1,363 research outputs found
Alarm guard systems for the prevention of damage produced by ungulates in a chestnut grove of Middle Italy
ArticleWildlife populations, in particular
ungulates and carnivores, have had a significant
increase in most Italian regions over the last decades and for this reason ecosystems and
agricultural and forest productions are threatened by damage produced by wildlife. In order to
evaluate effective met
hodologies and technologies to mitigate the impact of this phenomenon,
innovative protection systems, such as electronic acoustic alarm guard sensors, were tested. These
devices are able to randomly produce a significant number of sounds and light projecti
ons. At the
same time, camera traps were used, as a support instrument to show the presence or absence of
wild fauna. Video analysis has provided information on the effectiveness of security systems, on
the most suitable methods of installation and managem
ent of devices and their ecological impact.
Experimental trials were carried out in a chestnut grove located in an Apennine area of the Middle
Italy during the harvesting period (autumn). The results obtained have shown that these
technologies seem to be
particularly suitable for crops that concentrate production in a short time
(e.g. vine and chestnut) and in areas not excessively large. Widespread use of devices could
mitigate the conflict between public bodies involved in the management of wildlife and
farmers
Identification and Characterization of BRCA1 and BRCA2 Founder Mutations
A large number of cancer predisposing BRCA1/BRCA2 mutations have been reported, with a wide variety among populations. In some restricted groups, specific germline mutations in these tumor suppressor genes have been found with high predominance, due to a founder effect. We focused our review on the Italian founder mutations. The first Italian BRCA1 founder mutation, 5083del19, was found in Calabria: the presence of common allele in all carriers of this mutation (also in families with Calabrian origin living in other parts of Italy) confirmed its founder effect. The same BRCA1 mutation was identified in the Sicilian population, but only the haplotype analysis can reveal the common ancestor of these groups. Another BRCA1 founder mutation, 4843delC, was found in Sicily. Four distinct BRCA1 mutations are attributable to families original from Tuscany: 3348delAG, 3285delA, 1499insA and 5183delTGT; the latter has been shown to be a founder mutation from North-Eastern Italy. The first BRCA2 mutation was identified in Sardinia, 8765delAG, a mutation already described as a founder mutation in Jewish-Yemenite families and also in French-Canadian population but with independent origins of carriers in these three populations. BRCA2 3951del3 and BRCA1 917delTT have been described as founder mutations in Middle Sardinia and in South and Middle Sardinia, respectively. Studies regarding prevalence and penetrance of founder mutations can allow to quantify the degree of homogeneity within a population and can surely help the geneticist and oncologist to simplify their choices in the genetic testing on high-risk families, on the basis of their ethnical origin
The nature of the low-frequency emission of M51: First observations of a nearby galaxy with LOFAR
The grand-design spiral galaxy M51 was observed with the LOFAR High Frequency
Antennas (HBA) and imaged in total intensity and polarisation. This observation
covered the frequencies between 115 MHz and 175 MHz. We produced an image of
total emission of M51 at the mean frequency of 151 MHz with 20 arcsec
resolution and 0.3 mJy rms noise, which is the most sensitive image of a galaxy
at frequencies below 300 MHz so far. The integrated spectrum of total radio
emission is described well by a power law, while flat spectral indices in the
central region indicate thermal absorption. We observe that the disk extends
out to 16 kpc and see a break in the radial profile near the optical radius of
the disk. Our main results, the scale lengths of the inner and outer disks at
151 MHz and 1.4 GHz, arm--interarm contrast, and the break scales of the
radio--far-infrared correlations, can be explained consistently by CRE
diffusion, leading to a longer propagation length of CRE of lower energy. The
distribution of CRE sources drops sharply at about 10 kpc radius, where the
star formation rate also decreases sharply. We find evidence that thermal
absorption is primarily caused by HII regions. The non-detection of
polarisation from M51 at 151 MHz is consistent with the estimates of Faraday
depolarisation. Future searches for polarised emission in this frequency range
should concentrate on regions with low star formation rates.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Triplet schedule of weekly 5-Fluorouracil and alternating irinotecan or oxaliplatin in advanced colorectal cancer: A dose-finding and phase II study
A weekly administration of alternating irinotecan or oxaliplatin associated to 5-Fluorouracil in advanced colorectal cancer was planned in order to evaluate a new schedule maintaining dose intensities of each drug as in double combinations and tolerability of the triplet association. The following weekly schedule was administered: irinotecan, days 1 and 15; oxaliplatin, days 8 and 22; 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) over 12-h (from 10:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m.) timed flat infusion, days 1-2, 8-9, 15-16 and 22-23, every 4 weeks. Dosefinding and phase II study were planned. Thirteen patients were enrolled in the dose-finding study and 23 in the phase II study. The recommended doses of our study are: irinotecan 160 mg/m2; oxaliplatin 80 mg/m2; 5-FU 900 mg/m2. The doselimiting toxicity was diarrhea (35% of patients) but no cases of febrile neutropenia were observed. In 30 patients assessable for response two complete (6.7%) and 18 partial (60%) responses were observed, for an overall response rate of 66.7% (α0.05, CI±7). The triplet association using this weekly alternating schedule is an active and well-tolerated outpatient regimen. Surgical removal of residual disease was considered in 5 patients and a radical resection was performed in 5 patients (14%)
Novel P53 mutations detected by FAMA in colorectal cancers
Background: The aim of the study was to identify p53 gene mutations by FAMA (fluorescence-assisted mismatch
analysis) in colorectal cancers.
Patients and methods: Analytical scanning of the p53 gene (exons 5\u20139) was performed in colon cancer samples
from 44 consecutive patients by FAMA. FAMA is a semiautomatic scanning approach based on the chemical cleavage
of the mismatch in fluorescently labeled heteroduplex DNA, obtained from the combination of a normal and a mutated
allele. FAMA has already shown optimal levels of diagnostic accuracy and sensitivity in detecting gene mutations
(nucleotide substitutions, insertions/deletions) both at the germline and somatic level. The peculiar feature of FAMA is
its ability to detect and localize mutations, by a redundant pattern of signals due to fluorescent DNA fragments
generated by chemical cleavage. Moreover, previous data have demonstrated that normal contaminating DNA from
stromal cells in the sample does not affect the sensitivity of the procedure, leading to the identification of the mutation
even when the ratio mutant/normal allele is 10%.
Results: Eighteen mutations (12 missense, one nonsense, two deletions, three nucleotide substitutions at the level of
the splice-junctions) and two polymorphisms were detected by FAMA in 17 patients (39%) and then confirmed by
automated sequence analysis. Six of 18 mutations (33%) were not previously reported for colon cancer samples and
two of 18 lesions (11%) were identified as novel p53 mutations.
Conclusions: Analytical scanning of the p53 gene by FAMA in DNA from colon cancer samples provides a sensitive,
accurate and specific diagnostic procedure for routine clinical application
Galactic interstellar filaments as probed by LOFAR and Planck
Recent Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) observations at 115-175 MHz of a field at
medium Galactic latitudes (centered at the bright quasar 3C196) have shown
striking filamentary structures in polarization that extend over more than 4
degrees across the sky. In addition, the Planck satellite has released full sky
maps of the dust emission in polarization at 353GHz. The LOFAR data resolve
Faraday structures along the line of sight, whereas the Planck dust
polarization maps probe the orientation of the sky projected magnetic field
component. Hence, no apparent correlation between the two is expected. Here we
report a surprising, yet clear, correlation between the filamentary structures,
detected with LOFAR, and the magnetic field orientation, probed by the Planck
satellite. This finding points to a common, yet unclear, physical origin of the
two measurements in this specific area in the sky. A number of follow-up multi-
frequency studies are proposed to shed light on this unexpected finding.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter
Bibbia, cristianesimo e letteratura italiana: uno sguardo d'assieme.
L'A. ripercorre la presenza della Bibbia nella letteratura italiana dalle origini ai giorni nostri, sottolineando la persistenza della ripresa del Sacro testo sia nella poesia che nella prosa
An immunohistochemically positive E-cadherin status is not always predictive for a good prognosis in human breast cancer
BACKGROUND:
in primary breast cancers dichotomic classification of E-cadherin expression, according to an arbitrary cutoff, may be inadequate and lead to loss of prognostic significance or contrasting prognostic indications. We aimed to assess the prognostic value of high and low E-cadherin levels in a consecutive case series (204 cases) of unilateral node-negative non-lobular breast cancer patients with a 8-year median follow-up and that did not receive any adjuvant therapy after surgery.
METHODS:
expression of E-cadherin was investigated by immunohistochemistry and assessed according to conventional score (0, 1+, 2+, 3+). Multiple correspondence analysis was used to visualise associations of both categorical and continuous variables. The impact of E-cadherin expression on patients outcome was evaluated in terms of event-free survival curves by the Kaplan-Meier method and proportional hazard Cox model.
RESULTS:
respect to intermediate E-cadherin expression values (2+), high (3+) or low (0 to 1+) E-cadherin expression levels had a negative prognostic impact. In fact, both patients with a low-to-nil (score 0 to 1+) expression level of E-cadherin and patients with a high E-cadherin expression level (score 3+) demonstrated an increased risk of failure (respectively, hazard ratio (HR)=1.71, confidence interval (CI)=0.72-4.06 and HR=4.22, CI=1.406-12.66) and an interesting association with young age.
CONCLUSIONS:
the findings support the evidence that high expression values of E-cadherin are not predictive for a good prognosis and may help to explain conflicting evidence on the prognostic impact of E-cadherin in breast cancer when assessed on dichotomic basis
Patterns of K-ras mutation in colorectal carcinomas from Iran and Italy (a Gruppo Oncologico dell'Italia Meridionale study): influence of microsatellite instability status and country of origin.
Background: K-ras mutations are a key step in colorectal cancer progression. Such mutations have been widely studied in case series from Western countries but there are few data on the rate and spectrum of mutations in tumors from countries where the epidemiological features of the disease are different.
Patients and methods: Tumor samples from 182 Iranian colorectal cancer patients (170 sporadic cases and 12 HNPCC cases) were screened for K-ras mutations at codons 12, 13 and 61 by sequencing analysis. The cases were also characterized for microsatellite instability at mononucleotide repeats by PCR and fragment analysis, and classified according to microsatellite instability status. The frequency and the spectrum of K-ras mutations were compared with those observed in a series of colorectal cancer patients from Italy.
Results: K-ras mutations were observed in 68/182 (37.4%) cases. Mutation frequencies were similar in HNPCC-associated, sporadic MSI-H and sporadic microsatellite-stable (MSS) tumors. However, the G13D substitution was more frequent in HNPCC (3/ 4, 75%) and sporadic MSI- H (7/11, 63.6%) tumors compared to sporadic MSS tumors (11/ 53, 20.4%) (P < 0.01). Comparison of mutations in the two series from Iran and Italy showed a significantly higher frequency of G13D among Italian patients.
Conclusions: While the frequency of K-ras mutations could be similar, the mutational spectrum could be differentially influenced by genetic and environmental factors
Syntactic Markovian Bisimulation for Chemical Reaction Networks
In chemical reaction networks (CRNs) with stochastic semantics based on
continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs), the typically large populations of
species cause combinatorially large state spaces. This makes the analysis very
difficult in practice and represents the major bottleneck for the applicability
of minimization techniques based, for instance, on lumpability. In this paper
we present syntactic Markovian bisimulation (SMB), a notion of bisimulation
developed in the Larsen-Skou style of probabilistic bisimulation, defined over
the structure of a CRN rather than over its underlying CTMC. SMB identifies a
lumpable partition of the CTMC state space a priori, in the sense that it is an
equivalence relation over species implying that two CTMC states are lumpable
when they are invariant with respect to the total population of species within
the same equivalence class. We develop an efficient partition-refinement
algorithm which computes the largest SMB of a CRN in polynomial time in the
number of species and reactions. We also provide an algorithm for obtaining a
quotient network from an SMB that induces the lumped CTMC directly, thus
avoiding the generation of the state space of the original CRN altogether. In
practice, we show that SMB allows significant reductions in a number of models
from the literature. Finally, we study SMB with respect to the deterministic
semantics of CRNs based on ordinary differential equations (ODEs), where each
equation gives the time-course evolution of the concentration of a species. SMB
implies forward CRN bisimulation, a recently developed behavioral notion of
equivalence for the ODE semantics, in an analogous sense: it yields a smaller
ODE system that keeps track of the sums of the solutions for equivalent
species.Comment: Extended version (with proofs), of the corresponding paper published
at KimFest 2017 (http://kimfest.cs.aau.dk/
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