A rapid spectroscopic method to detect the fraudulent treatment of tuna fish with carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide (CO) can be used to treat fresh meat and fish in order to retain its 'fresh' red colour appearance for a longer period of time. In fact, upon aging, myoglobin is oxidized to met-myoglobin with the concomitant blue-shift and broadening of the Soret maximum, which brings about a change in the colour of the fish, revealing that it is no longer fresh. The use of carbon monoxide, which reacts with the oxy-myoglobin to form a fairly stable cherry red carboxy-myoglobin complex may mask spoilage, because the CO-complex can be stable beyond the microbiological shelf life of the meat. The presence of CO in tuna fish has been investigated by optical spectroscopy as the formation of the CO adduct can be easily detected by the combined analysis of electronic absorption spectra in their normal and second derivative modes, monitoring the intense Soret band at 420 nm. The presence of met- and oxy-myoglobin can obscure the presence of small amounts of the CO adduct; however, it can be revealed by chemically reducing the met- and oxy-forms to the deoxy-form in an anaerobic environment. This spectroscopic method provides a qualitatively rapid laboratory screening procedure for food control to unmask the presence of CO in frozen or fresh fish. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Nectar sugars and bird visitation define a floral niche for basidiomycetous yeast on the Canary Islands

Studies on the diversity of yeasts in floral nectar were first carried out in the late 19th century. A narrow group of fermenting, osmophilous ascomycetes were regarded as exclusive specialists able to populate this unique and species poor environment. More recently, it became apparent that microorganisms might play an important role in the process of plant pollination. Despite the importance of these nectar dwelling yeasts, knowledge of the factors that drive their diversity and species composition is scarce

Connectivity-based parcellation of the thalamus explains specific cognitive and behavioural symptoms in patients with bilateral thalamic infarct

A novel approach based on diffusion tractography was used here to characterise the cortico-thalamic connectivity in two patients, both presenting with an isolated bilateral infarct in the thalamus, but exhibiting partially different cognitive and behavioural profiles. Both patients (G.P. and R.F.) had a pervasive deficit in episodic memory, but only one of them (R.F.) suffered also from a dysexecutive syndrome. Both patients had an MRI scan at 3T, including a T1-weighted volume. Their lesions were manually segmented. T1-volumes were normalised to standard space, and the same transformations were applied to the lesion masks. Nineteen healthy controls underwent a diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI) scan. Their DTI data were normalised to standard space and averaged. An atlas of Brodmann areas was used to parcellate the prefrontal cortex. Probabilistic tractography was used to assess the probability of connection between each voxel of the thalamus and a set of prefrontal areas. The resulting map of corticothalamic connections was superimposed onto the patients' lesion masks, to assess whether the location of the thalamic lesions in R.F. (but not in G. P.) implied connections with prefrontal areas involved in dysexecutive syndromes. In G.P., the lesion fell within areas of the thalamus poorly connected with prefrontal areas, showing only a modest probability of connection with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Conversely, R.F.'s lesion fell within thalamic areas extensively connected with the ACC bilaterally, with the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and with the left supplementary motor area. Despite a similar, bilateral involvement of the thalamus, the use of connectivity-based segmentation clarified that R.F.'s lesions only were located within nuclei highly connected with the prefrontal cortical areas, thus explaining the patient's frontal syndrome. This study confirms that DTI tractography is a useful tool to examine in vivo the effect of focal lesions on interconnectivity brain patterns

Integrated forest management to prevent wildfi res under mediterranean environments

This review presents a multidisciplinary framework for integrating the ecological, regulatory, procedural and technical aspects of forest management for fi res prevention under Mediterranean environments. The aims are to: i) provide a foreground of wildfi re scenario; ii) illustrate the theoretical background of forest fuel management; iii) describe the available fuel management techniques and mechanical operations for fi re prevention in forest and wildland-urban interfaces, with exemplifi cation of case-studies; iv) allocate fi re prevention activities under the hierarchy of forest planning. The review is conceived as an outline commentary discussion targeted to professionals, technicians and government personnel involved in forestry and environmental managemen

Integrated forest management to prevent wildfires under Mediterranean environments

This review presents a multidisciplinary framework for integrating the ecological, regulatory, procedural and technical aspects of forest management for fi res prevention under Mediterranean environments. The aims are to: i) provide a foreground of wildfi re scenario; ii) illustrate the theoretical background of forest fuel management; iii) describe the available fuel management techniques and mechanical operations for fi re prevention in forest and wildland-urban interfaces, with exemplifi cation of case-studies; iv)allocate fi re prevention activities under the hierarchy of forest planning. The review is conceived as an outline commentary discussion targeted to professionals, technicians and government personnel involved in forestry and environmental management

The Personality Trait of Environmental Sensitivity Predicts Children's Positive Response to School-Based Antibullying Intervention

Background: Meta-analyses on the effectiveness of anti-bullying interventions show that average effects tend to be significant but small. Informed by the Vantage Sensitivity framework (Pluess and Belsky, 2013) the current study aims at testing whether individual differences in Environmental Sensitivity predict treatment response to an anti-bullying intervention. Method: Large randomized controlled trial with 2,042 pupils (grade 4 and 6) randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition. Results: Significant Intervention effects on victimization and internalizing symptoms (but not bullying or externalizing symptoms) were moderated by both Environmental Sensitivity and gender, with boys scoring high on sensitivity benefitting significantly more than less sensitive boys from the effects of the intervention regarding reduced victimization and internalizing symptoms. Conclusions: Findings are consistent with the notion of Vantage Sensitivity, suggesting that some individuals are disproportionately likely to respond to treatment while others are more resistant as a function of individual differences in environmental sensitivity

Sub-National Scale Initiatives for Climate Change Mitigation: Refining the Approach to Increase the Effectiveness of the Covenant of Mayors

Climate change mitigation strategies include sub-national initiatives proposed and operated by municipalities. An example of such initiatives is the Covenant of Mayors, the signatories of which are requested to compile territorial greenhouse gas emission inventories to identify entry points for mitigating policies and to be able to monitor their effectiveness over time. However, the current accounting approach presents some limitations, providing an incomplete picture of the territorial emissive status, thus hampering the mitigation potential of the set of measures. The present study shows that the current approach required by the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP) guidelines for compiling the Baseline Emission Inventory (BEI) can be complemented with the accounting guidelines proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in order to fill existing gaps and provide a comprehensive picture from a different point of view. The proposed refinement demonstrates that local administrative bodies can count on a tool able to provide detailed and accurate information, stimulate knowledge and awareness, and optimize local mitigation efforts sometimes limited by the application of large scale (national) top-down initiatives