Aggiunte alla flora vascolare d’Abruzzo e aree limitrofe. IV contributo

Additions to the vascular flora of Abruzzo and surrounding. IV contribution. In this paper new floristic records for 22 units are reported for Central Italy, mainly for Abruzzo. In particular 14 taxa are native and 8 aliens, 16 are new or confirmed to Abruzzo, 1 is new to Marche. In addition new distribution data for 4 rare or interesting in Abruzzo and 1 in Lazio regions have been recorded. Some of these species are particularly interesting from a phytogeographical or conservational point of view as they are very rare in Central Italy (Antirrhinum siculum, Convolvulus pentapetaloides and Vicia melanops)

Applying case based reasoning for prioritizing areas of business management

Determining the importance of different management areas in a company provides guidance about the needs of increasing the analysis and actions focuses in particular topic. To do it, it is necessary to decompose the management in a coherent set of specific management areas and provide a way that allows the company to determine the importance of these areas for them. This paper presents a novel system that guides companies to obtain a classification of important management areas for them. It is focused on the use of a case based reasoning system because the variability and the evolution of companies as time passes requires using techniques with learning capabilities. The proposed system provides an automatic self-assessment system that provides companies an ordered list of their most important management areas. This system was implemented a year ago for the evaluation of Spanish companies. Currently, it is in production providing relevant information about the management areas of these companies

Strong interlayer coupling in van der Waals heterostructures built from single-layer chalcogenides

Semiconductor heterostructures are the fundamental platform for many important device applications such as lasers, light-emitting diodes, solar cells and high-electron-mobility transistors. Analogous to traditional heterostructures, layered transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) heterostructures can be designed and built by assembling individual single-layers into functional multilayer structures, but in principle with atomically sharp interfaces, no interdiffusion of atoms, digitally controlled layered components and no lattice parameter constraints. Nonetheless, the optoelectronic behavior of this new type of van der Waals (vdW) semiconductor heterostructure is unknown at the single-layer limit. Specifically, it is experimentally unknown whether the optical transitions will be spatially direct or indirect in such hetero-bilayers. Here, we investigate artificial semiconductor heterostructures built from single layer WSe2 and MoS2 building blocks. We observe a large Stokes-like shift of ~100 meV between the photoluminescence peak and the lowest absorption peak that is consistent with a type II band alignment with spatially direct absorption but spatially indirect emission. Notably, the photoluminescence intensity of this spatially indirect transition is strong, suggesting strong interlayer coupling of charge carriers. The coupling at the hetero-interface can be readily tuned by inserting hexagonal BN (h-BN) dielectric layers into the vdW gap. The generic nature of this interlayer coupling consequently provides a new degree of freedom in band engineering and is expected to yield a new family of semiconductor heterostructures having tunable optoelectronic properties with customized composite layers.Comment: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/10/1405435111.abstrac

The emerging landscape of tumor marker panels for the identification of aggressive prostate cancer: the perspective through bibliometric analysis of an Italian translational working group in uro-oncology

Molecular heterogeneity and availability of different therapeutic strategies are relevant clinical features of prostate cancer. On this basis, there is an urgent need to identify prognostic and predictive biomarkers for an individualized therapeutic approach. In this context, researchers focused their attention on biomarkers able to discriminate potential life-threatening from organ-confined disease identify high-grade tumors. Such biomarker could provide aid in clinical decision making, helping in order to choose the treatment which ensures the best results in terms of patient survival and quality of life. To address this need, many new laboratory tests have been proposed, witha clear tendency to use panels of combined biomarkers. In this review we evaluate current data on the application in clinical practice for of the most promising laboratory tests: Phi, 4Kscore and Stockholm 3 as circulating biomarkers, and Mi-prostate score, Exo DX Prostate and Select MD-X as urinary biomarkers, Confirm MDx, Oncotype Dx, Prolaris and Decipher as tissue biomarkers. In particular, the ability of these tests in the identification of clinically significant PCa and their potential use for precision medicine have been explored in this review

Similarities and differences between younger and older disease onset patients with newly diagnosed systemic lupus erythematosus

Objectives: Several studies show that age at onset has an impact on the clinical-serological presentation, comorbidities and disease course of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We evaluated whether, in patients with recent onset SLE, the age at onset correlates with clinical-serological manifestations and with comorbidities. Methods: We analysed 171 patients with a SLE diagnosis obtained within 12 months of diagnosis enrolled in the Early Lupus project. Based on the age of onset of the first disease symptom, they were stratified into 2 groups: early onset (18-45 years) and late onset (>45 years). The analysis was replicated by stratifying patients based on age at diagnosis (fulfillment of ACR classification criteria). Each comparison was made at baseline and at 36 months of follow-up. Results: Baseline: patients with late onset displayed comorbidities (hypertension, dyslipidemia and osteoporosis) more frequently than early onset group. 11.4% of late onset patients had a malignancy in medical history, not recorded in the early onset cohort. The two groups differed neither in organ involvement (domain BILAG) nor in disease activity (ECLAM). Patients with early onset showed a disease with signs of higher serologic activity (higher frequency of anti-dsDNA positivity and lower mean C3 and C4 levels) and had malar rash more frequently than the late onset group (36.2% vs. 18.2%, p=0.042). Similar results were obtained by stratifying patients by age of diagnosis (18-45 years and >45 years), except for the higher frequency of discoid rash in the group with age at diagnosis >45 years (18% vs. 6.6%, p=0.045). 36 months: the 2 groups of patients independently of the stratification applied did not differ in the accumulation of damage, but showed a different pattern of 8 organ involvement. Musculoskeletal involvement was more frequent both in the late onset group (18.6% vs. 7.3%, p=0.043) and in the group with age at diagnosis >45 years (20.4% vs. 5.9%, p=0.009) compared to their counterparts, while renal involvement was more frequent in the group with age at diagnosis 18-45 years (21.4% vs. 6.1%, p=0.03).A sub analysis at 36 months on patients without hypertension and osteoporosis at enrollment showed that patients with older age at onset had a higher frequency of these comorbidities, compared to their counterparts. Conclusions: In our cohort, younger disease SLE onset seems to correlate with a more active immunological profile, while late onset with a higher incidence of comorbidities

Massive stars exploding in a He-rich circumstellar medium. I. Type Ibn (SN 2006jc-like) events

We present new spectroscopic and photometric data of the type Ibn supernovae 2006jc, 2000er and 2002ao. We discuss the general properties of this recently proposed supernova family, which also includes SN 1999cq. The early-time monitoring of SN 2000er traces the evolution of this class of objects during the first few days after the shock breakout. An overall similarity in the photometric and spectroscopic evolution is found among the members of this group, which would be unexpected if the energy in these core-collapse events was dominated by the interaction between supernova ejecta and circumstellar medium. Type Ibn supernovae appear to be rather normal type Ib/c supernova explosions which occur within a He-rich circumstellar environment. SNe Ibn are therefore likely produced by the explosion of Wolf-Rayet progenitors still embedded in the He-rich material lost by the star in recent mass-loss episodes, which resemble known luminous blue variable eruptions. The evolved Wolf-Rayet star could either result from the evolution of a very massive star or be the more evolved member of a massive binary system. We also suggest that there are a number of arguments in favour of a type Ibn classification for the historical SN 1885A (S-Andromedae), previously considered as an anomalous type Ia event with some resemblance to SN 1991bg.Comment: 17 pages including 12 figures and 4 tables. Slightly revised version, conclusions unchanged, 1 figure added. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Anastrozole-related acute hepatitis with autoimmune features: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Two cases of acute hepatitis occurring during treatment with anastrozole have previously been reported, but the underlying mechanisms of liver injury are still uncertain. We report the case of anastrozole-related acute hepatitis with some autoimmune features.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 70-year-old woman developed acute hepatitis associated with serum antinuclear antibodies during anastrozole treatment; after drug withdrawal, liver function parameters rapidly improved and serum auto-antibodies were no longer detectable.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Anastrozole-induced hepatotoxicity is a very rare event. Drug-drug interactions or metabolically-mediated damage might be involved, with a possible role of individual susceptibility. Our report suggests that an immune-mediated mechanism may also be considered in anastrozole-related liver injury.</p

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far

Role of continuous glucose monitoring in diabetic patients at high cardiovascular risk. an expert-based multidisciplinary delphi consensus

Background: Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) shows in more detail the glycaemic pattern of diabetic subjects and provides several new parameters (“glucometrics”) to assess patients’ glycaemia and consensually guide treatment. A better control of glucose levels might result in improvement of clinical outcome and reduce disease complications. This study aimed to gather an expert consensus on the clinical and prognostic use of CGM in diabetic patients at high cardiovascular risk or with heart disease. Methods: A list of 22 statements concerning type of patients who can benefit from CGM, prognostic impact of CGM in diabetic patients with heart disease, CGM use during acute cardiovascular events and educational issues of CGM were developed. Using a two-round Delphi methodology, the survey was distributed online to 42 Italian experts (21 diabetologists and 21 cardiologists) who rated their level of agreement with each statement on a 5-point Likert scale. Consensus was predefined as more than 66% of the panel agreeing/disagreeing with any given statement. Results: Forty experts (95%) answered the survey. Every statement achieved a positive consensus. In particular, the panel expressed the feeling that CGM can be prognostically relevant for every diabetic patient (70%) and that is clinically useful also in the management of those with type 2 diabetes not treated with insulin (87.5%). The assessment of time in range (TIR), glycaemic variability (GV) and hypoglycaemic/hyperglycaemic episodes were considered relevant in the management of diabetic patients with heart disease (92.5% for TIR, 95% for GV, 97.5% for time spent in hypoglycaemia) and can improve the prognosis of those with ischaemic heart disease (100% for hypoglycaemia, 90% for hyperglycaemia) or with heart failure (87.5% for hypoglycaemia, 85% for TIR, 87.5% for GV). The experts retained that CGM can be used and can impact the short- and long-term prognosis during an acute cardiovascular event. Lastly, CGM has a recognized educational role for diabetic subjects. Conclusions: According to this Delphi consensus, the clinical and prognostic use of CGM in diabetic patients at high cardiovascular risk is promising and deserves dedicated studies to confirm the experts’ feeling