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PurposeThe aim of this paper is to provide evidence of the relationship between the governance structure of universities and the universities' knowledge transfer (KT) performance outcomes measured in terms of university spin-off firms university spin-offs (USOs).Design/methodology/approachThe universities' board of directors has been analyzed under three profiles: the incidence of internal directors belonging to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) faculties, the incidence of women directors and the incidence of external directors.FindingsThe findings provide evidence of a significant and positive association, for southern Italian state universities, of the presence of university STEM directors and the establishment of university spin-offs (USOs).Originality/valueThe article is original as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study, except for the paper by Meoli et al. (2019), examined the governance of universities in relation to the establishment of academic spin-offs.

Background The efficiency of the fast-track (FT) process in the management of patients in Emergency Departments is well demonstrated, but there is a lack of research focused on older adults. The aim of our study was to verify whether the FT process is efficient and safe for older adults admitted to ED. Methods Observational case-control single-centre study. Results Five hundred four cases and 504 controls were analysed. The mean age was 75 years, and there was a predominance of women. In total 96% of subjects were classified with a “less-urgent” tag. The length of stay was significantly lower in the fast-track group than in the control group (median 178 min, interquartile range 184 min, and 115 min, interquartile range 69 min, respectively, p p Conclusions The fast-track appears to be an efficient and safe strategy to improve the management of older adults admitted to the ED with minor complaints.

Quantitative methods to assess the performance of firms and to predict the bankruptcy event based on balance sheet indicators are widely used in the credit risk context. Logistic regression and sur...

Interest and research activity in credit scoring techniques and their application has increased in the last decade following the implementation of Basel II agreements, concurrently with the severe economic crisis that has affected Europe and the world. Quantitative methods have been applied to risk analysis for over 50 years. Firms or customers are assigned to two different groups, bad or good, on the basis of the probability of failure/success predicted by the model. Methods of survival analysis from the fields of medicine and engineering were subsequently introduced in order to also study the time until the occurrence of the event of interest. After a brief review of quantitative methods applied in credit scoring, this paper focuses on analyzing different causes of failure, applied to a data set on 15184 Small Business Enterprises in Italy from 2008 to 2013. Firstly, competing risk methodology from survival analysis is applied. Secondly, we go on to take into account the occurrence of a second event in addition to the first; transition and survival probabilities are studied applying a multistate model.

Background Despite older adults use emergency department more appropriately than other age groups, there is a significant share of admissions that can be considered potentially preventable. Objective To identify socio-demographic characteristics and health care resources use of older adults admitted to emergency department for a potentially preventable visit. Design Data come from the Multipurpose Survey “Health conditions and use of health services”, edition 2012–2013. A stratified multi-stage probability design was used to select a sample using municipal lists of households. Subject 50474 community dwelling Italians were interviewed. In this analysis, 27003 subjects aged 65 years or older were considered. Methods Potentially preventable visits were defined as an emergency department visit that did not result in inpatient admission. Independent variables were classified based on the socio-behavioral model of Andersen-Newman. Descriptive statistics and a logistic regression model were developed. Results In the twelve months before the interview 3872 subjects (14.3%) had at least one potentially preventable visit. Factors associated with an increased risk of a potentially preventable visit were older age (75–84 years: OR 1.096, CI 1.001–1.199; 85+years: OR 1.022, CI 1.071–1.391), at least one hospital admission (OR 3.869, IC 3.547–4.221), to waive a visit (OR 1.188, CI 1.017–1.389) or an exam (OR 1.300, CI 1.077–1.570). Factors associated with a lower risk were female gender (OR 0.893, CI 0.819–0.975), area of residence (Center: OR 0.850; CI 0.766–0.943; Islands: OR 0.617, CI 0.539–0.706, South: OR 0.560; CI 0.505–0.622), private paid assistance (OR 0.761, CI 0.602–0.962); a better health-related quality of life (PCS score 46–54: OR 0.744, CI 0.659–0.841; PCS score >55: OR 0.746, CI 0.644–0.865). Conclusions Our study identified several characteristics associated with an increased risk of potentially preventable visits to the emergency department. This might allow the development of specific interventions to prevent the access of at risk subjects to the emergency department.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a high prevalence personality disorder. Pharmacotherapy is commonly used, however, a minority of studies investigated patterns of prescription for BPD, particularly in inpatients unit. We aimed to describe the clinical features and the prescribing practice for BPD patients, and to investigate the possible advantages of a single class of medications or of combined drug treatments in terms of length of stay in hospital.This is a retrospective observational study evaluating 109 BPD inpatients from June 2011 to June 2013.There was evidence of an extensive use of drugs: benzodiazepines/hypnotics (85.2%), antipsychotics (78.7%), mood stabilizers (70.4%) and antidepressants (31.5%). Polypharmacy was common (83.5%). A longer length of stay in hospital was associated with the prescription of antipsychotic and/or antidepressant medication, while a shorter hospitalization was associated with the use of a mood stabilizer.The rates of prescription of different classes of drugs reported in our sample and in similar 'naturalistic' studies highlight a heterogeneous pattern of prescriptions for BPD. Mood stabilizers showed a more favourable profile in terms in length of stay in hospital than antipsychotic and/or antidepressant. Our results reiterate the discrepancy between international recommendations and everyday clinical practice.

Quitting smoking has several health benefits, including an improvement in health-related quality of life. It is not well established if there is a relationship between the age when people stop smoking and health-related quality of life in older adults. The primary aim was to investigate the relationship between health-related quality of life and the age when people quit smoking in a national representative sample of community-dwelling older Italian adults. The secondary aim was to describe the characteristics of older former smokers according to their age when they stopped smoking. Data were drawn from the “Health and use of health care in Italy”, a national cross-sectional survey (2004–2005). Seven thousand five hundred and sixty-two former smokers, aged 65 years and older, were evaluated by age of smoking cessation. Socio-demographic characteristics, physical activity, the 12-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) score and its physical (PCS-12) and mental (MCS-12) component summary scores, disability and comorbidities were analyzed. Educational level, marital status and area of residence were associated with a different age of smoking cessation, as a higher level of disability and comorbidity. PCS-12 (β −0.144; p

Hematologic malignancies are diseases that mainly affect older subjects. Multiple myeloma,[1][1] myelodysplastic syndromes[2][2] and chronic myeloid leukemia[3][3] are common in advanced age. Nevertheless, there is evidence that older patients with hematologic malignancies have often been excluded

Paraneoplastic syndromes are frequently associated with various types of malignant tumors but are fairly rare in the course of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We describe the clinical case of a 76 year old man with chronic hepatitis C infection related to liver disease who had suffered for several months from chronic runny but blood and mucus-free diarrhea, together with progressive weight loss and flushing of the face. Serological tests made on admission confirmed the chronic liver disease and showed an increase of serum levels of some neuroendocrine hormones, i.e. 5-hydroxytryptamine and vasoattive intestinal peptide. Ultrasound and CT scans led to the diagnosis of HCC. The diarrhea and the increase in some neuroendocrine hormones were therefore interpreted as expression of a paraneoplastic-like neuroendocrine syndrome that had preceded the onset of HCC by some months. The patient died a few months after the diagnosis of HCC, from total portal vein thrombosis and consequent liver and renal failure. This clinical report draws the attention to the possibility of paraneoplastic syndrome expression before the clinical onset of HCC and to the role that neuroendocrine hormones may have on the growth and spread of HCC.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies in the world. Despite improvements in diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, prognosis and survival are still poor. To identify factors influencing survival, we retrospectively examined 150 consecutive patients with HCC from the time of first diagnosis of cirrhosis to death. In a multivariate analysis, we found that patients with larger HCC lesions had shorter survival, while other pathologic features had no predictive value. The most important and reliable prognostic factor was the occurrence of tumor thrombus of the portal vein (P

The authors have studied auditory brainstem responses (ABR) in 49 preterm (Group A) and in 54 fullterm (Group B) newborns, classified according to the birthweight related to conceptional age, in order to verify the influences of this latter parameter upon ABR. In Group A newborns, 4 recording sessions were performed, while only 3 in Group B, to evaluate data obtained at the same extra-uterine age. The obtained data show that birthweight related to conceptional age seems to play a major role on the development of ABR, since no significant differences were detected between preterm and fullterm newborns, provided the birthweight was appropriate for conceptional age (ACA). On the contrary, small for conceptional age (SCA) newborns showed an abnormal ABR pattern at birth, which tended to normalize at the following recording sessions. The authors conclude that birthweight related to conceptional age represents an important factor in the development of auditory brainstem responses and that the audiological diagnosis has to be very cautious in SCA newborns, regardless if they are pre- or fullterm.

The effects of sex on I-III, III-V and I-V interwave intervals and I, III, V ABR waves latency values have been studied in 171 normal children born at term, 94 males and 77 females, aged between 2 and 720 days. The obtained data confirm that latency values decrease progressively with age, and show that there is a statistically significant difference in wave III and V latency values and in III-V and I-V intervals between males and females. Moreover, these differences seem to increase with age. The authors also discuss the possible underlying mechanisms and claim that even in infancy, sex-related variability should be taken into account.

The authors have studied auditory brainstem responses (ABR) in 33 full-term newborns at 0-9, 10-30, 31-58 h, in order to evaluate changes in the first hours after birth, particularly in relation to different repetition rates and recording procedures. The data obtained show that the characteristic newborn 3-peak tracing is observed in almost all the cases at the third recording session while, at the first, wave I is absent in two-thirds of the cases. The most reliable waves at birth are waves III, V and N II, which is often present even when other vertex-positive peaks are absent. Latency values of the considered peaks tend to decrease in a statistically significant way and this decrease is almost complete at the second recording session (30 h), while V-I interval values decrease, especially when the 9 stimuli/s repetition is employed. Stimulus repetition rate affects ABR replicability and synchronization, but it hardly influences latency values. Contralaterally recorded potentials are often absent at birth and become evident 58 h later. The authors conclude that the maturational processes probably affect both peripheral and central auditory structures in the first hours after birth. In this period, increasing repetition rates seem to have a greater effect on wave replicability than on latency values.