Adipose tissue and breast cancer progression: A link between metabolism and cancer

Abstract Introduction/aims Obesity, an excess accumulation of adipose tissue occurring in mammalians when caloric intake exceeds energy expenditure, is associated with an increased incidence, morbidity and mortality from several types of neoplastic diseases including postmenopausal breast cancer. Methods and results Several investigators have recently studied the role of human white adipose tissue (WAT) progenitors in preclinical models of breast cancer. WAT progenitors were found to promote breast cancer local growth, angiogenesis, EMT, migration and metastatic spreading. Breast cancer patients with intraepithelial neoplasia who received autologous WAT cells for breast reconstruction after surgical removal of breast cancer showed an increased risk of recurrence of local events when compared to controls. Discussion/conclusion There is an urgent need for a better understanding of the role of WAT progenitors in breast cancer local and metastatic growth. A rigorous cancer screening and follow-up of patients enrolled for WAT progenitor-based therapies should be implemented

biomarkers for angiogenesis and antiangiogenic drugs in clinical oncology

Summary Aims The clinical use of anti-angiogenic drugs, alone or in combination with other drugs, is increasing in medical oncology. However, identifying the best suited drug and the optimal dosage and schedule for treatment of patients remain challenging. Methods and Results We reviewed data about surrogate biomarkers of angiogenesis and anti-angiogenic drug activity currently available in the literature. Circulating endothelial cells (CECs) and circulating endothelial progenitors (CEPs) have been found to have some predictive potential in some clinical trials involving advanced breast cancer patients. Molecular surrogate markers, on the other hand, are more scanty at the present time, because the identification of truly endothelial-cell-restricted genes and/or antigens has been so far more elusive. Conclusion The search and validation of new biomarkers for angiogenesis and anti-angiogenic drug activity have many biological, technical and clinical facets which render this task particularly complex. An accurate planning of biomarker search and validation throughout future clinical studies is highly warranted

Regional Patterns in the Achievement of the Lisbon Strategy: a Comparison Between Polycentric Regions and Monocentric Ones

Polycentrism is a common feature of European urban systems. Lately, the concept has assumed a more normative relevance and it has been often considered as a pre?requisite for a more sustainable and balanced development across Europe. However, the effects of polycentrism on other main European Strategies (such as the Lisbon Strategy, aimed at increasing European competitiveness and social cohesion) are not so clear. Therefore, the paper tries to highlight the relationships between a regional polycentric development and the achievement of the Lisbon Strategy’s targets. Referring to a sample of 75 regions belonging to France, Germany, Italy and Spain, we have first measured the extent of polycentrism, by estimating through OLS the slope of the rank-size distribution of cities within each region. Then, we have performed a principal component analysis (PCA) in order to highlight the main features characterising the performance of each region according to Lisbon Strategy’s targets. Looking at the correlations between the extent of polycentrism and the achievement of the Lisbon Strategy’s targets, we have found that the former is significantly correlated both with the spread of manufacture and with low investments in human capital and innovationthe Lisbon Strategy, polycentrism, rank-size distribution, PCA

Regional patterns in the achievement of the Lisbon Strategy: a comparison between polycentric regions and monocentric ones

Polycentrism is a common feature of European urban systems. Lately, the concept has assumed a more normative relevance and it has been often considered as a pre-requisite for a more sustainable and balanced development across Europe. However, the effects of polycentrism on other main European Strategies (such as the Lisbon Strategy, aimed at increasing European competitiveness and social cohesion) are not so clear. Therefore, the paper tries to highlight the relationships between a regional polycentric development and the achievement of the Lisbon Strategy’s targets. Referring to a sample of 75 regions belonging to France, Germany, Italy and Spain, we have first measured the extent of polycentrism, by estimating through OLS the slope of the rank-size distribution of cities within each region. Then, we have performed a principal component analysis (PCA) in order to highlight the main features characterising the performance of each region according to Lisbon Strategy’s targets. Looking at the correlations between the extent of polycentrism and the achievement of the Lisbon Strategy’s targets, we have found that the former is significantly correlated both with the spread of manufacture and with low investments in human capital and innovation.the Lisbon Strategy, polycentrism, rank-size distribution, PCA

response to anti angiogenesis an ever changing feature

Summary Aims Anti-angiogenic drugs have gained international approval for the therapy of advanced breast, lung, colo-rectal, kidney and central nervous system cancer. However, the clinical benefit associated with the use of these drugs has been so far limited. Methods This review discuss the possible rational developments of a new generation anti-angiogenic drugs. Conclusion Since most of the biological and clinical activity of the currently available generation of anti-angiogenic drugs targets VEGF and its related pathways, it seems relevant to (1) better understand mechanisms of resistance and/or escape from anti-VEGF and (2) identify and validate vascular targets complementary to anti-VEGF

Monolithic folded pendulum accelerometers for seismic monitoring and active isolation systems

A new class of very low noise low-frequency force-balance accelerometers is presented. The device has been designed for advanced mirror isolation systems of interferometric gravitational wave detectors. The accelerometer consists of a small monolithic folded pendulum with 2 s of natural period and an in-vacuum mechanical quality factor of 3000. The folded pendulum geometry, combined with the monolithic design, allows a unique 0.01% cross-axis residual coupling. Equipped with a high-resolution capacitance position sensor, it is capable of a noise-equivalent inertial displacement of 1-nm root mean square integrated over all the frequencies above 0.01 Hz. The main features of this new accelerometer are here reviewed. New possible applications of monolithic folded pendula in geophysical instrumentation are discussed

Monolithic folded pendulum accelerometers for seismic monitoring and active isolation systems

A new class of very low noise low-frequency force-balance accelerometers is presented. The device has been designed for advanced mirror isolation systems of interferometric gravitational wave detectors. The accelerometer consists of a small monolithic folded pendulum with 2 s of natural period and an in-vacuum mechanical quality factor of 3000. The folded pendulum geometry, combined with the monolithic design, allows a unique 0.01% cross-axis residual coupling. Equipped with a high-resolution capacitance position sensor, it is capable of a noise-equivalent inertial displacement of 1-nm root mean square integrated over all the frequencies above 0.01 Hz. The main features of this new accelerometer are here reviewed. New possible applications of monolithic folded pendula in geophysical instrumentation are discussed

Lisbon strategy and EU countries’ performance: social inclusion and sustainability

In 2010, the Lisbon Strategy came to its end. Even if many targets have not been fully reached by each of the 27 EU Members, a new and more ambitious reform strategy has been launched: the Europe 2020 Strategy. In order to evaluate the results of the Lisbon Strategy and of Europe 2020 Strategy, many indicators are yearly collected and published by EUROSTAT. From the analysis of these indicators, the work analyses how different European countries perform in economic, social and environmental issues. The paper moves from the works of Sapir [2006], who has already underlined – among the EU-15 – the existence of four different European social models (Nordic, Anglo- Saxon, Continental, Mediterranean), sharing different combinations of economic efficiency and social equity. This work tries to go further. First, it also underlines the role of the environmental issues in defining a sustainable European social model. Then, the analysis includes also Eastern countries, trying to identify the existence of possible Eastern social models. Therefore, in order to identify different European social models, we use a multivariate statistics methodology, i.e. the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), applied to a set of 20 variables (all the variables included in the short list of indicators from EU plus other environmental indicators) collected for all the European countries. The obtained results are among the expected ones. Sapir’s results are largely confirmed. In particular the supremacy of the Nordic model is straightforward. On the opposite side, when including environmental indicators, the Anglo-Saxon model seems to perform worse than Mediterranean one. Finally, referring to Eastern countries, a single social model does not emerge.European policies, Lisbon Strategy, social models, sustainability

Lisbon strategy and EU countries’ performance: social inclusion and sustainability

In 2010, the Lisbon Strategy came to its end. Even if many targets have not been fully reached by each of the 27 EU Members, a new and more ambitious reform strategy has been launched: the Europe 2020 Strategy. In order to evaluate the results of the Lisbon Strategy and of Europe 2020 Strategy, many indicators are yearly collected and published by EUROSTAT. From the analysis of these indicators, the work analyses how different European countries perform in economic, social and environmental issues. The paper moves from the works of Sapir [2006], who has already underlined –among the EU-15 – the existence of four different European social models (Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, Continental, Mediterranean), sharing different combinations of economic efficiency and social equity. This work tries to go further. First, it also underlines the role of the environmental issues in defining a sustainable European social model. Then, the analysis includes also Eastern countries, trying to identify the existence of possible Eastern social models. Therefore, in order to identify different European social models, we use a multivariate statistics methodology, i.e. the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), applied to a set of 20 variables (all the variables included in the short list of indicators from EU plus other environmental indicators) collected for all the European countries. The obtained results are among the expected ones. Sapir’s results are largely confirmed. In particular the supremacy of the Nordic model is straightforward. On the opposite side, when including environmental indicators, the Anglo-Saxon model seems to perform worse than Mediterranean one. Finally, referring to Eastern countries, a single social model does not emerge.European policies; Lisbon Strategy; social models; sustainability;

Project scheduling with multi skilled resources: a conceptual framework

Projects’ success depends, mostly, on people’s motivation and competences. A good plan is essential, but it is insufficient if the project manager is incapable to dynamically reassign people to project’s tasks, so as to create multi-skilled teams and to avoid multi-tasking and over-allocation. In this regard, several models dealing with the “Multi Skilled Work Force Scheduling Problem” have been proposed, but unfortunately, most of the works produced so far has not yet found its way into practice. This is mainly because project scheduling and resources allocation are jointly considered, a fact that leads to complex and rigid mathematical formulations and that poses serious constraints on the precision of the input data. Since projects are, by their very nature, uncertain entities, we believe that it is preferable to abandon the over optimistic idea of a global optimum, in favour of a suboptimal but stable and feasible solution. To this aim the paper proposes a heuristic framework that extends the well-known “Dynamic Scheduling” approach. Specifically, the problem is tackled in a hierarchical way: project scheduling is solved first and resource allocation is solved next, considering tasks durations as fixed constraints. In doing so, our focus is on the resources allocation phase, and the objective is to assure an almost perfect matching between resources’ skills and tasks requirements, so as to assure project quality and, also, a harmonious development of the workforce. Possible approaches, based on mathematical programming, which could be easily implemented in project management software, are presented and discussed