Yield, Quality and Water Consumption of Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni Grown under Different Irrigation Regimes in Southern Italy

Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni is a herbaceous perennial plant originating in the north-east of Paraguay. Its leaves contain low-calorie sweetening agents that can be used as a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners. The leaves are consumed in special human diets and for the treatment of various diseases. The aim of the present work is to study water consumption, yield potential and quality characteristics of this species under different irrigation levels in southern Italy. The field work was carried out in 2006-2007. Irrigation treatments consisted of a control (T100), irrigated with 100% restitution of water consumption and two treatments that received a water depth of 33% (T33) and 66% (T66) of treatment T100. Watering volume was estimated to replenish the soil profile to field capacity for a depth of 0.40 m. The crop was harvested twice a year, and agronomic performance as well as the major cation and glycoside contents (stevioside and rebaudioside A) were evaluated. Overall, the crop coefficients were similar between the two years, although in each year the second growing period showed higher values due to the higher evaporative demand of this period. Interactions of years with irrigation treatments and harvest time were not significant either for yield or yield components. In both cuts the T100 treatments achieved 40% higher leaf dry yield than T33, while T66 showed intermediate values. The harvest index and water use efficiency showed no differences between the two cuts for the same treatments, while the values of both indices decreased with the increase in irrigation regime. Stevioside, rebaudioside A and cation content in the leaves were unaffected by irrigation regime. In order to develop the field cultivation of this species, field experiments are required to prepare a cultivation protocol as well as a genetic improvement program to develop varieties that better respond to the local environment

Evaluación de QoS y gestión de SLA

Verifying that a software system shows certain non-functional properties is a primary concern for Cloud applications (In this chapter non-functional properties, QoS and non-functional requirements will be used interchangeably.). Given the heterogeneous technology offer and the related pricing models currently available in the Cloud market it is extremely complex to find the deployment that fits the application requirements, and provides the best Quality of Service (QoS) and cost trade-offs

Evaluación de QoS y gestión de SLA

Verifying that a software system shows certain non-functional properties is a primary concern for Cloud applications (In this chapter non-functional properties, QoS and non-functional requirements will be used interchangeably.). Given the heterogeneous technology offer and the related pricing models currently available in the Cloud market it is extremely complex to find the deployment that fits the application requirements, and provides the best Quality of Service (QoS) and cost trade-offs

I doni degli dei. The gift of the Gods

Between 25 July and 12 November 2023 in Nanjing at the Oriental Metropolitan Nanjing Museum, and then between 8 December 2023 and 24 March 2024 in Canton at the Guangzhou Maritime Museum, an archaeological exhibition promoted by the Apulia Region in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture (General Directorates for Museums and Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape, through the institutes active in Apulia) and the Universities of Bari, Foggia and Salento. The exhibition, conceived and designed specifically for the Chinese public, illustrates, with a significant selection of artefacts from numerous Apulian museums, some aspects of Apulia's ancient history through the attributes and characters of some divinities of the Greco-Roman pantheon - Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Dionysus, Heracles - that are particularly significant in celebrating some peculiar Apulian productions, both yesterday and today

Abstracts from the 23rd Italian congress of Cystic Fibrosis and the 13th National congress of Cystic Fibrosis Italian Society

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) occurs most frequently in caucasian populations. Although less common, this disorder have been reported in all the ethnicities. Currently, there are more than 2000 described sequence variations in CFTR gene, uniformly distributed and including variants pathogenic and benign (CFTR1:www.genet.sickkids.on.ca/). To date,only a subset have been firmily established as variants annotated as disease-causing (CFTR2: www.cftr2.org). The spectrum and the frequency of individual CFTR variants, however, vary among specific ethnic groups and geographic areas. Genetic screening for CF with standard panels of CFTR mutations is widely used for the diagnosis of CF in newborns and symptomatic patients, and to diagnose CF carrier status. These screening panels have an high diagnostic sensitivity (around 85%) for CFTR mutations in caucasians populations but very low for non caucasians. Developed in the last decade, Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) has been the last breakthrough technology in genetic studies with a substantial reduction in cost per sequenced base and a considerable enhancement of the sequence generation capabilities. Extended CFTR gene sequencing in NGS includes all the coding regions, the splicing sites and their flankig intronic regions, deep intronic regions where are localized known mutations,the promoter and the 5'-3' UTR regions. NGS allows the analysis of many samples concurrently in a shorter period of time compared to Sanger method . Moreover, NGS platforms are able to identify CFTR copy number variation (CNVs), not detected by Sanger sequencing. This technology has provided new and reliable approaches to molecular diagnosis of CF and CFTR-Related Disorders. It also allows to improve the diagnostic sensitivity of newborn and carrier screeningmolecular tests. In fact, bioinformatics tools suitable for all the NGS platforms can filter data generated from the gene sequencing, and analyze only mutations with well-established disease liability. This approach allows the development of targeted mutations panels with a higher number of frequent CF mutations for the target populationcompared to the standard panels and a consequent enhancement of the diagnostic sensitivity. Moreover, in the emerging challenge of diagnosing CF in non caucasians patients, the possibility of customize a NGS targeted mutations panel should increase the diagnostic sensitivity when the target population has different ethnicities