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A macroecological approach to assess alien species invasion drivers in Italian freshwaters
Get PDFLifeWatch, the European Virtual Biodiversity Research Infrastructure, is a reference point for researchers, policy makers, public authorities and enterprises operating in the field of protection, management and the sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems. LifeWatch Italy has proposed a European-level case study designed to assess the vulnerability of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems to the arrival of non-indigenous species (NIS), in order to demonstrate the functionality of the e-infrastructure and its potential. Here we present the results of analyses conducted, on a national scale, on NIS presence in lentic and lotic environments, aimed at verifying the link between vulnerability to NIS and human activities. To understand the mechanisms that cause the NIS success and to find adequate means of prevention, the LifeWatch community proposes a macro-ecological approach. It analyzes the drivers of NIS occurrence and the role played by climate change in facilitating their spread, so as to provide solutions that will lead to their reduction by applying effective measures for biodiversity conservation. The data used refer to a 30-year time span and include several taxonomic groups. All analyses were performed using dedicated R packages, which are one of the services provided by LifeWatch on the web
Comparabilty of analytical data as a basis of possible evaluation of European deposition, soil and foliage data
Get PDFOver 100 different labs are analysing water, soil and foliage samples within the monitoring program of ICP Forests. To guarantee the comparability of the analytical results between different laboratories in several countries and over time a quality assurance (QA) program is necessary with participation of all laboratories. The QA program in each laboratory should be based on three pillars: . the use of harmonized, well-defined and documented analytical methods . an internal quality control (QC) program . an external QC program coordinated by the monitoring program organizers One part of the external QC program are ring tests between all labs. The percentage of non tolerable results in ring tests can be seen as a degree of quality and comparability of results from participating labs. The change of percentage of non-tolerable results in water, soil and foliage ring tests within the last 15 years shows the development of the quality of the labs, but also the limitation due to different analytical methods. Another possibility to benchmark the comparability and quality of labs is to analyse the same standard material during the analytical routine in different labs over time. Within the German soil survey all participating labs had to analyse standard material for each parameter all 20 samples over more than 5 years. The results of these standard material measurements and of the parallel ring tests show a good comparability for most of the soil parameters but also some problematic parameters
Macro-ecological patterns of the endemic Afrosoricida and Rodentia of Madagascar
Get PDFWe examined the macro-ecological and species richness correlates of the endemic mammal fauna (Afrosoricida and Rodentia) of Madagascar. We divided the whole of Madagascar into 307, 50 x 50 km cells, and showed that there was a significantly uneven distribution of species across cells in both Afrosoricida and Rodentia, with a higher number of species per cell in the former taxon (peaks at around 19-21 species per cell in Afrosoricida versus 11-12 species in Rodentia). In each cell, the number of Afrosoricida species was positively correlated with the number of Rodentia species. Cell vegetation category affected species richness per cell in both Afrosoricida and Rodentia (evergreen forest cells had higher species richness than cells of any other type of vegetation). There was a significant effect of altitude category on species richness per cell in both Afrosoricida and Rodentia, with a confirmed Mid Domain Effect in both groups. Heterogeneity of habitat also influenced significantly and positively the species richness per cell in either Afrosoricida or Rodentia. About 15% of Afrosoricida and 28% of Rodentia are threatened according to IUCN. The distribution of threatened species of the two groups per cell showed (i) a low density of threatened species (just one species per cell in most cases) and (ii) distinct patterns for the two studied groups. Afrosoricida had two main regions where threatened species are concentrated (the evergreen forest belt in Eastern Madagascar and the deciduous broad-leaf forest in Central-Western Madagascar). Threatened Rodentia occur only in the portion of cells covered by evergreen forest, thus overlapping with part of the region where also threatened Afrosoricida occur
An innovative device to convert olive mill wastewater into a suitable effluent for feeding purple non-sulfur photosynthetic bacteria
Get PDFA device (prototype) with a working volume of 200 L was used to deplete olive mill wastewater (OMW) of polyphenols. The OMW transformed into feedstock by means of the device was then used for feeding a lab-scale photobioreactor, just for testing the production of bioH2. The main novelty of this prototype consists in the combination of several adsorbent matrices and exploitation of their synergic action. In this investigation, three matrices have been used: Active carbon, Azolla and Zeolite. The device was operated at an olive-oil company located in the heart of the Chianti zone (Province of Florence, Italy). The efficiency of polyphenol removal obtained using the device was ? 96%. The multi-matrix effluent (MMeff) generated was then used to obtain three different culture broths containing 25%, 50% and 100% of MMeff, respectively. The diluted (with water) culture broths were suitable for hydrogen generation, with the highest hydrogen production rate (12.7 mL H2/Lculture/h) being obtained using 50% MMeff. The hydrogen yields were: 334 mL H2/L of MMeff, when feeding the photofermenter with pure effluent (100%); 1308 mL H2/L of MMeff, with the half-diluted effluent (50%, v/v) and 432 mL H2/L of MMeff, with the highest-diluted effluent (25%, v/v)
"Il lavoro come fattore di salute: un\u27esperienza di valutazione basata sugli stakeholders in un progetto di inserimento lavorativo in Liguria"
No full textThis contribution presents the results of a multi stakeholders evaluation of a programme aiming to provide work opportunity to one hundred disadvantaged people in Liguria.Il presente contributo intende illustrare i principali risultati di una ricerca valutativa di un progetto di inserimento lavorativo, che ha coinvolto cento soggetti svantaggiati (beneficiari) e alcune imprese sul territorio della Val Bormida in Liguria. La base teorica della ricerca ? la teoria del valore (Miceli & Castelfranchi, 1989) e la metodologia usata ? quella della valutazione basata sugli stakeholders. Il disegno di ricerca ha previsto una misura iniziale (baseline) a Giugno 2012 e prevede una seconda misura alla fine del progetto di inserimento lavorativo a Febbraio 2015. Rispetto ai soggetti beneficiari nella baseline sono state investigate: a) le caratteristiche socio-demografiche; b) le concezioni relative al lavoro e al progetto, mediante la tecnica delle associazioni libere; c) il benessere psicologico, attraverso la versione breve della scala di Ryff. Oltre a ripetere le misure della baseline, nella prossima rilevazione sar? investigata la dimensione del capitale sociale. Inoltre, la valutazione di esito comprender? una analisi della esperienza del progetto da parte dei diversi gruppi di beneficiari. Nello specifico saranno condotti una serie di focus group omogenei rispetto al tipo di svantaggio, con particolare attenzione alle persone con esperienze di disagio psichico, alle persone diversamente abili, ai tossicodipendenti, ai disoccupati oltre i 45 anni, alle donne e ai migranti. Tra i primi risultati i pi? interessanti riguardano le diverse concezioni relative al Progetto e al Lavoro dei beneficiari. Infatti, l\u27universo semantico del primo appare caratterizzato da concetti astratti e aspettative (speranza, aiuto, lavoro, opportunit?), mentre l\u27universo semantico del concetto di Lavoro si differenzia per il riferimento a concetti pi? concreti (impegno, figli, guadagno, soldi) e ai bisogni (sicurezza, autonomia, soddisfazioni, futuro). I due universi condividono il concetto "stipendio"
Neuroimmagini e neurobiologia dei disturbi alimentari
No full textNoneNel presente capitolo, passeremo in rassegna alcuni recenti studi di neuroimmagine che hanno indagato le basi neuroanatomiche e neurofunzionali dei due disturbi alimentari pi? diffusi, l\u27anoressia nervosa (AN) e la bulimia nervosa (BN). Nel corso delle ultime due decadi, infatti, studi di neuroimmagini funzionali (tomografia a emissione di fotone singolo, SPECT e ad emissione di positroni, PET; risonanza magnetica funzionale fMRI) e strutturali (risonanza magnetica, RM) hanno fornito evidenze di rilievo sulle basi patofisiologiche dei disturbi alimentari, contribuendo allo sviluppo di approcci diagnostici e - pi? recentemente - terapeutici che, pur includendo l\u27imprescindibile componente psicologica e relazionale, hanno progressivamente iniziato a prenderne in considerazione con altrettanta attenzione anche gli aspetti neurobiologici
Organizational well-being in a Public Research Agency: the point of view of administrative staff and researchers
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to investigate organizational well- being in a Public Research Agency, exploring the point of view of two different categories of workers, administrative staff and researchers, employed in the same organization. We hypothesized that, in a complex organization, the kind of work performed, along with other factors, could influence the representation of organizational well-being. The study involved 37 administrative staff and 24 researchers of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), the largest Public Research Agency in Italy. According to different key areas of organizational well-being in CNR, seven focus groups were carried out and collected data was analyzed using the qualitative data analysis software NVivo9. Results of this study seem to confirm the authors\u27 hypothesis. In effect, even though the framework of organizational well-being is the same for the two categories of employees considered, there are differences in meaning and in importance given by stakeholders to each dimension of the construct. As a whole, the specificity of the points of view might be explained by considering not only the different working conditions and the different kind of work performed, but also the different cultural values of the Research Institutes and of the Central Administration. These aspects should be taken into account in the predisposition of tools for evaluation of organizational well-being, above all in complex organizations, in order to have at the organization\u27s disposal research tools able to be representative of the entire population. A set of recommendations for improving organizational well-being in complex organizations are provided
False belief understanding and "cool" inhibitory control in 3-and 4-year-old Italian children.
Get PDFDuring preschool years, major developments occur in both executive function and theory of mind (ToM), and several studies have demonstrated a correlation between these processes. Research on the development of inhibitory control (IC) has distinguished between more cognitive, "cool" aspects of self-control, measured by con?ict tasks, that require inhibiting an habitual response to generate an arbitrary one, and "hot," affective aspects, such as affective decision making, measured by delay tasks, that require inhibition of a prepotent response. The aim of this study was to investigate the relations between 3- and 4-year-olds\u27 performance on a task measuring false belief understanding, the most widely used index of ToM in preschoolers, and three tasks measuring cognitive versus affective aspects of IC. To this end, we tested 101 Italian preschool children in four tasks: (a) the Unexpected Content False Belief task, (b) the Con?ict task (a simpli?ed version of the Day-Night Stroop task), (c) the Delay task, and (d) the Delay Choice task. Children\u27s receptive vocabulary was assessed by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test. Children\u27s performance in the False Belief task was signi?cantly related only to performance in the Con?ict task, controlling for vocabulary and age. Importantly, children\u27s performance in the Con?ict task did not signi?cantly correlate with their performance in the Delay task or in the Delay Choice task, suggesting that these tasks measure different components of IC. The dissociation between the Con?ict and the Delay tasks may indicate that monitoring and regulating a cool process (as ?exible categorization) may involve different abilities than monitoring and regulating a hot process (not touching an available and highly attractive stimulus or choosing between a smaller immediate option and a larger delayed one). Moreover, our ?ndings support the view that "cool" aspects of IC and ToM are interrelated, extending to an Italian sample of children previous ?ndings on an association between self-control and ToM
How orthographic transparency modulates morphological processing in young readers with and without reading deficits
No full textThis study investigates how orthographic modifications to the stems of complex words affect morphological processing in proficient young Spanish readers and children with reading deficits. In a definition task all children, irrespective of their reading skill, were worse at defining derived words that had an orthographic alteration of the base stem than words with no orthographic alteration. In a go/no-go lexical decision task, an interaction between base frequency and orthographic alteration was found: base frequency affected derived words with no orthographic alteration more than words with alterations, irrespective of reading skill. Overall, results show that all children benefit from a high frequency base, skilled children outperform children with reading deficits and morphological processing is affected by orthographic alterations similarly in proficient and impaired readers
Visual versus semi-quantitative analysis of 18F-FDG-PET in amnestic MCI. An European Alzheimer\u27s Disease Consortium (EADC) project
Get PDFWe aimed to investigate the accuracy of FDG-PET to detect the Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) brain glucose hypometabolic pattern in 142 patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and 109 healthy controls. aMCI patients were followed for at least two years or until conversion to dementia. Images were evaluated by means of visual read by either moderately-skilled or expert readers, and by means of a summary metric of AD-like hypometabolism (PALZ score). Seventy-seven patients converted to AD-dementia after 28.6?19.3 months of follow-up. Expert reading was the most accurate tool to detect these MCI converters from healthy controls (sensitivity 89.6%, specificity 89.0%, accuracy 89.2%) while two moderately-skilled readers were less (p < 0.05) specific (sensitivity 85.7%, specificity 79.8%, accuracy 82.3%) and PALZ scorewas less (p < 0.001) sensitive (sensitivity 62.3%, specificity 91.7%, accuracy 79.6%). Among the remaining 67 aMCI patients, 50 were confirmed as aMCI after an average of 42.3 months, 12 developed other dementia, and 3 reverted to normalcy. In 30/50 persistent MCI patients, the expert recognized the AD hypometabolic pattern. In 13/50 aMCI, both the expert and PALZ score were negative while in 7/50, only the PALZ score was positive due to sparse hypometabolic clusters mainly in frontal lobes. Visual FDG-PET reads by an expert is the most accurate method but an automated, validated system may be particularly helpful to moderately-skilled readers because of high specificity, and should be mandatory when even a moderately-skilled reader is unavailable