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This paper aims to focus on the banking crises recorded in Italy in the period 1861-2016 and to propose a novel classification based upon the timing of the crisis with respect to the business cycle.

A simple and objective rule to distinguish between slowdown and inner-banking crises is introduced. The real impact of banking crises is evaluated by integrating the narrative approach with an empirical vector autoregression analysis.

First, banking crises are not always associated to economic downturns. Especially in Italy, (but this analysis can be easily extended to other countries), they have often limited their negative effects within the financial system (“inner” crises). Second, the simultaneity of macroeconomic effects (credit contraction and GDP recession) leave the causal link undetermined. Third, the empirical and narrative analyses performed testify that boom–bust mechanisms are an exception in the panorama of (Italian) banking crises; although when the economy experiences such episodes, the economic and social consequences are not only severe but also enduring.

To classify historically recognized banking crisis episodes, the authors look at credit and GDP dynamics (and their ratio) around crisis years. Relying on a single definition of crisis is avoided. The classification provides an empirical rule to determine in what way banking crises differ. The classification is mostly based on the synchronization with the business cycle and, using the documented evolution of macroeconomic aggregates, it permits to highlight the fact that a variety of interactions occur between financial and real aggregates during and around banking crises.

As to the concept of systemic banking crisis, a qualitative judgment is often adopted to select relevant episodes, thus confirming the absence of a quantitative rule in classification criteria (Chaudron and de Haan, 2014). This paper proposes a simple and objective rule to distinguish between slowdown and inner-banking crises; the former occur close to a GDP contraction, whereas the latter appear to spread their effects with no substantial evidence of output loss.

Chemical warfare: ACS fires back at Dialog The American Chemical Society (ACS) has finally answered Dialog's $150 mil‐lion lawsuit against it with a countersuit and accusations that Dialog defrauded it of $10 million in royalties. ACS seeks an additional $30 million for punitive damages and asked the courts to insist on a formal audit of Dialog's payments.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of compliance with, and disclosure of, good corporate governance (CG) practices among UK publicly listed firms and consequently ascertain whether board characteristics and ownership structure variables can explain observable differences in the extent of voluntary CG compliance and disclosure practices.

This study uses one of the largest data sets to-date on compliance and disclosure of CG practices from 2008 to 2013 containing 120 CG provisions drawn from the 2010 UK Combined Code relating to 100 UK listed firms to conduct multiple regression analyses of the determinants of voluntary CG disclosures. A number of additional estimations, including two stage least squares, fixed-effects and lagged structures, are conducted to address the potential endogeneity issue and test the robustness of the findings.

The results suggest that there is a substantial variation in the levels of compliance with, and disclosure of, good CG practices among the sampled UK firms. The authors also find that firms with larger board size, more independent outside directors and greater director diversity tend to disclose more CG information voluntarily, whereas the level of voluntary CG compliance and disclosure is insignificantly related to the existence of a separate CG committee and institutional ownership. Additionally, the results indicate that block ownership and managerial ownership negatively affect voluntary CG compliance and disclosure practices. The findings are fairly robust across a number of econometric models that sufficiently address various endogeneity problems and alternative CG indices. Overall, the findings are generally consistent with the predictions of neo-institutional theory.

This study extends, as well as contributes to, the extant CG literature by offering new evidence on compliance with, and disclosure of, good CG recommendations contained in the 2010 UK Combined Code following the 2007/2008 global financial crisis. This study also advances the existing literature by offering new insights from a neo-institutional theoretical perspective of the impact of board and ownership mechanisms on voluntary CG compliance and disclosure practices.

Human performance, particularly that of the warfighter, has been the subject of a large amount of research during the past few decades. For example, in the Medline database of medical and psychological research, 1,061 papers had been published on the topic of “military performance” as of October 2003. Because warfighters are often pushed to physiological and mental extremes, a study of their performance provides a unique glimpse of the interplay of a wide variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on the functioning of the human brain and body. Unfortunately, it has proven very difficult to build performance models that can adequately incorporate the myriad of physiological, medical, social, and cognitive factors that influence behavior in extreme conditions. The chief purpose of this chapter is to provide a neurobiological (neurochemical) framework for building and integrating warfighter performance models in the physiological, medical, social, and cognitive areas. This framework should be relevant to all other professionals who routinely operate in extreme environments. The secondary purpose of this chapter is to recommend various performance metrics that can be linked to specific neurochemical states and can accordingly strengthen and extend the scope of the neurochemical model.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of a non-contact full-field optical measurement technique known as digital image correlation (DIC).

The approach of this review paper is to introduce the research pertaining to DIC. It comprehensively covers crucial facets including its principles, historical development, core challenges, current research status and practical applications. Additionally, it delves into unresolved issues and outlines future research objectives.

The findings of this review encompass essential aspects of DIC, including core issues like the subpixel registration algorithm, camera calibration, measurement of surface deformation in 3D complex structures and applications in ultra-high-temperature settings. Additionally, the review presents the prevailing strategies for addressing these challenges, the most recent advancements in DIC applications across quasi-static, dynamic, ultra-high-temperature, large-scale and micro-scale engineering domains, along with key directions for future research endeavors.

This review holds a substantial value as it furnishes a comprehensive and in-depth introduction to DIC, while also spotlighting its prospective applications.

The purpose of this paper is to review strategic talent management (STM) research with the aim of providing major insights into the under-explored themes, issues, theories and methods.

The method included a systematic review of studies from 2007 to 2019 in five reputable academic databases. In total, 51 studies met the inclusion criteria and were analysed.

STM can be leveraged to achieve several positive employee, organisational and macro-level outcomes. However, the realisation of these positive outcomes can be threatened by several challenges, which need to be addressed through the creation of conditions critical for the success of talent management strategies. Moreover, effective talent management strategy regime does not lie on the shoulders of just one individual but a collective responsibility of multiple stakeholders. The study also highlighted the digitalisation of STM, integration of ethical and responsible management principles into talent management strategies, and strategic management of unconventional of talent pools as key trends. Finally, several major weaknesses in the current STM scholarship from theoretical, content, context and methodological perspectives are discussed.

Although the studies included in the analysis may not include all studies published during the study period, it is assumed that they provide a good representation of such studies.

Since no systematic study was conducted specifically on STM, this study contributes to the talent management literature by identifying several research issues and gaps while defining future directions of the field. It can, therefore, enrich STM debates, practices and policy making.

The textile industry is one of the largest and most important industrial sectors in India. Because the textile industry consumes large quantities of water and produces highly polluted water discharge, its environmental impact is high. Water is expensive to use, treat and dispose of. Therefore, water conservation and reuse are critical necessity for the textile industry because decreasing water and wastewater treatment and recycling costs can be beneficial.

This research neutralized the pH during dyeing industry wastewater treatment. The system should be robust to erroneous sensor measurements. A pH meter was developed and used to monitor the pH of wastewater hourly before and after HCl treatment.

HCl was used to neutralize the pH of wastewater from 9 to 7.5. The amount of HCl was optimized depending on the wastewater. Three wastewater treatment methods were used, namely, HCl, wash water and reverse osmosis (RO) treatments. The HCl treatment was the most effective for decreasing the pH; the wash water treatment was the most effective for decreasing the total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS) total hardness and chemical oxygen demand; and the RO treatment was the most effective for decreasing the biochemical oxygen demand, TDS, TSS, total hardness and Cl⁻ concentration.

The pH should be monitored during the textile dyeing because the addition of color to textile fabrics is the most effective at neutral pH. This study evaluated several parameters of wastewater, including pH, color, TSS and TDS. The fabricated digital pH meter provided superior results than conventional measuring devices. The goal was to maintain a neutral pH during dyeing and recycle wastewater to improve environmental sustainability. The newly developed digital pH meter was less expensive and more precise than traditional pH meters. Before reusing and recycling, wastewater underwent ultrafiltration and RO treatment.