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This study aims to explore the effects of intellectual capital (IC) on the occurrence of a modified audit opinion decision. The authors expect that high IC intensive firms are positively associated with the occurrence of a modified audit opinion since they are associated with an increased business risk and are more likely to exhibit issues concerning their financial health and stability.

Using a data sample of 423 listed firms from Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal over a 10-year period, the authors estimated a logistic regression model to examine the effects of IC on the probability that a modified audit opinion is issued. The authors used organizational capital as a measure of a firm’s intensity on IC.

Empirical findings indicate a significant and positive relationship between the IC and the likelihood of a firm receiving a modified audit opinion decision.

This study expands prior literature by exploring the predictive ability of IC on the likelihood of a firm receiving a modified audit opinion decision.

This study aims to couple two codes, one able to perform icing simulations and another one capable to simulate the performance of an electrothermal anti-icing system in an integrated fashion.

The classical tool chain of icing simulation (aerodynamics, water catch and impact, mass and energy surface balance) is coupled to the thermal analysis through the surface substrate and the ice thickness. In the present approach, the ice protection simulation is not decoupled from the ice accretion simulation, but a single computational workflow is considered.

A fast approach to simulate advanced anti-icing systems is found in this study.

This study shows the validation of present procedure against literature data, both experimental and numerical.

This paper aims to present phenomenological extensions and technical improvements of a recent research path on a potential operational scheme aiming at promoting an effective disasters risk reduction of built urban areas, namely, the proposal of a Certification of the Predisposition of Resistance of Edifices to Disasters.

The authors illustrate new steps of a multidisciplinary research conducted by merging different fields of study, such as disaster risk analysis, sustainable land use and urban planning, environmental assessment methods, different buildings safety topics and certification and auditing management systems tools.

This work is based on research developed in Italy by carrying out new tests in the coastal regions of Liguria and Tuscany to validate improvements and to confirm in different territories the assessment process of most significant natural and man-made hazards already included in the certification scheme previously developed on the basis of the continental regions of Lombardy and Piedmont.

Investigations and results give firmer foundations and exploitability to a certification such as the one presented here.

The purpose of this paper is to present a custom-built tribometer that mimics the wear of additive manufactured fixtures used in inspection of sheet metal components.

Referring to the inspection of sheet metal parts, the fixture undergoes sliding wear during loading and unloading phases of the quality control operation. A new wear test is proposed to mimic the actual wearing conditions of the fixtures because the standards are deemed insufficient. In the tribometer, a cylindrical Alumide cantilever beam is made to slide back and forth inside a slightly bigger hole cut into a nickel-plated steel sheet. The sheet is spring loaded such that it applies a force on the specimen. The wear on the beam is measured after every 500 cycles of the beam motion.

Results of some first test trials are reported to evaluate the durability of Alumide fixtures fabricated by selective laser sintering. The results are also compared to those obtained for a machined fixture made of an Al-Cu alloy.

The proposed wear test estimates the life time of additive manufactured fixtures in terms of numbers of inspected components. The test can be extended to different materials to compare their durability.

Today, the fabrication of custom fixtures by means of additive manufacturing technologies is a reality in many manufacturing industries. The advantage of using those production technologies for custom fixtures is well assessed in literature in terms of manufacturing times and costs, whereas little attention was given to the life time and wear behaviour of fabricated fixtures. For its practical implication, the fixture durability is indeed very important for manufactures.

This work highlights the potential of blockchain from a public management (PM) angle. Given the limited presence of blockchain's broad-spectrum, empirical-applicative evidence in the public sector, as well as theoretical systematisations that can exemplify its potential within this scope, the authors have concentrated their efforts on structuring a referring model.

After identifying a gap and conducting a preliminary literature review related to public administration (PA), the authors propose a paradigm focused on a conceptual synthesis methodology, starting from a longitudinal analysis and a coding activity that are able to structure a clear framework of theoretical parallelism regarding blockchain's main functionalities, as well as future perspectives in the public sector.

The main results yielded a specific longitudinal literature review and constitute a referring model of blockchain's systematised functionalities through a conceptualised matrix. The outcome of the conceptualisation process frames and systematises a rapidly growing controversial phenomenon, furnishing a specific referring paradigm for the issue as it relates to policymakers.

The study's originality resides in the two views the authors created, both from the literature review and from the conceptual synthesis for public sector operative practice via an anthropocentric lens, conveyed by a three-year range of analysis.