriptional activator PDR1, and this results in the upregulation of multidrug transporters. Intriguingly, this resistance mechanism is associated in C. glabrata with increased virulence in animal models and also with increased adherence to specific host cell types. The C. glabrata adhesin gene EPA1 is a major contributor of virulence and adherence to host cells. Here, we show that EPA1 expression is controlled by PDR1 independently of subtelomeric silencing, a known EPA1 regulation mechanism. Thus, a relationship exists between PDR1, EPA1 expression, and adherence to host cells, which is critical for efficient virulence. Our results demonstrate that acquisition of drug resistance is beneficial for C. glabrata in fungus-host relationships. These findings further highlight the challenges of the therapeutic management of C. glabrata infections in human patients

Early diagnosis of candidemia in intensive care unit patients with sepsis: a prospective comparison of (1→3)-β-D-glucan assay, Candida score, and colonization index

The culture-independent serum (1\u21923)-\u3b2-D-glucan (BG) detection test may allow early diagnosis of invasive fungal disease, but its clinical usefulness needs to be firmly established. A prospective single-center observational study was conducted to compare the diagnostic value of BG assay, Candida score (CS), and colonization index in intensive care unit (ICU) patients at risk for Candida sepsis

Conjugation of different immunogenic enterococcal vaccine target antigens leads to extended strain coverage

[Abstract] Enterococci have emerged as important nosocomial pathogens due to their resistance to the most commonly used antibiotics. Alternative treatments or prevention options are aimed at polysaccharides and surface-related proteins that play important roles in pathogenesis. Previously, we have shown that 2 Enterococcus faecium proteins, the secreted antigen A and the peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase, as well as the Enterococcus faecalis polysaccharide diheteroglycan, are able to induce opsonic and cross-protective antibodies. Here, we evaluate the use of glycoconjugates consisting of these proteins and an enterococcal polysaccharide to develop a vaccine with broader strain coverage. Diheteroglycan was conjugated to these 2 enterococcal proteins. Rabbit sera raised against these glycoconjugates showed Immunoglobulin G titers against the corresponding conjugate, as well as against the respective protein and carbohydrate antigens. Effective opsonophagocytic killing for the 2 sera was observed against different E. faecalis and E. faecium strains. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays against whole bacterial cells showed immune recognition of 22 enterococcal strains by the sera. Moreover, the sera conferred protection against E. faecalis and E. faecium strains in a mouse infection model. Our results suggest that these glycoconjugates are promising candidates for vaccine formulations with a broader coverage against these nosocomial pathogens and that the evaluated proteins are potential carrier proteins