DIGITAL MANAGEMENT FOR THE RESTORATION PROJECT. THE CASE OF THE TEMPLE OF VENUS IN BAIA

The work that is presented here shows the results of the survey and material characterization campaign, performed through digital information acquisition and management processes of the Temple of Venus in Baia, in the framework of the activities by the Departments of Civil, Building, and Environmental Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II, in agreement with the Archaeological Park of Campi Flegrei. The artifact stands as a deeply interesting example of an architectural palimpsest, which - despite being involved by significant structural reinforcement interventions - presents interesting technical solutions, to be further investigated in their singularity and specificity. Unfortunately, it cannot be currently visited, until the execution of works to guarantee its complete and safe accessibility, also in terms of structural safety. The use of digital methodologies for data acquisition, in the integration of range and image-based survey techniques, and their semantic de-discretization has allowed systematizing the developed knowledge into models that can be easily queried and implemented over time, where both the geometric and the information component are indispensable for orienting and elaborating a conscious and articulate restoration project, as required by this building

Calcified disk herniation of the thoracic spine: clinical and imaging features in two cases and review of the literature.

Thoracic disk herniations are more easily detected, in respect to the past, with the increasing availability of MR scanners. However, in several cases, the time interval between the onset of the symptoms and the diagnosis is still long, due to the variability and non-specificity of the clinical pattern and to the good functional compliance of the spinal cord to slowly progressive compression. We describe two cases of non-traumatic calcified thoracic disk herniation with variable extension in the spinal canal, which were not suspected at the initial diagnostic work-up. In the first case, long-standing but subtle disturbances of gait and lower limb sensitivity were associated with a large calcified central disk herniation, which occupied almost all the spinal canal at the T8-T9 level. The lesion was detected with MR of the thoracolumbar spine and further studied with CT for a better definition of the calcified part and its relationship with the nucleus polposus of the corresponding disk. In the second case, a hyperdense mass was observed in the right lateral recess of the T10-T11 intersomatic space during a CT scan of the abdomen, performed in a patient with clinical suspicion of gallbladder stones. The lesion was further studied with MR scan of the thoracic spine for evaluation of the compression on the spinal cord. The literature review and our cases confirm that non-traumatic thoracic disk herniation is a possibility seldom considered in the clinical evaluation, and that, although MR is certainly the optimal diagnostic modality, in our opinion, in cases of herniated disk calcification, a CT scan remains useful, especially when a surgical approach is planne

Transcription Factor Nkx-2.5 Induces Sodium/Iodide Symporter Gene Expression and Participates in Retinoic Acid- and Lactation-Induced Transcription in Mammary Cells

The sodium/iodide symporter (NIS) is a plasma membrane protein that mediates active iodide transport in thyroid and mammary cells. It is a prerequisite for radioiodide treatment of thyroid cancer and a promising diagnostic and therapeutic tool for breast cancer. We investigated the molecular mechanisms governing NIS expression in mammary cells. Here we report that Nkx-2.5, a cardiac homeobox transcription factor that is also expressed in the thyroid primordium, is a potent inducer of the NIS promoter. By binding to two specific promoter sites (N2 and W), Nkx-2.5 induced the rNIS promoter (about 50-fold over the basal level). Interestingly, coincident with NIS expression, Nkx-2.5 mRNA and protein were present in lactating, but not virgin, mammary glands in two human breast cancer samples and in all-trans retinoic acid (tRA)-stimulated MCF-7 breast cancer cells. A cotransfected dominant-negative Nkx-2.5 mutant abolished tRA-induced endogenous NIS induction, which shows that Nkx-2.5 activity is critical for this process. Remarkably, in MCF-7 cells, Nkx-2.5 overexpression alone was sufficient to induce NIS and iodide uptake. In conclusion, Nkx-2.5 is a novel relevant transcriptional regulator of mammary NIS and could thus be exploited to manipulate NIS expression in breast cancer treatment strategies

Type A Niemann-Pick disease. Description of three cases with delayed myelination

We describe three patients with type A Niemann-Pick disease (NPD-A). NPD-A is an autosomal recessive neuronal storage disease classified among the sphingolipidoses, characterized by accumulation of sphingomyelin in various tissues and in the brain. Magnetic Resonance imaging (MRI) of our three patients showed a marked delay of myelination with frontal atrophy. Few descriptions of this MRI pattern of delayed myelination have been published to dat

Quartz‐Enhanced Photoacoustic Sensors for Detection of Eight Air Pollutants

A quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy sensor architecture capable of detecting eight different air pollutants (CH4, NO2, CO2, N2O, CO, NO, SO2, and NH3) is reported. Each analyte is targeted using the same sensor components (acoustic detection module, quartz-tuning fork, etc.) and a dedicated laser source. Both interband cascade lasers and quantum cascade lasers are employed to target a well-resolved and isolated absorption feature from each investigated gas, in a wavelength ranging from 3.35 to 9.06 μm. The sensor is calibrated with certified concentrations of each gas species, in a wet nitrogen matrix. For each analyte, the optimal pressure is determined. Minimum detection limits of 40, 13, 800, 230, 450, 78, 18, and 5.8 ppb are obtained for CH4, NO2, CO2, N2O, CO, NO, SO2, and NH3, respectively, at 100 ms of integration time