Sponge species have been deemed high microbial abundance (HMA) or low microbial abundance (LMA) based on the composition and abundance of their microbial symbionts. In the present study, we evaluated the richness and composition of bacterial communities associated with one HMA sponge (Xestospongia testudinaria; Demospongiae: Haplosclerida: Petrosiidae), one LMA sponge (Stylissa carteri; Demospongiae: Scopalinida -Scopalinidae), and one sponge with a hitherto unknown microbial community (Aaptos suberitoides; Demospongiae: Suberitida: Suberitidae) inhabiting the Misool coral reef system in the West Papua province of Indonesia. The bacterial communities of these sponge species were also compared with seawater and sediment bacterial communities from the same coastal coral reef habitat. Using a 16S rRNA gene barcoded pyrosequencing approach, we showed that the most abundant phylum overall was Proteobacteria. The biotope (sponge species, sediment or seawater) explained almost 84% of the variation in bacterial composition with highly significant differences in composition among biotopes and a clear separation between bacterial communities from seawater and S. carteri; X. testudinaria and A. suberitoides and sediment. The Chloroflexi classes SAR202 and Anaerolineae were most abundant in A. suberitoides and X. testudinaria and both of these species shared several OTUs that were largely absent in the remaining biotopes. This suggests that A. suberitoides is a HMA sponge. Although similar, the bacterial communities of S. carteri and seawater were compositionally distinct. These results confirm compositional differences between sponge and non-sponge biotopes and between HMA and LMA sponges.

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This paper presents a new paradigm for implementing the authentication of individuals within Web sessions. Nowadays many countries have deployed electronic identity cards (eID tokens) for their citizens' personal identification, but these are not yet well integrated with the authentication of people in Web sessions. We used the concept of Personal Identity Provider (PIdP) to replace (or complement) the role ordinarily given to institutional Identity Providers (IdPs), which are trusted third parties to which service providers delegate the identification and the authentication of their clients. By running locally on a citizen's computer, the PIdP paradigm is well suited to assist his/her eID-based authentication. In this paper we describe an eID-based authentication protocol handled by a PIdP, its implementation and its integration in a production scenario (a campus-wide, Shibboleth IdP-based authentication infrastructure used in University of Aveiro).

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In a world where people must subject themselves to high scrutiny in every process they initiate, and in a world where the digital environment grows incessantly, we anticipate more online services asking for personal attributes and their need to trust in such attributes. For tackling such need, we describe a proposal for a secure, decentralized and shared repository of certified personal attributes. Individuals benefit because they have full control over the disclosure of their set of certified attributes (e.g. to assert their identities to service providers). The certifying entities benefit from a blockchain-based, resilient and decentralized infrastructure, avoiding the higher costs of an always-on, centralized infrastructure, while retaining the power to issue and revoke certified attributes. Finally service providers benefit from the correctness and freshness of the certified attributes that individuals disclosed to them.

Aim To evaluate the interactive effects of oil contamination and chemical dispersant application on bacterial composition and sediment remediation of an estuarine port environment. Methods and Results A multifactorial controlled microcosm experiment was set up using sediment cores retrieved from an estuarine port area located at Ria de Aveiro lagoon (Aveiro, Portugal). An oil spill with and without chemical dispersant addition was simulated. Sediment oil hydrocarbon concentrations and benthic bacterial community structure were evaluated by GC‐MS and 16S rRNA high‐throughput sequencing respectively. Although initially (first 10 days) chemical dispersion of oil enhanced the concentrations of the heavier polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and of the C22‐C30 alkane group, with time (21 days), no significant differences in hydrocarbon concentrations were detected among treatments. Moreover, no significant changes were detected in the structure of sediment bacterial communities, which mainly consisted of operational taxonomic units related to hydrocarbon‐contaminated marine environments. We hypothesize that the environmental background of the sampling site preconditioned the communities’ response to additional contamination. Conclusion This experimental microcosm study showed that the chemical dispersion of oil did not influence sediment remediation or bacterial community composition. Significance and Impact of the Study Our study showed that chemical dispersion of oil may not improve the remediation of port sediments. Further studies are needed to investigate the impact of chemical dispersants in combination with bioremediation strategies on the process of sediment remediation in port areas.