Predictive and prognostic significance of telomerase levels/telomere length in tissues and peripheral blood in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

A growing body of evidence indicates that the expression of TERT, the catalytic subunit of telomerase, is a biological marker of progression in several cancers. We investigated the predictive and prognostic role of TERT levels and telomere length in tissues and peripheral blood in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). High TERT levels in cancer tissues were independently associated with worse response to therapy (odds ratio [OR]:6.26), regional failure (hazard ratio [HR]:5.75), progression (HR:2.12), and death (HR:3.53). Longer telomeres in the mucosa surrounding the tumor (SM) were independently associated with a lower risk of mucosal failure (HR:0.39). While telomere length in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) significantly decreased with age, no correlation was found between age and telomere length in SM. No associations were found between TERT levels in plasma and telomere length in PBMC and the prognostic variables. High levels of TERT transcripts in cancer cells represent a reliable prognostic marker for identifying HNSCC patients with risk of progression. The altered relationship of telomere length to age in SM compared with PBMC suggests that in a subset of cases the phenotypically normal SM constitutes an acquired telomere-shortened epithelial field prone to genetic instability

What's in a Name? Shifting Identities of Traditional Organized Crime in Canada in the Transnational Fight against the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta

The Italian antimafia authorities have warned Canadian law enforcement about the risks and the growing concerns for the infiltration of clans of the Calabrian mafia, known as ‘ndrangheta, in Eastern Canada. The alarm linked to the rise of the ‘ndrangheta challenges the paradigms of traditional organized crime in Canada, because the ‘ndrangheta is presented as traditional but also innovative and more pervasive than other mafia-type groups. Through access to confidential investigations and interviews to key specialist law enforcement teams in Toronto and Montreal, this article investigates today's institutional perception of mafia – the ‘ndrangheta in particular – in Canada when compared to Italian conceptualizations. I will argue that the changes in narratives in Canada can be read in relation to changes in the Italian identity in the country, moving towards regionalization and specialist knowledge of ethnic differences

The 19th-Century Canadian Settlers’ Experience as Myth of the Promised Land

Recent studies on cultural memory acknowledge the influence the past holds on the present. One text that lends itself to discussing both Canadian and Italian cultural memories is Emigranti: Quattro anni al Canadà. It combines representations of myths present both in Canadian and Italian culture in the 19th century, especially that of the Promised Land. L’esperienza dei coloni canadesi nel XIX secolo quale mito della terra promessaStudi recenti sulla memoria culturale riconoscono l’influsso che il passato ha sul presente. Un testo che si offre a una discussione della memoria culturale sia canadese che italiana è Emigranti: Quattro anni al Canadà. Sono presenti alcuni miti distinguibili sia nella cultura canadese che italiana, come quello della terra promessa

Bridging the ocean, thematic aspects of Italian literature of migration to Canada

grantor: University of TorontoThe aim of this thesis is to present an examination of texts forming the Italian literature of migration to Canada, a corpus of writings which comprehends narrative works by writers of Italian background, and in Italian language, but have never been analyzed as a self-contained body. All the authors came to Canada at least for a period in their lives, and have left a varied written record of their experiences in Canada, for the most part either in an autobiographical work or in texts of a more creative nature. Thanks to these texts we were able to observe in literary form the evolution of the Italian migration process to Canada from the l7th-century up to the present-time. Among the authors dealt with are Bressani, Moroni Parken, Duliani, Randaccio, Ardizzi, Rimanelli and Grohovaz. The investigation highlights those thematic aspects which most distinguish this production, showing both the continuity of inspiration and motifs as well as the diversity of approaches and genres. These narrative works can provide an important contribution to the comprehension of the mental, emotional and more intimate dimensions of the immigrant experience, and hence complement the store of historical and socio-scientific studies now readily at hand. The fundamental motif underlining this literature is the impossibility for the immigrant of disregarding the impact the discovery of the new world and of the 'other' had on one's psyche and the need to span the ocean of his or her inquietude by the act of writing. On the individual level, each of these works contributes to the immigrant writer's creation of a personal bridge which can join and unite the two shores of his or her experience, thus relieving angst and coherently merging old and new worlds, past and present, Italian background and Canadian experience. In the representation of the life of Italians in Canada these texts also acquire an important cultural function at the collective level, because they allow Italian-Canadians of all generations to recognize the continuity between their cultural past and their present life in Canada, as well as further a knowledge of the immigrant experience "from the inside."Ph.D