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This study used RNA sequencing to reveal a mechanism for cadmium toxicology, and identified and functionally verified BmMT, offering a new potential heavy metal-tolerant silkworm variety.This study investigated polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) in air (n = 108) and human serum (n = 1802) samples collected over 20 years to evaluate the long-term exposure to PCDD/Fs and health effects on the Korean general population. The serum PCDD/F levels were higher in males than in females and were significantly correlated with age, body mass index, and manifestation of diabetes mellitus. From 2000 to 2019, the PCDD/F levels declined by 96% in the air, but only by 36% in the serum, because PCDD/Fs are relatively stable in the human body and are exposed to humans after PCDD/Fs are distributed and migrated in various environmental matrices. GPCR agonist The PCDD/F levels in other environmental matrices have also decreased at rates that differed among the matrices due to the different retention times and changes in continuous input of contaminants. As PCDD/Fs migrate from environmental matrices to the human body, the fraction of PCDDs increased whereas that of PCDFs decreased because of their relatively short half-lives. This study provides a concrete evidence that PCDD/F emissions by national regulations can achieve long-term reduction in human exposure. To the best of our knowledge, this is the longest and largest study to evaluate the long-term trends and annual changes of PCDD/Fs in the atmosphere and human serum, simultaneously.In the olive production sector, which is increasingly expanding beyond the borders of the Mediterranean basin, harvesting is the most demanding phase, from both an economic and organisational point of view. Traditional olive orchards are still predominant, with centuries-old and large plants, and are characterised by the gradual ripening of drupes and irregular planting patterns. Even though the structural conversion of these olive orchards into more modern cultivations may be difficult owing to their historical, monumental, and landscaping importance, as well as the existing legal restrictions, supporting a “modernisation” process aimed at mechanising the main farming operations remains a priority. Technological innovation is, therefore, a primary objective for Mediterranean olive growing, as well as for the enhancement of its strengths. The present study aimed at assessing different olive harvesting sites, considering the technical, economic, and environmental aspects, to develop a better version of the “olive harvesting database”. The applied methodology, also called the “modular approach”, represents a useful tool to apply in unitary process assessment to obtain a comprehensive database of diverse agricultural operations. Eight olive harvesting systems were compared six highly mechanised scenarios, one based on mechanical-aided harvesting, and the final one based on fully manual harvesting. The mechanised systems obtained a better performance in terms of working capacity, as only 3.5 h ha-1 were needed to harvest 12 t using a self-propelled trunk shaker. In addition, the economic results revealed that mechanical harvesting, diversely from manual or aided harvesting, is the only way to decrease production costs. From an environmental point of view, manual and mechanical-aided harvesting showed the best performance in terms of impact per hour. However, using the mass-based unit (1 kg of harvested olives), the results were the opposite and this could be very relevant for the ecoprofile of olive oil.During the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, official data are collected with medical swabs following a pure convenience criterion which, at least in an early phase, has privileged the exam of patients showing evident symptoms. However, there are evidences of a very high proportion of asymptomatic patients. In this situation, in order to estimate the real number of infected (and to estimate the lethality rate), it should be necessary to run a properly designed sample survey through which it would be possible to calculate the probability of inclusion and hence draw sound probabilistic inference. Unfortunately, the survey run by the Italian Statistical Institute encountered many field difficulties. Some researchers proposed estimates of the total prevalence based on various approaches, including epidemiologic models, time series and the analysis of data collected in countries that faced the epidemic in earlier times. In this paper, we propose to estimate the prevalence of Covid-19 in Italy by reweighting the available official data published by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità so as to obtain a more representative sample of the Italian population. Reweighting is a procedure commonly used to artificially modify the sample composition so as to obtain a distribution which is more similar to the population. In this paper, we will use post-stratification of the official data, in order to derive the weights necessary for reweighting the sample results, using age and gender as post-stratification variables, thus obtaining more reliable estimation of prevalence and lethality. Specifically, for Italy, we obtain a prevalence of 9%. The proposed methodology represents a reasonable approximation while waiting for more reliable data obtained with a properly designed national sample survey and that it could be further improved if more data were made available.Electroactive biofilm (EAB) sensor had shown great potential in the field of early warning of toxicants in water because of the low-cost and broad-spectrum. However, the traditional calculation of sensitivity strongly relied on the time and concentration gradient which weakened time-efficiency of the sensor. Moreover, the sensitivity could be further improved to respond trace concentrations. Here EAB sensors with different substrate concentrations were formed to respond different concentrations formaldehyde ranging from 1 ppm to 50 ppm and immediate current attenuation (ICA) was induced to evaluate the sensitivity. The ICA (~70 s) exhibited a shorter time than that calculated by calculable sensitivity (CS) and current attenuation (CA), which not only achieved the response of trace concentration but also improved the time-efficiency of the sensor. The EAB formed with 0.1 g/L acetate (EAB-0.1) had a 380% higher sensitivity than that formed with 1.0 g/L acetate (EAB-1.0), leading to a significant electrochemical toxicity response to 1 ppm of formaldehyde.