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The relatively little amount of time that some college students spend reading their textbooks outside of the classroom presents a significant threat to their academic success. Using Prenksy's (2001) digital game-based learning (DGBL) principles and Astin's student involvement theory as frameworks, the purpose of this true experiment was to determine whether a significant difference in engagement, as indicated by mental effort and time on task, existed between college students who used a digital game-based textbook and students who used a traditional print-based textbook. A customizable digital game-based textbook designed using DGBL principles in a popular gaming genre embedded with textbook content identical to content in a traditional print-based textbook was used. Fifty-four undergraduate college students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The results showed a statistically significant, Hotelling's T[superscript 2] (2,52) = 25.11, p<0.001, D[superscript 2] = 1.86 difference in engagement between participants in the experimental and control groups and a large overall effect size. Post hoc analyses indicated the digital game-based textbook group, exerted significantly greater mental effort (t = 2.38, p<0.001, d = 0.65) and spent significantly more time on task (t = 4.61, p < 0.025, d = 1.25) than the traditional print-based textbook group.

During the past few years, the risk of energy poverty has become a reality for an increasing number of households in the European Union and worldwide. Institutions react to this problem basically by introducing new policy measures. However, their efforts collide with two significant issues: (1) the difficulty of objectively measuring energy poverty among countries and (2) the understanding of the cause-effect relationship among policy measures and their impact on energy poverty. In this study, we propose a composite measure of energy poverty alternative to the existing approaches in order to make more effective time comparisons across member states of European Union. Then, we verify whether the investments to support energy transition implemented so far has been able to affect energy poverty among European Union countries. Outcomes reveal that energy transition can be considered a means to alleviate energy poverty, supporting the efforts of policymakers who propose measures toward the energy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent work, Fu et al. (2021) proposed an anomaly detector (AD) for hyperspectral images called DeCNN-AD, which decomposes the image in a low rank representation of the background and the anomalies. DeCNN-AD is regularized by an implicit plug and play prior (PnP), providing state-of-the-art anomaly detection performance in hyperspectral images. In this article, we propose a different AD using the Regularization by Denoising (RED) framework. The regularizer that emerges in RED algorithms is advantageous in the sense that it can be minimized by many solvers, unlike PnP, which has to be rederived for each specific solver like the alternating direction method of multipliers or the proximal gradient method. The proposed detector was compared to DeCNN-AD in several experiments, and was shown to present a more stable behavior better convergence properties, to be less sensitive to the choice of parameters, while leading to very similar performance in terms of optimal AUC of receiver operating characteristic curves.

Whether instructional-communication feedback sent to struggling students and succeeding students following course exams would significantly increase their exam scores and significantly decrease their exam-skipping behavior relative to students in the control group was investigated. An experimenter-blind study utilizing feedback and the personalization principle was conducted. Undergraduate students (N = 122) were randomly assigned to the control group and the experimental group--the instructional-communications group. After each exam, an instructional intervention using instructional-communication feedback was sent. Struggling students who received instructional-communication feedback had higher exam scores and skipped fewer exams than struggling students in the control group for all exams. For exam 2, there was a statistically significant exam score difference (one half-letter grade: 4.93%) between struggling students in the experimental and control groups. For exam 2, the proportion of students in the experimental group that engaged in exam-skipping behavior was significantly smaller than the control group, with a percentage difference of 9.46%--a 43.07% decrease relative to the control group. For struggling students, instructional communications with tailored content significantly increased student test performance. For all students, instructional communications significantly decreased student exam-skipping behavior. The results of this study provide evidence of the efficacy of using personalization-based tailored instructional communications.

Presents corrections to the article “Anomaly Detection in Hyperspectral Images via Regularization by Denoising”.

The Sustainable Development Goals are significantly increasing investments in the production of energy from renewable sources (RESs). To this end, the supply of monetary incentives by public institutions has increased sharply. This flow of money inevitably attracts the attention of criminal organizations (henceforth COs) that use their power to increase the volumes of investments, while public authorities might react by deciding not to make investments in RESs in areas at risk of distorted use of incentives. In this context, the research question is as follows: does the presence of COs slow down or encourage investment in RESs? Until now, this topic has received little attention from researchers, at least in the European Union. In particular, the presence of COs is particularly pervasive in the economic system of Italy. Given the heterogeneity of this country, a spatial econometric approach was used, taking into account geographical dependency relationships and their impact on the relevant variables. The main result of the research shows a negative relationship between Italian areas with higher CO levels and RES investments. In other words, investments are discouraged in these regions. This situation is detrimental to the target regions in terms of sustainable development and increasing the gross national product (GNP). Furthermore, we found that micro-crime cannot in any way influence investments in RESs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased managerial complexity that emerged in the last decades has also determined the need to quantitatively and qualitatively improve companies' disclosures, especially in relation to how financial or non‐financial performances are achieved. According to the majority of business administrators and accounting scholars, the reporting tool that currently fulfils the aforementioned purposes lies in implementing the so‐called integrated report (). In this view, this research aims at understanding if and how the Italian airport operators are approaching the drafting of an . The airport operators' sector is particularly significant because of the relevant social and environmental impact it exerts on the external context. For this reason, it is important to understand how they try to satisfy the stakeholders' requests. Thus, following the format already tested in other similar investigations, this study carries out an analysis of social or sustainability reports published by these companies to determine which of the key elements of the first internationally recognized are already included in such reports. The findings show that reporting scores range from 40 to 70%. As expected, the current reporting lacks the key connections required from the and shows a little looking‐forward orientation. Nevertheless, these reports already contain some typical elements of , such as materiality analysis and stakeholders' engagements, which could constitute the pillars to evolve these reports into a real . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For some years, energy companies (ECs) have been increasingly pressured to address a broader set of social and environmental responsibilities that respond adequately to citizens' expectations, local and international regulatory frameworks, and transnational initiatives such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thus, ECs have invested considerable resources to reduce the environmental and social impact in their activities. This study aims to verify the measures that ECs have actually adopted by analyzing their social and sustainability reports. These reports constitute an official tool, and they are also supported by specific mandatory regulations such as EU Directive 2014/95, in which companies provide a non-financial disclosure aimed at demonstrating how their pursuit of the conditions of economic and financial equilibrium is increasingly and closely linked with the ability to assure sustainable development. This study considers eight major ECs operating in the Italian market. It compares the findings with two important foreign ECs that draw up a very structured and innovative report: the integrated report. The outcomes confirm that these ECs are making significant progress in the environmental and social spheres, although the path to full sustainable development is still unreached. The policy implications emerging from this study can contribute to this direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate on innovations that contributes to the decoupling of economic growth and environmental degradation or fosters the transition from the brown to the green economy is becoming increasingly relevant in the academic and business worlds, fuelling a research stream that is proving very interesting for its economic, environmental and social implications. Although the debate on the adoption of environmental innovations is well underway, the discussion on eco‐innovation in the context of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) is at a less developed stage and deserves more attention, especially given the relevance of these companies in the economic system of several countries. Thus, this study proposes a systematic literature review of the determinants of eco‐innovation in SMEs and explores the relationships among them by starting from the criticalities highlighted in the five literature reviews of determinants of eco‐innovations in SMEs that have been recently published. The first step of the research concerns a detailed description of the selection process of the articles under consideration and of their characteristics. In the second step, 14 main categories of determinants are identified. Additionally, in the third step, as result of this investigation, three basilar research directions and 13 related research questions emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Biochar can enhance the phytoremediation of copper-contaminated soils by improving soil quality and increasing plant growth. However, the impact of biochar varies with the biomass feedstock and soil condition. Our study investigated the effect of biochar from orange bagasse-OBB and coconut husk-CHB and two copper concentrations (0.17 mg kg−1-CLS soil; 100 mg kg−1- CTS soil) on plant growth, copper uptake, and physiological response of Brassica juncea. The low- and high-Cu soils were also tested without biochar. We evaluated plant biomass, plant Cu, N and P, chlorophyll content, and chlorophyll's transient fluorescence. Plant growth was meager without biochar, indicating that the high Cu concentration was not the only limiting factor. Biochar (OBB and CHB) increased shoot mass by 300–574% and root mass by 50–2900%, and improved chlorophyll content and photosynthetic activity by 6–16%. Both biochars were efficient in the low-Cu soil as they increased plant biomass, shoot copper concentration, and translocation factor. In the high-Cu soil, both biochars increased plant biomass and copper uptake and reduced shoot copper concentration and translocation factor. The CHB and OBB removed 342% and 783% more Cu from the contaminated soil than the Control; therefore, the OBB was proven to be the best choice for phytoremediation. Novelty statement Our study showed that the orange bagasse biochar can be successfully applied for the phytoremediation of copper-contaminated soils using Brassica juncea. The orange bagasse biochar was effective regardless of the copper level in the soil, removing twice as much copper as the coconut biochar; therefore, it can speed up the process and reduce the time needed to clean up the site. Biochar significantly improved the plant's physiological response Biochar increased plant growth and copper uptake in the contaminated soil Translocation factor was increased in the clean soil and reduced in the contaminated soil Biochar from orange bagasse is more effective than coconut husk for phytoremediation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]