Effects of natural and seminatural elements on the composition and dispersion of carabid beetles inhabiting an agroecosystem in Northern Italy

The natural and seminatural components of agricultural landscapes play a key role in maintaining a high level of biodiversity. Being the Po Valley one of the most human-dominated and intensively cultivated landscapes in Europe, we investigated the effect of no-crop habitats on carabid richness and composition and evaluated the role of tree row as corridor for forest carabid dispersion. Carabids were sampled with 70 pitfall traps arranged in 35 sampling plots along three parallel transects (80, 100, and 140 m long) and encompassing five different habitats: tree row, tree row edge, grassland, forest edge, and forest. We found 5,615 individuals belonging to 55 species. Despite the similarity in species richness, all the habitats investigated showed a peculiar and distinct species assemblage. The main distinction was between the "open habitat" cluster composed of grassland and tree row edge and the “forest" cluster composed of forest, tree row, and forest edge. We found that forest species are able to penetrate the grassland matrix up to 30 m from the forest edge and that a distance of no more than 60 m between tree row and forest can allow the passage of up to 50% of the forest species. Beyond this distance, the grassland matrix becomes a barrier, preventing them from reaching other suitable habitats. Our findings confirm the importance of maintaining different types of natural habitats to significantly increase biodiversity in an intensively cultivated agroecosystem and demonstrated the role of linear elements as a corridor and “stepping stones” for many forest species

A divergent role for estrogen receptor-beta in node-positive and node-negative breast cancer classified according to molecular subtypes: an observational prospective study

Introduction: Estrogen receptor-alpha (ER-alpha) and progesterone receptor (PgR) are consolidated predictors of response to hormonal therapy (HT). In contrast, little information regarding the role of estrogen receptor-beta (ER-beta) in various breast cancer risk groups treated with different therapeutic regimens is available. In particular, there are no data concerning ER-beta distribution within the novel molecular breast cancer subtypes luminal A (LA) and luminal B (LB), HER2 (HS), and triple-negative (TN). Methods: We conducted an observational prospective study using immunohistochemistry to evaluate ER-beta expression in 936 breast carcinomas. Associations with conventional biopathological factors and with molecular subtypes were analyzed by multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), while univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis and classification and regression tree analysis were applied to determine the impact of ER-beta on disease-free survival in the 728 patients with complete follow-up data. Results: ER-beta evenly distributes (55.5%) across the four molecular breast cancer subtypes, confirming the lack of correlation between ER-beta and classical prognosticators. However, the relationships among the biopathological factors, analyzed by MCA, showed that ER-beta positivity is located in the quadrant containing more aggressive phenotypes such as HER2 and TN or ER-alpha/PgR/Bcl2- tumors. Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression analysis identified ER-beta as a significant discriminating factor for disease-free survival both in the node-negative LA (P = 0.02) subgroup, where it is predictive of response to HT, and in the node-positive LB (P = 0.04) group, where, in association with PgR negativity, it conveys a higher risk of relapse. Conclusion: Our data indicated that, in contrast to node-negative patients, in node-positive breast cancer patients, ER-beta positivity appears to be a biomarker related to a more aggressive clinical course. In this context, further investigations are necessary to better assess the role of the different ER-beta isoforms

RAMAN-VIBRONIC DOUBLE RESONANCE SPECTROSCOPY OF BENZENE DIMER

1. B.F. Henson, G.V. Hartland, V.A. Venturo, R.A. Hertz, and P.M. Felker, Chem. Phys. Lett.176,91 (1991). 2. B.F. Henson, G.V. Hartland, V.A. Venturo, and P.M. Felker -- to be submitted.Author Institution: Los Alamos, nm 87545 National Laboratory; Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania; Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of CaliforniaMass-selective, ionization-detected stimulated Raman spectroscopies have been applied to the study of benzene dimmer $isotopomers.^{1,2}$ The results have been interpreted in terms of the dimmer geometry. The species is found to be characterized by inequivalent benzene sites. The evidence further indicates that one of the sites is of high and the other of low symmetry. All of the Raman results are consistent with a T-shaped geometry similar to the nearest neighbor geometry in benzene crystal. (Work Supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Grant no. DE-FG03-89-ER14066.

FOURIER - TRANSFORM IONIZATION DETECTED STIMULATED RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY STUDIES OF HETEROGENEOUS COMPLEXES OF PHENOL AND BENZENE

Author Institution: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of CaliforniaFourier transform ionization detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FT-IDSRS) is a powerful technique for obtaining high resolution Raman spectra of species in molecular beams. We have used this technique to study a wide variety of complexes of phenol (i.e. phenol-Ar, $-N_{2}, -CH_{4}, -H_{2}O, -NH_{3}$, -benzene) and benzene (i.e. benzene-Ar, $-N_{2}, -CH_{4}, -CO_{2})$. One of the principle advantages of FT-IDSRS over conventional frequency domain techniques is that absolute line positions can be routinely measured with high precision. This feature of FT-IDSRS has been used to obtain accurate values for the shifts of the fundamental vibrational frequencies of phenol and benzene that occur upon complexation. In this talk we will present a short explanation of FT-IDSRS and a summary of the experimental results that we have obtained so far. The observed shifts of the vibrational frequencies are related to the strength and type of intermolecular interaction in the complex