The Commentary on Aristotle’s Treatise On the Heavens in Marcianus gr. 211 and Bessarion’s Autograph Parisinus gr. 2042

This article deals with Bessarion’s excerpts from Aristotle’s treatise On the Heavens in Parisinus gr. 2042 as well as with Marcianus gr. 211 that Bessarion used as model. A further topic is the exploration of the commentaries to Aristotle’s treatise On Generation and Corruption written down by Bessarion on the edges of Marcianus gr. 211. Finally, the article touches upon three commentaries to Aristotle’s On the Heavens contained in Marcianus gr.211 in order to study their sources as well as their transmission in other Greek manuscripts.

Bevacizumab in the treatment of HER2-negative breast cancer

Angiogenesis has a clear and definite role in the breast cancer progression process, making antivascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapies an attractive option for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Bevacizumab is a potent humanized monoclonal antibody to VEGF, which has shown regression of breast cancer in preclinical and clinical setting, either alone or in combination with cytotoxic treatment. Additionally, bevacizumab potentially increases the effectiveness of other anticancer therapies through the normalization of tumor vasculature, reduction of intratumoral pressure and improved tumor oxygenation. Phase 1/2 trials showed significant antitumor effects of bevacizumab in MBC, in particular in tumors not expressing HER2 receptor. A first phase 3 trial in pre-treated MBC patients showed better response rates but no survival benefit from the addition of bevacizumab to capecitabine. However, in two phase 2 trial in first-line setting in patients with MBC, bevacizumab improved progression-free survival in combination with weekly paclitaxel in comparison to paclitaxel alone or in combination with 3-weekly docetaxel in comparison with docetaxel alone, respectively. Bevacizumab in combination with taxanes seems to be a highly effective first-line treatment for MBC patients. Future research will investigate bevacizumab in the neoadjuvant or adjuvant setting, where even more potential may exist for these patients

Controversies in adjuvant endocrine therapy for pre- and post-menopausal women with breast cancer

AbstractNearly 80% of breast cancer are hormone receptor positive. The efficacy of hormonal adjuvant therapy of breast cancer was expressed in the most recent EBCTG overview analysis of randomised trials using adjuvant tamoxifen. Five years of adjuvant tamoxifen led to proportional risk reduction, in terms of recurrence and mortality for hormone receptor positive patients, of 47% and 26%, respectively. This benefit was constant, regardless of menopausal status, age or whether or not chemotherapy was administered. More recent trials evaluating the use of aromatase inhibitors have challenged the standard of hormonal therapy in post-menopausal patients. However, many questions have been raised from these trials: (a) the optimal management of patients with hormone receptor positive breast cancer in terms of selection of hormonal agents and its sequence and duration; (b) the role of ovarian suppression in pre-menopausal patients; and (c) the actual role of biomolecular markers in clinical decision

Angiogenesis in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: A controversial issue

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) occurs in the majority of cases with early loco-regional spread and distant metastases at diagnosis, leading to dismal prognosis with a 5-year overall survival rate moderately over than 5%. This malignancy is largely resistant to chemotherapy and radiation, but the reasons of the refractoriness to the therapies is still unknown. Evidence is accumulating to indicate that the PDAC microenvironment and vascularity strongly contribute to the clinical features of this disease. In particular, PDAC is characterized by excessive dense extracellular matrix deposition associated to vasculature collapse and hypoxia with low drug delivery, explaining at least partly the low efficacy of antiangiogenic drugs in this cancer. Strategies aimed to modulate tumor stroma favoring vasculature perfusion and chemotherapeutics delivery are under investigation

Photoluminescence properties of C60 films deposited on silicon substrate

Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of C-60 films deposited on Si substrates have been measured from 10 to 300 K and as a function of laser excitation intensity. Recombination of self-trapped excitons and their phonon replicas, as well as X-trap-related emissions, are the main features of the PL spectra. The influence of the deposition parameters, namely deposition rate and substrate temperature, on the luminescence efficiency of the C-60 films have been investigated. Low substrate temperature produces a lowering of the PL efficiency, whereas an increase of the deposition rate causes an increase of the X-trap emission

Coronavirus–associated enteritis in a quail farm

An enteric syndrome observed in semi-intensively reared quails is described. The affected birds showed depression, severe diarrhoea and dehydration. The mortality occurred particularly in young birds. At necropsy, the prominent lesion was catarrhal enteritis. Laboratory investigations demonstrated the presence of coronavirus in the gut of dead animals. No additional pathogens were detected. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence for the presence of CoVs in quail with enteritis

The Role of Randomly Distributed Well Widths in Disordered GaAs/AlGaAs Superlattices

Numerical and experimental results on the effect of randomness in GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As superlattices having a small number of randomly distributed well widths are reported. The numerical results indicate the splitting of the extended state miniband into sub-minibands of localized states having a disorder-induced fine structure. The comparison between the experimental results for low-temperature absorption spectra and the computed joint density of states of the investigated samples confirms the predicted features. The high-temperature photoluminescence intensity of random superlattices is observed to be enhanced with respect to the ordered case

The growth and characterization of GaInSe2 single Crystals

GalnSe(2) single crystals have been grown and characterized by experimental techniques such as high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and optical and electrical measurements. The samples were prepared in single-crystal form from a melt. The structural analysis indicates that GalnSe(2) has a hexagonal structure, and confirms the high quality of the produced single crystals. Quantitative information on electrical and optical properties of single-crystalline GalnSe(2) was obtained by investigating the resistivity and photoluminescence as a function of the temperature and excitation intensity

Ovarian Cancer Biomarkers: A Focus on Genomic and Proteomic Findings

Among the gynaecological malignancies, ovarian cancer is one of the neoplastic forms with the poorest prognosis and with the bad overall and disease-free survival rates than other gynaecological cancers; several studies, analyzing clinical data and pathological features on ovarian cancers, have focused on the identification of both diagnostic and prognostic markers for applications in clinical practice. High-throughput technologies have accelerated the process of biomarker discovery, but their validity should be still demonstrated by extensive researches on sensibility and sensitivity of ovarian cancer novel biomarkers, determining whether gene profiling and proteomics could help differentiate between patients with metastatic ovarian cancer and primary ovarian carcinomas, and their potential impact on management