La ricerca esaminerà aziende statunitensi ed europee quotate e verificherà l'effettiva capacità dei revisori esterni di controllare la bontà e l'attendibilità delle valutazioni al fair value riferite all'avviamento.

PI: Giulio Greco

Dipartimento: Dipartimento di Economia e Management
Data inizio: 23/09/2015
Data fine: 23/09/2018
Durata: 36 mesi
Costo del progetto:100.436 €
Finanziamento ministeriale: 100.436 €

Abstract

This research project aims at investigating whether audit quality affects the reliability of the goodwill write-off, under the US GAAP and the IAS/IFRS accounting standards. In both sets of standards, the recognition of the goodwill write-offs is based on the management fair value estimates, derived from business plans and forecasts about the firm future ability to generate cash flows. Through the impairment of goodwill, both the FASB and the IASB standard setters expect that managers disclose to the outside their private information about the firm future profitability perspectives. Yet, the procedure is inherently subjective and, for this reason, the goodwill write-off has been often defined as a hardly verifiable estimate. A reliable impairment of the goodwill is crucial to avoid inflated assets value, to improve the investors’ and the lenders’ forecasting capability about the firm future performance and their resources allocation decisions.
External audit is critical to ensure that the write-offs are recognized in a timely manner and in adequate amounts. The managers manipulate write-offs, reporting untimely, excessive or insufficient write-offs, for earnings management reasons, to keep inflated asset values in the balance sheet and to avoid scrutiny on prior investment decisions by investors and lenders (e.g. M&A choices). This manipulation harms the resources allocation within the firm and at a market level, as unreliable asset values and managerial forecast compromise the investors' and the lenders' decision-making activity.

External audit is thus fundamental to warrant that the write-offs are based on sound, coherent and reasonable accounting.
This research investigates whether higher audit quality is associated to more reliable (less manipulated) write-offs. We explore several dimensions of audit quality (auditor size, tenure, expertise, audit fees and non-audit consulting fees) and, basing on agency theory, we develop a set of hypotheses linking audit quality proxies to the goodwill write-offs reliability. The investigation will be conducted on all the companies with data available on the Audit Analytics database, including firms adopting both US GAAP and IAS/IFRS (about 40.000 individual firms). The hypotheses will be tested through multivariate regression analysis.

To the best of our knowledge, there is no prior research linking external audit quality and the goodwill write-off. This project can contribute to the academic literature on financial accounting and on audit quality. This project can also have significant practical implications. If audit quality has no impact on the write-offs reliability, then the use of fair values based on inherently subjective, hardly verifiable and auditable estimates is likely to compromise the financial reporting’s role as a management control system. If there is any impact, our research may suggest which features of the external audit can improve the write-offs reliability (e.g. auditor size, independence, expertise)

Il progetto ha lo scopo di acquisire ulteriori dati sulla mineralogia e la geochimica delle mineralizzazioni tallifere al fine di poter meglio comprendere i meccanismi di rilascio e dispersione del tallio nell’ambiente.

PI: Cristian Biagioni

Dipartimento: Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra
Data inizio: 23/09/2015
Data fine: 23/09/2018
Durata: 36 mesi
Costo progetto: 555.060 €
Finanziamento ministeriale: 555.060€

Abstract

Thallium (Z = 81) is a rare but widely spread element, having an average concentration of about 0.5 g/ton in the Earth's continental crust. It shows both a calcophile and litophile behavior and owing to its tendency to substitute alkaline metals (K+, Rb+) in rock-forming silicates (i.e. mica, feldspar), it usually does not reach concentration of economical interest. Most thallium (Tl+ and Tl3+) compounds are soluble in water and are very toxic to living organisms, more than other heavy metals. Notwithstanding its high toxicity, there is an increasing demand for thallium in the high-technology and future-technology fields, as testified by the increase of its market value, from 1278 $/kg in 1995 to 6800 $/kg in 2012. Consequently, its fascinating chemistry, its high toxicity, and its increasing economical value make thallium and its compounds of particular interest and environmental concern.

The recent finding of high thallium concentration in the pyrite ore bodies from the southern Apuan Alps, Tuscany, Italy, represents an unicum in Italy and one of the few mineralogical localities world-wide characterized by the widespread occurrence of this element. Owing to the fact that thallium has received scarce attention so far from a geo-environmental point of view since its deposits are relatively rare, southern Apuan Alps represent an invaluable area for the multidisciplinary study of thallium (mineralogy, petrology, environmental geochemistry).

The project “Thallium: Mineralogy, Geochemistry, and Environmental Hazards (THALMIGEN)” aims at studying the thallium-rich ores from southern Apuan Alps taking into account the mineralogy and geochemistry of sulfide ores and their country rocks, and the environmental hazards related to the alteration of sulfides (particularly pyrite) and the release of heavy metals, with a particular attention on the thallium pathways.

The primary sulfides and sulfosalts will be identified and fully characterized, coupling X-ray diffraction and chemical analyses, giving new data to the crystal-chemistry of these compounds, actively studied owing to their potential technological applications. A particular attention will be addressed towards the accurate crystallographical and geochemical characterization of Tl-rich pyrite. Indeed, notwithstanding the thallium production is based on the pyrite processing, the speciation of this element in pyrite is not known, i.e. whether thallium enters the crystal structure of pyrite or whether this element is hosted in nanophase inclusions in iron disulfide. This topic will be investigated through electron-transmission microscopy and spectroscopic techniques investigating the local bonding environment of thallium. The speciation of thallium in pyrite is particularly important in controlling the release of this heavy metal in the environment during the pyrite oxidation.
Oxidative processes on the primary sulfides and sulfosalts and the precipitation of Fe3+ phases from acid mine waters give rise to interesting secondary mineral assemblages, controlling the release and dispersion of heavy metals in the environment. Consequently, these phases will be fully characterized by X-ray diffraction, chemical analyses, IR and micro-Raman spectroscopies.

An accurate knowledge of thallium speciation and distribution within solid phases is a key point in the understanding of the release, transport, and distribution of this toxic element in the environment.
Finally, in order to study the potential thallium impact on the environment during both natural processes and man-made disturbance, a pilot area facing the densely populated Versilia plain has been chosen; here, the distribution and dispersion of thallium, together with the other heavy metals, will be studied collecting extensive suites of rocks, ground and surface waters, soils, and edible crops.

Unipi Team Leader: Prof. Andrea Caiti, Dip. di Sistemi elettrici e automazione – Centro E. Piaggio

The WiMUST (Widely scalable Mobile Underwater Sonar Technology) project aims at expanding and improving the functionalities of current cooperative marine robotic systems, effectively enabling distributed acoustic array technologies for geophysical surveying with a view to exploration and geotechnical applications.

Recent developments have shown that there is vast potential for groups of marine robots acting in cooperation to drastically improve the methods available for ocean exploration and exploitation. Traditionally, seismic reflection surveying is performed by vessel towed streamers of hydrophones acquiring reflected acoustic signals generated by acoustic sources (either towed or on-board a vessel). In this context, geotechnical surveying for civil and commercial applications (e.g., underwater construction, infrastructure monitoring, mapping for natural hazard assessment, environmental mapping, etc.) aims at seafloor and sub-bottom characterization using towed streamers of fixed length that are extremely cumbersome to operate.

The vision underlying the WiMUST proposal is that of developing advanced cooperative and networked control / navigation systems to enable a large number (tens) of marine robots (both on the surface and submerged) to interact by sharing information as a coordinated team (not only in pairs). The WiMUST system may be envisioned as an adaptive variable geometry acoustic array. By allowing the group of surface and submerged vehicles to change their geometrical configuration, an end-user can seamlessly change the geometry of the ”virtual streamer” trailing the emitter, something that has not been achieved in practice and holds potential to drastically improve ocean surveying. The project brings together a group of research institutions, geophysical surveying companies and SMEs with a proven track record in autonomous adaptive and robust systems, communications, networked cooperative control and navigation, and marine robot design and fabrication.

Coordinator

Università degli Studi di Genova (Italy)

Participants

• ISME, THE INTERUNIVERSITY CENTER OF INTEGRATED SYSTEMS FOR THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT (Italy)Other participants
• ASSOCIAÇÃO DO INSTITUTO SUPERIOR TÉCNICO PARA A INVESTIGAÇÃO E DESENVOLVIMENTO (Portugal)
• CENTRO DE INVESTIGAÇÃO TECNOLÓGICA DO ALGARVE (Portugal)
• GEOSURVEYS - CONSULTORES EM GEOFÍSICA, LDA (Portugal)
• GEOSURVEYS - CONSULTORES EM GEOFÍSICA, LDA (Portugal)
• THE UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE (United Kingdom)
• EVOLOGICS GMBH (Germany)
• GRAAL TECH S.R.L. (Italy)
• CGGVERITAS SERVICES SA (France)
• GEO MARINE SURVEY SYSTEMS B.V. (The Netherlands)

Start date 01/02/2015
End date 31/01/2018
Duration 36 months
Project cost 3.970.081 €
Project funding 3.970.081 €
Unipi quota 125.875 €
Call title H2020-ICT-2014-1
Unipi role Third part

Unipi Team Leader: Prof. Maurizio Persico, Dip. di Chimica e Chimica Industriale

Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modelling (TCCM) is emerging as a powerful tool to help in the rational design of new products and materials for pharmaceutical, chemical, energy, computer, and new-materials industries. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to go beyond the traditional electronic structure studies, and merge complementary techniques that are normally not available at a single research group. The research programme of the TCCM-EJD aims at applying computational modelling to problems demanded by the industry and with high societal relevance, namely Materials with special properties, Biomolecules for new therapies and Energy storage.

 The objective of the ITN-EJD in Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Modelling (TCCM) is to prepare authentic research leaders, who should not only be able to develop and use multidisciplinary computational techniques (methods and software), but with solid communication skills, with many contacts established through the intensive relationship with the researchers of more than 12 European universities and also with external experts, with expertise in the use of different codes, with the capacity of carrying out a sound activity in a large number of interdisciplinary fields, but in a multi-scale domain, going from very small systems to very large ones, able to work in fundamental areas of Chemistry, Physics, Material Science, Nanoscience, and Biological Chemistry, with a good knowledge of the non-academic sector and therefore with capacity to address the demand of innovative pharmaceutical, computer and new-materials industries.

Coordinator
UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE MADRID (Spain)

Other participants

• KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN (Belgium)
• RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN (The Netherlands)
• UNIVERSITY OF PERUGIA (Italy)
• UNIVERSITE PAUL SABATIER TOULOUSE III (France)
• UNIVERSITE PIERRE ET MARIE CURIE – PARIS 6 (France)
• UNIVERSITAT WIEN (Austria)
• UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA (Spain)
• UNIVERSITAT DE VALENCIA (Spain)
• UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO / EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA (Spain)
• UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO (Portugal)

Start date 01/01/2015

End date 31/12/2019

Duration 48 months

Project cost 3.785.868 €

Project funding 3.785.868 €

Unipi quota 329.745 €

Call title MSCA-ITN-2014-EJD

Unipi role Partner

Project website: https://tccm.qui.uam.es/

Unipi Team Leader: Ing. Giuseppe Barillaro, Dip. di Ingegneria dell’informazione

Photonics will play a major, enabling role in the future of information and communications technology and healthcare. However, to fulfil its potential and deliver on its promises, photonics will heavily rely on novel and more performing materials, that can be manufactured cheaply for the specific requirements of photonic applications. To lead this “photonics revolution” and rip the societal benefits of being at the leading-edge of novel technological and scientific developments, the EU needs a highly-skilled scientific and technical workforce that can effectively implement the transition to a truly “knowledge-based society”.

SYNCHRONICS mission is to synergistically address both needs by training a pool of future science-leaders in the synthesis, characterisation and application to photonics of supramolecularly-engineered functional materials within state-of the-art photonic nanostructures fabricated thanks to the top-quality facilities and unique expertise available within the network. This kind of research requires an inter-multidisciplinary, intersectorial approach by specialized and skilled scientists from different disciplines, each one bringing a particular expertise: organic and supramolecular synthesis (UNI-OX,UNI-W, SURFLAY), theory (UNI-GE, IBM, UNI-GE), surface studies (UdS, UCL), photophysics (IIT, IBM, UCL, UNI-GE,UNI-CY, UNI-MO), device fabrication and characterisation (IBM, AMO, SURFLAY, UCL, IIT, UNI-PI, UNI-GE).

The SYNCHRONICS Network, through the trans-national and trans-disciplinary coordination and integration of these 12, highly specialised and internationally-leading teams, consolidates the European training efforts in the emerging area of both supramolecular nanoscience and nanophotonics. SYNCHRONICS will deliver 540 person-months of unparalleled multidisciplinary and intersectorial training that is carefully and intensively structured through local, network wide, and extra-network training in both scientific/technical topics, as well as complementary and managerial skills.

Coordinator

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON (United Kingdom)

Other participants

• UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD (United Kingdom)
• UNIVERSITÉ DE STRASBOURG (France)
• ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA (Italy)
• UNIVERSITY OF GENOVA (Italy)
• GESELLSCHAFT FÜR ANGEWANDTE MIKRO- UND OPTOELEKTRONIK MIT BESCHRÄNKTER HAFTUNG - AMO GMBH (Germany)
• SURFLAY NANOTEC GMBH (Germany)
• JULIUS-MAXIMILIANS UNIVERSITAET WÜRZBURG (Germany)
• UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS (Cyprus)
• IBM (Switzerland)
• UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL (Canada)

Start date 01/01/2015

End date 30/12/2019

Duration 48 months

Project cost 3.650.589 €

Project funding 3.650.589 €

Unipi quota 258.061 €

Call title MSCA-ITN-2014-ETN

Unipi role Partner

Project website: https://synchronics-etn.eu/

Unipi Team Leader: Prof. Gianluca Brunori, Dip. di Scienze agrarie, Alimentari e Agro-ambientali

SUFISA aims to identify practices and policies that support the sustainability of primary producers in a context of complex policy requirements, market imperfections and globalization.

Knowledge on market conditions and other driving forces exists, but in a fragmented way: relevant producer groups and regions have not yet been analyzed or framework conditions and driving forces have changed in the mean time. Moreover, little information is available on cross-linkages between various drivers and future opportunities and threats will need to be integrated for an encompassing analysis.

The work of the SUFISA project will be based on a close cooperation with stakeholders of the industry, policy makers and representatives of governmental and non-governmental organizations. The combination of theoretical approaches and multi-actor involvement will be the precondition for the identification of practices and policies aiming at addressing market failures hindering farmers and fishermen to function sustainably.

Coordinator
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN (Belgium)

Other participants

• UNIVERSITY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE (United Kingdom)
• AARHUS UNIVERSITY (Denmark)
• BALTIC STUDY CENTRE (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)
• EBERSWALDE UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES (Germany)
• JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY (Poland)
• UNIVERSITY OF HASSELT (Belgium)
• INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (France)
• UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA (Italy)
• UNIVERSIDADE DE ÉVORA (Portugal)
• AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS (Greece)
• UNIVERZITET U BEOGRADU (Serbia)

Start date 01/05/2015
End date 30/04/2019
Duration 48 months
Project cost 4.863.662 €
Project funding 4.863.662 €
Unipi quota 383.000 €
Call title H2020-SFS-2014-2
Unipi role Partner

Project website: https://www.sufisa.eu/

Unipi Team Leader: Prof. Giuseppe Lettieri, Dip. di Ingegneria dell’informazione

The Scalable and Secure Infrastructures for Cloud Operations (SSICLOPS, pronounced “cyclops”) project focuses on techniques for the management of federated private cloud infrastructures, in particular cloud networking techniques within software-defined data centres and across wide-area networks. SSICLOPS is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon2020 programme.

SSICLOPS will empower enterprises to create and operate high-performance private cloud infrastructure that allows flexible scaling through federation with other private clouds without compromising on their service level and security requirements. SSICLOPS federation will support the efficient integration of clouds, no matter if they are geographically collocated or spread out, belong to the same or different administrative entities or jurisdictions: in all cases, SSICLOPS will deliver maximum performance for inter-cloud communication, enforce legal and security constraints, and minimize the overall resource consumption. In such a federation, individual enterprises will be able to dynamically scale in/out their private cloud services: because they dynamically offer own spare resources (when available) and take in resources from others when needed. This allows maximizing own infrastructure utilization while minimizing excess capacity needs for each federation member.

SSICLOPS-powered private clouds will offer fine-grained monitoring and tuning capabilities along with workload planning and optimization tools to maximize the performance across a broad spectrum of workloads and across a wide operational scale, as we will demonstrate using four highly diverse use cases. The SSICLOPS solution will be based upon state-of-the-art open source products used broadly in private cloud deployments today to provide enterprises with full control over their own deployment.

Coordinator
AALTO UNIVERSITY (Finland)

Other participants

• MARTEL GMBH (Switzerland)
• NETAPP B.V. (The Netherlands)
• NEC EUROPE LTD. (United Kingdom)
• UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE (United Kingdom)
• UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI (Finland)
• F-SECURE OYJ (Finland)
• RHEINISCH-WESTFÄLISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN (Germany)
• TELEKOM DEUTSCHLAND GMBH (Germany)
• HASSO-PLATTNER-INSTITUT FÜR SOFTWARESYSTEMTECHNIK GMBH (Germany)
• UNIVERSITY POLITEHNICA OF BUCHAREST (Romania)
• ORANGE POLSKA SPOLKA AKCYJNA (Poland)

Start date 01/02/2015
End date 31/01/2018
Duration 36 months
Project cost 6.937.123 €
Project funding 6.702.748 €
Unipi quota 146.175 €
Call title H2020-ICT-2014-1
Unipi role Partner

Project website https://ssiclops.eu/

Unipi Team Leader: Prof. Antonio Bicchi, Dip. di Ingegneria dell’informazione – Centro E. Piaggio

The main obstacle to a wide-spread adoption of advanced manipulation systems in industry is their complexity, fragility, lack of strength, and difficulty of use. Soft Manipulation (SOMA) opens a path of disruptive innovation for the development of simple, compliant, yet strong, robust, and easy-to-program manipulation systems.

SOMA explores a new avenue of robotic manipulation with the environment, as opposed to manipulation of or in the environment. In this approach, the physical constraints imposed by objects in the environment and the manipulandum itself are not regarded as obstacles, but rather as opportunities to guide functional hand pre-shaping, adaptive grasping, and affordance-guided manipulation of objects. The exploitation of these opportunities enables robust grasping and manipulation in dynamic, open, and highly variable environments. The key ingredient for the exploitation of the Environmental Constraints is softness of hands, i.e. their embodied ability to comply and adapt to features of the environment. The traditional paradigm for robotic manipulation is in complete disarray in front of this shift of focus: state-of-the-art grasp planners are targeted towards rigid hands and objects, and attempt to find algorithmic solutions to inherently complex, often ill-posed problems. Further complicating matters, the requirement of planning for soft, uncertain interactions between hand and environment is entirely beyond the state of the art. However, this is how humans most often use their hands, and how we plan to change robotic manipulation.

SOMA will design capable soft hands for the versatile and competent exploitation of the Environmental Constraints, and develop versatile, robust, cost-effective, and safe robotic grasping and manipulation capabilities. The developed Soft Manipulation technology will be applied to an open manipulation problem in the food and agriculture industry, that is the handling of irregularly shaped, flexible, and easily damageable goods, such as fruit and vegetables, and to a security problem in a field, such as that of entertainment, when human and robots have to physically interact.

Coordinator
TECHNISCHEN UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN (Germany)

Other participants

• ITALIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (Italy)
• GERMAN AEROSPACE RESEARCH CENTER (Germany)
• INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (Austria)
• OCADO GROUP PLC (United Kingdom)
• DISNEY RESEARCH ZURICH (Switzerland)

Start date 01/05/2015
End date 30/04/2019
Duration 48 months
Project cost 7.131.091 €
Project funding 6.321.278 €
Unipi quota 1.617.250 €
Call title H2020-ICT-2014-1
Unipi role Partner

Project website http://soma-project.eu/

Unipi Team Leader: Prof. Dino Pedreschi, Dip. di Informatica

One of the most pressing and fascinating challenges scientists face today, is understanding the complexity of our globally interconnected society. The big data arising from the digital breadcrumbs of human activities promise to let us scrutinize the ground truth of individual and collective behaviour at an unprecedented detail and scale. There is an urgent need to harness these opportunities for scientific advancement and for the social good. The main obstacle to this accomplishment, besides the scarcity of data scientists, is the lack of a large-scale open infrastructure, where big data and social mining research can be carried out.

To this end, SoBigData proposes to create the Social Mining & Big Data Ecosystem: a research infrastructure (RI) providing an integrated ecosystem for ethic-sensitive scientific discoveries and advanced applications of social data mining on the various dimensions of social life, as recorded by “big data”. Building on several established national infrastructures, SoBigData will open up new research avenues in multiple research fields, including mathematics, ICT, and human, social and economic sciences, by enabling easy comparison, re-use and integration of state-of-the-art big social data, methods, and services, into new research. It will not only strengthen the existing clusters of excellence in social data mining research, but also create a pan-European, inter-disciplinary community of social data scientists, fostered by extensive training, networking, and innovation activities. In addition, as an open research infrastucture, SoBigData will promote repeatable and open science.

Although SoBigData is primarily aimed at serving the needs of researchers, the openly available datasets and open source methods and services provided by the new research infrastructure will also impact industrial and other stakeholders (e.g. government bodies, non-profit organisations, funders, policy makers).

Coordinator
CNR, CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE (Italy)

Other participants

• SCUOLA NORMALE SUPERIORE (Italy)
• IMT INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES LUCCA (Italy)
• UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD (United Kingdom)
• KING'S COLLEGE LONDON (United Kingdom)
• FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FÖRDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V. (Germany)
• LEIBNIZ UNIVERSITÄT HANNOVER (Germany)
• UNIVERSITY OF TARTU (Estonia)
• AALTO-KORKEAKOULUSAATIO (Finland)
• SWISS FEDERAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ZURICH (Switzerland)
• DELFT UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (The Netherlands)

Start date 01/09/2015
End date 31/08/2019
Duration 48 months
Project cost 5.917.500 €
Project funding 5.000.000 €
Unipi quota 360.000 €
Call title H2020-INFRAIA-2014-2015
Unipi role Partner

Project website: http://www.sobigdata.eu/index