Contributo alla conoscenza floristica dei licheni italiani: l'agro di Manduria (Taranto, Italia). Contribution to lichen flora in Italy: the "agro di Manduria" (Taranto, Italy)

ItNel presente lavoro è riportato un primo censimento della florula lichenica dell'agro di Manduria, sito che occupa la parte sud orientale della provincia di Taranto, ad oggi poco esplorato in ambito lichenologico probabilmente a causa della forte vocazione agricola di questa terra e del suo alto grado di antropizzazione. Tuttavia questo territorio rappresenta un ottimo serbatoio di biodiversità, anche se i siti d'interesse naturalistico sono ormai fortemente ridotti e rappresentano ciò che resta dell'antica vegetazione spontanea denominata Foresta Oritana che fino all'Ottocento si estendeva nel Salento superiore. Di tale foresta restano ormai solo zone di macchia degradata e gariga, troppo spesso soggette ad incendi, e pochi boschi residui, tra cui Bosco Cuturi e Bosco Rosamarina, che si trovano appunto nell'agro di Manduria. Questi boschi sono prevalentemente popolati da lecci, ma anche da arbusti tipici della macchia mediterranea. L'indagine sulla flora lichenica è stata preceduta dalla raccolta dei dati bibliografici presenti in letteratura riguardanti il Salento e integrati con le informazioni ecologiche, tassonomiche e distribuzionali presenti su ITALIC 5.0 (Nimis and Martellos, 2017); l'identificazione è stata effettuata fondamentalmente in campo e quando necessario in laboratorio. La ricerca si è concentrata in particolar modo su alcuni dei siti naturalistici dell'agro di Manduria (Bosco Cuturi e Bosco Rosamarina), sulla macchia e sulla gariga in Contrada Marina e presso il Monte del Diavolo, oltre che in uliveti della zona, esaminando, fotografando e catalogando le popolazioni licheniche presenti sulla flora arbustiva e arborea, sul suolo e su substrati rocciosi (rocce affioranti e muretti a secco). La ricerca ha portato all'individuazione di 68 specie, prevalentemente taxa temperato-mediterranei in accordo con le previsioni distribuzionali della zona ricadente nella fascia del Mediterraneo secco (Nimis, 2016). Nei boschi si è riscontrato una prevalenza e più ampia varietà di licheni foliosi e fruticosi e tra questi Parmotrema hypoleucinum e Parmotrema pelatum sembrano aver trovato nelle leccete di Bosco Cuturi e Bosco Rosamarina il loro habitat ideale. Invece nella macchia e nella gariga si ha una prevalenza sul terreno di Cladonia foliacea f. convoluta e Cladonia rangiformis, mentre sugli arbusti di macchia e sugli ulivi prevalgono le forme crostose come Lecidella elaeochroma e Lecanora chlarotera, insieme ai licheni foliosi Xanthoria parietina e Physcia adscendens. I substrati litici sono colonizzati prevalentemente da Verrucaria nigrescens, Variospora aurantia e Xanthocarpia ochracea. Di notevole importanza è la riscoperta di Teloschistes chrysophthalmos, segnalato per la prima e unica volta in Puglia da Jatta nel 1889 ed inserito nella lista rossa dei licheni d'Italia. È stato ritrovato su diversi alberi sia nei boschi che su alberi isolati, dimostrando l'importanza ecologia del sito.EnIn this work there is a first census of the lichen florula of the Manduria countryside, a site that occupies the south-eastern part of the province of Taranto, which has been little explored in the lichenological field today, probably due to the strong agricultural vocation of this land and its high degree of anthropization. However, this territory represents an excellent source of biodiversity, even if the sites of naturalistic interest are now greatly reduced and represent what remains of the ancient spontaneous vegetation called "Foresta Oritana", that until the nineteenth century extended into the upper Salento. Only degraded scrub and gariga of this forest remain, too often subject to fires, and few residual woods, including Bosco Cuturi and Bosco Rosamarina, which are located precisely in the Manduria countryside. These woods are mainly populated by Quercus ilex, but also by typical shrubs of the Mediterranean scrub. The survey on lichen flora was preceded by the collection of bibliographic data present in the literature concerning Salento and integrated with the ecological, taxonomic and distributional information present on ITALIC 5.0 (Nimis and Martellos, 2017); identification was carried out basically in the field and when necessary in the laboratory. The research focused in particular on some of the naturalistic sites of the Manduria countryside (Bosco Cuturi and Bosco Rosamarina), on the scrub and gariga in Contrada Marina and at Monte del Diavolo, as well as in olive groves in the area, examining, photographing and cataloging the lichen populations present on the shrubby and arboreal flora, on the soil and on rocky substrates (outcropping rocks and dry stone walls). The research led to the identification of 68 species, mainly temperate-Mediterranean taxa in accordance with the distributional forecasts for the area falling in the dry Mediterranean belt (Nimis, 2016). In the woods there is a prevalence and wider variety of foliose and fruticose lichens and among these Parmotrema hypoleucinum and Parmotrema pelatum seem to have found their ideal habitat in the holm oaks of Bosco Cuturi and Bosco Rosamarina. However, in the scrub and gariga there is a prevalence on the ground of Cladonia foliacea f. convoluta and Cladonia rangiformis, while crusty forms such as Lecidella elaeochroma and Lecanora chlarotera prevail on shrubs and olive trees, together with the foliose lichens Xanthoria parietina and Physcia adscendens. The lithic substrates are colonized mainly by Verrucaria nigrescens, Variospora aurantia and Xanthocarpia ochracea. Of great importance is the rediscovery of Teloschistes chrysophthalmos, reported for the first and only time in Puglia by Jatta in 1889 and included in the red list of lichens in Italy. It was found on several trees both in the woods and on isolated trees, demonstrating the ecological importance of the site

Gliomatosis cerebri type II: two case reports

Two types of gliomatosis cerebri exist: Type I and Type II. We report the results of a histological and genetic study of two cases of gliomatosis cerebri Type II, correlating these results with therapy and prognosis. Case presentation Two patients, a 52-year-old man (Patient 1) and a 76-year-old man (Patient 2) with gliomatosis cerebri II were admitted to our institution; they underwent surgical treatment and received radiotherapy and chemotherapy. At the 24-month follow-up, Patient 1 was still alive, while Patient 2 had died. The poor prognosis of Patient 2 was underlined by molecular analysis which showed that the angiogenesis related genes VCAM1 and VEGF were overexpressed, reflecting the high degree of neovascularization. Conclusion Genes involved in drug resistance and metallothioneins were highly expressed in Patient 2 and this, associated with unmethylated O6-methylguanine methyltransferase, can explain the lack of response to chemotherapy

miR-15b and miR-21 as Circulating Biomarkers for Diagnosis of Glioma

Malignant gliomas are lethal primary intracranial tumors. To date, little information on the role of deregulated genes in gliomas have been identified. As the involvement of miRNAs in the carcinogenesis is well known, we carried out a pilot study to identify, as potential biomarkers, differentially expressed microRNAs in blood samples of patients affected by glioma. We studied the miRNAs' expression, by means of microarray and Real-Time PCR, in 30 blood samples from glioma patients and in 82 blood samples of patients suffering from: (a) various neurological disorders (n=30), (b) primary B-lymphoma of the Central Nervous System (PCNSL, n=36) and (c) secondary brain metastases (n=16). By quantitative real time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), we identified significantly increased levels of two candidate biomarkers, miR-15b and miR-21, in blood of patients affected by gliomas. ROC analysis of miR-15b biomarker levels allowed to differentiate patients with tumour from patients without glioma. Furthermore, combined expression analyses of miR15b and miR-21 distinguished between patients with and without glioma (90% sensitivity and 100% specificity). In addition, a decrement in the expression levels of miR-16 characterized glioblastomas compared to low grade and anaplastic gliomas. In conclusion, this pilot study suggest that it's possible to identify the disease state by meaning miR-15b and miR-21 markers in blood, while miR-16 can be used to distinguish glioblastoma from other grade gliomas. They can potentially be used as biomarkers for non-invasive diagnosis of gliomas; further studies are mandatory to confirm our preliminary findings

Design of an Energy Aware Petaflops Class High Performance Cluster Based on Power Architecture

In this paper we present D.A.V.I.D.E. (Development for an Added Value Infrastructure Designed in Europe), an innovative and energy efficient High Performance Computing cluster designed by E4 Computer Engineering for PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe). D.A.V.I.D.E. is built using best-in-class components (IBM\u2019s POWER8-NVLink CPUs, NVIDIA TESLA P100 GPUs, Mellanox InfiniBand EDR 100 Gb/s networking) plus custom hardware and an innovative system middleware software. D.A.V.I.D.E. features (i) a dedicated power monitor interface, built around the BeagleBone Black Board that allows high frequency sampling directly from the power backplane and scalable integration with the internal node telemetry and system level power management software; (ii) a custom-built chassis, based on OpenRack form factor, and liquid cooling that allows the system to be used in modern, energy efficient, datacenter; (iii) software components designed for enabling fine grain power monitoring, power management (i.e. power capping and energy aware job scheduling) and application power profiling, based on dedicated machine learning components. Software APIs are offered to developers and users to tune the computing node performance and power consumption around on the application requirements. The first pilot system that we will deploy at the beginning of 2017, will demonstrate key HPC applications from different fields ported and optimized for this innovative platform

Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 10

In this contribution, new data concerning red algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the algal genus Thorea, for the bryophyte genera Ephemerum, Hedwigia, Pogonatum, Riccia, Sphagnum, and Tortella, the fungal genera Pileolaria and Sporisorium, and the lichen genera Bacidia, Cerothallia, Chaenotheca, Cladonia, Halecania, Lecanora, Phylloblastia, Physcia, Protoparmelia, Pycnora, Segestria, and Sphaerophorus