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The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of virtual reality environments (VRE) for maintenance activities by augmenting a virtual facility representation and integrating relevant information regarding the status of systems and the space itself, while providing simple ways to control them.

The research focuses in the implementation of a VRE prototype of a building management system using game engine technologies. To evaluate the prototype, a usability study has been conducted that contrasts the virtual reality interface with a corresponding legacy application showing the users perception in terms of productivity improvement of facilities management (FM) tasks.

The usability tests conducted indicated that VREs have the potential to increase the productivity in maintenance tasks. Users without training demonstrated a high degree of engagement and performance operating a VRE interface, when compared with that of a legacy application. The potential drop in user time and increase in engagement with a VRE will eventually translate into lower cost and to an increase in quality.

To date no commonly accepted data model has been proposed to serve as the integrated data model to support facility operation. Although BIM models have gained increased acceptance in architecture engineering and construction activities they are not fully adequate to support data exchange in the post-handover (operation) phase. The presented research developed and tested a prototype able to handle and integrate data in a flexible and dynamic way, which is essential in management activities underlying FM.

Since the dawn of the civilizations that olive has been playing a critical role on both the society and the economy. Indeed, one can argue that olive and olive oil were as critical as they shaped a form of culture, a seminal pillar that supported the Mediterranean civilizations and that has since then spread worldwide, influencing others. As waves and tides, the use of olive and olive oil has certainly met low points, to the extent that its use even became to be considered old fashioned more recently, when the traditional Mediterranean food and culture started to be jeopardized by very different modern ways of living. Nevertheless, despite defying challenging conditions, stubbornly as always, the Mediterranean diet not only continues to prevail, but keeps granting the admiration of diverse strands of the society and science, being notoriously evident the set of recent research that points to its health benefits, having olive oil as the cornerstone, a vegetable fat, considered to be highly healthy, as it enhances the control of important health indicators, such as the bad cholesterol, serving for nutritional and therapeutic uses, and preventing the occurrence of a number of diseases, including cardiovascular problems and some forms of cancer.

Taking into consideration this framework, the research presented in this book is focused on the examination of the main trends on olive and olive oil in the Iberian Peninsula, from production to retail and consumption, by analyzing several data sets covering recent decades. In terms of findings for more recent years, it was possible to conclude that despite the increasing recognition of the benefits of olive and olive oil by the society, and despite the increase in olive production, the consumption of olive oil has been decreasing internally, being replaced by increases in exports. This is most probably due to the economic conditions that have deteriorated due to the 2008’s financial crisis, which, together with an increase in olive oil prices, has prevented a considerable portion of the population to have financial conditions to access to the consumption of such an important component of the Mediterranean diet.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how companies approach the management of cyber and information risks in their supply chain, what initiatives they adopt to this aim, and to what extent along the supply chain. In fact, the increasing level of connectivity is transforming supply chains, and it creates new opportunities but also new risks in the cyber space. Hence, cyber supply chain risk management (CSCRM) is emerging as a new management construct. The ultimate aim is to help organizations in understanding and improving the CSCRM process and cyber resilience in their supply chains.

This research relied on a qualitative approach based on a comparative case study analysis involving five large multinational companies with headquarters, or branches, in the UK.

Results highlight the importance for CSCRM to shift the viewpoint from the traditional focus on companies’ internal information technology (IT) infrastructure, able to “firewall themselves” only, to the whole supply chain with a cross-functional approach; initiatives for CSCRM are mainly adopted to “respond” and “recover” without a well-rounded approach to supply chain resilience for a long-term capacity to adapt to changes according to an evolutionary approach. Initiatives are adopted at a firm/dyadic level, and a network perspective is missing.

This paper extends the current theory on cyber and information risks in supply chains, as a combination of supply chain risk management and resilience, and information risk management. It provides an analysis and classification of cyber and information risks, sources of risks and initiatives to managing them according to a supply chain perspective, along with an investigation of their adoption across the supply chain. It also studies how the concept of resilience has been deployed in the CSCRM process by companies. By laying the first empirical foundations of the subject, this study stimulates further research on the challenges and drivers of initiatives and coordination mechanisms for CSCRM at a supply chain network level.

Results invite companies to break the “silos” of their activities in CSCRM, embracing the whole supply chain network for better resilience. The adoption of IT security initiatives should be combined with organisational ones and extended beyond the dyad. Where applicable, initiatives should be bi-directional to involve supply chain partners, remove the typical isolation in the CSCRM process and leverage the value of information. Decisions on investments in CSCRM should involve also supply chain managers according to a holistic approach.

A supply chain perspective in the existing scientific contributions is missing in the management of cyber and information risk. This is one of the first empirical studies dealing with this interdisciplinary subject, focusing on risks that are now very high in the companies’ agenda, but still overlooked. It contributes to theory on information risk because it addresses cyber and information risks in massively connected supply chains through a holistic approach that includes technology, people and processes at an extended level that goes beyond the dyad.

The primary objective of this study is to consolidate the fragmented body of scholarly literature pertaining to developing entrepreneurial ecosystems, with the intent of determining prospective avenues of inquiry.

The analysis included a longitudinal distribution by category of journals with most recommendations, articles with most citations and the total number of recommendations. In addition, the authors presented a thorough explanation of the recommendations grouped by categories.

This study generated a framework that provides a comprehensive understanding of research on recommendations for the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The framework identified 74 recommendations in the fields of policy, support, culture, human capital, market and finance. The results indicated that the domain of recommendations for the entrepreneurial ecosystem is still in its infancy.

This study contributes to research on entrepreneurial ecosystems by focusing on recommendations for their development. The resulting framework can be used by policymakers to develop entrepreneurial ecosystems and by researchers in future studies.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of prebiotic, probiotic and synbiotic supplementation on liver histopathology and TLR-4, NFκB and TNF-α gene expression involved in the inflammatory cascade and pathogenesis of experimental nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Wistar male adult rats (n = 40) were submitted to hypercholesterolemic conditions (60 days). On Day 30 of hypercholesterolemic conditions, rats were subdivided in five groups: negative control (NC), positive control (PC), prebiotic (PRE), probiotic (PRO) and synbiotic (SYN). All rats were sacrificed on Day 60. Liver tissue was used to verify histopathological changes and gene expression. Gene expression of TLR-4, TNF-α and NFκB was evaluated in liver tissue using RT-qPCR.

Histopathological analysis: PC showed more changes than NC, and PRE and SYN showed fewer alterations than PC. Gene expression analysis: PRE showed higher TLR-4, and NFκB and TNF-α compared to PC. Also, PRE showed higher TLR-4 when compared to PRO and SYN. SYN group revealed higher TLR-4 and NFκB expressions compared to PC. PRO group also showed higher NFκB expression compared to PC.

NAFLD is a significant health concern, and it found that prebiotic, probiotic and synbiotic supplementation could have positive effects as a nonpharmacological approach to control this disease.

This study aims to construct two environmental disclosure indices (EDI), one obtained from the mandatory reporting (annual report) and the other from the voluntary reporting (sustainability report), to compare their evolution. In addition, the authors developed and evaluated a conceptual model that aims to analyse if the two EDI are affected by industry, environmental certification, lucratively and corporate governance attributes. The legitimacy, signalling and voluntary disclosure theories are used to support the theoretical relationship between the company’s characteristics, corporate governance and environmental disclosure.

Using the content analysis technique, the authors have developed two indices to assess the level of environmental disclosure in the companies’ mandatory and voluntary reporting. In addition, to analyse the determinants of EDI, the authors applied the technique of multiple linear regression using panel data.

Based on Portuguese listed companies (Euronext-Lisbon), the results, from 2015 to 2017, exhibited an increase of 14.6% and 25.8% for the EDI obtained from the annual reports and for EDI obtained from the sustainability reporting, respectively. In addition, the results revealed that the environmental certification, lucratively, number of members on board and number and proportion of women of the board directors tend to affect the annual reporting EDI. Regarding the sustainability reporting EDI, the results showed that the environmental certification, lucratively and proportion of independent members of the board of directors have an impact on it.

The study focuses on quantitative rather than qualitative disclosures and it brings some insights to the theoretical field.

The results obtained can assist corporate decision-making processes regarding the improvement of environmental disclosure, both on the mandatory annual report and on voluntary sustainability reports.

This study brings new perspectives to this topical issue in accounting. Originally, this study is applied to Portuguese listed companies and it shows different trends and determinants of environmental disclosure when included in the annual reporting or sustainability reporting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the political partisanship of government in charges of returns on the European stock markets. The authors found a large body of research investigating this issue for the case of US stock market but less evidence for the European stock markets.

The authors employ a panel data model with fixed-effects and an additional dynamic panel model using the bias-corrected LSDV estimator on a data set consisting of monthly and quarterly data. The data range from 2000 to 2010 and cover 20 European Union (EU) countries. The authors test several hypotheses, and run distinct regressions using political, financial, and economic variables. The authors also divide the data set into two sub-samples in order to reveal the distinctions between advanced and emerging economies in the EU.

The authors find that stock markets perform better under right-wing administrations. The result is consistent for the advanced EU economies, but the authors found no robust evidence in that sense for emerging countries. Additionally, the authors show that European stock market preferences for right/left-wing administrations is not necessarily related to the beliefs about the size of unemployment, inflation, deficit, and/or debt, which opens the field for further research in this area.

The study contributes to existing knowledge. It examines if Wall Street folklore, asserting for many decades that stock markets perform better under right-wing governments, also holds for European stock markets given the distinctions in the political and financial systems between USA and Europe. Moreover, the authors underline the introduction in the analysis of the Central and Eastern European countries.