Climate change-induced disasters and cultural heritage: Optimizing management strategies in Central Europe

Due to climate change, it is foreseen that the frequency and magnitude of extreme climate events such as heavy precipitation, flooding and drought will increase throughout Europe. In recent times, numerous areas suffered from disasters that produced significant damage to cultural heritage. Although different risk management strategies are currently enforced in Central Europe, there still exist many challenges that undermine their effectiveness. This study reviews the necessary points to be addressed for strengthening existing management strategies within the region and the characteristics of potential resilience building measures. It presents feasible and tailored ICT solutions (e.g. a web GIS platform) and decision support tools (e.g. a manual for cultural heritage resilience and a handbook on transnational rescue procedures) for the protection of cultural heritage against floods, heavy rain and fire. These tools result from the Interreg Central Europe project ProteCHt2save, concentrating on risk assessment and sustainable protection of cultural heritage in changing environments. The proposed measures are tested at pilot sites and successfully integrated in local risk management plans. Future work is also proposed for further implementation of the results

Predictors of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Early Recurrence in Patients Treated with Surgical Resection or Ablation Treatment: A Single-Center Experience

Introduction: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most diagnosed malignancy and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, with poor overall survival despite available curative treatments. One of the most crucial factors influencing survival in HCC is recurrence. The current study aims to determine factors associated with early recurrence of HCC in patients with BCLC Stage 0 or Stage A treated with surgical resection or local ablation. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively enrolled 58 consecutive patients diagnosed with HCC within BCLC Stage 0 or Stage A and treated either by surgical resection or local ablation with maximum nodule diameter 20 mm (HR 4.5, 95% C.I. 3.9–5.1), platelet count 2 (HR 2.7, 95% C.I. 2.2–3.3). Discussion and Conclusions: Our results are in line with the current literature. Male gender and tumor nodule dimension are the main risk factors associated with early HCC recurrence. Platelet count and other combined scores can be used as predictive tools for early HCC recurrence, although more studies are needed to define cut-offs

DRAFT 03

DRAFT 03, a magazine published about work and thoughts of students and staff of Interiors

Risk mapping for the sustainable protection of cultural heritage in extreme changing environments

Cultural heritage is widely recognized to be at risk due to the impact of climate change and associated hazards, such as events of heavy rain, flooding, and drought. User-driven solutions are urgently required for sustainable management and protection of monumental complexes and related collections exposed to changes of extreme climate. With this purpose, maps of risk-prone areas in Europe and in the Mediterranean Basin have been produced by an accurate selection and analysis of climate variables (daily minimum and maximum temperature-Tn and Tx, daily cumulated precipitation-RR) and climate-extreme indices (R20mm, R95pTOT, Rx5 day, CCD, Tx90p) defined by Expert Team on Climate Change Detection Indices (ETCCDI). Maps are available to users via an interactive Web GIS (Geographic Information System) tool, which provides evaluations based on historical observations (high-resolution gridded data set of daily climate over Europe-E-OBS, 25 km) and climate projections (regional climate models-RCM, ~12 km) for the near and far future, under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. The tool aims to support public authorities and private organizations in the decision making process to safeguard at-risk cultural heritage. In this paper, maps of risk-prone areas of heavy rain in Central Europe (by using R20mm index) are presented and discussed as example of the outputs achievable by using the Web GIS tool. The results show that major future variations are always foreseen for the 30-year period 2071-2100 under the pessimistic scenario (RCP 8.5). In general, the coastal area of the Adriatic Sea, the Northern Italy, and the Alps are foreseen to experience the highest variations in Central Europe

Radiography for a Shock-accelerated Liquid Layer

This program supported the experimental study of the itneraction of planar shock waves with both solid structures (a single cylinder or a bank of cylinders) and single and multiple liquid layers. Objectives of the study included: characterization of the shock refraction patterns; measurements of the impulsive loading of the solid structures; observation of the response of the liquid layers to shock acceleration; assessment of the shock-mitigation effects of single and multiple liquid layers. The uploaded paper is intended as a final report for the entire funding period. The poster described in the paper won the Best Poster Award at the 25 International Symposium on Shock Waves

Prognostic Implications of the Complement Protein C1q in Gliomas

The contribution of the complement system in the pathophysiology of brain cancers has been recently considered in light of its well-known involvement in carcinogenesis. Complement system represents an important component of the inflammatory response, which acts as a functional bridge between the innate and adaptive immune response. C1q, the first recognition subcomponent of the complement classical pathway, has recently been shown to be involved in a range of pathophysiological functions that are not dependent on complement activation. C1q is expressed in the microenvironment of various types of human tumors, including melanoma, prostate, mesothelioma, and ovarian cancers, where it can exert a protective or a harmful effect on cancer progression. Despite local synthesis of C1q in the central nervous system, the involvement of C1q in glioma pathogenesis has been poorly investigated. We, therefore, performed a bioinformatics analysis, using Oncomine dataset and UALCAN database in order to assess whether the expression of the genes encoding for the three chains of C1q (C1qA, C1qB, and C1qC) could serve as a potential prognostic marker for gliomas. The obtained results were then validated using an independent glioma cohort from the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas datasets. Our bioinformatics analysis, coupled with immunohistochemistry and fluorescence microscopy, appears to suggest a positive correlation between higher levels of C1q expression and unfavorable prognosis in a diverse grade of gliomas

THE CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL AND PROGNOSTIC SIGNIFICANCES OF C1Q EXPRESSION IN GLIOMAS: A BIOINFORMATICS ANALYSIS

Introduction. The complement system represents an important component of the inflammatory response and acts as a functional bridge between the innate and adaptive immune response. The contribution of the complement component C1q in the pathophysiology of brain cancers has been recently considered in light of its well-known involvement in carcinogenesis. Brain malignancies arise from cells of the CNS and are classified according to the tissue of phylogenetic origin. Gliomas represent the most common and aggressive form of brain tumours in adults. They derive from glial cells that help to support the functions of the other main brain cells type, the neurons (1). These are a heterogeneous group of diseases with multiple subtypes (1, 2). Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and fatal form of a primary brain tumour, accounting for approximately 60% of all glioma cases (3), whereas grade-II and -III gliomas are the second most common type of glioma in adults (~30%) (3). C1q molecule, together with other complement components, can be locally produced within the CNS by microglia and astrocytes, rendering it an attractive player in primary brain tumour development (4). The role of C1q in gliomas microenvironment is still poorly characterized and it is still quite puzzling whether it exerts a beneficial or a harmful activity for cancer progression. In the present study we performed a bioinformatics analysis aimed at investigating if C1q can serve as a potential prognostic marker for gliomas. Methods. The expression levels of C1qA, C1qB and C1qC genes in gliomas were analysed using Oncomine analysis. Available genomics data from The Cancer Genome Atlas project was used for Kaplan–Meier survival analysis to generate survival probability plots, using UALCAN analysis. Results. From the analysis performed on several data- sets using Oncomine, we showed a significantly higher mRNA expression levels for C1qA, C1qB and C1qC chains were detected in gliomas (different histotypes and grades) as compared to normal brain tissue (Fig. 1). We observed a positive correlation between the mRNA expression of C1qA, C1qB and C1qC mRNA poly- peptide chains and the unfavorable prognosis only in gliomas grade-II and -III, where the survival probability is indeed reduced (P <0.05) (Fig. 2). No correlation was observed in glioblastoma multiforme (Fig. 2). By immu- nohistochemical approaches we detected a high depo- sition of C1q in the tumor microenvironment of both in grade-II and -III gliomas and in GBMs examined (Fig. 3a glioma, 3b glioblastoma multiforme; 20x Magnification). Moreover, in double immunocytochemical experiments we demonstrated that CD68 positive infiltrating cells are actively synthesizing C1q in the tumor micro-envi- ronment. CD68 expression is characteristic of tumor- associated macrophages, whose enrichment in glioma has been associated with poor prognosis (5). Conclusion. In our study C1q expression was significantly correlated with poor survival probability in gliomas grade-II and -III while this is not the case for GBM. These data altogether underline how complex, multifaceted and still poorly understood is the role C1q can exert on tumor progression, and how the very same molecule can differentially affect the outcome depending on the biological context it comes to act

Prognostic implications of the complement protein C1q in gliomas

Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC); Program Innovative Tools for Cancer Risk Assessment and Diagnosis

TGS1 mediates 2,2,7-trimethyl guanosine capping of the human telomerase RNA to direct telomerase dependent telomere maintenance

Pathways that direct the selection of the telomerase-dependent or recombination-based, alternative lengthening of telomere (ALT) maintenance pathway in cancer cells are poorly understood. Using human lung cancer cells and tumor organoids we show that formation of the 2,2,7-trimethylguanosine (TMG) cap structure at the human telomerase RNA 5′ end by the Trimethylguanosine Synthase 1 (TGS1) is central for recruiting telomerase to telomeres and engaging Cajal bodies in telomere maintenance. TGS1 depletion or inhibition by the natural nucleoside sinefungin impairs telomerase recruitment to telomeres leading to Exonuclease 1 mediated generation of telomere 3′ end protrusions that engage in RAD51-dependent, homology directed recombination and the activation of key features of the ALT pathway. This indicates a critical role for 2,2,7-TMG capping of the RNA component of human telomerase (hTR) in enforcing telomerase-dependent telomere maintenance to restrict the formation of telomeric substrates conductive to ALT. Our work introduces a targetable pathway of telomere maintenance that holds relevance for telomere-related diseases such as cancer and aging