Responding to salinity in a rural African alluvial valley aquifer system : to boldly go beyond the world of hand-pumped groundwater supply?

Effective response to groundwater salinity in the developing world may critically safeguard drinking-water supplies. Groundwater resources throughout rural Africa are exploited by a vast and increasing number of hand-pumped boreholes for community supply. Our research in TA Ngabu (Shire Valley), Southern Malawi aims to: define groundwater-salinity problem occurrence within its semi-arid alluvial-valley aquifer setting and rural developing-world context; critique current capacity to respond; and, to discuss future response options - in particular considering the need to explore alternative options that boldly go beyond the world of hand-pumped groundwater supply. Salinity problem definition was achieved through survey of 419 hand-pumped boreholes that revealed widespread brackish groundwater causing non-potable (unpalatable) drinking-water supplies. Persistent non-functionality or abandonment of boreholes was typically ascribed to salinity. Whilst salinity is conceptualised to arise from shallow-groundwater evaporation, formation-evaporite dissolution and faulted-area upwelling, sparse data locally renders attribution of salinity sources to individual boreholes difficult. There is a significant need to better resolve the vertical distribution of salinity. Problem response capacity was hampered by multiple factors, including, sector inertia, low drilling costs compromising water-point integrity, and lack of technical vision for alternatives. Various recommendations are made to improve response capacity continuing to work at the hand-pump supply scale. However, in areas where salinity is significant, exploring the feasibility of other options is advocated in conjunction with technical capacity development. Groundwater options may utilise high borehole yields possible from alluvial aquifers, grossly under-exploited by hand pumps. Groundwater at depth, albeit of unknown quality typically, or pipeline transfers of probable good-quality groundwater from valley-margin units, should be considered. Surface-water pipeline supplies may be viable for (growing) population centres. Canal-fed irrigation schemes (pending for the area), should be multiple-use, protective of groundwater and embrace pipeline drinking-water supply and managed-aquifer-recharge opportunities. Advancing desalination technologies, although presently unaffordable, should be kept under review

With food to health : proceedings of the 10th International scientific and professional conference

Proceedings contains 13 original scientific papers, 10 professional papers and 2 review papers which were presented at "10th International Scientific and Professional Conference WITH FOOD TO HEALTH", organised in following sections: Nutrition, Dietetics and diet therapy, Functional food and food supplemnents, Food safety, Food analysis, Production of safe food and food with added nutritional value

Soil respiration dynamics in forage-based and cereal-based cropping systems in central Italy

ABSTRACT: Studies that have investigated soil carbon dynamics under Mediterranean conditions are scarce and fragmented and contrasting results have often been reported. This study aimed to fill some gaps in our knowledge by: (i) determining annual dynamics of total (RS) and heterotrophic (RH) soil respiration; (ii) estimating annual cumulative RS and RH; and (iii) investigating the relationships between RS and RH and soil temperature and water content. The study was carried out in central Italy, for a plain and a hilly site, with the focus on two main cropping systems: an alfalfa-based forage system and a wheat-based rotation system. RS and RH showed different dynamics, with spatial and temporal variability across these sites. Estimated annual cumulative RS fluxes were 8.97 and 7.43 t C ha–1 yr–1 for the plain and hilly alfalfa-based sites, respectively, and 4.67 and 5.22 t C ha–1 yr–1 for the plain and hilly wheat-based sites, respectively. The RH components of RS were 4.26 and 3.52 t C ha–1 yr–1 for the plain and hilly alfalfa-based sites, respectively, and 3.89 and 2.45 t C ha–1 yr–1 for the plain and hilly wheat-based sites, respectively. A model with a combination of soil temperature and soil water content explained 43 % to 49 % and 33 % to 67 % of the annual variation of RS and RH, respectively. These findings help to extend our knowledge of Mediterranean cropping systems, although further studies are needed to clarify the effects of management practices on the modelling of soil respiration efflux

Soil respiration dynamics in forage-based and cereal-based cropping systems in central Italy

Studies that have investigated soil carbon dynamics under Mediterranean conditions are scarce and fragmented and contrasting results have often been reported. This study aimed to fill some gaps in our knowledge by: (i) determining annual dynamics of total (RS) and heterotrophic (RH) soil respiration; (ii) estimating annual cumulative RS and RH; and (iii) investigating the relationships between RS and RH and soil temperature and water content. The study was carried out in central Italy, for a plain and a hilly site, with the focus on two main cropping systems: an alfalfa-based forage system and a wheat-based rotation system. RS and RH showed different dynamics, with spatial and temporal variability across these sites. Estimated annual cumulative RS fluxes were 8.97 and 7.43 t C ha–1 yr–1 for the plain and hilly alfalfa-based sites, respectively, and 4.67 and 5.22 t C ha–1 yr–1 for the plain and hilly wheat-based sites, respectively. The RH components of RS were 4.26 and 3.52 t C ha–1 yr–1 for the plain and hilly alfalfa-based sites, respectively, and 3.89 and 2.45 t C ha–1 yr–1 for the plain and hilly wheat-based sites, respectively. A model with a combination of soil temperature and soil water content explained 43 % to 49 % and 33 % to 67 % of the annual variation of RS and RH, respectively. These findings help to extend our knowledge of Mediterranean cropping systems, although further studies are needed to clarify the effects of management practices on the modelling of soil respiration efflux

Small extracellular vesicles deliver miR-21 and miR-217 as pro-senescence effectors to endothelial cells

The role of epigenetics in endothelial cell senescence is a cutting-edge topic in ageing research. However, little is known of the relative contribution to pro-senescence signal propagation provided by microRNAs shuttled by extracellular vesicles (EVs) released from senescent cells. Analysis of microRNA and DNA methylation profiles in non-senescent (control) and senescent (SEN) human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), and microRNA profiling of their cognate small EVs (sEVs) and large EVs demonstrated that SEN cells released a significantly greater sEV number than control cells. sEVs were enriched in miR-21-5p and miR-217, which target DNMT1 and SIRT1. Treatment of control cells with SEN sEVs induced a miR-21/miR-217-related impairment of DNMT1-SIRT1 expression, the reduction of proliferation markers, the acquisition of a senescent phenotype and a partial demethylation of the locus encoding for miR-21. MicroRNA profiling of sEVs from plasma of healthy subjects aged 40-100 years showed an inverse U-shaped age-related trend for miR-21-5p, consistent with senescence-associated biomarker profiles. Our findings suggest that miR-21-5p/miR-217 carried by SEN sEVs spread pro-senescence signals, affecting DNA methylation and cell replication

ENUBET: A monitored neutrino beam for high precision cross section measurements

International audienceThe main source of systematic uncertainty on neutrino cross section measurements at the GeV scale is represented by the poor knowledge of the initial flux. The goal of cutting down this uncertainty to 1% can be achieved through the monitoring of charged leptons produced in association with neutrinos, by properly instrumenting the decay region of a conventional narrow-band neutrino beam. Large angle muons and positrons from kaons are measured by a sampling calorimeter on the decay tunnel walls (tagger), while muon stations after the hadron dump can be used to monitor the neutrino component from pion decays. This instrumentation can provide a full control on both the muon and electron neutrino fluxes at all energies. Furthermore, the narrow momentum width (<10%) of the beam provides a O(10%) measurement of the neutrino energy on an event by event basis, thanks to its correlation with the radial position of the interaction at the neutrino detector. The ENUBET project has been funded by the ERC in 2016 to prove the feasibility of such a monitored neutrino beam and is cast in the framework of the CERN neutrino platform (NP06) and the Physics Beyond Colliders initiative. In our contribution, we summarize the ENUBET design, physics performance and opportunities for its implementation in a timescale comparable with next long baseline neutrino experiments

Lepton reconstruction in the ENUBET tagger

The ENUBET project aims at demonstrating the feasibility of a monitored neutrino beam in which the measurement of associated charged leptons in the instrumented decay region of a conventional beam is used to constrain the neutrino flux to unprecedented precision ($\mathcal{O}$(1\%)). Large angle muons and positrons from kaon decays are detected on the decay tunnel walls equipped with a sampling calorimeter with longitudinal, radial and azimuthal segmentation. After a brief description of the ENUBET beamline and of the detectors employed in the lepton tagger, the analysis chain for the event reconstruction, the background suppression and the identification of positrons and muons will be described

A genome-wide approach accounting for body mass index identifies genetic variants influencing fasting glycemic traits and insulin resistance

Recent genome-wide association studies have described many loci implicated in type 2 diabetes (T2D) pathophysiology and β-cell dysfunction but have contributed little to the understanding of the genetic basis of insulin resistance. We hypothesized that genes implicated in insulin resistance pathways might be uncovered by accounting for differences in body mass index (BMI) and potential interactions between BMI and genetic variants. We applied a joint meta-analysis approach to test associations with fasting insulin and glucose on a genome-wide scale. We present six previously unknown loci associated with fasting insulin at P &lt; 5 × 10(-8) in combined discovery and follow-up analyses of 52 studies comprising up to 96,496 non-diabetic individuals. Risk variants were associated with higher triglyceride and lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels, suggesting a role for these loci in insulin resistance pathways. The discovery of these loci will aid further characterization of the role of insulin resistance in T2D pathophysiology