-Colifast ® Milk is a rapid screening test for the detection of total coliforms in milk based upon the measurement of change in fluorescence during an incubation period, due to the targeted b-D-galactosidase activity on 4-methyl-umbelliferone-b-D-galactoside contained in a selective growth medium. In this work, 800 samples of homogenised pasteurised milk, with different fat content (1.5 and 3.5%) and contaminated with various concentrations of coliforms (from 0.03 to > 10000 CFU·mL -1 ), were analysed in order to compare the results obtained by Colifast ® Milk with those by the standard method. The effect of the incubation temperature (30 and 39 °C) was also investigated. For the totality of samples the correspondence between coliform counts obtained by the two methods was 64% (r 2 = 0.743; P = 0.88). The performance of Colifast ® Milk was notably affected by the level of contamination, since for samples with coliforms > 10 CFU·mL -1 the correspondence between the two methods achieved 86% (r 2 = 0.837; P = 0.94) whereas for samples with coliforms £ 10 CFU·mL -1 it fell to 42% (r 2 = 0.073; P = 0.33). Fat content also influenced the response of the Colifast ® system since the correspondence decreased from 80% (r 2 = 0.767; P = 0.91) for semi-skimmed milk to 48% (r 2 = 0.724; P = 0.63) for whole milk. Incubation at 30°C improved the recovery of coliforms by Colifast ® Milk as the correspondence between values obtained with the two methods reached 72% (r 2 = 0.760; P = 0.89) if compared with 56% (r 2 = 0.735; P = 0.87) when the incubation temperature was 39 °C. Under these operating conditions the sensitivity showed by the fluorometric method appeared to be not sufficient for the detection of coliforms in pasteurised milk.

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Healthy ageing is a public health problem globally. In Europe, the dependency ratio of the elderly is expected to increase by 21.6 per cent to 51.2 per cent in 2070. The World Health Organization (WHO) study on healthy ageing started in 2002 as a concept whereby all people of all ages should be able to live in a healthy, safe and socially inclusive way. The aim of this study is to present preliminary results of the project Identification of Determinants of Healthy Ageing in Italy (IDAGIT) that aimed to collect data on the active and healthy ageing of the Italian population aged over 18 using the conceptual framework of the WHO's ageing model. To link the determinants of the IDAGIT studies to those of the WHO model, we performed a confirmatory factor analysis which reported these variables as significant (in order of factor loading): smoking, cognition score, comorbidity, outdoor built environment, participation, working expertise and income. Considering comorbidity, 83.8 per cent of the sample declared not having any chronic diseases or to have only one, and regarding neurological diseases, only nine people had received a diagnosis of stroke. Regarding gender, the personal determinants and physical and social environments did not result in statistically significant differences, whereas we found statistical differences between the aged groups in all variables analysed. These results provide a first bio-psycho-social perspective on ageing in the Italian population.