Going green? Ex-post valuation of a multipurpose water infrastructure in Northern Italy.

A contingent valuation approach is used to estimate how households value different multipurpose infrastructures (conventional or green) for managing flood risk and water pollution. As a case study we consider the Gorla Maggiore water park located in the Lombardy Region, in Northern Italy. The park is a neo-ecosystem including an infrastructure to treat waste water and store excess rain water, built in 2011 on the shore of the Olona River in an area previously used for poplar plantation.

A Global Meta-Analysis of the Value of Ecosystem Services Provided by Lakes.

This study presents the first meta-analysis on the economic value of ecosystem services delivered by lakes. A worldwide data set of 699 observations drawn from 133 studies combines information reported in primary studies with geospatial data. The meta-analysis explores antagonisms and synergies between ecosystem services.

Circulating immune complexes in serum and in cerebrospinal fluid of patients with multiple sclerosis. Characterization and correlation with the clinical course.

We studied circulating immune complexes (IC) in the serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with clinically defined multiple sclerosis (MS), in order to establish a correlation with the clinical course of the disease and to investigate the molecular composition of the IC isolated from patients in active phase of the disease. Serum IC levels were found to be significantly increased in patients from the progressive and active relapsing-remittent subgroups with both the CIC-conglutinin and C1q-binding methods. High levels of IC in CSF were detected only in the subgroup consisting of the relapsing-remittent patients in disease exacerbation when IC were determined by the C1q-binding test.

ELISA determined IgM, IgG and IgA rheumatoid factors in rheumatoid arthritis and in other connective tissue diseases.

We used an adaptation of an enzyme-linked immunoadsorbent assay (ELISA) to determine serum levels of IgM, IgG and IgA rheumatoid factors (RF) in 50 patients with classic or definite rheumatoid arthritis (RA) according to the ARA criteria, balanced for positive or negative-routine Latex-RF reaction. A control group of 50 young normal subjects and a reference group of 44 patients with other connective tissue diseases (OCTD) were also studied. We confirmed the high sensibility of the method, together with its good specificity and reproducibility.

IgM, IgG and IgA rheumatoid factors and circulating immune complexes in patients with AIDS and AIDS-related complex with serological abnormalities.

To investigate some humoral aspects which may reflect the involvement of B lymphocytes in the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), we used an enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) to determine the levels of IgM, IgG and IgA rheumatoid factors (RF) in 16 patients suffering from full-blown AIDS and 32 patients with AIDS-related complex (ARC), in the clinical form of lymphoadenopathy syndrome (LAS), compared with 40 healthy, young heterosexual subjects. Both AIDS and ARC patients showed a greater incidence of high IgM RF levels, with mean values significantly higher than controls, but with no differences between the two pathological groups. IgG RF behaviour was similar in the two patient populations and the healthy subjects.