Planning Sustainability in Higher Education: Three Case Studies

Sustainable development is a key principle of national and international policies, which has been strongly promoted by the European Union since 2015. Communication, education, the awareness of the importance of accelerating the transition from a linear economy to a circular one and of raising environmental awareness play a key role in the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). To achieve the goals on a large scale, it is necessary to start from a local scale. In this sense, universities must experiment best practices and make them available to the society. In the last years, many universities have adopted environmental sustainability plans in order to implement green policies and develop a roadmap towards the achievement of the SDGs, while sharing best practices with university communities and society. This paper presents the case of two Italian universities and a Russian one. Specifically, the paper presents the contents of the current environmental sustainability plans of the Italian universities, discussing the reasons for the choice of the environmental sustainability goals and the expected results following the implementation of the related actions. A comparison between the approaches adopted in the sustainability plans of the two Italian universities will be presented in details. In addition, the paper analyses the potential implementation of a sustainability plan in the Russian university. The paper will discuss also potential criticalities in the achievement of the goals. © 2021 WITPress. All rights reserved.This research was supported by Act 211 Government of the Russian Federation, contract № 02.A03.21.0006

Potential health impacts of heavy metals on HIV-infected population in USA.

Noninfectious comorbidities such as cardiovascular diseases have become increasingly prevalent and occur earlier in life in persons with HIV infection. Despite the emerging body of literature linking environmental exposures to chronic disease outcomes in the general population, the impacts of environmental exposures have received little attention in HIV-infected population. The aim of this study is to investigate whether individuals living with HIV have elevated prevalence of heavy metals compared to non-HIV infected individuals in United States. We used the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2010 to compare exposures to heavy metals including cadmium, lead, and total mercury in HIV infected and non-HIV infected subjects. In this cross-sectional study, we found that HIV-infected individuals had higher concentrations of all heavy metals than the non-HIV infected group. In a multivariate linear regression model, HIV status was significantly associated with increased blood cadmium (p=0.03) after adjusting for age, sex, race, education, poverty income ratio, and smoking. However, HIV status was not statistically associated with lead or mercury levels after adjusting for the same covariates. Our findings suggest that HIV-infected patients might be significantly more exposed to cadmium compared to non-HIV infected individuals which could contribute to higher prevalence of chronic diseases among HIV-infected subjects. Further research is warranted to identify sources of exposure and to understand more about specific health outcomes

EPITHELIAL OVARIAN CANCER. CLINICAL LECTURE

About 90 percent of ovarian cancers are epithelial tumors. High mortality rates, the lack of effective methods for early diagnosis and treatment make of the ovarian cancer a relevant problem for modern oncology. Only a wide application of clinical guidelines developed by professional societies based on the principles of evidence-based medicine could improve prognosis for that group of patients. This article attempts to summarize the experience of the world's leading centers for the fight against ovarian cancer of epithelial origin and offer solutions relevant to everyday clinical practice

CURRENT OPINIONS CONCERNING THE PATHOGENESIS OF EPITHELIAL OVARIAN CANCER AND NEW DIAGNOSTIC APPROACHES TO THE DISEASE

Because of high mortality rate, the lack of effective methods for early diagnosis and limited success in treatment, ovarian cancer of epithelial origin is a major problem in gynecological oncology. These problems are largely due to our lack of the disease etiopathogenesis understanding. This article attempts to summarize recent data on the sources and the development of the cancer process in the ovary as well as to introduce modern approaches to the diagnosis of this type of malignancy

NEOADJUVANT CHEMOTHERAPY FOR EPITHELIAL OVARIAN CANCER. MODERN METHODS AND PATIENTS SELECTION CRITERIA

Ovarian cancer is the 3rd most common cancer among women with gynecological neoplasms in Russia, at the same time, it have the highest mortality rate among malignant tumors of the female reproductive system. Because ofvague clinical picture and the lack of effective methods for early detection and screening, more than 60% of cases are diagnosed at stage III-IV, after the spread of tumor beyond the pelvis. Standard treatment for this category of patients includes debulking surgery on the first stage, followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. The main predictor of the prognosis is the residualvolume of disease after debulking surgery. Nowadays, complete resection of all macroscopic disease is considered as optimal cytoreduction. Trying to perform surgical treatment in the optimal volume dictates the need for complex, multi-component operations, accompanied by significant postoperative morbidity and mortality. In addition, in many cases, resection of all macroscopic foci of the disease is technically impossible.The use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy is designed to reduce the incidence of postoperative complications and to achieve optimal cytoreduction in the maximum number of patients.After an analysis of literature the authors could make up aconclusion that the place of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced forms of ovarian cancer is still arguable. Based on data from clinical trials, the primary debulking surgery after the diagnosis is the best treatment for this category of patients. However, among patients with markers of unresectability according to the radiologic methods, as well as patients with poor performance status, that significantly increases the risk of surgery, use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy is a reasonable method of choice