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The utilization of animal donors of rumen fluid for laboratory experiments can raise ethical concerns, and alternatives to the collection of rumen fluids from live animals are urgently requested. The aim of this study was to compare the fresh rumen fluid (collected at slaughter, W) with that obtained from a continuous fermenter (RCF) and three methods of rumen fluid preservation (refrigeration, R, chilling, C, and freeze-drying, FD). The fermentability of different inoculum was evaluated by three in vitro tests (neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and crude protein (CP) degradability and gas production, NDFd, RDP and GP, respectively) using six feeds as substrates. Despite the two types of inoculum differed in terms of metabolites and microbiota concentration, the differences in vitro fermentability between the two liquids were less pronounced than expected (-15 and 20% for NDFd and GP when the liquid of fermenter was used and no differences for RDP).Within each in vitro test, the data obtained from rumen and from fermenter liquids were highly correlated for the six feeds, as well as betweenWand R (r: 0.837-0.985; p < 0.01). The low fermentative capacity was found for C and, particularly, FD for liquids. RCF could be used to generate inoculum for in vitro purposes and short-term refrigeration is a valuable practice to manage inoculum.

Italy has participated in the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study since 2000. These surveys collect data every four years on the well-being and health behaviour of boys and girls aged 11, 13 and 15. Until 2007, the coordination group of the University of Turin, Siena and Padua directly sent the questionnaires to each sampled school to collect the data. The sample of about 4500 students was nationally representative. In 2008 the HBSC became part of the project "Surveys on behavioral risks in children aged 6-17 years", coordinated by the National Institute of Health (ISS) and promoted by the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, University and Research. For the first time, in 2010, the survey was conducted by health workers in collaboration with teachers in all regions with a representative sample, not just at the national level, but also at regional level. In the 2,504 sampled schools, 77,113 students (25,079 eleven-year-old, 26,048 thirteen-year-old and 25,986 fifteen-year-old) completed an anonymous questionnaire. Knowledge of the health-related behaviour of school-aged adolescents may help monitoring and enable policies for young people to be formulated and implemented.

Il contributo presenta le caratteristiche dell’archivio Disrel (Disuguaglianze di reddito a livello locale), finalizzato all’integrazione in un unico database di indagini locali sul reddito. Grazie a un lavoro di armonizzazione delle diverse fonti è stato così creato un database che consente di comparare dimensioni e caratteristiche della disuguaglianza e della povertà a livello meso e micro territoriale. Le analisi condotte hanno quindi rivelato non solo che la diffusione di questi fenomeni è assai differenziata a livello territoriale, ma soprattutto che la distribuzione dei rischi è diversa, suggerendo che i meccanismi sottostanti siano, almeno in parte, diversi nelle diverse aree.

Oggetto di questo articolo è l’analisi delle caratteristiche della povertà in alcuni contesti territoriali italiani. Il presupposto sul quale si fonda è che, in un paese segnato da profonde differenze territoriali nei livelli di benessere socio-economico, limitare la rilevazione della povertà ad un’unica soglia nazionale tenda a nascondere aspetti del fenomeno presenti anche nelle zone a maggiore diffusione del benessere. L’analisi viene quindi condotta con riferimento a due diverse soglie di povertà, una fissata a livello nazionale e una calcolata in funzione del livello locale dei redditi, utilizzando i dati dell’archivio Disrel su varie realtà locali italiane. I risultati di questo esercizio confermano l’opportunità di questa doppia prospettiva, evidenziando come nel passaggio dalla soglia nazionale alle soglie locali emergano con maggiore chiarezza i differenti profili di rischio nelle aree prese in esame.

Intensive agriculture and livestock breeding represent critical factors in the Lombardy region since the nitrate vulnerable zones are 62% of utilised agricultural plain area. The aim of reducing the environmental risk caused by agriculture activities (e.g. nitrogen losses into groundwater and atmosphere) can be only achieved through a critical and scientific analysis of livestock manure management in a whole-farm perspective. Keeping in mind this objective, the decision support system (DSS) ValorE was developed. It can be described as a tool able to evaluate from the environmental, technical, agronomic and economic points of view the main components of manure management (production, storage, treatment and land application) for a variety of livestock types (i.e., cattle, swine, poultry, sheep, goats and horses), under different scenarios adopted at farm and territorial scale. ValorE consists of three main components: data management subsystem, model management subsystem and two versions of user-interface, both for farm and territorial scale. Most of the inputs to the DSS comes from external databases, while a software tool developed in the .NET environment and implemented using object oriented programming (C# language), provides the logic to manage the scenario simulation of agronomic and environmental farm-scale models. Users and stakeholders can carry out comparative analysis, starting from the knowledge of the current perspective, in terms of manure management system at farm or territorial scale by interrogating the available databases. Moreover, they can generate different alternative scenarios thanks to different options for the manure handling and cropping system simulation. Then they can finally evaluate and compare different scenarios through multidisciplinary and synthetic indicators but also visualise spatial effects exploiting the coupled webGIS. ValorE is therefore an attempt to offer a comprehensive tool for improving both farm strategy and decision maki