The Resilience and Adaptative Strategies of Italian Cooperatives during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Third sector organizations, like the rest of the economic system, have been heavily affected by the pandemic. The aim of this work is to study resilience and adaptability to crisis in terms of economic results and innovative outcomes of the cooperative business model in the Italian third sector during the COVID pandemic. It uses new evidence from a recent survey on the Italian third sector and consists of two main parts. In the first, the institutionalist literature on contractual failures is assumed as an interpretative key in the comparison between the business model, governance, and routines in social cooperatives versus other non-profit organizations (NPOs) interpreted as third sector entities. In the second, we use the new data from a third sector survey in the Marche region, collected in the late spring of 2021 at the end of the pandemic outbreak. Empirical assumptions concern organizational resilience and adaptation to unexpected negative shocks in cooperatives and other NPOs. The results show that, in the management of the crisis, cooperatives are better able to preserve their human capital and resort to layoffs less often than other NPOs. Shared decision-making, employee involvement, and the adaptability of the work process emerge as dominant organizational characteristics that support resilience and service innovation in cooperatives. The main policy implication concerns the ability of cooperatives to play a stabilizing and a-cyclical role during the crisis and to fill the supply gaps left open by other organizational forms (private, non-profit and the public sector). The originality of the paper lies in its new approach to cooperative organization and in the analysis of the reaction of cooperatives to the pandemic.

A Strong Evidence Outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis in Central Italy Linked to the Consumption of Contaminated Raw Sheep Milk Cheese

Salmonellosis is the second most commonly reported gastrointestinal infection in humans after campylobacteriosis, and an important cause of foodborne outbreaks in the EU/EEA. The vast majority (72.4%) of the salmonellosis foodborne outbreaks reported in EU in 2019 were caused by Salmonella Enteritidis, even if their total number due to this serovar decreased. In spring 2020, a foodborne outbreak of S. Enteritidis occurred in the Marche region (Central Italy), involving 85 people. The common exposure source was a cheese, pecorino “primo sale”, produced with raw sheep milk. The cheese batches were produced by two local dairies, with a livestock production facility, also including a sheep farm, being part of one dairy. Bacteriological analysis of samples collected allowed the detection of S. Enteritidis in animal faeces, environmental samples, raw-milk bulk tanks and milk taken from single animals. These data confirm that, despite the scarce scientific evidence, S. Enteritidis can infect sheep and be shed into the animals’ milk. Hence, this is a real risk for public health when unpasteurized milk is used in production of such cheese. The present paper describes the results of the investigations conducted to clarify this outbreak.

DISTRIBUTION AND GENETIC ANALYSIS OF WILD-LIVING EURASIAN BEAVERS IN CENTRAL ITALY

The presence of the Eurasian beaver Castor fiber L. has been recently confirmed with two separated populations in Tuscany (Central Italy) and probably represents the result of an unofficial release. In late spring and summer 2021, seven reliable records of Eurasian beaver have been collected in Umbria and other neighbouring regions, implying that the distribution of this large rodent is even wider than previously reported. In this short work, we updated the distribution of this protected species in Central Italy, by collecting and mapping all the confirmed occurrences. Beavers were proved to be present throughout the Tiber (Tevere) river basin in both provinces of Umbria, and another individual has been road-killed in the Marche region, near the border with Tuscany. Other single signs of presence occurred in Emilia Romagna and Latium. The only hair sample we were able to collect confirmed it as the Eurasian beaver species. No reliable evidence is available on the number of free-ranging beavers in Central Italy, and systematic monitoring is needed. Before any management and conservation action, further data are required concerning distribution range, potential origin, social perception, and the effects on the ecosystems.

Scenarios of Bioenergy Recovery from Organic Fraction of Residual Municipal Waste in the Marche Region (Italy)

In the Marche Region (Central Italy), the residual municipal waste (RMW) is commonly processed in mechanical biological treatment (MBT) systems. In these systems, following a first mechanical selection, the undersize organic fraction from RMW (us-OFRMW) undergoes a partial aerobic biological treatment before being landfilled as a biostabilised fraction (bios-OFRMW) without dedicated energy or material recovery. Alternative us-OFRMW management scenarios have been elaborated for this region, at both present (reference year 2019) and future (reference year 2035) time bases. In the first scenario, the potential bioenergy recovery through anaerobic digestion (AD) from the us-OFRMW was evaluated. The second scenario aimed at evaluating the residual methane generation expected from the bios-OFRMW once landfilled, thus contributing also to the potential environmental impact connected with landfill gas (LFG) diffuse emissions from the regional landfills. The diversion to AD, at the present time, would allow a potential bioenergy recovery from the us-OFRMW equal to 4.35 MWel, while the alternative scenario involves greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions equal to 195 kg CO2 eq. per ton of deposited bios-OFRMW. In the future, the decreased amount of the us-OFRMW addressed to AD would still contribute with a potential bioenergy recovery of 3.47 MWel.

Controls of Radiogenic Heat and Moho Geometry on the Thermal Setting of the Marche Region (Central Italy): An Analytical 3D Geothermal Model

Using published cross-sections and a series of geological constraints, a 3D geological model of an important area of the Adriatic sector of peninsular Italy—i.e., the Marche region—was developed. Then, an analytical procedure, taking into account the heat rising from the mantle and the radiogenic heat produced by the crust, was applied on the pre-built structural model, in order to obtain the 3D geothermal setting of the entire region. The results highlighted the key role played by the Moho geometry, particularly as a step of ~10 km occurs between the Adriatic Moho of the subducting plate to the west and the new Tyrrhenian Moho characterizing the back-arc area to the west. The comparison between our results and available borehole data suggests a good fit between the applied analytical methodology and published datasets. A visible anomaly is located at a specific site (i.e., the coastal town of Senigallia), where it may be envisaged that fluid circulation produced a local surface heat flow increase; this makes the Senigallia area a promising feature for the possible exploitation of geothermal systems.

3D-Kernel Based Imaging of an Improved Estimation of (Qc) in the Northern Apulia (Southern Italy)

We investigate crustal seismic attenuation by the coda quality parameter (Qc) in the Gargano area (Southern Italy), using a recently released dataset composed of 191 small earthquakes (1.0 ≤ ML ≤ 2.8) recorded by the local OTRIONS and the Italian INGV seismic networks, over three years of seismic monitoring. Following the single back-scattering theoretical assumption, Qc was computed using different frequencies (in the range of 2–16 Hz) and different lapse times (from 10 to 40 s). The trend of Qc vs. frequency is the same as that observed in the adjacent Umbria-Marche region. Qc at 1 Hz varies between 11 and 63, indicating that the area is characterized by active tectonics, despite the absence of high-magnitude earthquakes in recent decades. The 3D mapping procedure, based on sensitivity kernels, revealed that the Gargano Promontory is characterized by very low and homogeneous Qc at low frequencies, and by high and heterogeneous Qc at high frequencies. The lateral variations of Qc at 12 Hz follow the trend of the Moho in this region and are in good agreement with other geophysical observations.