SCIBA - A Prototype of the Computerized Cartographic System of an Archaeological Bibliography

Archaeological and historical-artistic studies, together with correlated multidisciplinary research, regardless of the language of writing or technical terminology, find a natural connection between them in the topographical positioning. Studying a monument or area from an archaeological and historical-artistic point of view cannot be separated from a long search for the material published in specialized libraries. SCIBA aims to drastically reduce search times and provide an instant overview of particular themes through knowledge extraction from reference texts and the visualization of the concerned cartography. With a simplified user experience, the user will be able to identify the area, location, archaeological site or single monument of interest, exactly as already used to do with contemporary navigation systems, and in addition will be able to view in real-time all the related bibliography and to navigate the key concepts in a knowledge graph

Understanding the Distributions of Benthic Foraminifera in the Adriatic Sea with Gradient Forest and Structural Equation Models

Abstract: In the last three decades, benthic foraminiferal ecology has been intensively investigated to improve the potential application of these marine organisms as proxies of the effects of climate change and other global change phenomena. It is still challenging to define the most important factors affecting foraminiferal communities and derived faunistic parameters. In this study, we examined the abiotic-biotic relationships of foraminiferal communities in the central-southern area of the Adriatic Sea using modern machine learning techniques. We combined gradient forest (Gf) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test hypotheses about determinants of benthic foraminiferal assemblages. These approaches helped determine the relative effect of sizes of different environmental variables responsible for shaping living foraminiferal distributions. Four major faunal turnovers (at 13–28 m, 29–58 m, 59–215 m, and >215 m) were identified along a large bathymetric gradient (13–703 m water depth) that reflected the classical bathymetric distribution of benthic communities. Sand and organic matter (OM) contents were identified as the most relevant factors influencing the distribution of foraminifera either along the entire depth gradient or at selected bathymetric ranges. The SEM supported causal hypotheses that focused the factors that shaped assemblages at each bathymetric range, and the most notable causal relationships were direct effects of depth and indirect effects of the Gf-identified environmental parameters (i.e., sand, pollution load Index–PLI, organic matter–OM and total nitrogen–N) on foraminifera infauna and diversity. These results are relevant to understanding the basic ecology and conservation of foraminiferal communitie

Murge and Pre-murge in southern Italy: the last piece of Adria, the (almost) lost continent, attempting to became an aUGGp candidate (MurGEOpark)

In 2019, the executive of the Alta Murgia National Park (southeastern Italy) decided to propose its territory as possible inclusion in the network of the UNESCO Global Geoparks. Since then, in cooperation with the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (Aldo Moro University of Bari) and SIGEA, it is working to candidate the area as an aUGGp (called “MurGEOpark”). The MurGEOpark comprises the Alta Murgia area, where a Cretaceous sector of the Apulia Carbonate Platform crops out, and the adjacent Pre-Murge area, where the southwestward lateral continuation of the same platform, being flexed toward the southern Apennines mountain chain, is thinly covered by Plio-Quaternary foredeep deposits. The worldwide geological uniqueness is that the area is the only in situ remnant of the AdriaPlate, the old continent almost entirely squeezed between Africa and Europe. In such a contest, AltaMurgia is a virtually undeformed sector of Adria (the Apulia Foreland), while other territories of theplate are, and/or were, involved in the subduction/collision processes. In the MurGEOpark, the crustof Adria is still rooted to its mantle, and the Cretaceous evolution of the continent is spectacularlyrecorded in Alta Murgia thanks to the limestone succession of one of the largest peri-Tethyancarbonate platform (the Apulia Carbonate Platform). The MurGEOpark comprises also the Pre-Murge area, which represents the outer south-Apennines foredeep, whose Plio-Quaternaryevolution is spectacularly exposed thanks to an “anomalous” regional middle-late Quaternary uplift.The international value of the proposal is enriched by the presence of several geological singularities such as two paleontological jewels of very different age: a Neanderthal skeletonpreserved in speleothems within a karst cave, and one of the largest surfaces in the world withupper Cretaceous dinosaur tracks (about 25.000 footprints). Moreover, the close relationships between man and geology are spectacularly documented in the MurGEOpark: among the others, the use and conservation of water in a karst area, the prehistoric and ancestral choices ofurbanization, karst caves traditionally used as religious sites, etc. All these examples demonstratehow the MurGEOpark could offer a good opportunity to spread the geological culture to a wide and diverse audienc

A novel oral micellar fenretinide formulation with enhanced bioavailability and antitumour activity against multiple tumours from cancer stem cells

Background: An increasing number of anticancer agents has been proposed in recent years with the attempt to overcome treatment-resistant cancer cells and particularly cancer stem cells (CSC), the major culprits for tumour resistance and recurrence. However, a huge obstacle to treatment success is the ineffective delivery of drugs within the tumour environment due to limited solubility, short circulation time or inconsistent stability of compounds that, together with concomitant dose-limiting systemic toxicity, contribute to hamper the achievement of therapeutic drug concentrations. The synthetic retinoid Fenretinide (4-hydroxy (phenyl)retinamide; 4-HPR) formerly emerged as a promising anticancer agent based on pre-clinical and clinical studies. However, a major limitation of fenretinide is traditionally represented by its poor aqueous solubility/bioavailability due to its hydrophobic nature, that undermined the clinical success of previous clinical trials. Methods: Here, we developed a novel nano-micellar fenretinide formulation called bionanofenretinide (Bio-nFeR), based on drug encapsulation in an ion-pair stabilized lipid matrix, with the aim to raise fenretinide bioavailability and antitumour efficacy. Results: Bio-nFeR displayed marked antitumour activity against lung, colon and melanoma CSC both in vitro and in tumour xenografts, in absence of mice toxicity. Bio-nFeR is suitable for oral administration, reaching therapeutic concentrations within tumours and an unprecedented therapeutic activity in vivo as single agent. Conclusion: Altogether, our results indicate Bio-nFeR as a novel anticancer agent with low toxicity and high activity against tumourigenic cells, potentially useful for the treatment of solid tumours of multiple origin

Converting simulated total dry matter to fresh marketable yield for field vegetables at a range of nitrogen supply levels

Simultaneous analysis of economic and environmental performance of horticultural crop production requires qualified assumptions on the effect of management options, and particularly of nitrogen (N) fertilisation, on the net returns of the farm. Dynamic soil-plant-environment simulation models for agro-ecosystems are frequently applied to predict crop yield, generally as dry matter per area, and the environmental impact of production. Economic analysis requires conversion of yields to fresh marketable weight, which is not easy to calculate for vegetables, since different species have different properties and special market requirements. Furthermore, the marketable part of many vegetables is dependent on N availability during growth, which may lead to complete crop failure under sub-optimal N supply in tightly calculated N fertiliser regimes or low-input systems. In this paper we present two methods for converting simulated total dry matter to marketable fresh matter yield for various vegetables and European growth conditions, taking into consideration the effect of N supply: (i) a regression based function for vegetables sold as bulk or bunching ware and (ii) a population approach for piecewise sold row crops. For both methods, to be used in the context of a dynamic simulation model, parameter values were compiled from a literature survey. Implemented in such a model, both algorithms were tested against experimental field data, yielding an Index of Agreement of 0.80 for the regression strategy and 0.90 for the population strategy. Furthermore, the population strategy was capable of reflecting rather well the effect of crop spacing on yield and the effect of N supply on product grading

Elimination of quiescent/slow-proliferating cancer stem cells by Bcl-XL inhibition in non-small cell lung cancer

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, urging the discovery of novel molecular targets and therapeutic strategies. Stem cells have been recently isolated from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), thus allowing the investigation of molecular pathways specifically active in the tumorigenic population. We have found that Bcl-XL is constantly expressed by lung cancer stem cells (LCSCs) and has a prominent role in regulating LCSC survival. Whereas chemotherapeutic agents were scarcely effective against LCSC, the small molecule Bcl-2/Bcl-XL inhibitor ABT-737, but not the selective Bcl-2 inhibitor ABT-199, induced LCSC death at nanomolar concentrations. Differently from gemcitabine, which preferentially eliminated proliferating LCSC, ABT-737 had an increased cytotoxic activity in vitro towards quiescent/slow-proliferating LCSC, which expressed high levels of Bcl-XL. In vivo, ABT-737 as a single agent was able to inhibit the growth of LCSC-derived xenografts and to reduce cancer stem cell content in treated tumors. Altogether, these results indicate that quiescent/slow-proliferating LCSC strongly depend on Bcl-XL for their survival and indicate Bcl-XL inhibition as a potential therapeutic avenue in NSCLC

The multiple faces of self-assembled lipidic systems

Lipids, the building blocks of cells, common to every living organisms, have the propensity to self-assemble into well-defined structures over short and long-range spatial scales. The driving forces have their roots mainly in the hydrophobic effect and electrostatic interactions. Membranes in lamellar phase are ubiquitous in cellular compartments and can phase-separate upon mixing lipids in different liquid-crystalline states. Hexagonal phases and especially cubic phases can be synthesized and observed in vivo as well. Membrane often closes up into a vesicle whose shape is determined by the interplay of curvature, area difference elasticity and line tension energies, and can adopt the form of a sphere, a tube, a prolate, a starfish and many more. Complexes made of lipids and polyelectrolytes or inorganic materials exhibit a rich diversity of structural morphologies due to additional interactions which become increasingly hard to track without the aid of suitable computer models. From the plasma membrane of archaebacteria to gene delivery, self-assembled lipidic systems have left their mark in cell biology and nanobiotechnology; however, the underlying physics is yet to be fully unraveled

Insights into the cybotactic nemaic phase of bent-core mesogens

We present X-ray diffraction evidence for clusters exhibiting a skewed cybotactic supramolecular structure in the nematic phase of the butyloxy-phenyl diester, ODBP-Ph-OC4, a bent core mesogenic diester of the nonlinear diol 2,5-bis-(p-hydroxyphenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (ODBP). The temperature dependence of the off-meridional four-spot pattern shows that the tilt angle in the cybotactic clusters changes with temperature. The correlation lengths exhibit no evidence of critical behavior but there is no underlying smectic C phase in ODBP-Ph-OC4. The tilted cybotactic clusters persist throughout the 85 C wide nematic phase, and even remain evident in the supercooled nematic. This inherently biaxial supramolecular structure—clusters of stratified and tilted mesogens—embedded in an otherwise translationally disordered nematic host medium may account for the NMR biaxiality observed in nematic phases of ODBP mesogens