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Interactions between geochemical and ecological status of the groundwater ecosystem: what do the resident biological communities tell us?
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Fate of antibiotic resistance genes within the microbial communities of three waste water treatment plants
No full textAlthough Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) are designed to reduce the biological pollution of urban waters, they lack a specific action against antibiotic resistance bacteria (ARB) or antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Nowadays, it is well documented that WWTPs constitute a reservoir of antibiotic resistances and, in some cases, they can be a favorable environment for the selection of ARB. This represent a serious concern for the public health, because the effluents of the WWTPs can be reused for different applications. There is a need for knowledge about the ARGs removal efficiency by different disinfection processes and the potential regrowth of ARB during and after the different wastewater treatments. Moreover, only a few punctual studies determined the role of the antibiotic resistance selection systems in the stabilization of the ARGs within the microbial community of a WWTP. To shed light on these issue, we analyzed three WWTPs with different disinfection treatments (Verbania: chlorination, Cannobio: peracedic acid, and Novara: UV radiation). We performed different sampling strategies: i) integrated samples of three days and of 24h to evaluate the removal of ARGs in each plant and the potential regrowth (each sample was incubated for 96h at 12?C) of ARB and ii) point samples of water at the end of each treatment. The microbial community of each water sample has been counted by flow cytometry to determine the bacterial numbers and their aggregational state. DNA estracts from each sample were analyzed for the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) (blaTEM, blaCTXM, tetA, qnrS, ermB, sulII) the mobile element integron 1 and the heavy metal resistance genes (HMRGs) (czc, arsB) by qPCR. The prokaryotic cell abundances drastically reduced from the input to the output water, but no significant reduction was observed during the disinfection treatments regardless to the WWTP location. The regrowth experiments showed that the ARGs were significantly reduced in the input water and in the pre-disinfection water (comparing the data pre- and post-incubation) for all three WWTPs, while they were stable in the effluent for the Verbania WWTP, and they decreased in effluents from Cannobio and Novara ones. Altogether, these results demonstrate that WWTPs efficiently remove bacterial cells, however the different disinfection treatments do not impact the bacterial cell numbers and, moreover, in Verbania WWTP, during the disinfection, there is selection towards ARGs. This suggests specific selection pressures within the microbial community of a WWTP, which can co-select for ARGs leading to the not successful functioning of the disinfection treatment. This hypothesis was confirmed by the significant correlation between genes sulII, czc, arsB and int1. In conclusion, this study point out the need for knowledge on the mechanisms and the selective pressures that promote the stabilization of ARB within the microbial community of WWTPs
Integration Testing Procedures - Final Iteration
No full textD7.4 is the fourth and last deliverable of Learn PAd Work-Package 7. Its aims to define integration test procedures basing on the use cases "Grant Management" and "Sportello Unico Attivit? Produttive". The integration test procedures plan is described in terms of Objective, Prerequisite Tests, Involved Modules, Procedure, Inputs, Expected Outputs and Results, and Status. This plan is organized in a bottom up-like approach and aims to be defined for all the released software
Annual Progress and Financial Report - Final
No full textThis report summarizes the work carried out in the Learn PAd project during the current reporting period spanning over M25 to M33 (Feb 2016 - Oct 2016). The report includes the following parts: - Learn PAd publishable summary; - Learn PAd objectives, work progress and achievements at the work package (WP) level, for those WPs that were active during the reporting period; - Deliverables and Milestones tables; - Learn PAd project management report with explanation of the use of resources, and activity progress reporting. As for previous reports, we also include details of per-partner resource consumption, given as an appendix to the deliverable
Design of a Simulation Framework for Model-based Learning
No full textIn model-driven learning, simulation of Business Process is a key step for improving the learners\u27s skills and enhancing teaching performance. In this paper, we provide the architectural design and the main functionalities of a model-based learning simulation framework. The main objectives of the proposed framework are: i) enable user-friendly learning simulation with a strong support for collaboration and social interactions; ii) provide a process-driven learning environment that allows emulation of the learner behavior when no learners are available to be involved on the simulation; iii) include event-based monitoring aiming at providing feedbacks for the learner assessment
A long-term multi-proxy record of varved sediments suggests climate-induced mixing-regime shift in a large hard-water lake ~5000 years ago
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Specific detection of cyanobacteria blooms in lakes through remote sensing: the approach of the project BLASCO (Blending Laboratory And Satellite Techniques For Detecting Cyanobacteria)
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In memory of Ettore Grimaldi
Get PDFEttore Grimaldi (1934-2015) was one of the brightest and active ichthyologists in Italy. He was a man of great enthusiasm, boundless energy and great curiosity. He was a person with an open mind. He originally visited the Institute of Pallanza in June 1957 as a master student at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Milan. He was formally called back by the Director Vittorio Tonolli, as a research assistant in 1962..
Lexicality, frequency and stress assignment effects in bilingual children reading Italian as a second language
Get PDFIn Italian, developing readers exhibit lexicality and frequency effects, and are sensitive to the distributional properties of the language. But how do bilingual children with different ages of first L2 (Italian) exposure and L2 vocabulary sizes read L2 words and pseudowords? Two reading aloud experiments investigated lexicality, frequency and stress assignment effects in fourth- and fifth-grade bilinguals and monolinguals. Naming latencies and pronunciation accuracy were analyzed. In Experiment 1, effects of lexicality and frequency and between-group differences emerged. In Experiment 2, the word frequency effect was confirmed. Late bilinguals, characterized by a smaller L2 vocabulary size, were less accurate than early bilinguals and monolinguals in assigning non-dominant stress. As with monolinguals, lexical information seems to be employed when reading Italian as a second language. Furthermore, bilingual readers are sensitive to the distributional properties of the language. Stress assignment is affected by the L2 lexicon size of second-language learners
