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This study was aimed to investigate the quality at harvest and during storage of organically and conventionally grown 'Italia' grapes, collected from 2 different locations in Southern Italy. Four vineyards were chosen in order to have an organic and a conventional farm in each location. Before harvest, six plants per vineyard were randomly selected and considered as treatment replicate. Three bunches were harvested and labelled from each plant. In laboratory each bunch was weighed and thirty berries per bunch were detached and used for initial determination which included morphological (berry weight and dimension, peel thickness) and physical (berry color and firmness) attributes, maturity indices (respiration rate, soluble solids content and titratable acidity), and nutritional composition (phenol content, antioxidant activity, sugar and organic acid composition, ascorbic acid content). Then, the bunches from each replicate were kept in individual 15L jars at 0°C and connected to a humidified air flow throughout the whole experiment. After 7 and 14 days of storage, respiration rate, weight loss, physical and nutritional attributes were also monitored on 20 berries per bunch. Location and agricultural practices affected to a different extent several grapes quality attributes, both at harvest and during storage. Maturity stage, sugar content and berry color were significantly affected by the location, while antioxidantrelated compounds were significantly higher in organic grapes. Plant production and bunch weight were significantly higher for conventionally grown grapes, which also received the highest evaluation of external appearance, in terms of stalk dehydration and berry general aspect. Differences among conventional and organic grapes were maintained, for each location, during storage at 0°C. Conventional grapes maintained a higher visual quality during storage, resulting after 14 days below the limit of marketability (score 3) but above the edibility limit (score 2); whereas in one location organic grapes were judged not edible. Results showed a higher nutritional value in grapes obtained with the organic farming system although in terms of visual quality, storability and yield, conventional fruit had a better performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high time-resolved monitoring campaign of bulk deposition of PAHs and metals was conducted near the industrial area and at an urban background site in province of Taranto (Italy) in order to evaluate the impact of the biggest European steel plant. The deposition fluxes of the sum of detected PAHs at the industrial area ranged from 92 to 2432 ng m-2 d-1. In particular the deposition fluxesofBaP, BaA, and BkFwere, on average, 10, 14, and 8 times higher than those detected at the urban back ground site, respectively. The same finding was for metals. The deposition fluxes of Ni (19.8 µgm-2 d-1) andAs (2.2 µgm-2 d-1) at the industrial site were about 5 times higher than those at the urban background site, while the deposition fluxes of Fe (57 mg m-2 d-1) and Mn (1.02 mg m-2 d-1) about 31 times higher. Precipitation and wind speed played an important role in PAH deposition fluxes. Fe and Mn fluxes at the industrial site resulted high when wind direction favored the transport of air masses from the steel plant to the receptor site. The impact of the industrial area was also confirmed by IP/(IP + BgP), IP/BgP, and BaP/BgP diagnostic ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study was aimed to the development of an integrated approach for the characterization of particulate matter (PM) pollution events in the South of Italy. Methods: PM and PM daily samples were collected from June to November 2008 at an urban background site located in Bari (Puglia Region, South of Italy). Meteorological data, particle size distributions and atmospheric dispersion conditions were also monitored in order to provide information concerning the different features of PM sources. Results: The collected data allowed suggesting four indicators to characterize different PM exceedances. PM/PM ratio, natural radioactivity, aerosol maps and back-trajectory analysis and particle distributions were considered in order to evaluate the contribution of local anthropogenic sources and to determine the different origins of intrusive air mass coming from long-range transport, such as African dust outbreaks and aerosol particles from Central and Eastern Europe. The obtained results were confirmed by applying principal component analysis to the number particle concentration dataset and by the chemical characterization of the samples (PM and PM). Conclusions: The integrated approach for PM study suggested in this paper can be useful to support the air quality managers for the development of cost-effective control strategies and the application of more suitable risk management approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To estimate the impact of alcohol consumption on the incidence of mild cognitive impairment and its progression to dementia., Methods: We evaluated the incidence of mild cognitive impairment in 1,445 non-cognitively impaired individuals and its progression to dementia in 121 patients with mild cognitive impairment, aged 65 to 84 years, participating in the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging, with a 3.5-year follow-up. The level of alcohol consumption was ascertained in the year before the survey. Dementia and mild cognitive impairment were classified using current clinical criteria., Results: Patients with mild cognitive impairment who were moderate drinkers, i.e., those who consumed less than 1 drink/day (approximately 15 g of alcohol), had a lower rate of progression to dementia than abstainers (hazard ratio [HR] 0.15; 95% CI 0.03 to 0.78). Furthermore, moderate drinkers with mild cognitive impairment who consumed less than 1 drink/day of wine showed a significantly lower rate of progression to dementia than abstainers (HR 0.15; 95% CI 0.03 to 0.77). Finally, there was no significant association between higher levels of drinking (> or =1 drink/day) and rate of progression to dementia in patients with mild cognitive impairment vs abstainers. No significant associations were found between any levels of drinking and the incidence of mild cognitive impairment in non-cognitively impaired individuals vs abstainers., Conclusions: In patients with mild cognitive impairment, up to 1 drink/day of alcohol or wine may decrease the rate of progression to dementia.