The yeast population dynamics in olive wastewaters (OMW), sampled in five mills from Salento (Apulia, Southern Italy), were investigated. Three hundred yeasts were isolated in five industrial mills and identified by molecular analysis. Strains belonging to Geotrichum, Saccharomyces, Pichia, Rhodotorula and Candida were detected. Five G. candidum strains were able to grow in OMW as the sole carbon source and to reduce phenolics, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and antimicrobial compounds. One G. candidum isolate was selected for whole-cell immobilization in calcium alginate gel. The COD and phenolic reduction obtained with immobilized cells showed a 2.2- and 2-fold increase compared to the removal obtained with free cells, respectively. The immobilization system enhanced yeast oxidative activity by avoiding the presence of microbial protease in treated OMW. To our knowledge, this is the first report on G. candidum whole-cell immobilization for OMW bioremediation.

The rising performance of broadband connections for residential users, particularly in conjunction with fiber to the home, will present a new challenge for telecom operators in the short and medium terms: how to deliver the high bit rate digital signals with high quality-of-service to all consumer devices scattered inside the building of final users? Among the many different solutions for the home network, we review in this article the use of polymer optical fibers for short-reach and high-capacity optical communications for residential customer premises. POF is an easy-to-install, low-cost, and eye-safe solution for these networks, with the potential of being future-proof. In this article the state of the art in POF technology is presented by summarizing significant results achieved in the European project POF-ALL. Data transmission rates of more than 1 Gb/s over 50+ m and 100 Mb/s over 200+ m of standard step-index POF have been shown.