Valutazione della funzionalità dei boschi planiziali relitti della pianura veneta orientale per la conservazione delle specie nemorali erbacee.

The effects of fragmentation as a driver affecting environmental condition, habitat integrity and, consequently, the possibility of a long-term persistence of ancient forest species populations were evaluated. A check list of the flora was compiled for each forest. Repeated samplings have been surveyed in spring and in late summer-autumn following a stratified random design. 80 permanent plot (25m x 25m) were fixed, randomly and proportionately to the correspondent surface, on the two woodland habitat types: 1) the “edge habitat”, that is the concentric zone up to 50 meters from woods boundary and 2) the “core area”, the interior and protected zone. Species were clustered in 7 ecological groups, on the basis of similar ecology and similar role inside the community. The group assignment was based on phytosociological affinity. Binary data on occurrence of species in the 80 plots were used to perform Principal Coordinates Analysis (Sörensen Index). For each woods we defined richness, structure (on the basis of ecological groups) and an index of floristic quality (FQAI). Species richness and FQAI have been related to environmental variables (area and age, that is time from last fragmentation event) using a linear regression approach. Data analysis pointed out that three main indipendent variables affect habitat quality: surface, surrounding matrix and age. Our data confirm woodlands patches are experiencing the “relaxation time”, namely the time taken for a community to reach a new equilibrium after an environmental disturbance. After fragmentation, woodlands have lost their typical structure and, at present, they seem unable to assure a long-term conservation of herbaceous nemoral species

La componente floristica dei relitti boscati della pianura veneta orientale: qualità e grado di conservazione

The floristic composition of venetian relic woods: quality and conservation status. The aim of the study was to collect up-to-date data on the floristic composition of fragments of relic woods in venetian Po plain. For each forest a check list of the flora has been compiled. The floristic originality of woods has been confirmed: thanks to their geographic position they show the co-occurrence of Temperate-Continental species, Mediterranean and Balkanian elements. In order to evaluate the floristic quality, species were clustered in 7 ecological groups, on the basis of similar ecology and similar role inside the community. The group assignment was based on phytosociological affinity. Quality of the plant communities didn’t show a gradual change from larger to smaller patches, with larger patches being characterised by a higher proportion of quality species, and both larger and smaller patches hosted rare and threatened forest species depending on their inner quality

S100B is not a reliable prognostic index in paediatric TBI.

Pediatr Neurosurg. 2007;43(4):258-64

Torus equivariant K-stability

It is conjectured that to test the K-polystability of a polarised variety it is enough to consider test-configurations which are equivariant with respect to a torus in the automorphism group. We prove partial results towards this conjecture. We also show that it would give a new proof of the K-polystability of constant scalar curvature polarised manifolds

Increased risk of breast cancer among female relatives of patients with ataxia-telangiectasia: a causal relationship?

International audienc

Gastric aspiration, epithelial injury and chronic lung allograft rejection

Introduction For patients with a variety of end stage lung diseases, lung transplantation has become an effective therapy. Chronic allograft rejection occurs in over 50% of patients 5 years post transplantation however. Although alloimmune-mediated injury directed against endothelial and epithelial structures were traditionally thought to be the major culprit, non-alloimmunologic inflammation after bile acid aspiration has been implicated in cystic fibrosis (CF) lung injury, after transplantation. Hypothesis Reflux with aspiration of bile acid is present in the lower airways of people with cystic fibrosis associated lung injury before and after transplantation. Bile acid challenge would cause cytoxicity and release of inflammatory mediators from patient derived primary epithelial cells (PBECs), before and after transplantation. Methods PBECs from lung transplantation patients, explanted CF patient cultures and a goblet cell line were used to perform proof of concept experiments. In these experiments the effect of individual primary and secondary bile acids, porcine pepsin, different patient derived gastric juices (whole or filtered and dialysed) samples and an artificial bile acid mixture were evaluated. Cell death, Interleukin 8 (IL-8), Interleukin 6 (IL-6) and Granulocyte Macrophage Colony Stumulating Factor (GMCSF) production were measured by Titer blue and multiplex ELISA. Results Epithelial cells can be cultured successfully from the bronchial brushings of lung transplant recipient, CF patient explanted lungs and a Goblet cell line. In work connected with this study my research group has demonstrated that the lungs of people with advanced CF lung disease removed at the time of transplantation contained significant levels of bile acids higher than expected based on normal serum levels. I therefore tested the effects of bile acids on PBECs from lung transplant and CF patients. Challengesof ≥10mol/l was associated with significant cell death. Potentially physiological challenges with 1, 5 and 10 mol/l bile acids led to a significant release of pro-neutrophilic cytokines from lung transplant PBECs and CF PBECs .The goblet cell line HT-29 MTX was resistant to bile acids. Conclusion Aspiration of bile acids in CF lungs before and after transplantation may cause cell damage and inflammation. This injury may benefit from medical and surgical treatments for reflux, which may benefit the lung allograft generally.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Risk estimation as a decision-making tool for genetic analysis of the breast cancer susceptibility genes. EC Demonstration Project on Familial Breast Cancer.

For genetic counselling of a woman on familial breast cancer, an accurate evaluation of the probability that she carries a germ-line mutation is needed to assist in making decisions about genetic-testing. We used data from eight collaborating centres comprising 618 families (346 breast cancer only, 239 breast or ovarian cancer) recruited as research families or counselled for familial breast cancer, representing a broad range of family structures. Screening was performed in affected women from 618 families for germ-line mutations in BRCA1 and in 176 families for BRCA2 mutations, using different methods including SSCP, CSGE, DGGE, FAMA and PTT analysis followed by direct sequencing. Germ-line BRCA1 mutations were detected in 132 families and BRCA2 mutations in 16 families. The probability of being a carrier of a dominant breast cancer gene was calculated for the screened individual under the established genetic model for breast cancer susceptibility, first, with parameters for age-specific penetrances for breast cancer only [7] and, second, with age-specific penetrances for ovarian cancer in addition [20]. Our results indicate that the estimated probability of carrying a dominant breast cancer gene gives a direct measure of the likelihood of detecting mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2. For breast/ovarian cancer families, the genetic model according to Narod et al. [20] is preferable for calculating the proband's genetic risk, and gives detection rates that indicate a 50% sensitivity of the gene test. Due to the incomplete BRCA2 screening of the families, we cannot yet draw any conclusions with respect to the breast cancer only families

Stability data, irregular connections and tropical curves

We study a class of meromorphic connections nabla(Z) on P^1, parametrised by the central charge Z of a stability condition, with values in a Lie algebra of formal vector fields on a torus. Their definition is motivated by the work of Gaiotto, Moore and Neitzke on wall-crossing and three-dimensional field theories. Our main results concern two limits of the families nabla(Z) as we rescale the central charge Z to RZ. In the R to 0 ``conformal limit'' we recover a version of the connections introduced by Bridgeland and Toledano Laredo (and so the Joyce holomorphic generating functions for enumerative invariants), although with a different construction yielding new explicit formulae. In the R to infty ``large complex structure" limit the connections nabla(Z) make contact with the Gross-Pandharipande-Siebert approach to wall-crossing based on tropical geometry. Their flat sections display tropical behaviour, and also encode certain tropical/relative Gromov-Witten invariants