The link between leverage and growth opportunities has been a topic issue in corporate finance for many years. The present paper aims to investigate the link between credit risk, leverage, and growth opportunities in a sample of Italian innovative small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs), given the lack of empirical literature on the subject. The results of the WLS model confirm the relationship between investments, leverage, and credit risk highlighted by the literature—in particular, a negative relationship emerges between credit risk and investments and between leverage and investments, while the analysis reveals a positive relationship between investments and liquidity. Furthermore, in consideration of the significant economic differences existing between the regional macro-areas into which Italy is divided, the firms were classified by geographical areas. The results show that the northeast area is the region characterised by the most reliable and significant results. The paper is organised as follows: Introduction provides a review of the theoretical and empirical literature on the link between leverage, investments, and growth opportunities and on credit risk; Materials and Methods explain the model; Results explain the WLS regression; Discussions contain the main finding of the analysis; Conclusions summarize the study.
Leucocytospermia is usually associated with genito-urinary tract infections and its role on male infertility is currently under debate. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between leucocytospermia and seminal fluid alterations in men with fertility problems. We evaluated 40 consecutive spemiograms of leucocystospermic men, and another 40 from individuals without leucocytospermia, with regard to age, number, motility and sperm morphology, and presence of genito-urinary tract infections. There was a significant difference in terms of motility (23.27% in non-leucocytospermic pts vs. 15.57% in leucocytospermic pts., p=0.0034). Furthermore, asthenozoospermia was more frequent in leucocytospermic pts (45% vs. 72.,%, p=0.0231), as also teratozoospermia (32.5% vs. 62.5%, p=0.0138). The probability to have at least one of the major seminal alterations was greater in leucocytospermic pts (75.3% vs. 52.5%, p=0.0048). The incidence of infections in leucocytospermic group was 13%. Our study underlines the relationship between leucocytospermia, motility, and normal morphology reduction in human semen. These data might suggest the presence of a damage due to the ROS produced by seminal leucocytes on spermatozoa. Our analysis wants to emphasize the need to treat this condition, with special regard to the frequent use of PMA procedures.
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