Massive survey on bacterial–bacteriophages biodiversity and quality of natural whey starter cultures in Trentingrana cheese production

9openInternationalItalian coauthor/editorThis study focused on the microbial and bacteriophages identification and characterization in cheese-production facilities that use natural whey starter (NWS) cultures for Trentingrana production. Bacterial and phage screening was carried out on cooked not acidified whey and NWS samples isolated from six dairy factories, for 4 consecutive days in four different months. By means of a combined approach, using plate counts, bacterial isolation, and metataxonomic analysis Lactobacillus helveticus was found occurring as the dominant species in NWS cultures and Levilactobacillus brevis as codominant in the cheese factories where the temperature of NWS production was mainly lower than 40°C, suggesting that the variability in the parameters of the NWS culture preparation could differently modulate the bacterial species in NWS cultures. Using turbidity test approach on 303 bacterial isolates from the NWS cultures, 120 distinct phages were identified. L. helveticus phage contamination of NWS cultures was revealed in most of the analyzed samples, but despite the great recovery of bacteriophage contamination cases, the microbial quality of NWS cultures was high. Our results support the presence of natural bacteriophage resistance mechanisms in L. helveticus. The use of NWS cultures probably creates an ideal environment for the proliferation of different L. helveticus strains balanced with their phages without a clear dominance. It is evident, from this study, that the presence of a high biodiversity of NWS bacterial strains is relevant to avoid phages dominance in NWS cultures and consequently to keep a good acidification ability.openMancini, A.; Cid Rodriguez, M.; Zago, M.; Cologna, M.; Goss, A.; Carafa, I.; Tuohy, K.; Merz, A.; Franciosi, E.Mancini, A.; Cid Rodriguez, M.; Zago, M.; Cologna, M.; Goss, A.; Carafa, I.; Tuohy, K.; Merz, A.; Franciosi, E

Measuring the effect of Mankai® (Wolffia globosa) on the gut microbiota and its metabolic output using an in vitro colon model

10openInternationalInternational coauthor/editorMankai® is a cultivated strain of Wolffia globosa an aquatic plant of the family Lemnaceae commonly known as Duckweeds. Recent studies suggest that consumption of a Mankai® enriched diet may provide positive health effects by decreasing body weight and improving glucose homeostasis and plasma lipid profiles. However, the effects of Mankai® alone on the composition and metabolic output of the human gut microbiota has not been fully investigated. Here, Mankai® was digested and fermented in vitro using a batch culture model of the proximal colon. Inulin and cellulose were used as readily and poorly fermentable control fibers respectively. Mankai® significantly stimulated the production of phenolic metabolites and short chain fatty acids by the gut microbiota (p<0.05). Three major microbial metabolites, 3-4-hydroxyphenyl propionic acid, 3-3-hydroxyphenyl propanoic acid and protocatechuic acid were significantly increased after 24 h fermentation. Moreover, Mankai® treatment lowered the overall microbial diversity (p<0.05), in line with a selective microbiome modulation.openDiotallevi, Camilla; Gaudioso, Giulia; Fava, Francesca; Angeli, Andrea; Lotti, Cesare; Vrhovsek, Urska; Rinott, Ehud; Shai, Iris; Gobbetti, Marco; Tuohy, KieranDiotallevi, C.; Gaudioso, G.; Fava, F.; Angeli, A.; Lotti, C.; Vrhovsek, U.; Rinott, E.; Shai, I.; Gobbetti, M.; Tuohy, K

Applications of power to gas technologies in emerging electrical systems

Abstract The energy sector is undergoing substantial changes in order to promote better efficiency, increase the use of renewable energy, reduce emissions and effectively deploy technologies to trade off costs and benefits One emerging solution is the application of the Power-to-Gas technology, which can be used for different purposes. In recent years, Power-to-Gas has been studied to understand the role it could play in the electrical system. This paper has the aims of analysing the existing literature about the Power-to-Gas technology in detail, by considering some solutions that have a direct impact on the electrical system (in particular electrolyser and CO2 production) and applications in the different sectors of the electricity value chain (i.e., generation, transmission, distribution and utilisation). This paper sets out the conceptual aspects that are necessary to include Power-to-Gas facilities in a more comprehensive analysis framework of the operation of the electrical system in various sectors. Some perspectives concerning new Power-to-Gas applications are also presented for each sector, and some promising aspects that are expected to play a relevant role in the future technical and economic evolution of electrical systems are discussed

Understanding the Use of Crisis Informatics Technology among Older Adults

Mass emergencies increasingly pose significant threats to human life, with a disproportionate burden being incurred by older adults. Research has explored how mobile technology can mitigate the effects of mass emergencies. However, less work has examined how mobile technologies support older adults during emergencies, considering their unique needs. To address this research gap, we interviewed 16 older adults who had recent experience with an emergency evacuation to understand the perceived value of using mobile technology during emergencies. We found that there was a lack of awareness and engagement with existing crisis apps. Our findings characterize the ways in which our participants did and did not feel crisis informatics tools address human values, including basic needs and esteem needs. We contribute an understanding of how older adults used mobile technology during emergencies and their perspectives on how well such tools address human values.Comment: 10 page

Vignette 23: Indigenous Management Systems Can Promote More Sustainable Salmon Fisheries in the Salish Sea

Indigenous peoples of the Northern Pacific Rim have harvested salmon for more than 10,000 years, and Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) form the foundation of social-ecological systems encompassing communities from California to Kamchatka and Northern Japan. Through continuous placed-based interdependence with salmon, Indigenous societies formed deliberate and well-honed systems of salmon management. These systems promoted the sustained productivity of salmon fisheries. In Canada and the United States, Indigenous sovereignty and resource stewardship were forcibly disrupted by colonial government authority. Despite the destructive impacts of colonization, Indigenous culture and knowledge are resurgent in Canada and the United States. Indigenous fishing technologies and management systems are being documented and reinvigorated. Systems of Indigenous salmon management can support long- term opportunities for equitable and sustainable harvest of salmon across western North America

Large-scale unit commitment under uncertainty: an updated literature survey

The Unit Commitment problem in energy management aims at finding the optimal production schedule of a set of generation units, while meeting various system-wide constraints. It has always been a large-scale, non-convex, difficult problem, especially in view of the fact that, due to operational requirements, it has to be solved in an unreasonably small time for its size. Recently, growing renewable energy shares have strongly increased the level of uncertainty in the system, making the (ideal) Unit Commitment model a large-scale, non-convex and uncertain (stochastic, robust, chance-constrained) program. We provide a survey of the literature on methods for the Uncertain Unit Commitment problem, in all its variants. We start with a review of the main contributions on solution methods for the deterministic versions of the problem, focussing on those based on mathematical programming techniques that are more relevant for the uncertain versions of the problem. We then present and categorize the approaches to the latter, while providing entry points to the relevant literature on optimization under uncertainty. This is an updated version of the paper "Large-scale Unit Commitment under uncertainty: a literature survey" that appeared in 4OR 13(2), 115--171 (2015); this version has over 170 more citations, most of which appeared in the last three years, proving how fast the literature on uncertain Unit Commitment evolves, and therefore the interest in this subject

Heavy Metal Pollutants in Snow and Ice from Roosevelt Island, Antarctica

Global industrialization has led to emissions of heavy metal pollutants that are transported to the most remote areas of the planet. Elevated concentrations of heavy metals are ecological toxins in soils, water, and air. Monitoring has only been implemented during the last few decades with anthropogenic emissions superimposed over natural sources. Furthermore, most monitoring programs generally target local sources of emissions near cities rather than large-scale impacts. Thus quantifying safe limits and controlling industrial emissions is complicated by a lack of knowledge about natural sources and variability on regional, hemispheric, and global scales. New baseline studies are needed to determine i) natural background concentrations of heavy metals, ii) contributions of anthropogenic emissions, and iii) the degree to which atmospheric transport affects background heavy metal concentrations. Due to the remoteness of Antarctica, ice cores can be used as sensitive recorders of background heavy metal atmospheric concentrations over thousands of years. This provides the opportunity to determine natural variability and contributions to the atmosphere on a hemispheric scale, as well as dating the onset of anthropogenic emissions. This thesis presents a 2,300-year time-series record of six heavy metals from a new high-resolution coastal ice core from the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. Roosevelt Island is an ice dome located in the north-eastern Ross Ice Shelf, and a 763m deep ice core was collected over two field seasons as part of the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) project. In addition to 31 other trace elements, concentrations of iron, aluminium, manganese, lead, arsenic, and thallium were measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) in the RICE ice core, snow pit, and snow precipitation samples. Sample resolution over the 20th century is extremely high (~1.6 months per sample), with ~four-year resolution extending the record back to 2,300 years ago. We use this record to first determine the representativeness of the RICE ice core to Southern Hemisphere atmospheric concentrations of heavy metals, and find that concentrations in snow precipitation are strongly linked to meridional air mass pathways from the South Pacific. Local deposition characteristics and heavy metal seasonality are also examined in the surface snow. The natural sources and variability of the six heavy metals are explored through the last ~2,000 years, and this provides the context for examining changes over the 20th century. We find that iron, aluminium, and manganese are strongly associated with crustal dust and do not exhibit source changes over the 20th century, though significant increases in concentration may be due to anthropogenically induced increases in atmospheric dust. Even when increased variability due to recent increased efficiency of atmospheric transport is taken into account, the change in source emission strength dominates the concentration increases in these elements recorded in the RICE ice core. Thallium concentrations do not increase over the 20th century, and are likely linked to local volcanism. Both lead and arsenic concentrations increase significantly over the 20th century, with the pattern in lead concentrations closely matching existing Antarctic records. These increases are linked to anthropogenic emissions, with peaks during the 1970s and 1980s up to 400% higher than pre-industrial concentrations – well outside the natural variability. However, the ice core record shows a decreasing trend in concentrations of these elements from the mid-1990s to the present. Arsenic concentrations return to within pre-industrial variability, and the timing of this trend coincides with increasing efforts of policy makers in Southern Hemisphere countries to regulate industrial emissions and to promote public awareness of heavy metal pollutants

Heavy Metal Pollutants in Snow and Ice from Roosevelt Island, Antarctica

Global industrialization has led to emissions of heavy metal pollutants that are transported to the most remote areas of the planet. Elevated concentrations of heavy metals are ecological toxins in soils, water, and air. Monitoring has only been implemented during the last few decades with anthropogenic emissions superimposed over natural sources. Furthermore, most monitoring programs generally target local sources of emissions near cities rather than large-scale impacts. Thus quantifying safe limits and controlling industrial emissions is complicated by a lack of knowledge about natural sources and variability on regional, hemispheric, and global scales. New baseline studies are needed to determine i) natural background concentrations of heavy metals, ii) contributions of anthropogenic emissions, and iii) the degree to which atmospheric transport affects background heavy metal concentrations. Due to the remoteness of Antarctica, ice cores can be used as sensitive recorders of background heavy metal atmospheric concentrations over thousands of years. This provides the opportunity to determine natural variability and contributions to the atmosphere on a hemispheric scale, as well as dating the onset of anthropogenic emissions. This thesis presents a 2,300-year time-series record of six heavy metals from a new high-resolution coastal ice core from the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. Roosevelt Island is an ice dome located in the north-eastern Ross Ice Shelf, and a 763m deep ice core was collected over two field seasons as part of the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) project. In addition to 31 other trace elements, concentrations of iron, aluminium, manganese, lead, arsenic, and thallium were measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) in the RICE ice core, snow pit, and snow precipitation samples. Sample resolution over the 20th century is extremely high (~1.6 months per sample), with ~four-year resolution extending the record back to 2,300 years ago. We use this record to first determine the representativeness of the RICE ice core to Southern Hemisphere atmospheric concentrations of heavy metals, and find that concentrations in snow precipitation are strongly linked to meridional air mass pathways from the South Pacific. Local deposition characteristics and heavy metal seasonality are also examined in the surface snow. The natural sources and variability of the six heavy metals are explored through the last ~2,000 years, and this provides the context for examining changes over the 20th century. We find that iron, aluminium, and manganese are strongly associated with crustal dust and do not exhibit source changes over the 20th century, though significant increases in concentration may be due to anthropogenically induced increases in atmospheric dust. Even when increased variability due to recent increased efficiency of atmospheric transport is taken into account, the change in source emission strength dominates the concentration increases in these elements recorded in the RICE ice core. Thallium concentrations do not increase over the 20th century, and are likely linked to local volcanism. Both lead and arsenic concentrations increase significantly over the 20th century, with the pattern in lead concentrations closely matching existing Antarctic records. These increases are linked to anthropogenic emissions, with peaks during the 1970s and 1980s up to 400% higher than pre-industrial concentrations – well outside the natural variability. However, the ice core record shows a decreasing trend in concentrations of these elements from the mid-1990s to the present. Arsenic concentrations return to within pre-industrial variability, and the timing of this trend coincides with increasing efforts of policy makers in Southern Hemisphere countries to regulate industrial emissions and to promote public awareness of heavy metal pollutants

Intestinal Organoids:A Tool for Modelling Diet–Microbiome–Host Interactions

6openInternationalBothDietary patterns, microbiome dysbiosis, and gut microbial metabolites (GMMs) have a pivotal role in the homeostasis of intestinal epithelial cells and in disease progression, such as that of colorectal cancer (CRC). Although GMMs and microorganisms have crucial roles in many biological activities, models for deciphering diet–microbiome–host relationships are largely limited to animal models. Thus, intestinal organoids (IOs) have provided unprecedented opportunities for the generation of in vitro platforms with the sufficient level of complexity to model physiological and pathological diet–microbiome–host conditions. Overall, IO responses to GMM metabolites and microorganisms can provide new insights into the mechanisms by which those agents may prevent or trigger diseases, significantly extending our knowledge of diet–microbiome–host interactions.openRubert, Josep; Schweiger, Pawel J.; Mattivi, Fulvio; Tuohy, Kieran; Jensen, Kim B.; Lunardi, AndreaRubert, J.; Schweiger, P.J.; Mattivi, F.; Tuohy, K.; Jensen, K.B.; Lunardi, A