Chemical elements in Ascomycetes and Basidiomycetes - The reference mushrooms as instruments for investigating bioindication and biodiversity

Fungi in the wild are among the principal agents in biogeochemical cycles; those cycles of matter and energy that enable ecosystems to work. By investigating the biodiversity of Italian fungal species and concentration levels of chemical elements in them, it may be possible to use these fungi as biological indicators for the quality of forest, woodland and semi-natural environments. The database of this EUR Report record the dry-material concentrations of 35 chemical elements, including heavy metals, in over 9,000 samples of higher mushrooms (Ascomycetes and Basidiomycetes). These samples represent approximately 200 genera and a thousand species. As the database has attained statistical stability it has been possible to define the concept of a “reference mushroom”. The use of a “reference mushroom” may benefit – perhaps only as a methodological approach – various fields of mycological and environmental research; from biodiversity and bioindication, through taxonomy right up to health and sanitation issues. The sheer volume of the collected data may prove to be useful as a comparison for data collected in the future; such results would also allow a better and more exhaustive interpretation of the effects of environmental protection laws that have been in place over the years to reduce or remedy current climate change phenomena and the environmental damage caused by human activity. Studies pertaining to the frequency of occurrence and the ecology of the various fungal species found on Italian soil have tended to link the reference habitats used to European classification guidelines (Natura 2000, CORINE Land Cover, CORINE Biotopes and EUNIS). Thereby the foundations have been laid for the use of mushrooms as biological indicators for the measurement of soil and ecosystem quality.JRC.DDG.H.5-Rural, water and ecosystem resource

m-DOPA addition in MAPLE immobilization of lipase for biosensor applications

Matrix Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation (MAPLE) is a thin film deposition technique which uses a pulsed laser beam impinging, inside a high vacuum chamber, on a frozen target containing the guest molecules in a volatile matrix to induce fast "evaporation" of the matrix, and ejection of the guest molecules. Lipase, an enzyme acting as a catalyst in hydrolysis of lipids, is widely used in biosensors for detection of triglycerides in blood serum. A key action to this purpose is lipase immobilization on a substrate. In a recent paper, we have shown that MAPLE technique is able to deposit lipase on a substrate in an active form. Here we show that addition to the guest/matrix target of a small amount of m-DOPA (3-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-2-methyl-l-alanine) in order to improve adhesion and protect lipase secondary structure, also allows the lowering the laser pulse energy required for matrix evaporation and therefore the risk of damaging the enzyme. Keywords: MAPLE, Lipase, m-DOPA, Biosensor

Neuromorphometric characterization with shape functionals

This work presents a procedure to extract morphological information from neuronal cells based on the variation of shape functionals as the cell geometry undergoes a dilation through a wide interval of spatial scales. The targeted shapes are alpha and beta cat retinal ganglion cells, which are characterized by different ranges of dendritic field diameter. Image functionals are expected to act as descriptors of the shape, gathering relevant geometric and topological features of the complex cell form. We present a comparative study of classification performance of additive shape descriptors, namely, Minkowski functionals, and the nonadditive multiscale fractal. We found that the proposed measures perform efficiently the task of identifying the two main classes alpha and beta based solely on scale invariant information, while also providing intraclass morphological assessment

Alternative conservation outcomes from aquatic fauna translocations: Losing and saving the Running River rainbowfish

1. The translocation of species outside their natural range is a threat to aquatic biodiversity globally, especially freshwater fishes, as most are not only susceptible to predation and competition but readily hybridize with congeners. 2. Running River rainbowfish (RRR, Melanotaenia sp.) is a narrow-ranged, small-bodied freshwater fish that recently became threatened and was subsequently listed as Critically Endangered, owing to introgressive hybridization and competition following the translocation of a congeneric species, the eastern rainbowfish (Melanotaenia splendida). 3. To conserve RRR, wild fish were taken into captivity, genetically confirmed as pure representatives, and successfully bred. As the threat of introgression with translocated eastern rainbowfish could not be mitigated, a plan was devised to translocate captive raised RRR into unoccupied habitats within their native catchment, upstream of natural barriers. The translocation plan involved careful site selection and habitat assessment, predator training (exposure to predators prior to release), soft release (with a gradual transition from captivity to nature), and post-release monitoring, and this approach was ultimately successful. 4. Two populations of RRR were established in two previously unoccupied streams above waterfalls with a combined stream length of 18 km. Post-release monitoring was affected by floods and low sample sizes, but suggested that predation and time of release are important factors to consider in similar conservation recovery programmes for small-bodied, short-lived fishes

Entropy and universality of Cardy-Verlinde formula in dark energy universe

We study the entropy of a FRW universe filled with dark energy (cosmological constant, quintessence or phantom). For general or time-dependent equation of state $p=w\rho$ the entropy is expressed in terms of energy, Casimir energy, and $w$. The correspondent expression reminds one about 2d CFT entropy only for conformal matter. At the same time, the cosmological Cardy-Verlinde formula relating three typical FRW universe entropies remains to be universal for any type of matter. The same conclusions hold in modified gravity which represents gravitational alternative for dark energy and which contains terms growing at low curvature. It is interesting that BHs in modified gravity are more entropic than in Einstein gravity. Finally, some hydrodynamical examples testing new shear viscosity bound, which is expected to be the consequence of the holographic entropy bound, are presented for the early universe in the plasma era and for the Kasner metric. It seems that the Kasner metric provides a counterexample to the new shear viscosity bound.Comment: LaTeX file, 39 pages, references are adde

Intercalibration of the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter of the CMS experiment at start-up

Calibration of the relative response of the individual channels of the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter of the CMS detector was accomplished, before installation, with cosmic ray muons and test beams. One fourth of the calorimeter was exposed to a beam of high energy electrons and the relative calibration of the channels, the intercalibration, was found to be reproducible to a precision of about 0.3%. Additionally, data were collected with cosmic rays for the entire ECAL barrel during the commissioning phase. By comparing the intercalibration constants obtained with the electron beam data with those from the cosmic ray data, it is demonstrated that the latter provide an intercalibration precision of 1.5% over most of the barrel ECAL. The best intercalibration precision is expected to come from the analysis of events collected in situ during the LHC operation. Using data collected with both electrons and pion beams, several aspects of the intercalibration procedures based on electrons or neutral pions were investigated

Estímulo no crescimento e na hidrólise de atp em raízes de alface tratadas com humatos de vermicomposto: ii - efeito da fonte de vermicomposto.

Um dos fatores mais limitantes para a produção de vermicomposto é a disponibilidade de esterco. Neste trabalho, foi avaliado o efeito da substituição parcial do esterco por bagaço de cana e por resíduos de leguminosa (Gliricidia sepium) na vermicompostagem sobre a qualidade do vermicomposto e sobre a bioatividade dos humatos, avaliadas por meio da análise do crescimento radicular e da atividade das bombas de H+ isoladas de raízes de alface. A substituição do esterco por bagaço de cana e por resíduos de leguminosas não acarretou prejuízo às características químicas dos vermicompostos. No entanto, os humatos isolados dos diferentes vermicompostos apresentaram características químicas distintas,tais como: acidez e propriedades óticas distintas. Os humatos produzidos a partir de esterco de bovino e da mistura esterco bovino + bagaço proporcionaram maiores estímulos no crescimento radicular das plantas de alface, sendo os mais indicados para uso na forma solúvel. A inclusão de resíduos de leguminosas no processo de vermicompostagem produziu humatos sem efeito sobre o desenvolvimento das raízes de alface