The paper focuses on the socioeconomic impacts of drought events. Its objective is in particular to explore and study the distributive effects of drought events in the agricultural sector, taking the Po river basin, the most important agricultural area in Italy, as case study area. Its theoretical and methodological approach makes basis on the consumer surplus theory. One of the most remarkable outcomes of this analysis is that the effects of the drought events change considerably according to the social group. As far as agriculture is concerned, it shows that farmers and consumers are affected differently. Farmers can even earn from drought, because of the “price effect” caused by the scarcity of agricultural products; consumers always loses, because of the “quantity effect” and the “price effect”. Very different impacts, in terms of sign and magnitude, were also observed among the farmers themselves, in particular when they are distinguished by crop category, and by geographical area.

The field of probiotic applications is rapidly expanding, including their use for the control of respiratory tract infections. Nevertheless, probiotics ability to colonize the lung environment and to compete with pulmonary pathogens is still a poorly investigated research area. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the adhesion ability of a number of commercial probiotic strains to the human lung epithelial cell line A549. Furthermore, we assessed probiotic ability to prevent host cell adhesion of one of the major lung pathogens in cystic fibrosis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and to reduce the pathogen-induced inflammatory response of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in terms of cytokine release. Lactobacillus acidophilus displayed the highest adhesion ability to A549 cells evaluated as percent of adhered bacteria compared to the inoculum. In agreement with such an observation, L. acidophilus was the most efficient in preventing adhesion to A549 cells of a P. aeruginosa isolate from CF sputum. Three-color fluorescence labeling of A549 cells, P. aeruginosa, and L. acidophilus, and confocal microcopy image analyses revealed a likely exclusion effect played by both live and UV-killed L. acidophilus towards P. aeruginosa. Such results were confirmed by CFU count. When co-cultured with PBMCs, both live and UV-killed L. acidophilus reduced the amount of IL-1β and IL-6 in culture supernatants in a statistically significant manner. Overall, the results obtained point to L. acidophilus as an interesting candidate for further studies for a potential aerogenous administration to control P. aeruginosa infections.

The excessive use of water is damaging European groundwater and rivers: their environmental conditions are often below the “good status” that—according to Water Framework Directive 2000/60—should be reached by 2015. The already critical situation is tending to get worse because of climate change. Even in water rich countries, urban wastewater is still one of the main sources of water pollution. Currently, urban soil sealing and “conventional” rainwater management, which were planned to quickly move rainwater away from roofs and streets, are increasing the flood risk. “Green” technologies and approaches would permit a reduction in water abstraction and wastewater production while improving urban hydrological response to heavy rains. The Life+ WATACLIC project has been implemented to promote such sustainable technologies and approaches in Italy, however the results show huge difficulties: apparently water saving and sustainable urban water management have only low interest amongst the general public and even with public administrations and the relevant industrial sectors. In such a cultural and technical context, the project is bringing a new point of view to public debate. In the long term, the project will certainly have a positive impact, but most likely it will require more time than initially expected.

Recent evidence suggests that lipids play a crucial role in viral infections beyond their traditional functions of supplying envelope and energy, and creating protected niches for viral replication. In the case of Zika virus (ZIKV), it alters host lipids by enhancing lipogenesis and suppressing & beta;-oxidation to generate viral factories at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) interface. This discovery prompted us to hypothesize that interference with lipogenesis could serve as a dual antiviral and anti-inflammatory strategy to combat the replication of positive sense single-stranded RNA (ssRNA+) viruses.To test this hypothesis, we examined the impact of inhibiting N-Acylethanolamine acid amidase (NAAA) on ZIKV-infected human Neural Stem Cells. NAAA is responsible for the hydrolysis of palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) in lysosomes and endolysosomes. Inhibition of NAAA results in PEA accumulation, which activates peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-& alpha; (PPAR-& alpha;), directing & beta;-oxidation and preventing inflammation.Our findings indicate that inhibiting NAAA through gene-editing or drugs moderately reduces ZIKV replication by approximately one log10 in Human Neural Stem Cells, while also releasing immature virions that have lost their infectivity. This inhibition impairs furin-mediated prM cleavage, ultimately blocking ZIKV maturation. In summary, our study highlights NAAA as a host target for ZIKV infection.

When nature-based solutions (NBS) are developed with a primary scope, they also provide simultaneous additional economic, social, and environmental benefits, i.e., Ecosystem Services. A monetary assessment that accounts for these additional benefits is provided by this work, with a focus on Europe. Specifically, this is intended to evaluate nine identified benefits of those wetlands and buffer strips designed to primarily address agricultural diffuse pollution, which must surely be listed among the negative externalities of economic activities that NBS can help resolve. The aim of developing a simplified value transfer methodology for a rapid evaluation of NBS benefits with the adjusted unit Value Transfer method is to create an accessible solution when time, funding, or other constraints prevent the use of highly technical primary monetization approaches. The developed exercise allows us to gather insights from several primary valuation studies and to appropriately transfer the monetary valuation outcomes to new policy sites. In order to reduce the distance from the expected and required concrete achievements of the economic valuations, the study has been integrated with an case study located in the Venice lagoon catchment in Northwestern Italy. The results obtained are to be considered sound, with existing evidence showing that the most valuable benefits of the considered NBS are both water quality and recreation and tourism, to which is added, in the case of wetlands, water supply.

Diabetes-associated neurodegeneration is amplified by methylglyoxal (MGO)-driven dicarbonyl stress linking hyperglycemia to neuronal insulin resistance and