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The report focuses on MSW management in Italy. Based on historical MSW data and EU targets linked to MSW in the Waste Framework Directive, the Landfill Directive and the Packaging Directive, the analysis undertaken includes: - The historical performance on MSW management, based on a set of indicators; - Differences in regional MSW management performances; - Relation of the indicators to the most important initiatives taken to improve MSW management in the country; and - Assessment of the future possible trends and achieving of the future EU targets on MSW by 2020.

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Background Early highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), started within the first months of age, has been proven to be the optimal strategy to prevent immunological and clinical deterioration in perinatally HIV-infected children. Nevertheless, data about long-term follow-up of early treated children are lacking. Methods We report data from 40 perinatally HIV-infected-children receiving early HAART, with a median follow-up period of 5.96 years (interquartile range [IQR]:4.21–7.62). Children were enrolled at birth in the Italian Register for HIV Infection in Children. Comparison with 91 infected children born in the same period, followed-up from birth, and receiving deferred treatment was also provided. Results Nineteen children (47.5%) were still receiving their first HAART regimen at last follow-up. In the remaining children the first regimen was discontinued, after a median period of 3.77 years (IQR: 1.71–5.71) because of viral failure (8 cases), liver toxicity (1 case), structured therapy interruption (3 cases), or simplification/switch to a PI-sparing regimen (9 cases). Thirty-nine (97.5%) children showed CD4+ T-lymphocyte values>25%, and undetectable viral load was reached in 31 (77.5%) children at last visit. Early treated children displayed significantly lower viral load than not-early treated children, until 6 years of age, and higher median CD4+ T-lymphocyte percentages until 4 years of age. Twenty-seven (29.7%) not-early treated vs. 0/40 early treated children were in clinical category C at last follow-up (P < 0.0001). Conclusion Our findings suggest that clinical, virologic and immunological advantages from early-HAART are long-lasting. Recommendations indicating the long-term management of early treated children are needed.

Steady - state spectroscopy of Tm doped tellurite glasses was used for concentration optimisation. Raman spectroscopy was utilized for tellurite glass structural characterization.

During the EuNIC project a shared approach to digital literacy was developed within the consortium, based on the NIC Italian experience (see Report 2 of the project). The main idea underpinning the project was that it was possible to adapt the NIC approach and transform it into a European model, that could be successfully applied to contexts very different from the original one. In order to verify this, conditions for running pilot courses in the partner countries were created by training a number of teachers who afterwards became "EuNIC experts" and experimented pilot courses in their countries (see Report 3). The present Report, which is Report 4 of the project, is aimed at describing the last phases of the project. In particular, Section II of the Report briefly describes the evaluation model specifically developed by ITD-CNR in order to monitor and evaluate the pilot experiences in the partner countries. Section III illustrates the main results obtained during the pilot courses. Such results derive from the application of the above mentioned evaluation model. Furthermore, since one of the last activities envisaged by the project was the development of a transferability strategy to further sustain and extend the EuNIC approach at national and international level, the consortium organized a Seminar which was held in Genoa on the 22nd of June.

The main aim of the EuNIC project is to promote throughout Europe a "concept-oriented" approach to digital literacy, as opposed to a technology oriented one. According to the project, this can be achieved by adapting and transferring to other European countries an innovative approach to digital literacy (called NIC) developed in 2001 in Italy by ITD-CNR, which has been widely experimented by the Centro Atene with very positive results. Up to now during the project a state of the art has been developed (Report 1) whose aim was to understand deeply the situation in each partner's country as far as digital literacy is concerned and set the bases to identify suitable target populations for experimenting the EuNIC approach. Based on the results of Report 1 and the Italian experience (NIC), the European approach to digital literacy has also been designed (Report 2). According to the proposal, this approach will be tried out in each partner country through the delivery of pilot courses managed by pioneer teachers who will become the experts in their country for the EuNIC approach. Thus the EuNIC teachers will play a key role in the process of methodological transfer because they will be in charge of running the EuNIC courses, possibly tuning the approach according to the context and collecting the data needed to evaluate the experiment. In case of success, they might be in charge of disseminating the approach in their country by training more teachers to run the courses. In other words, they will be in the position promoting the approach at national level. For these reasons, it is essential that they acquire a deep understanding of the methodology and of the related learning materials. To this end, according to the EuNIC plans, they will be provided with formal and informal training opprtunities before, during and after the running of the pilot courses. In particular: -an online training course for the EuNIC teachers was designed and run in order to provide them with an a priori understanding of the approach and to start up the embryo of an EuNIC teachers community; -a "Follow up" area has been set up in order to support the teachers during the run of the pilot courses and maintain the community; -a virtual European platform has been set up, so that teachers can share their know-how as far as the application of the approach is concerned, and they can exchange opinions and information during and after the run of the pilot courses; -a final seminar will gather the project partners and the teachers, so that they will be able to devise and discuss the EuNIC transferability strategy, find ways to further disseminate the project results and explore possible ways the to maintain the EuNIC community after the end of the project. Inthis document, a detailed description is provided of the above mentioned actions undertaken within the project for supporting the creation of communities of EuNIC teachers.

The report contains the description of a “concept-oriented” approach to digital literacy defined within the EuNIC project on the basis of an already existing approach developed by ITD in 2001; within the project the approach will be exported throughout Europe. The EuNIC approach aims at helping adults with no computer skills to become “wise beginner users”, i.e. people who: - are able to interact with the computer to perform simple tasks; - have an overall understanding of the logic-physical working mechanism of the computer; - are able to act independently to improve their know how. The structure of the EuNIC course is organized into stages, in order to: - concentrate the core skills in a first short period of time (how to use mouse and keyboard, how to access files and folders, how to manipulate windows, etc.) and the core concepts and competences (files, folders, applications, operating system, etc.); - expose people during the second stage to the use of computer by contextualizing it in a “real” situation; this is obtained by carrying out the “project work”, which includes the use of different applications, in order to fix the core concepts and skills introduced in the previous stage; - provide in the final stage elements able to further foster an autonomous use of the computer and to support an aware choice of next training initiatives. The report is supplied with the learning materials for the students (worksheets, exercises, tutorials, etc.) and a "Teacher’s guide".