Social or environmental consciousness? Exploring the consumption of cooperative wines among European citizens

Although the role of wine cooperatives in supporting sustainability has been deeply analysed on the supply side, the study of consumers’ perception and behaviour when choosing these wines is still scarce. This paper analyses the attitudes, preferences and the willingness to pay (WTP) of European consumers, both when they purchase cooperative-produced wines and in their attitude to consuming these wines. Their preferences between cooperative-produced and organic wines were compared with the aim of understanding whether they prioritise the social aspects of the cooperatives or the environmentally friendly aspects of organic production. A survey among 3,295 individuals in different European countries was carried out. The data were firstly analysed by means of univariate tests to assess consumers’ heterogeneity and by a bivariate probit model to explore the drivers of attitude and behaviour; then a multinomial logit and a random parameters logit framework were adopted. We found an association between familiarity with cooperative and organic wines and thus the propensity to buy these products and a higher WTP for organic than cooperative wines. Our findings suggest that producing organic wines might be a strategy for wine cooperatives to better target the market

Use of porcine collagen matrix (Mucograft®) to promote the wound healing in the oral cavity

The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of a new collagen matrix (Mucograft®; Geistlich Pharma AG, Wol- husen, Switzerland) in the soft tissue reconstruction after excisional biopsy. The healing of soft tissues after bioptical excision tends to heal by secondary intention. To avoid this, the soft tissue grafts can be harvested from the palate, retromolar pad, or (if available) edentulous site. Disadvantages of harvesting the graft from the retromolar pad and edentulous site are minimal amount of tissue availability and thinner grafts are obtained. The use of collagen matrix is also reported in literature and could represent an optimal solution in the future. Mucograft® is a pure collagen type I and III matrix of porcine origin without further cross-linking. Mucograft® consists of pure porcine collagen obtained by standardized, controlled manufacturing processes. The product made up of porcine collagen has a bilayer structure. The compact layer consists of compact collagen fibers which has cell occlusive properties and allows tis- sue adherence as a prerequisite for favourable wound healing. This layer protects against bacterial infiltration in open healing situations and has appropriate elastic properties to accommodate suturing. A second layer consists of a thick, porous collagen spongious structure. In this paper, we report about a case of surgical site healing after biopti- cal excision proliferative verrucous leukoplakia of the hard palate

Ethical issues associated with in-hospital emergency from the medical emergency team's perspective: a national survey

Medical Emergency Teams (METs) are frequently involved in ethical issues associated to in-hospital emergencies, like decisions about end-of-life care and intensive care unit (ICU) admission. MET involvement offers both advantages and disadvantages, especially when an immediate decision must be made. We performed a survey among Italian intensivists/anesthesiologists evaluating MET's perspective on the most relevant ethical aspects faced in daily practice

ORAL LESIONS DUE TO ACINETOBACTER BAUMANNII INFECTION IN A PATIENT AFFECTED BY AUTOIMMUNE HEMOLYTIC ANEMIA (AIHA): FIRST CLINICAL REPORT

Aim. Acinetobacter Baumannii (coming from the Greek “akinetos,” i.e. non-motile) is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen primarily associated with hospital-acquired infections. Commonly associated with aquatic environments, A. Baumannii easily contaminates the surrounding environment and it colonizes acute ill patients in which can survive for several days. Generally, A. Baumannii is able to damage mucous membranes or exposed skin after accident or injury; it may be responsible of many diseases such as pneumonia, bacteremia, meningitis, urinary tract infections, peritonitis and infections of skin and soft tissues. Tissues infected by A. Baumannii initially present “orange peel” appearance followed by sandpaper-like presentation, when there is a disruption, hemorrhagic bullae can be seen with a visible necrotizing process followed by bacteremia. Current therapy is based on intravenous administration of tigecycline 100-200 mg (first dose) and 50-100 mg every 12 h for up to 14 days, unless complications. If untreated, this infection can lead to septicemia and death. The mortality rate of this infection is high, especially in case of bacteremia (52%) and pneumonia (23–73%). A. Baumannii is resistant to many drugs and represents an important nosocomial pathogen that particularly infects critically ill patients. At the best of our knowledge, no case of oral infection has been reported. to present the first one case characterized by oral soft tissue infection due to A. Baumannii responsive to imipenem. Materials and methods. a 78 years male was hospitalized in August of 2013 at the Hematology unit of the A.O.U.P. “P. Giaccone” of Palermo with a diagnosis of autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA). He was treated per os with corticosteroids (Prednisone) and immunosuppressants (Rituximab and Cyclophosphamide), also IVIG (Intra Venous Immuno-Globulin) was administreted. In November 2013, the patient was treated with piperacillin IV (Tazocin) for treating an urinary tract infection; four days after, multiple oral ulcerative bullous lesions on the lingual and buccal mucosa and crusted lesions on the lip vermilion appeared, associated with intense pain. An oral swab for bacteria research was carried out; topical therapy (chlorhexidine rinses and hyaluronic acid gel) has been prescribed and piperacillin therapy was stopped. Oral swab outcome resulted positive for A. Baumannii and Enterococcus Faecalis, both sensitive only to imipenem, that was administrated (500 mg IV every 8h) for 10 days. The patient was immediately isolated in a single room for preventing and controlling the spread of A. Baumannii. Results. From diagnosis, every 3 days clinical examination of the oral cavity was performed, revealing the progressive regression within thirty days until complete healing without leaving scars. After, a second oral swab confirmed the absence of any bacteria. Conclusions. The World Health Organization has recently identified antimicrobial resistance as one of the three most important problems facing human health and among the most common and serious pathogens, including A. Baumannii. It is an emerging potentially drug-resistant micro-organism and its isolation must alert physicians to carry on all preventive measures for avoiding contamination of other patients, especially those immunosuppressed, at risk for severe persistent infections or death. This precaution should be continued for all the duration of hospitalization and until the negativization of culture samples was obtained. It is important that physicians and dentists recognize suspicious lesions in unusual locations, such as oral mucosa, in absence of other known etiological factors in a timely manner before the diffusion among other patients in order to avoid the spread of a nosocomial outbreak

Unravelling the Impact of Grape Washing, {SO}2, and Multi-Starter Inoculation in Lab-Scale Vinification Trials of Withered Black Grapes

Wine quality is strongly affected by chemical composition and microbial population of grape must, which, in turn, are influenced by several post-harvest treatments, including grape withering. Different strategies have been suggested to manage the fermenting must microbiota, as it plays a central role in the outcomes of both spontaneous and guided fermentations. This study aimed at evaluating the impact of grape washing, SO2 addition, and selected starter culture inoculation on population dynamics, fermentation kinetics, and main oenological parameters in lab-scale trials, focusing on withered grapes usually used for Amarone production. Although grape washing treatment was effective in removing heavy metals and undesirable microorganisms from grape berry surface, inoculation of multi-starter cultures impacted more fermentation rates. Further, both grape washing and starter inoculation procedures had a remarkable impact on wine chemical characteristics, while 30 mg/L SO2 addition did not significantly affect the fermentation process. In summary, the best strategy in terms of limiting off-flavors and potentially reducing the need for SO2 addition in wine from withered grapes was the use of yeast starters, particularly mixed cultures composed by selected strains of Metschnikowia spp. and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Application of a washing step before winemaking showed a potential to improve organoleptic characteristics of win

First Report of Tomato Leaf Curl New Delhi Virus Causing Yellow Leaf Curl of Pepper in Europe

Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV), a bipartite begomovirus (family Geminiviridae) with two circular ssDNA genome components (DNA-A and DNA-B), is transmitted in a circulative nonpropagative manner by the whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius). Although it was first reported in Asia on tomato and other solanaceous crops such as eggplant, potato, and chilli pepper in the Mediterranean basin, this virus was mainly detected on cucurbits and only sporadically on tomato and on two wild solanaceous species, Datura stramonium L. and Solanum nigrum L. (Juárez et al. 2019). In 2018, separate surveys were carried out in protected cultivations of sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) in two Italian regions: Lazio and Campania. The greenhouses were in areas with high density of B. tabaci and where ToLCNDV outbreaks occurred on cucurbits since 2016 (Panno et al. 2019). Some plants showing symptoms of yellowing and leaf curling were found in both regions, whereas fruit symptoms were neither observed nor reported by farmers. This disease syndrome, known as yellow leaf curl disease (YLCD), can be caused in pepper by several begomoviruses, as reported recently in a review listing the viruses causing YLCD in peppers in Thailand (Chiemsombat et al. 2018). Symptomatic leaves were collected during late summer 2018 from different pepper plants as well as from the neighboring zucchini cultivations, showing the typical symptomatology induced by ToLCNDV. Total DNA was extracted (DNeasy Plant Mini kit, Qiagen, Germany), and the presence of ToLCNDV was ascertained by PCR with the specific primers ToLCNDV-CP1 and ToLCNDV-CP2 (Panno et al. 2019; Parrella et al. 2018). ToLCNDV infection was further ascertained in three symptomatic leaf samples from Campania by using specific ToLCNDV ImmunoStrips (Agdia, Elkhart, IN). Successively, one symptomatic pepper sample from each greenhouse was selected and amplified by rolling circle amplification technique (RCA; Inoue-Nagata et al. 2004). The amplicons were cloned, and the DNA-A and DNA-B were full-length sequenced. The sequences were deposited in GenBank NCBI database (MK732932 DNA-A and MK732933 DNA-B, pepper sample from Campania; MK756106 DNA-A and MK756107 DNA-B, pepper sample from Lazio). The RCA analysis was performed also on a ToLCNDV-infected zucchini sample collected in the same area in Lazio region (MK756108 DNA-A and MK756109 DNA-B). The analysis of the ToLCNDV sequences showed a low level of genetic variability between the two pepper isolates from Lazio and Campania regions (rate of substitutions: 0.016 for DNA-A and 0.023 for DNA-B). A high genetic similarity was recorded between the zucchini isolate and both the pepper isolates from Campania (0.019 for DNA-A and 0.023 for DNA-B) and Lazio (0.003 for both DNA-A and B). The three characterized isolates showed a high sequence homology also with both the DNA-A (MH577751 from a melon isolate) and DNA-B (MH577673 from a zucchini isolate) of the ToLCNDV-ES genotype (Fortes et al. 2016), which differed in 15 and 13 nucleotide substitutions from pepper sample from Lazio, 29 and 51 substitutions from Campania sample, and 10 and 5 substitutions from zucchini sample. High homology was also identified compared with the other Spanish isolates collected since the first appearance of the virus (2014) and to the Tunisian (2015) and Moroccan (2018) isolates, confirming the hypothesis that the Mediterranean population of ToLCNDV is highly conserved (Juárez et al. 2019). To our knowledge, this is the first report of ToLCNDV infection on pepper in Europe and indicates that sweet pepper could also act as a reservoir of the virus for further spread to other solanaceous plants and cucurbits

Beyond head and neck cancer: The relationship between oral microbiota and tumour development in distant organs

An altered oral microbiota has been linked with the development of several oral diseases, such as dental caries, periodontal disease, and oral stomatitis. Moreover, poor oral health has been linked to head and neck cancer, particularly oral cancer. In recent years a growing number of studies indicate that oral microbiota could be involved in the development of primary tumours outside of head and neck region. The aim of this article is to review the recent studies based on high-throughput technology to present evidences of a relationship between oral microbiota and \u201cnon-head and neck tumours.\u201d Oral dysbiosis seem to be more pronounced in patients with tumours of gastrointestinal tract, in particular oesophageal, gastric, pancreatic, and colorectal cancers, paving the way for developing specific oral microbiota test to allow early cancer detection. Regarding other tumour types, the results are promising but highly preliminary and still debated. Currently, there are several factors that limit the generalization of the results, such as the small sample size, the lack of adequate clinical information about patients, the different sequencing techniques used, and biological sample heterogeneity. Although only at the beginning, the analysis of oral microbiota could be the next step in the evolution of cancer therapy and will help clinicians to develop individualised approaches to cancer prevention and treatment