Ricerc@Sapienza

The use of mobile phones or smartphones has become so widespread that most people rely on them for many services and applications like sending e-mails, checking the bank account, accessing cloud platforms, health monitoring, buying on-line and many other applications where sharing sensitive data is required. As a consequence, security functions are important in the use of smartphones, especially because most of the applications require the identification and authentication of the device in mobility.

Research findings have shown that microphones can be uniquely identified by audio recordings since physical features of the microphone components leave repeatable and distinguishable traces on the audio stream. This property can be exploited in security applications to perform the identification of a mobile phone through the built-in microphone. The problem is to determine an accurate but also efficient representation of the physical characteristics, which is not known a priori.

Grappa is a Geographical Indication (GI) allowed by the EC Regulation no.110 of 2008 only for Italian-made grape marc spirit. To assess the authenticity of a beverage symbol of the Made in Italy, samples of Grappa GI and Italian spirits obtained from the distillation of other fruits or cereals were analysed.

Avola almond is part of the “Traditional Italian Agri-food Product” (PAT) list, as established by The Italian Ministry of agricultural food, forestry and tourism policies; this endorsement testifies its status as a high added-value product, and, consequently, it highlights the need of analytical methodologies suitable for its authentication. For these reasons, in the present study, the possibility of developing a non-destructive approach, aimed at distinguishing almonds cultivated in the Avola area from others presenting a different geographical origin, has been investigated.

One hundred and forty-nine (149) Italian saffron samples produced in the years from 2013 to 2016 in distinct sites located in five different Italian regions, Abruzzo, Tuscany, Umbria, Campania and Sardinia, together with twenty-seven (27) commercial samples, have been analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD). Among the investigated samples, those produced in Abruzzo (L'Aquila area) present an even higher added-value, because, since 2005, saffron of L'Aquila has been granted of the protected designation of origin (PDO) mark.