Ricerc@Sapienza

Antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) have been found on fresh fruit and vegetables globally. These types of ARB infections are spreading rapidly and are a major human health threat. A quantitative human exposure assessment model was created using scenario analysis to investigate the potential human exposure to antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli (AR-E. coli) through the consumption of lettuce irrigated with surface water. Scientific literature and site specific data were collected to model each process from farm to fork to calculate the concentration of AR-E.

Mosquitoes of the Aedes genus transmit arboviruses of great importance to human health as dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever. The tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus can play an important role as arboviral vector, especially when Aedes aegypti is absent or present at low levels. Remarkably, the rapid worldwide spreading of the tiger mosquito is expanding the risk of arboviral transmission also to temperate areas, and the autochthonous cases of chikungunya, dengue and Zika in Europe emphasize the need for improved monitoring and control.

The paper deals with measures for evaluating the human exposure to signals with continuous spectra, such as signals radiated from power line communication systems (PLC), ground penetrating radar (GPR), or other ultra-wideband signals. A new approach is proposed, arising from the signal theory, where integrals of radiated field spectra are calculated from the measured field amplitudes. A computational example is presented, which deals with PLC signals; future work will deal with GPR signals.