The Italian expenditure in transport infrastructure: a survey

The aim of the paper is to analyse the most important quantitative data on Italian expenditures in transport infrastructures (investment and maintenance costs), linking the expenditure with traffic flows. The analysis concerns rail and road networks (both for national and local roads), over the last ten years, and a possible forecast for the next years, thanks to the official previsions of the “Objective Law”. The whole analysis is based on official data. The planned infrastructures will analyzed with taxonomical and cost – benefit approaches, in order to provide a ranking of priority. The results show how the planning of the investment expenditure is still based on different criteria than efficiency. So, the foreseen expenditure will not able to give relevant effects in order to improve the efficiency of the transport system and to obtain better allocative issues.transport expenditure; italy; infrastructure; investment

HIGH-RESOLUTION CALCAREOUS NANNOFOSSIL BIOSTRATIGRAPHY ACROSS THE TOARCIAN OCEANIC ANOXIC EVENT IN NORTHERN ITALY: CLUES FROM THE SOGNO AND GAJUM CORES (LOMBARDY BASIN, SOUTHERN ALPS)

Calcareous nannofossil biostratigraphy was conducted across the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE) interval cored at Colle di Sogno and Gajum in the Lombardy Basin (Southern Alps, Northern Italy). Drilling at both sites resulted in 100% recovery of unweathered material. The Sogno and Gajum Cores consist of pelagic marly limestones, marlstone, marly claystone, and a relatively expanded black shale interval named Fish Level considered the lithostratigraphic record of the T-OAE at regional scale. Semiquantitative analyses of calcareous nannofloras allowed to achieve a high-resolution biostratigraphy of the latest Pliensbachian-early Toarcian time interval. Several nannofossil biohorizons were detected, including zonal/subzonal markers and additional events related to changes in abundance. The nannofossil biostratigraphic correlation of the Sogno and Gajum Cores indicates that, according to their paleogeographic settings, the succession recovered in the Sogno Core deposited on a pelagic plateau is continuous while a hiatus of ~600 kyrs was detected in the lowermost Toarcian in the Gajum Core located on a slope of a structural high. The NJT 5 and NJT 6 Zones of the standard nannofossil zonation for the Mediterranean Province were identified in both the Sogno and Gajum Cores. Our findings allow an implementation of the reference biozonation with the separation of the NJT 6a and NJT 6b Subzones, and age revision of some secondary events. The zonation established for the Lusitanian Basin (Portugal) is only partially reproducible in the Lombardy Basin, confirming nannoplankton paleoprovincialism during the Early Jurassic requiring different zonal schemes in various areas. Nevertheless, we underline that the T-OAE is unambiguously constrained by the FO of C. superbus crassus and the LO of M. jansae at supra-regional scale

Intravitreal Bevacizumab in Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration as First Choice: a New Italian Ruling

Background: Intravitreal vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitors represent the mainstay of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) treatment. Although bevacizumab has been the first anti-VEGF used in ophthalmology, it is unlicensed for intraocular use. However, the favourable cost-benefit balance has favoured its widespread use. We aimed to present relevant literature regarding the safety profile and the regulatory issues of intravitreal bevacizumab use. Methods: In this narrative review we report relevant studies regarding the safety profile of intravitreal bevacizumab. Expert commentary is provided and an overview of the current scenario and possible future directions discussed. Results: Randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that bevacizumab is not inferior to the licensed anti-VEGF agents showing similar efficacy and safety profiles. However, a significant debate on the regulatory issues of intravitreal bevacizumab used as ‘off label’ first-line treatment in nAMD still persists. Recently, the Regional Health System of Lombardia in Italy decided to only cover the expenses of bevacizumab, forcing clinicians to use bevacizumab as the first choice in the treatment of nAMD. Issues about the practical implications of this decision are discussed. Conclusion: The use of intravitreal bevacizumab as first-line therapy in nAMD remains controversial. Many differences in the regulatory aspects still persist among the European countries and sometimes within the same countries, like Italy. Of note the clinical scenario will be modified in future by the introduction of newly developed anti-VEGF agents and anti-VEGF biosimilars

Generalized Kohn-Sham Approach for the Electronic Band Structure of Spin-Orbit Coupled Materials

Spin-current density functional theory (SCDFT) is a formally exact framework designed to handle the treatment of interacting many-electron systems including spin-orbit coupling at the level of the Pauli equation. In practice, robust and accurate calculations of the electronic structure of these systems call for functional approximations that depend not only on the densities, but also on spin-orbitals. Here we show that the call can be answered by resorting to an extension of the Kohn-Sham formalism, which admits the use of non-local effective potentials, yet it is firmly rooted in SCDFT. The power of the extended formalism is demonstrated by calculating the spin-orbit-induced band-splittings of inversion-asymmetric MoSe$_2$ monolayer and inversion-symmetric bulk $\alpha$-MoTe$_2$. We show that quantitative agreement with experimental data is obtainable via global hybrid approximations by setting the fraction of Fock exchange at the same level which yields accurate values of the band gap. Key to these results is the ability of the method to self-consistently account for the spin currents induced by the spin-orbit interaction. The widely used method of refining spin-density functional theory by a second-variational treatment of spin-orbit coupling is unable to match our SCDFT results.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

The Italian expenditure in transport infrastructure: a survey

The aim of the paper is to analyse the most important quantitative data on Italian expenditures in transport infrastructures (investment and maintenance costs), linking the expenditure with traffic flows. The analysis concerns rail and road networks (both for national and local roads), over the last ten years, and a possible forecast for the next years, thanks to the official previsions of the “Objective Law”. The whole analysis is based on official data. The planned infrastructures will analyzed with taxonomical and cost – benefit approaches, in order to provide a ranking of priority. The results show how the planning of the investment expenditure is still based on different criteria than efficiency. So, the foreseen expenditure will not able to give relevant effects in order to improve the efficiency of the transport system and to obtain better allocative issues

The Italian expenditure in transport infrastructure: a survey

The aim of the paper is to analyse the most important quantitative data on Italian expenditures in transport infrastructures (investment and maintenance costs), linking the expenditure with traffic flows. The analysis concerns rail and road networks (both for national and local roads), over the last ten years, and a possible forecast for the next years, thanks to the official previsions of the “Objective Law”. The whole analysis is based on official data. The planned infrastructures will analyzed with taxonomical and cost – benefit approaches, in order to provide a ranking of priority. The results show how the planning of the investment expenditure is still based on different criteria than efficiency. So, the foreseen expenditure will not able to give relevant effects in order to improve the efficiency of the transport system and to obtain better allocative issues

Gastrin-Releasing Peptide Receptor in Low Grade Prostate Cancer: Can It Be a Better Predictor Than Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen?

The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether prostate cancer (PC) patients can be accurately classified on the bases of tissue expression of gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) and prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA). This retrospective study included 28 patients with PC. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples were used for diagnosis. Immunohistochemistry staining techniques were used to evaluate PSMA and GRPR expression (both number of cells expressed and % of area stained). To assess the independent associations among selected variables, a multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis was used. It was found that the PSMA expression was inversely correlated with GRPR expression. Only the number of cells expressing GRPR was significantly related to the Gleason score. Both the percentage of area expressing GRPR and the number of cells expressing PSMA were close to reaching significance at the 0.05 level. MDS provided a map of the overall, independent association confirming that GRPR and PSMA represent inversely correlated measures of the same dimension. In conclusion, our data showed that GRPR expression should be evaluated in prostate biopsy specimens to improve our ability to detect PC with low grades at the earliest phases of development. Considering that GRPRs appear to be directly involved in the mechanisms of tumor proliferation, advancements in nuclear medicine radiotherapy can focus on this receptor to improve the therapeutic approach to PC. Further studies in our laboratory will investigate the molecular mechanisms of activation based on GRPR