Canine leishmaniasis in the Salento Peninsulaof Apulia, Italy: a preliminary report

EnCanine leishmaniasis is endemic to the Mediterranean area. In Italy this zoonosis is distributed over a large portion of the Country. We studied a representative sample of 638 dogs of the canine population subjected to routine veterinary check in Salento peninsula (Apulia, Italy) where the exact entity of the zoonosis is currently unknown. Amastigote’s indirect immunofluorescence (IFAT) and electrophoresis of serum proteins were used as specific and non-specific diagnostic tests, respectively. In addition, lymph node and bone marrow aspirates were examined by light microscopy after May-Grunwald Giemsa or Diff Quick staining, to confirm the suspected pathology. Results demonstrated that about 13% of dogs were affected by leishmaniasis. This prevalence value, significantly higher than that reported in a previous study conducted twenty years ago, strongly suggests that leishmaniasis is endemic in Salento.ItLa leishmaniosi canina è una zoonosi endemica dell’area mediterranea. In Italia questa zoonosi è presente nella maggior parte del paese, ma nel Salento (Puglia, Italia) non è nota la distribuzione. In questo studio, un campione rappresentativo composto di 638 cani sottoposti a controllo veterinario periodico è stato monitorato per valutare l’entità della zoonosi nel Salento. Come prove diagnostiche specifiche e non specifiche sono state utilizzate rispettivamente l’immunofluorescenza indiretta (IFAT) e l’elettroforesi delle proteine del siero. In più, sono stati esaminati degli ago-aspirati dei linfonodi e del midollo osseo mediante microscopia ottica dopo colorazione May-Grunwald Giemsa e Diff Quick, per confermare la patologia sospetta. I risultati hanno dimostrato che circa il 13% dei cani era affetto da leishmaniosi canina. Il valore di prevalenza riscontrato è significativamente più alto di quello riportato in uno studio precedentemente condotto venti anni fa, il che suggerisce fortemente che la leishmaniosi canina è endemica nel Salento

IMPROVEMENTS IN THE EU GAS TRANSMISSION NETWORK BETWEEN 2009 AND 2014

The report compares the European gas infrastructure between 2009 and 2014 to demonstrate how Reg. (EC) 994/2010 has promoted and reinforced security of gas supply. Infrastructure improvements and results of a country-based simulation model analysing a Ukrainian and a Russian shortage of gas are presented.JRC.F.3-Energy Security, Systems and Marke

Patterns of disturbance at multiple scales in real and simulated landscapes

We describe a framework to characterize and interpret the spatial patterns of disturbances at multiple scales in socio-ecological systems. Domains of scale are defined in pattern metric space and mapped in geographic space, which can help to understand how anthropogenic disturbances might impact biodiversity through habitat modification. The approach identifies typical disturbance ’profiles’ based on the similarity of trajectories in a pattern metric space over a range of spatial scales. When different profiles are coherent in pattern metric space, they describe a regional spatial pattern. The divergence of a profile indicates a scale-dependent transition to a local spatial pattern, which can be examined for correspondence to different regions of geographic space. We illustrate the conceptual model with simulated maps and real disturbance maps from satellite imagery in south Italy. The results suggest that management of disturbances in the study region depend less on local drivers of disturbance and more on broader-scale drivers within the socio-ecological framework

Trends and correlates of HIV-1 resistance among subjects failing an antiretroviral treatment over the 2003-2012 decade in Italy

BACKGROUND: Despite a substantial reduction in virological failures following introduction of new potent antiretroviral therapies in the latest years, drug resistance remains a limitation for the control of HIV-1 infection. We evaluated trends and correlates of resistance in treatment failing patients in a comprehensive database over a time period of relevant changes in prescription attitudes and treatment guidelines. METHODS: We analyzed 6,796 HIV-1 pol sequences from 49 centres stored in the Italian ARCA database during the 2003-2012 period. Patients (n = 5,246) with viremia > 200 copies/mL received a genotypic test while on treatment. Mutations were identified from IAS-USA 2013 tables. Class resistance was evaluated according to antiretroviral regimens in use at failure. Time trends and correlates of resistance were analyzed by Cochran-Armitage test and logistic regression models. RESULTS: The use of NRTI backbone regimens slightly decreased from 99.7% in 2003-2004 to 97.4% in 2010-2012. NNRTI-based combinations dropped from 46.7% to 24.1%. PI-containing regimens rose from 56.6% to 81.7%, with an increase of boosted PI from 36.5% to 68.9% overtime. In the same reference periods, Resistance to NRTIs, NNRTIs and PIs declined from 79.1% to 40.8%, from 77.8% to 53.8% and from 59.8% to 18.9%, respectively (p < .0001 for all comparisons). Dual NRTI + NNRTI and NRTI + PI resistance decreased from 56.4% to 33.3% and from 36.1% to 10.5%, respectively. Reduced risk of resistance over time periods was confirmed by a multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Mutations associated with NRTIs, NNRTIs and PIs at treatment failure declined overtime regardless of specific class combinations and epidemiological characteristics of treated population. This is likely due to the improvement of HIV treatment, including both last generation drug combinations and prescription guidelines

Canine leishmaniasis in the Salento Peninsulaof Apulia, Italy: a preliminary report

EnCanine leishmaniasis is endemic to the Mediterranean area. In Italy this zoonosis is distributed over a large portion of the Country. We studied a representative sample of 638 dogs of the canine population subjected to routine veterinary check in Salento peninsula (Apulia, Italy) where the exact entity of the zoonosis is currently unknown. Amastigote’s indirect immunofluorescence (IFAT) and electrophoresis of serum proteins were used as specific and non-specific diagnostic tests, respectively. In addition, lymph node and bone marrow aspirates were examined by light microscopy after May-Grunwald Giemsa or Diff Quick staining, to confirm the suspected pathology. Results demonstrated that about 13% of dogs were affected by leishmaniasis. This prevalence value, significantly higher than that reported in a previous study conducted twenty years ago, strongly suggests that leishmaniasis is endemic in Salento.ItLa leishmaniosi canina è una zoonosi endemica dell’area mediterranea. In Italia questa zoonosi è presente nella maggior parte del paese, ma nel Salento (Puglia, Italia) non è nota la distribuzione. In questo studio, un campione rappresentativo composto di 638 cani sottoposti a controllo veterinario periodico è stato monitorato per valutare l’entità della zoonosi nel Salento. Come prove diagnostiche specifiche e non specifiche sono state utilizzate rispettivamente l’immunofluorescenza indiretta (IFAT) e l’elettroforesi delle proteine del siero. In più, sono stati esaminati degli ago-aspirati dei linfonodi e del midollo osseo mediante microscopia ottica dopo colorazione May-Grunwald Giemsa e Diff Quick, per confermare la patologia sospetta. I risultati hanno dimostrato che circa il 13% dei cani era affetto da leishmaniosi canina. Il valore di prevalenza riscontrato è significativamente più alto di quello riportato in uno studio precedentemente condotto venti anni fa, il che suggerisce fortemente che la leishmaniosi canina è endemica nel Salento

NATURAL CAPITAL SECURITY/VULNERABILITY RELATED TO DISTURBANCE IN A PANARCHY OF SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES

Ecosystem health and integrity are here framed into the more general concept of environmental security and thus enriched by explicitly addressing objective and subjective risk to ecosystem services by human activities. Environmental security, as the opposite of environmental vulnerability (fragility), is multi-layered, multi-scale and complex, existing in both the objective physical, biological, and social realm, and the subjective realm of individual human perception. In this paper, we detect and quantify the scales and spatial patterns of human land use as ecosystem disturbances at different hierarchical levels in a panarchy of social-ecological landscapes (SELs) by using a conceptual framework that characterizes multi-scale disturbance patterns exhibited on satellite imagery over a four-year time period in Apulia (South Italy). We advance the measure of the functional importance of ecosystem service providers (ESPs) provided by natural areas and permanent cultivations based on their effectiveness at performing the services. Any landscape element contributes to the overall proportion of disturbance in the region, through its composition and configuration of disturbed locations. Such landscape elements represent, in turn, functional units for assessing functional contributions of ESPs at different scales of operation of the service. We assume that such effectiveness at performing the services will result directly affected by how much disturbance surrounds ESP locations at different neighborhoods. Multi-scale measurements of the composition and spatial configuration of disturbance are the basis for evaluating vulnerability of ecosystem services through multi-scale disturbance profiles concerning land-use locations where most of ecosystem service providers reside. Vulnerability estimates are derived from the identification of scale range couplings or mismatches among land-use disturbances related to different land uses and revealed by trajectories from the global profile to local spatial patterns. Scale mismatches of disturbances in space and time determine the role of land use as a disturbance source or sink, and may govern the triggering of landscape changes affecting ESPs at the scales of operation of the service. The role of natural areas and permanent cultivations (olive groves and vineyards) in providing disturbance regulation across scales in Apulia has consequences for regional SELs since it may govern if and how disturbances associated with land-use intensification (sources) will affect the functional contribution of ESPs

Indicating retrospective resilience of multi-scale patterns of real habitats in a landscape

Vegetation or habitat types are ecological phases, which can assume multiple states, and transformations from one type of phase to another are ecological phase transitions. If an ecological phase maintains its condition of normality in the linked processes and functions that constitute ecosystems then is believed healthy. An adaptive cycle, such as in Holling’s model, has been proposed as a fundamental unit for understanding complex systems and their dynamics. Such model alternates between long periods of aggregation and transformation of resources and shorter periods that create opportunities for innovation. The likelihood of shifts among different phases largely depends on resilience; thereby, a clear and measurable definition of resilience has become paramount. Different resilience levels are expected to be intertwined with different scale ranges of real habitats, in relation to the kind and intensity of natural and human disturbances. We argue that the type, magnitude, length and timing of external pressure, its predictability, the exposure of habitats, and the habitat’s inherent resistance have important interactive relationships which determine resilience at multiple scales. In this paper, we provide an operational framework to derive operational indices of short-term retrospective resilience of real grasslands in a northern Italy watershed, from multi-scale analysis of landscape patterns, to find scale domains for habitat edges where change is most likely, i.e. resilience is lowest and fragility highest. That is achieved through cross-scale algorithms like fractal analysis coupled with change detection of ecological response indices. The framework implements the integration of habitat edge fractal geometry, the fitting of empirical power functions by piecewise regressions, and change detection as a procedure to find scale domains for grassland habitat where retrospective resilience is lowest. The effects of external pressure are significantly related to habitat scale domains, resulting from the interactions among ecological, physical, and social controls shaping the systems. Grassland scale domains provide evidence and support for identifying and explaining scale invariant ecological processes at various scales, from which much insight can be gained for characterizing grassland adaptive cycles and capabilities to resist disturbances

Multi-scale vulnerability of natural capital in a panarchy of social–ecological landscapes

Environmental security, as the opposite of environmental vulnerability (fragility), is multi-layered, multi-scale and complex, existing in both the objective physical, biological, and social realm, and the subjective realm of individual human perception. In this paper, we detect and quantify the scales and spatial patterns of human land use as ecosystem disturbances at different hierarchical levels in a panarchy of social-ecological landscapes (SELs) by using a conceptual framework that characterizes multi-scale disturbance patterns exhibited on satellite imagery over a four-year time period in Apulia (South Italy). In this paper we advance the measure of the functional importance of ESPs provided by natural areas and permanent cultivations based on their effectiveness at performing the services. Any landscape element contributes to the overall proportion of disturbance in the region, through its composition of disturbed locations (pixels), and to the overall disturbance connectivity through its configuration. Such landscape elements represent, in turn, functional units for assessing functional contributions of ES providers at different scale(s) of operation of the service. We assume that such effectiveness at performing the services will result directly affected by how much disturbance surrounds ESP locations at different neighborhoods. Multi-scale measurements of the composition and spatial configuration of disturbance are the basis for evaluating vulnerability of ecosystem services through multi-scale disturbance profiles concerning land-use locations where most of ecosystem service providers reside. Vulnerability estimates are derived from the identification of scale range couplings or mismatches among land-use disturbances related to different land uses and revealed by trajectories from the global profile to local spatial patterns. Scale mismatches of disturbances in space and time determine the role of land use as a disturbance source or sink, and may govern the triggering of landscape changes affecting ecosystem service providers at the scale(s) of operation of the service. The role of natural areas and permanent cultivations (olive groves and vineyards) in providing disturbance regulation across scales in South Italy has consequences for regional SELs since it may govern if and how disturbances associated with land-use intensification (sources) will affect the functional contribution of ES providers