The northernmost record of the blue-spotted cornetfish from the Mediterranean Sea

A school of Fistularia commersonii was sighted off Laigueglia (Italy), Northwestern Ligurian Sea, inAugust 2008. This fast spreading invasive Indo-Pacific fish was first recorded in the Mediterranean fromIsrael, and it has since spread clear across the sea. This is the northernmost record from the Mediterranean

Lung transplantation and mortality in patients with cystic fibrosis under oxygen therapy

Objectives: There are few studies about survival in patients with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) under oxygen therapy (OT). Considering its clinical meaning and impact on patients\u2019 lifestyle, we aimed to determine how OT is associated with known prognostic factors and with lung transplantation (LTx) and death (D). Methods:We considered patients 6450 years registered in the ECFSPR from 2008 to 2017. An illness-death multi-state model was fitted, denoting LTx as intermediate state. Cox\u2019s proportional hazard models were fitted using age as time scale and left truncation corresponding to age at entry into ECFSPR. Models were used to estimate transition intensities and OT hazard ratio (HR), adjusted for known prognostic factors (age, sex, insulin, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Pa), Burkholderia cepacia (BC), BMI and FEV1% predicted). Results: 58576 patients were included in the analysis and 7627 (13%) had OT during the follow-up. 27587 (47.6%) were females, 35784 (61.1%) were <18 yrs old, 5228 (10.6%) had FEV1 <40%predicted, 5185 (9.5%) were underweight (BMI z score < 122), 6386 (10.9%) used insulin, 14037 (26.9%) had Pa, 1236 (2.4%) had BC. During the follow-up, 2509 patients had LTx and 3091 patients died: 2338 before and 753 after LTx. From the multi-state model, patients in OT have higher probability of having LTx (HR = 12.9, 95% CI: 11.6\u201314.4). The HRof death for patients in OT is 7.8 (95% CI: 6.9\u20138.7) before LTX, while it is 1.4 (95% CI: 1.2\u20131.7) after LTx. Conclusions: The need for oxygen therapy represents a turning point in patients\u2019 life, decreasing their chances of survival, with implications in the post LTX period yet. UndoubtedlyOT should be considered as a marker of CF disease severity, and patients with a supplemental oxygen requirement should have prompt and fully clinical reassessment. Preventing respiratory failure with oxygen requirement remains one of the main goals of CF care

Long-term disease-free survival of patients with radically resected thymomas: relevance of cell-cycle protein expression

BACKGROUND. Despite radical Surgical resection, thymomas often recur. The objective of the current retrospective Study was to investigate the prognostic relevance of the expression of cell-cycle proteins in these neoplasms to formulate a possible therapeutic Surveillance strategy for the prevention of recurrence. METHODS. The authors retrospectively reviewed the main clinicopathologic factors, including the World Health Organization (WHO) classification, of patients with thymoma who had undergone radical surgical resection. Specimens were studied using immunohistochemistry and the expression of cell-cycle proteins (i.e., p21, p27, and p53) was assessed. Univariate and multivariate analysis of predicting survival prognostic factors were performed. RESULTS. The authors analyzed 88 patients with thymoma who underwent radical surgical resection at the study institution. According to the Masaoka staging system, 41 patients had Stage I disease, 31 patients had Stage II disease, and 16 patients had Stage III disease. There were 24 tumor recurrences (27.3%), 4 of which were local, 16 of which were distant intrathoracic, and 4 of which were extrathoracic. The second radical resection provided a disease-free Survival rate that was similar to the first. Only Masaoka stage (P=0.001), WHO classification (P=0.001), high expression of p53 (P=0.03), and low expression of p21 (P=0.02) and p27 (P=0.001) were found to he correlated with a reduced disease-free survival. Low p27 expression was found to be the most significant predictive factor of a short disease-free Survival (P=0.001), especially when associated with low p21 expression and high p53 expression (P=0.0001). CONCLUSIONS. Long-term disease-free survival in thymoma patients treated with radical surgical resection Was found to be correlated with Masaoka stage, WHO classification, and expression of cell-cycle proteins, with the latter found to be the most significant predictive factor. Functional cooperation between cell-cycle proteins might constitute another level of regulation in tumor growth. More careful surveillance should be adopted whenever there is negative cell-cycle protein expression. (c) 2005 American Cancer Society

The non-indigenous Paranthura japonica Richardson, 1909 in the Mediterranean Sea: travelling with shellfish?

An anthurid isopod new to the Mediterranean Sea has recently been observed in samples from three localities of the Italian coast: the Lagoon of Venice (North Adriatic Sea), La Spezia (Ligurian Sea) and Olbia (Sardinia, Tyrrhenian Sea). The specimens collected showed strong affinity to a species originally described from the NW Pacific Ocean: Paranthura japonica Richardson, 1909. The comparison with specimens collected from the Bay of Arcachon (Atlantic coast of France), where P. japonica had been recently reported as non-indigenous, confirmed the identity of the species. This paper reports the most relevant morphological details of the Italian specimens, data on the current distribution of the species and a discussion on the pathways responsible for its introduction. The available data suggest that the presence of this Pacific isopod in several regions of coastal Europe might be due to a series of aquaculture-mediated introduction events that occurred during the last decades of the 1900s. Since then, established populations of P. japonica, probably misidentified, remained unnoticed for a long time

Some Bryozoa species recently introduced into the Azores: reproductive strategies as a proxy for further spread

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European Non-native Species in Aquaculture Risk Analysis Scheme - a summary of assessment protocols and decision support tools for use of alien species in aquaculture

The European Non-native Species in Aquaculture Risk Analysis Scheme (ENSARS) was developed in response to European 'Council Regulation No. 708/2007 of 11 June 2007 concerning use of alien and locally absent species in aquaculture' to provide protocols for identifying and evaluating the potential risks of using non-native species in aquaculture. ENSARS is modular in structure and adapted from non-native species risk assessment schemes developed by the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organisation and for the UK. Seven of the eight ENSARS modules contain protocols for evaluating the risks of escape, introduction to and establishment in open waters, of any non-native aquatic organism being used (or associated with those used) in aquaculture, that is, transport pathways, rearing facilities, infectious agents, and the potential organism, ecosystem and socio-economic impacts. A concluding module is designed to summarise the risks and consider management options. During the assessments, each question requires the assessor to provide a response and confidence ranking for that response based on expert opinion. Each module can also be used individually, and each requires a specific form of expertise. Therefore, a multidisciplinary assessment team is recommended for its completion

Search for vector-like quarks in events with two oppositely charged leptons and jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

A search for the pair production of heavy vectorlike partners T and B of the top and bottom quarks has been performed by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC using proton–proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV. The data sample was collected in 2016 and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb−1. Final states studied for TT production include those where one of the T quarks decays via T → tZ and the other via T → bW, tZ, or tH, where H is a Higgs boson. For the BB case, final states include those where one of the B quarks decays via B → bZ and the other B → tW, bZ, or bH. Events with two oppositely charged electrons or muons, consistent with coming from the decay of a Z boson, and jets are investigated. The number of observed events is consistent with standard model background estimations. Lower limits at 95% confidence level are placed on the masses of the T and B quarks for a range of branching fractions. Assuming 100% branching fractions for T → tZ, and B → bZ, T and B quark mass values below 1280 and 1130 GeV, respectively, are excluded

Combined measurements of Higgs boson couplings in proton- proton collisions at v s=13TeV

Combined measurements of the production and decay rates of the Higgs boson, as well as its couplings to vector bosons and fermions, are presented. The analysis uses the LHC proton–proton collision data set recorded with the CMS detector in 2016 at √s = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb−1. The combination is based on analyses targeting the five main Higgs boson production mechanisms (gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, and associated production with a W or Z boson, or a top quarkantiquark pair) and the following decay modes: H → γ γ , ZZ, WW, τ τ , bb, and μμ. Searches for invisible Higgs boson decays are also considered. The best-fit ratio of the signal yield to the standard model expectation is measured to be μ = 1.17 ± 0.10, assuming a Higgs boson mass of 125.09 GeV. Additional results are given for various assumptions on the scaling behavior of the production and decay modes, including generic parametrizations based on ratios of cross sections and branching fractions or couplings. The results are compatible with the standard model predictions in all parametrizations considered. In addition, constraints are placed on various two Higgs doublet models