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Cosmological constraints from key probes of the Euclid imaging survey rely critically on the accurate determination of the true redshift distributions, $n(z)$, of tomographic redshift bins. We determine whether the mean redshift, $$, of ten Euclid tomographic redshift bins can be calibrated to the Euclid target uncertainties of $\sigma()$ is measured in each tomographic redshift bin to an accuracy of order 0.01 or better. By measuring the clustering redshifts on subsets of the full Flagship area, we construct scaling relations that allow us to extrapolate the method performance to larger sky areas than are currently available in the mock. For the full expected Euclid, BOSS, and DESI overlap region of approximately 6000 deg$^{2}$, the uncertainties attainable by clustering redshifts exceeds the Euclid requirement by at least a factor of three for both $n(z)$ models considered, although systematic biases limit the accuracy. Clustering redshifts are an extremely effective method for redshift calibration for Euclid if the sources of systematic biases can be determined and removed, or calibrated-out with sufficiently realistic simulations. We outline possible future work, in particular an extension to higher redshifts with quasar reference samples., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

The Euclid space telescope will survey a large dataset of cosmic voids traced by dense samples of galaxies. In this work we estimate its expected performance when exploiting angular photometric void clustering, galaxy weak lensing and their cross-correlation. To this aim, we implement a Fisher matrix approach tailored for voids from the Euclid photometric dataset and present the first forecasts on cosmological parameters that include the void-lensing correlation. We examine two different probe settings, pessimistic and optimistic, both for void clustering and galaxy lensing. We carry out forecast analyses in four model cosmologies, accounting for a varying total neutrino mass, $M_\nu$, and a dynamical dark energy (DE) equation of state, $w(z)$, described by the CPL parametrisation. We find that void clustering constraints on $h$ and $\Omega_b$ are competitive with galaxy lensing alone, while errors on $n_s$ decrease thanks to the orthogonality of the two probes in the 2D-projected parameter space. We also note that, as a whole, the inclusion of the void-lensing cross-correlation signal improves parameter constraints by $10-15\%$, and enhances the joint void clustering and galaxy lensing Figure of Merit (FoM) by $10\%$ and $25\%$, in the pessimistic and optimistic scenarios, respectively. Finally, when further combining with the spectroscopic galaxy clustering, assumed as an independent probe, we find that, in the most competitive case, the FoM increases by a factor of 4 with respect to the combination of weak lensing and spectroscopic galaxy clustering taken as independent probes. The forecasts presented in this work show that photometric void-clustering and its cross-correlation with galaxy lensing deserve to be exploited in the data analysis of the Euclid galaxy survey and promise to improve its constraining power, especially on $h$, $\Omega_b$, the neutrino mass, and the DE evolution., Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures - published in A&A

Euclid Consortium: M. S. Cagliari et al., [Context] The ESA Euclid mission will produce photometric galaxy samples over 15 000 square degrees of the sky that will be rich for clustering and weak lensing statistics. The accuracy of the cosmological constraints derived from these measurements will depend on the knowledge of the underlying redshift distributions based on photometric redshift calibrations., [Aims] A new approach is proposed to use the stacked spectra from Euclid slitless spectroscopy to augment broad-band photometric information to constrain the redshift distribution with spectral energy distribution fitting. The high spectral resolution available in the stacked spectra complements the photometry and helps to break the colour-redshift degeneracy and constrain the redshift distribution of galaxy samples., [Methods] We modelled the stacked spectra as a linear mixture of spectral templates. The mixture may be inverted to infer the underlying redshift distribution using constrained regression algorithms. We demonstrate the method on simulated Vera C. Rubin Observatory and Euclid mock survey data sets based on the Euclid Flagship mock galaxy catalogue. We assess the accuracy of the reconstruction by considering the inference of the baryon acoustic scale from angular two-point correlation function measurements., [Results] We selected mock photometric galaxy samples at redshift z > 1 using the self-organising map algorithm. Considering the idealised case without dust attenuation, we find that the redshift distributions of these samples can be recovered with 0.5% accuracy on the baryon acoustic scale. The estimates are not significantly degraded by the spectroscopic measurement noise due to the large sample size. However, the error degrades to 2% when the dust attenuation model is left free. We find that the colour degeneracies introduced by attenuation limit the accuracy considering the wavelength coverage of Euclid near-infrared spectroscopy., The Euclid Consortium acknowledges the European Space Agency and a number of agencies and institutes that have supported the development of Euclid, in particular the Academy of Finland, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, the Belgian Science Policy, the Canadian Euclid Consortium, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt, the Danish Space Research Institute, the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the Netherlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie, the Norwegian Space Agency, the Romanian Space Agency, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) at the Swiss Space Office (SSO), and the United Kingdom Space Agency. A complete and detailed list is available on the Euclid web site (http://www.euclid-ec.org). This work has made use of CosmoHub. CosmoHub has been developed by the Port d’Informació Científica (PIC), maintained through a collaboration of the Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) and the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT) and the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC & IEEC), and was partially funded by the “Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación” programme of the Spanish government.

Artículo escrito por un elevado número de autores, solo se referencian el que aparece en primer lugar, los autores pertenecientes a la UAM y el nombre del grupo de colaboración, si lo hubiere, Current and future imaging surveys require photometric redshifts (photo-zs) to be estimated for millions of galaxies. Improving the photo-z quality is a major challenge but is needed to advance our understanding of cosmology. In this paper we explore how the synergies between narrow-band photometric data and large imaging surveys can be exploited to improve broadband photometric redshifts. We used a multi-task learning (MTL) network to improve broadband photo-z estimates by simultaneously predicting the broadband photo-z and the narrow-band photometry from the broadband photometry. The narrow-band photometry is only required in the training field, which also enables better photo-z predictions for the galaxies without narrow-band photometry in the wide field. This technique was tested with data from the Physics of the Accelerating Universe Survey (PAUS) in the COSMOS field. We find that the method predicts photo-zs that are 13% more precise down to magnitude iAB < 23; the outlier rate is also 40% lower when compared to the baseline network. Furthermore, MTL reduces the photo-z bias for high-redshift galaxies, improving the redshift distributions for tomographic bins with z > 1. Applying this technique to deeper samples is crucial for future surveys such as Euclid or LSST. For simulated data, training on a sample with iAB < 23, the method reduces the photo-z scatter by 16% for all galaxies with iAB < 25. We also studied the effects of extending the training sample with photometric galaxies using PAUS high-precision photo-zs, which reduces the photo-z scatter by 20% in the COSMOS field, The PAU Survey is partially supported by MINECO under grants CSD2007-00060, AYA2015-71825, ESP2017-89838, PGC2018-094773, PGC2018-102021, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, MDM-2015-0509, PID2019-111317GB-C31 and Juan de la Cierva fellowship and LACEGAL and EWC Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant No 734374 and no.776247 with ERDF funds from the EU Horizon 2020 Programme, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IEEC and IFAE are partially funded by the CERCA and Beatriu de Pinos program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Funding for PAUS has also been provided by Durham University (via the ERC StG DEGAS-259586), ETH Zurich, Leiden University (via ERC StG ADULT279396 and Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) Vici grant 639.043.512), Bochum University (via a Heisenberg grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Hi 1495/5-1) as well as an ERC Consolidator Grant (No. 770935)), University College London, Portsmouth support through the Royal Society Wolfson fellowship and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No 776247 EWC. The results published were also funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (Bekker grant BPN/BEK/2021/1/00298/DEC/1), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Maria Skłodowska-Curie (grant agreement No 754510) and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through Juan de la Cierva-formacion program (reference FJC2018-038792-I)

Euclid Consortium: N. Hamaus et al., Euclid is poised to survey galaxies across a cosmological volume of unprecedented size, providing observations of more than a billion objects distributed over a third of the full sky. Approximately 20 million of these galaxies will have their spectroscopy available, allowing us to map the three-dimensional large-scale structure of the Universe in great detail. This paper investigates prospects for the detection of cosmic voids therein and the unique benefit they provide for cosmological studies. In particular, we study the imprints of dynamic (redshift-space) and geometric (Alcock–Paczynski) distortions of average void shapes and their constraining power on the growth of structure and cosmological distance ratios. To this end, we made use of the Flagship mock catalog, a state-of-the-art simulation of the data expected to be observed with Euclid. We arranged the data into four adjacent redshift bins, each of which contains about 11 000 voids and we estimated the stacked void-galaxy cross-correlation function in every bin. Fitting a linear-theory model to the data, we obtained constraints on f/b and DMH, where f is the linear growth rate of density fluctuations, b the galaxy bias, DM the comoving angular diameter distance, and H the Hubble rate. In addition, we marginalized over two nuisance parameters included in our model to account for unknown systematic effects in the analysis. With this approach, Euclid will be able to reach a relative precision of about 4% on measurements of f/b and 0.5% on DMH in each redshift bin. Better modeling or calibration of the nuisance parameters may further increase this precision to 1% and 0.4%, respectively. Our results show that the exploitation of cosmic voids in Euclid will provide competitive constraints on cosmology even as a stand-alone probe. For example, the equation-of-state parameter, w, for dark energy will be measured with a precision of about 10%, consistent with previous more approximate forecasts., NH, GP and JW are supported by the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2094 – 390783311. MA, MCC and SE are supported by the eBOSS ANR grant (under contract ANR-16-CE31-0021) of the French National Research Agency, the OCEVU LABEX (Grant No. ANR-11-LABX-0060) and the A*MIDEX project (Grant No. ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02) funded by the Investissements d’Avenir French government program, and by CNES, the French National Space Agency. AP is supported by NASA ROSES grant 12-EUCLID12-0004, and NASA grant 15-WFIRST15-0008 to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Science Investigation Team “Cosmology with the High Latitude Survey”. GL is supported by the ANR BIG4 project, grant ANR-16-CE23-0002 of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche. PN is funded by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). We acknowledge use of the Python libraries NumPy (Harris et al. 2020), SciPy (Virtanen et al. 2020), Matplotlib (Hunter 2007), Astropy (Astropy Collaboration 2013, 2018), emcee (Foreman-Mackey et al. 2019), GetDist (Lewis 2019), healpy (Górski et al. 2005; Zonca et al. 2019), and PyAbel (Hickstein et al. 2019). This work has made use of CosmoHub (Carretero et al. 2017; Tallada et al. 2020). CosmoHub has been developed by the Port d’Informació Científica (PIC), maintained through a collaboration of the Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) and the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT) and the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC & IEEC), and was partially funded by the “Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación” program of the Spanish government. The Euclid Consortium acknowledges the European Space Agency and a number of agencies and institutes that have supported the development of Euclid, in particular the Academy of Finland, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, the Belgian Science Policy, the Canadian Euclid Consortium, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, the Danish Space Research Institute, the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Netherlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie, the Norwegian Space Agency, the Romanian Space Agency, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) at the Swiss Space Office (SSO), and the United Kingdom Space Agency.

Full list of authors: Rossi, A.; Frederiks, D. D.; Kann, D. A.; De Pasquale, M.; Pian, E.; Lamb, G.; D'Avanzo, P.; Izzo, L.; Levan, A. J.; Malesani, D. B.; Melandri, A.; Guelbenzu, A. Nicuesa; Schulze, S.; Strausbaugh, R.; Tanvir, N. R.; Amati, L.; Campana, S.; Cucchiara, A.; Ghirlanda, G.; Della Valle, M.; Klose, S.; Salvaterra, R.; Starling, R. L. C.; Stratta, G.; Tsvetkova, A. E.; Vergani, S. D.; D'Ai, A.; Burgarella, D.; Covino, S.; D'Elia, V; Postigo, A. de Ugarte; Fausey, H.; Fynbo, J. P. U.; Frontera, F.; Guidorzi, C.; Heintz, K. E.; Masetti, N.; Maiorano, F.; Mundell, C. G.; Oates, S. R.; Page, M. J.; Palazzi, E.; Palmerio, J.; Pugliese, G.; Rau, A.; Saccardi, A.; Sbarufatti, B.; Svinkin, D. S.; Tagliaferri, G.; van der Horst, A. J.; Watson, D. J.; Ulanov, M., V; Wiersema, K.; Xu, D.; Zhang, J.--This is an Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited., We present a detailed follow-up of the very energetic GRB 210905A at a high redshift of z = 6.312 and its luminous X-ray and optical afterglow. Following the detection by Swift and Konus-Wind, we obtained a photometric and spectroscopic follow-up in the optical and near-infrared (NIR), covering both the prompt and afterglow emission from a few minutes up to 20 Ms after burst. With an isotropic gamma-ray energy release of Eiso = 1.27−0.19+0.20 × 1054 erg, GRB 210905A lies in the top ∼7% of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the Konus-Wind catalogue in terms of energy released. Its afterglow is among the most luminous ever observed, and, in particular, it is one of the most luminous in the optical at t ≳ 0.5 d in the rest frame. The afterglow starts with a shallow evolution that can be explained by energy injection, and it is followed by a steeper decay, while the spectral energy distribution is in agreement with slow cooling in a constant-density environment within the standard fireball theory. A jet break at ∼46.2 ± 16.3 d (6.3 ± 2.2 d rest-frame) has been observed in the X-ray light curve; however, it is hidden in the H band due to a constant contribution from the host galaxy and potentially from a foreground intervening galaxy. In particular, the host galaxy is only the fourth GRB host at z > 6 known to date. By assuming a number density n = 1 cm−3 and an efficiency η = 0.2, we derived a half-opening angle of 8.4 ° ±1.0°, which is the highest ever measured for a z ≳ 6 burst, but within the range covered by closer events. The resulting collimation-corrected gamma-ray energy release of ≃1 × 1052 erg is also among the highest ever measured. The moderately large half-opening angle argues against recent claims of an inverse dependence of the half-opening angle on the redshift. The total jet energy is likely too large to be sustained by a standard magnetar, and it suggests that the central engine of this burst was a newly formed black hole. Despite the outstanding energetics and luminosity of both GRB 210905A and its afterglow, we demonstrate that they are consistent within 2σ with those of less distant bursts, indicating that the powering mechanisms and progenitors do not evolve significantly with redshift. © A. Rossi et al. 2022., A. Rossi acknowledges support from the INAF project Premiale Supporto Arizona & Italia. D.D.F. and A.E.T. acknowledge support from RSF grant 21-12-00250. D.A.K. acknowledges support from Spanish National Research Project RTI2018-098104-J-I00 (GRBPhot). A.R., E.Pal., P.D.A., L.A., E.Pi., G.S., S.C., V.D.E., M.D.V., and A.M. acknowledge support from PRIN-MIUR 2017 (grant 20179ZF5KS). P.D.A., A.M. acknowledge support from the Italian Space Agency, contract ASI/INAF n. I/004/11/5. L.I. was supported by grants from VILLUM FONDEN (project number 16599 and 25501). D.B.M. and A.J.L. acknowledge the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework programme (FP7-2007-2013) (grant agreement No. 725246). The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant No. 140. K.E.H. acknowledges support by a Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant (217690–051) from The Icelandic Research Fund. C.G.M. acknowledges financial support from Hiroko and Jim Sherwin. Part of the funding for GROND (both hardware as well as personnel) was generously granted from the Leibniz-Prize to Prof. G. Hasinger (DFG grant HA 1850/28-1). This work made use of data supplied by the UK Swift Science Data Centre at the University of Leicester., With funding from the Spanish government through the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation SEV-2017-0709.

Pair-instability supernovae are theorized supernovae that have not yet been observationally confirmed. They are predicted to exist in low-metallicity environments. Because overall metallicity becomes lower at higher redshifts, deep near-infrared transient surveys probing high-redshift supernovae are suitable to discover pair-instability supernovae. The Euclid satellite, which is planned to be launched in 2023, has a near-infrared wide-field instrument that is suitable for a high-redshift supernova survey. The Euclid Deep Survey is planned to make regular observations of three Euclid Deep Fields (40 deg2 in total) spanning the Euclid's 6 year primary mission period. While the observations of the Euclid Deep Fields are not frequent, we show that the predicted long duration of pair-instability supernovae would allow us to search for high-redshift pair-instability supernovae with the Euclid Deep Survey. Based on the current observational plan of the Euclid mission, we conduct survey simulations in order to estimate the expected numbers of pair-instability supernova discoveries. We find that up to several hundred pair-instability supernovae at z < ~ 3.5 can be discovered within the Euclid Deep Survey. We also show that pair-instability supernova candidates can be efficiently identified by their duration and color that can be determined with the current Euclid Deep Survey plan. We conclude that the Euclid mission can lead to the first confirmation of pair-instability supernovae if their event rates are as high as those predicted by recent theoretical studies. We also update the expected numbers of superluminous supernova discoveries in the Euclid Deep Survey based on the latest observational plan., 12 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics

Euclid Consortium: S. Contarini et al., The Euclid mission – with its spectroscopic galaxy survey covering a sky area over 15 000 deg2 in the redshift range 0.9, We acknowledge the grant ASI n.2018-23-HH.0. SC, FM and LM acknowledge the use of computational resources from the parallel computing cluster of the Open Physics Hub (https://site.unibo.it/openphysicshub/en) at the Physics and Astronomy Department in Bologna. GV is supported by Universitá degli Studi di Padova and in part by the project “Combining Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure data: an Integrated Approach for Addressing Fundamental Questions in Cosmology”, funded by the MIUR Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) Bando 2017 – grant 2017YJYZAH. AP is supported by NASA ROSES grant 12-EUCLID12-0004, and NASA grant 15-WFIRST15-0008 to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Science Investigation Team “Cosmology with the High Latitude Survey”. NH is supported by the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2094 – 390783311. MS acknowledges support by the P. E. Filén fellowship and a fellowship at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS). LM acknowledges support from PRIN MIUR 2017 WSCC32 “Zooming into dark matter and proto-galaxies with massive lensing clusters”. AR acknowledges funding from Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) through the ‘Dipartimenti di eccellenza’ project Science of the Universe. He is supported in part by the project “Combining Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure data: an Integrated Approach for Addressing Fundamental Questions in Cosmology”, funded by the MIUR Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) Bando 2017 – grant 2017YJYZAH We acknowledge use of the Python libraries NumPy (Harris et al. 2020), Matplotlib (Hunter 2007) and ChainConsumer (Hinton 2016). This work has made use of Cosmo-Hub (Carretero et al. 2017; Tallada et al. 2020). CosmoHub has been developed by the Port d’Informació Científica (PIC), maintained through a collaboration ofthe Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) and the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT) and the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC & IEEC), and was partially funded by the “Plan Estatalde Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación” program of the Spanish government. The Euclid Consortium acknowledges the European Space Agency and a number of agencies and institutes that have supported the development of Euclid, in particular the Academy of Finland, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, the Belgian Science Policy, the Canadian Euclid Consortium, the French Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, the Danish Space Research Institute, the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the Netherlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie, the Norwegian Space Agency, the Romanian Space Agency, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) at the Swiss Space Office (SSO), and the United Kingdom Space Agency.

Jiménez-Muñoz, A., et al., The Euclid satellite, to be launched by ESA in 2022, will be a major instrument for cosmology for the next decades. Euclid is composed of two instruments: The Visible instrument and the Near Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP). In this work, we estimate the implications of correlated readout noise in the NISP detectors for the final in-flight flux measurements. Considering the multiple accumulated readout mode, for which the UTR (Up The Ramp) exposure frames are averaged in groups, we derive an analytical expression for the noise covariance matrix between groups in the presence of correlated noise. We also characterize the correlated readout noise properties in the NISP engineering-grade detectors using long dark integrations. For this purpose, we assume a (1/f ) α-like noise model and fit the model parameters to the data, obtaining typical values of s = - 19.7+0.8 1.1 e− Hz−0.5, = ( - ) f 5.2+ 10- Hz knee 1.3 1.8 3 and a = - 1.24+0.21 0.26. Furthermore, via realistic simulations and using a maximum likelihood flux estimator we derive the bias between the input flux and the recovered one. We find that using our analytical expression for the covariance matrix of the correlated readout noise we diminish this bias by up to a factor of four with respect to the white noise approximation for the covariance matrix. Finally, we conclude that the final bias on the in-flight NISP flux measurements should still be negligible even in the white readout noise approximation, which is taken as a baseline for the Euclid on-board processing to estimate the on-sky flux. Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Infrared photometry (792); Infrared Astronomical Satellite (785)., The Euclid Consortium acknowledges the European Space Agency and a number of agencies and institutes that have supported the development of Euclid, in particular, the Academy of Finland, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, the Belgian Science Policy, the Canadian Euclid Consortium, the Centre National dEtudes Spatiales, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, the Danish Space Research Institute, the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Netherlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie, the Norwegian Space Agency, the Romanian Space Agency, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) at the Swiss Space Office (SSO), and the United Kingdom Space Agency. A complete and detailed list is available on the Euclid website (http://www.euclid-ec.org).

Oro-facial granulomatosis is a descriptive term commonly encompassing a variety of conditions that exhibit similar clinical and microscopic features. It is generally used to describe persistent enlargement of the soft tissues of the oral and maxillofacial region.We report on the salient clinical features of 8 cases of Crohn's disease in paediatric patients (age range from 9 to 13 years old), with oral lesions as first clinical manifestations.The clinical presentation of oro-facial granulomatosis is highly variable but usually recurrent facial swelling, mainly in the lips with or without intraoral manifestations, is the single most common clinical sign at onset. The association with systemic conditions such as sarcoidosis and Crohn's disease has been widely reported in literature. In paediatric age, oro-facial granulomatosis may frequently represent an extra-intestinal manifestation of Crohn's disease and oral lesions can be the first sign of an unknown intestinal disease. The diagnosis in paediatric patients is challenging as oro-facial granulomatosis may precede Crohn's disease by several years, frequently remaining the only evident active focus of the disease.The detection of specific oral manifestations often preceded by painless gingival enlargement (diffuse lip and buccal mucosal swelling, oral cobblestoning, buccal sulcus ulceration and mucosal tags) and/or unspecific or ancillary ones (cheilitis, scaly perioral erythematous rashes and frank intraoral abscess formation, labial and tongue fissuring, glossitis and aphthous stomatitis) is mandatory for the early diagnosis of intestinal Crohn's disease.

Weak lensing, which is the deflection of light by matter along the line of sight, has proven to be an efficient method for constraining models of structure formation and reveal the nature of dark energy. So far, most weak-lensing studies have focused on the shear field that can be measured directly from the ellipticity of background galaxies. However, within the context of forthcoming full-sky weak-lensing surveys such as Euclid, convergence maps (mass maps) offer an important advantage over shear fields in terms of cosmological exploitation. While it carry the same information, the lensing signal is more compressed in the convergence maps than in the shear field. This simplifies otherwise computationally expensive analyses, for instance, non-Gaussianity studies. However, the inversion of the non-local shear field requires accurate control of systematic effects caused by holes in the data field, field borders, shape noise, and the fact that the shear is not a direct observable (reduced shear). We present the two mass-inversion methods that are included in the official Euclid data-processing pipeline: the standard Kaiser & Squires method (KS), and a new mass-inversion method (KS+) that aims to reduce the information loss during the mass inversion. This new method is based on the KS method and includes corrections for mass-mapping systematic effects. The results of the KS+ method are compared to the original implementation of the KS method in its simplest form, using the Euclid Flagship mock galaxy catalogue. In particular, we estimate the quality of the reconstruction by comparing the two-point correlation functions and third- and fourth-order moments obtained from shear and convergence maps, and we analyse each systematic effect independently and simultaneously. We show that the KS+ method substantially reduces the errors on the two-point correlation function and moments compared to the KS method. In particular, we show that the errors introduced by the mass inversion on the two-point correlation of the convergence maps are reduced by a factor of about 5, while the errors on the third- and fourth-order moments are reduced by factors of about 2 and 10, respectively., The Euclid Consortium acknowledges the European Space Agency and the support of a number of agencies and institutes that have supported the development of Euclid. A detailed complete list is available on the Euclid web site (http://www.euclid-ec.org). In particular the Academy of Finland, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, the Belgian Science Policy, the Canadian Euclid Consortium, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-and Raumfahrt, the Danish Space Research Institute, the Fundação para a Ciênca e a Tecnologia, the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Netherlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie, the Norvegian Space Center, the Romanian Space Agency, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) at the Swiss Space Office (SSO), and the United Kingdom Space Agency.

The aim of this retrospective study was to perform an epidemiological analysis of all odontogenic tumors treated in the University Hospitals "Ospedali Riuniti" in Ancona and "Policlinico" in Bari, from 1990 to 2015.A retrospective survey of 277 patients treated for odontogenic tumors from 1990 to 2015 was performed. Data were retrieved from the archives of the above quoted Sections of Pathology. The lesions were classified according to 2005 WHO histological classification, and the following variables were analyzed: age, sex, histopathological diagnosis, site distribution, tumor size, and relapses. Peripheral odontogenic tumors were analyzed considering these lesions separately from their central counterparts.In a total of 344 surgical specimens, there were 277 primary tumors and 67 recurrences. As regards primary lesions, there were 185 odontogenic keratocysts (keratocystic odontogenic tumors) (66.8%), 49 ameloblastomas (17.7%), and 40 other benign odontogenic tumors (14.4%). As to malignant tumors, only 3 ameloblastic carcinomas were found (1.1%). The mean age was 46.7 years, with a M:F ratio of 1.8:1. The mandible was the most common site of localization, with 211 cases (76.2%). Also, 21 cases of peripheral odontogenic tumors were found, ameloblastomas being the most common (8 cases, 38.1%).There is a wide variety of cysts, some of which are subject to variations according to sex, localization, and age. Odontogenic tumors are rare neoplasms and appear to show variations according to sex, localization, and age, and may be useful to the clinicians who need to make clinical judgments before biopsy about the most probable diagnosis.

Euclid is a space observatory managed by the European Space Agency; it is the second medium class mission (see Figure 1) in the frame of Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program. In the frame of this project, the electromagnetic interference between two different and not synchronized Charge Coupled Device (CCD) (see Figure 2) acquisition chains has been evaluated. The key parameter used for this assessment is the electromagnetic noise induced on each other. Taking into account the specificity of the issue, radiation coupling at relative low frequency and in near field conditions, classical approach based on simulations and testing on qualification model cannot be directly applied. Based on that, it has been decided to investigate the issue by test in an incremental way.

β-Fructofuranosidase production by Aspergillus oryzae IPT301 was maximized in shake flasks. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) involving Small Central Composite Design was adopted to evaluate the fructosyltransferase (FTase) activity by changing three medium component concentrations: sucrose, urea and yeast extract. The optimal set of conditions for maximum fructosyltransferase production was as follows: sucrose 320.5 g/L, urea 7.13 g/L and yeast extract 2.11 g/L. In this optimal condition, the following improvements were achieved: an increase of 48.8% in cell growth, 112% and 62% in micelial and free FTase activities, respectively, 62.8% in the ratio of fructosyltransferase/hydrolytic activities for enzyme linked to mycelium and 67.5% for free enzyme.

We present the results of our optical spectrophotometric campaign ongoing at the Astronomical Observatory of Bologna in Loiano (Italy) on hard X-ray sources detected by INTEGRAL. We observed spectroscopically the putative optical counterparts of four more INTEGRAL sources, IGR J12391-1610, IGR J18406-0539, 2E 1853.7+1534 and IGR J19473+4452. These data have allowed us to determine their nature, finding that IGR J12391-1610 (=LEDA 170194) and IGR J19473+4452 are Seyfert 2 galaxies at redshifts z = 0.036 and z = 0.053, respectively, IGR J18406-0539 (=SS 406) is a Be massive X-ray binary located at about 1.1 kpc from Earth, and 2E 1853.7+1534 is a Type 1 Seyfert galaxy with z = 0.084. Physical parameters for these objects are also evaluated by collecting and discussing the available multiwavelength information. The determination of the extragalactic nature of a substantial fraction of sources inside the INTEGRAL surveys underlines the importance of hard X-ray observations for the study of background Active Galactic Nuclei located beyond the `Zone of Avoidance' of the Galactic Plane., 10 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication on A&A, main journal. The quality of Fig. 1 was degraded to fit the arXiv uploads size limits

Despite several diagnostic and therapeutic advances, an increasing incidence of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) especially among young individuals has been observed in different parts of the world. Aim of this study was to delineate the profile of patients with OSCC in particular among young people.Between 1977-2004, the medical records of 462 patients (mean age: 64.18 years, male-to-female ratio 2.1:1) with a diagnosis of OSCC were retrieved and successively analysed, with details of demographic data, staging, histological grading, treatment modality and risk factor profile. Overall, 43 (9.3%) patients were less of 45 years old, and among these, the male-to-female ratio was 2.9:1 with the median age of 38 years. Most patients had stage II (37.5%) or III (29.2) disease, only 9.7% of the patients had stage IV. The most common histological gradings were well or moderately differentiated (98,5%). The most common involved site was the tongue (40.1%). A large number of patients (45.4%) received treatment with either surgery alone or a combination of surgery and other adjuvant therapy (45.9%).Collectively, these data indicate that OSCC remains a constant worldwide health problem. In addition, the occurrence of OSCC in young people is relatively high. Traditional risk habits including smoking and alcohol consumption remain the most important factors in the development of OSCC.Therefore, our data suggested that the OSCC prevention with early detection, early treatment intervention, and withdrawal from risk habits must be devised and advised also for patients in southern Italy.

The effects of diode laser therapy reported in literature are both clinical and biological. The aim of the present preliminary study was to verify the clinical benefits such as reduction of postoperative pain, inflammatory response and bleeding and also the benefits concerning wound healing and histopathological alterations of specimens related to diode laser surgery.The study was carried out on a group of 25 patients; we evaluated histologically the surgical specimens both by conventional optical microscopy and by autofluorescence by confocal laser scanner microscopy, paying attention to the incision margins and to the eventual presence of thermally induced changes/ damages. Both benign and premalignant or malignant lesions were treated with diode laser, with an output ranging from 2 to 7 Watt.Clinically we had several advantages (haemostasis, reduction of pain, healing without suture) and wound healing was always complete in 20-30 days. In the specimens evaluated histologically we noticed a good precision of surgical margins while changes induced by laser such as coagulation of proteins were present only with high power density output. Considering that nowadays the use of diode laser in the treatment of premalignant or malignant lesions is still debated, in this preliminary study no difficulty occurred with the observation of the specimens and no alterations were found.Thanks to the preliminary results obtained with this study, we encourage the use of diode laser also for malignant lesions, considering that an important factor to obtain specimens without alterations is the choice of the laser setting, strictly related to clinical experience, clinical situation, site and biological nature of the lesion.

The long and relatively faint gamma-ray burst GRB 060605 detected by \emph{Swift}/BAT lasted about 20 sec. Its afterglow could be observed with \emph{Swift}/XRT for nearly 1 day, while \emph{Swift}/UVOT could detect the afterglow during the first 6 hours after the event. Here, we report on integral field spectroscopy of its afterglow performed with PMAS/PPak mounted at the Calar Alto 3.5 m telescope. In addition, we report on a detailed analysis of XRT and UVOT data and on the results of deep late-time VLT observations that reveal the GRB host galaxy. We find that the burst occurred at a redshift of $z$=3.773, possibly associated with a faint, $R_C=26.4 \pm 0.3$ host. Based on the optical and X-ray data, we deduce information on the SED of the afterglow, the position of the cooling frequency in the SED, the nature of the circumburst environment, its collimation factor, and its energetics. We find that the GRB fireball was expanding into a constant-density medium and that the explosion was collimated with a narrow half-opening angle of about 2.4 degrees. The initial Lorentz factor of the fireball was about 250; however, its beaming-corrected energy release in the gamma-ray band was comparably low. The optical, X-ray afterglow, on the other hand, was rather luminous. Finally, we find that the data are consistent within the error bars with an achromatic evolution of the afterglow during the suspected jet break time at about 0.27 days after the burst., Comment: accepted in A&A; changed title, major reviews after referee's report; 15 pages and 14 figures

(Abridged) We present results of several X-ray observations of the X-ray binary 4U 1954+31 performed with the satellites BeppoSAX, EXOSAT, ROSAT, RXTE, and Swift. We also studied the RXTE ASM data over a period of more than 10 years. Light curves of all observations show an erratic behaviour with sudden increases in the source emission on timescales variable from hundreds to thousands of seconds. There are no indications of changes in the source spectral hardness, with the possible exception of the RXTE pointed observation. Timing analysis does not reveal the presence of coherent pulsations or periodicities either in the pointed observations in the range from 2 ms to 2000 s or in the long-term RXTE ASM light curve on timescales from days to years. The 0.2-150 keV spectrum, obtained with BeppoSAX, is the widest for this source available to date in terms of spectral coverage and is well described by a model consisting of a lower-energy thermal component (hot diffuse gas) plus a higher-energy (Comptonization) emission, with the latter modified by a partially-covering cold absorber plus a warm (ionized) absorber. A blackbody modelization of our BeppoSAX low-energy data is ruled out. The presence of a complex absorber local to the source is also supported by the 0.1-2 keV ROSAT spectrum. RXTE, EXOSAT and Swift X-ray spectroscopy is consistent with the above results, but indicates variations in the density and the ionization of the local absorber. A 6.5 keV emission line is possibly detected in the BeppoSAX and RXTE spectra. All this information suggests that the scenario that better describes 4U 1954+31 consists of a binary system in which a neutron star orbits in a highly inhomogeneus medium from a stellar wind coming from its optical companion, an M-type giant star., 13 pages, 5 figures (2 in the Appendix), 4 tables (1 in the Appendix), accepted for publication on A&A, main journal. Revised version includes the A&A Language Editor's corrections

We report on the photometric, spectroscopic and polarimetric, monitoring of the optical afterglow of Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) 030328 detected by HETE-2. Photometry, collected at 7 different telescopes, shows that a smoothly broken powerlaw decay, with indices alpha_1 = 0.76 +/- 0.03, alpha_2 = 1.50 +/- 0.07 and a break at t_b = 0.48 +/- 0.03 days after the GRB, provides the best fit of the optical afterglow decline. This shape is interpreted as due to collimated emission, for which we determine a jet opening angle theta_{jet} of about 3.2 degrees. An achromatic bump starting around 0.2 d after the GRB is possibly marginally detected in the optical light curves. Optical spectroscopy shows the presence of two rest-frame ultraviolet metal absorption systems at z = 1.5216 +/- 0.0006 and at z = 1.295 +/- 0.001, the former likely associated with the GRB host galaxy. Analysis of the absorption lines at z = 1.5216 suggests that the host of this GRB may be a Damped Lyman-alpha Absorber. The optical V-band afterglow appears polarized, with P= (2.4 +/- 0.6) % and theta = (170 +/- 7) degrees, suggesting an asymmetric blastwave expansion. An X-ray-to-optical spectral flux distribution of the GRB 030328 afterglow was obtained at 0.78 days after the GRB and fitted using a broken powerlaw, with an optical spectral slope beta_{opt} = 0.47 +/- 0.15, and an X-ray slope beta_{X} = 1.0 +/- 0.2. The discussion of these results in the context of the "fireball model" shows that the preferred scenario for this afterglow is collimated structured jet with fixed opening angle in a homogeneous medium., 14 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication on A&A, main journal. Abstract changed to comply with the new format of A&A abstracts

Whereas the aetiopathogenesis of endometrial cancer development and progression is still obscure, recent studies have demonstrated that the expression of genes related to cell adhesion, growth, cell cycle and apoptosis is altered or lost during progression from normal to invasive endometrial cancer. Endometrial tissue is a very highly interactive system involving different cell types which relies on a complex network of intercellular and intracellular signaling in which cell cycle proteins, estrogens, pro-inflammatory species and growth factors strictly cross talk. In this regard, it may be relevant the study of regulation of gene expression and cell cycle alterations in both human cell lines and neoplastic tissue specimens experimental models. In the recent years we have focused our attention on the role of growth factors and adhesion factors in the aetiopathogenesis of human proliferating diseases (thyroid, mammary, prostate and endometrial umors). Our studies yielded the first evidence of a transcriptional and a post-transcriptional regulation of the expression of these factors during cellular transformations leading to malignant transformation. We are actually interested to clarify the relations between the cell cycle and apoptosis regulatory proteins, estrogens, proinflammatory species and growth factors. The aim of our study is to investigate how clusterin expression and functions are modulated under strogen stimulation in normal uterine tissue and in malignant tissue. Clusterin, is the first gene described having diametrically opposite hormonal control in a normal tissue and in tumours derived from that tissue. Clusterin is a ubiquitously expressed secreted protein whose presumed functions are still controversial. The prevailing hypothesis on its biological role, however, suggests that it is involved in the clearance of toxic substances from extracellular spaces through its ability to bind to unfolded proteins, cell debris, or immune complexes. Other studies have enlightened an antiapoptotic activity, protecting cultured cell lines against a variety of stress signals. An opposite function has been assigned to the nuclear form of clusterin, which appear to marks cells for apoptosis. Furthermore, the expression of Clusterin mRNA in vitro appears to accurately reflect the expression of the gene in primary and metastatic tumours derived from cells in vivo. In this light we examined Clusterin expression at mRNA levels in 11 endometrial adenocarcinoma and in 9 endometrial hyperplastic tissues using Northern blotting analysis. The pattern of Clusterin expression was compared to that of endometrium of 14 normal cycling women. Our in vivo results demonstrated that, in secretive and atrophic endometrium, mRNA levels of Clusterin are respectively down-regulated and up-regulated compared to proliferative endometrium. The study of Clusterin expression in pathological tissues have shown that mRNA levels are up-regulated in both neoplastic and hyperplastic endometrium. This up-regulation in carcinoma cells confirm the function of secretive form of Clusterin as anti-apoptotic and cytoprotective form. So the overexpression of this protein in human neoplastic cells represent a protection from any apoptotic stimuli. As such, clusterin may represent a valuable marker gene in the search for transcription factors that contribute to the malignant transformation of the endometrium and possibly of other hormone-dependent tumours, such as the prostate and breast. A better understanding of these biological mechanisms will provide new molecular targets for innovative strategies of prevention and therapy of endometrial cancer and could be critical to devise novel diagnostic approaches.

We report on BeppoSAX simultaneous X- and gamma-ray observations of the bright GRB 990123. We present the broad-band spectrum of the prompt emission, including optical, X- and gamma-rays, confirming the suggestion that the emission mechanisms at low and high frequencies must have different physical origins. In the framework of the standard fireball model, we discuss the X-ray afterglow observed by the NFIs and its hard X-ray emission up to 60 keV several hours after the burst, detected for about 20 ks by the PDS. Considering the 2-10 keV and optical light curves, the 0.1-60 keV spectrum during the 20 ks in which the PDS signal was present and the 8.46 GHz upper limits, we find that the multi-wavelength observations cannot be readily accommodated by basic afterglow models. While the temporal and spectral behavior of the optical afterglow is possibly explained by a synchrotron cooling frequency between the optical and the X-ray energy band during the NFIs observations, in X-rays this assumption only accounts for the slope of the 2-10 keV light curve, but not for the flatness of the 0.1-60 keV spectrum. Including the contribution of Inverse Compton (IC) scattering, we solve the problem of the flat X-ray spectrum and justify the hard X-ray emission; we suggest that the lack of a significant detection of 15-60 keV emission in the following 75 ks and last 70 ks spectra, should be related to poorer statistics rather than to an important suppression of IC contribution. However, considering also the radio band data, we find the 8.46 GHz upper limits violated. On the other hand, leaving unchanged the emission mechanism requires modifying the hydrodynamics by invoking an ambient medium whose density rises rapidly with radius and by having the shock losing energy. Thus we are left with an open puzzle which requires further inspection., Revised version, minor changes in Table 1 and Fig. 2; 21 pages including 6 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A. The Appendix will be available only on the electronic version of the journal

As a follow-up of the X-ray serendipitous detection of the source 2MASX J14585116-1652223, medium-resolution optical spectroscopic observations collected at the 1.5-metre "Cassini" telescope of the Astronomical Observatory of Bologna were performed. This allowed us to determine the extragalactic nature of this X-ray source, which is a Type 2 Seyfert galaxy at redshift z = 0.068 +- 0.001. This result points to the fact that 2MASX J14585116-1652223 hosts one of the very few Active Galactic Nuclei detected so far in the hard X-ray band above 20 keV, in particular at z > 0.05. Other optical and X-ray properties of this object are also discussed., 9 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication on New Astronomy

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), the most frequent malignant tumor of the oral cavity, generally exhibits a poor prognosis and metastases are the main cause of death. This tumor often arises from pre-malignant lesions. To date, it is difficult to predict if and which pre-malignant lesions may progress into oral SCC using traditional methods. For these reasons, several studies are trying to identify markers useful in the progression of pre-malignant lesions and tumors. To define the genetic expression profile of tongue tumor progression we compared 9 dysplasias (DS), 8 tumors without metastasis (TWM), 11 metastasizing SCCs (MT) of the tongue, and a baseline of 11 normal tissues by using cDNA microarray containing 19.2 K clones. We initially applied hierarchical agglomerative clustering based on information from all 6026 clones. Results were obtained by performing a two steps analysis: a Significance Analysis of Microarray (SAM) and a Gene Ontology search. One hundred and five clones have statistically significant different expression levels (FDR

(Abridged) We report on observations of the optical and NIR afterglow of GRB020405. Ground-based optical observations started about 1 day after the GRB and spanned a period of ~10 days; archival HST data extended the coverage up to 70 days after the GRB. We report the first detection of the afterglow in NIR bands. The detection of emission lines in the optical spectrum indicates that the GRB is located at z = 0.691. Absorptions are also detected at z = 0.691 and at z = 0.472. The latter system is likely caused by clouds in a galaxy located 2 arcsec southwest of the GRB host. Hence, for the first time, the galaxy responsible for an intervening absorption system in the spectrum of a GRB afterglow is identified. Optical and NIR photometry indicates that the decay in all bands follows a single power law of index alpha = 1.54. The late-epoch VLT and HST points lie above the extrapolation of this power law, so that a plateau is apparent in the VRIJ light curves at 10-20 days after the GRB. The light curves at epochs later than day ~20 after the GRB are consistent with a power-law decay with index alphaprime = 1.85. We suggest that this deviation can be modeled with a SN having the same temporal profile as SN2002ap, but 1.3 mag brighter at peak, and located at the GRB redshift. Alternatively, a shock re-energization may be responsible for the rebrightening. A polarimetric R-band measurement shows that the afterglow is polarized, with P = 1.5 % and theta = 172 degrees. Optical-NIR spectral flux distributions show a change of slope across the J band which we interpret as due to the presence of nu_c. The analysis of the multiwavelength spectrum within the fireball model suggests that a population of relativistic electrons produces the optical-NIR emission via synchrotron in an adiabatically expanding blastwave, and the X-rays via IC., 17 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication on A&A, main journal

The degree of tubulointerstitial damage can be considered a better indicator of renal function outcome in IgA nephropathy (N) than the extent of glomerular sclerosis.To investigate the pathogenetic mechanisms of interstitial injury in IgAN, we used immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization to evaluate the glomerular and tubolointerstitial expression of PDGF-beta receptor (R) and alpha-smooth muscle actin (SMA), two markers of mesenchymal cell activation, and correlated these findings with the histopathologic and clinical features of the disease. We studied 155 IgAN patients, divided into three groups based on the histological findings (mild, moderate and severe histological lesions).In normal kidneys and in patients with mild histological lesions, the interstitial areas showed scattered peritubular cells positive for PDGF-betaR and alpha-SMA, with a distribution resembling the capillary network. In the glomeruli several cells (mainly in the mesangial area) stained for PDGF-betaR, but only very few cells were positive for alpha-SMA. Alpha-SMA and PDGF-betaR staining, as expected, was also observed in vascular smooth muscle cells. Compared to patients with mild histological lesions, alpha-SMA expression was strikingly increased in patients with moderate to severe lesions, particularly in areas of tubulointerstitial fibrosis. In these patients, PDGF-betaR gene and protein expression, at the tubulointerstitial level, paralleled that in alpha-SMA. Both signals were significantly correlated with the interstitial damage (interstitial infiltrate and fibrosis). Interestingly, these patients showed a different pattern of distribution of alpha-SMA and PDGF-betaR in the glomeruli: PDGF-betaR expression was upregulated, whereas no changes were seen in alpha-SMA staining. In addition, glomerular PDGF-betaR staining was significantly correlated with mesangial cell proliferation, while alpha-SMA was not. Image analysis showed that 40.2+/-10.3/1,000 microm2 of interstitial cells were positive to both PDGF-betaR and alpha-SMA, but only 2.8+/-1.8/1,000 microm of glomerular cells expressed both signals.Our study supports the hypothesis that interstitial PDGF-betaR and alpha-SMA positive cells may play a key role in the pathogenesis of tubulointerstitial damage.

Liposarcoma is the 2nd most frequent soft tissue sarcoma in adults, but it is extremely rare in the head and neck and, particularly, in the oral cavity. We report on a 25-year-old female who presented with a periodontal mass, extended from the right upper 3rd molar to the right upper 2nd premolar, covered by intact oral mucosa. The clinical differential diagnosis included peripheral giant cell granuloma, salivary gland neoplasms, squamous cell carcinoma of the gingiva, sarcoma and malignant lymphoma.To accurately plan subsequent treatment, an excisional biopsy was performed and a myxoid liposarcoma was diagnosed. Consequently, the patient underwent wide excision of the neoplasm with maxillary en-block resection.The post-operative course was uneventful and the patient is alive and well 8 years after the original diagnosis. The authors stress the importance of considering soft tissue sarcomas in the diagnostic approach to patients with unusual periodontal neoplasms and to plan adequate surgical sampling of the lesion (i.e. excisional biopsy).This appears of pivotal importance as more limited specimens may result in inaccurate pre-operative diagnosis.

Aims: Calretinin, a 29-kDa calcium-binding protein is expressed widely in normal human tissues and tumours including both unicystic and solid and multicystic ameloblastomas. The histological distinction between unicystic ameloblastomas and certain nonneoplastic odontogenic cysts can be problematic. The objective of this study was to determine whether calretinin was expressed in the lining epithelium of odontogenic keratocysts, residual and dentigerous cysts and to determine whether this calcium-binding protein could be used to distinguish these cysts from the unicystic ameloblastoma. Methods and results: The lining epithelium in 22 cases of odontogenic keratocyst, 26 cases of residual cyst and 20 cases of dentigerous cyst were examined for the expression of calretinin. No positive epithelial staining was observed in any of these cystic lesions, In comparison, however, 81.5% of cases of unicystic ameloblastoma showed a coarse dark brown staining of the more superficial epithelial cell layers. Scattered positive stromal and epithelial cells were present; these were interpreted as mast cells. Conclusions: Calretinin appears to be a specific immunohistochemical marker for neoplastic ameloblastic epithelium and we suggest that it may be an important diagnostic aid in the differential diagnosis of cystic odontogenic lesions and ameloblastic tumours.

Most granular cell tumours (GCTs) are benign proliferations of purported Schwannian derivation, showing immunoreactivity for Schwann cell-related antigens. Due to incomplete agreement on the precise nature of GCTs (reactive vs neoplastic), we performed an immunohistochemical study with the alkaline phosphatase/anti-alkaline phosphatase (APAAP) technique on 30 GCTs. The aim was to evaluate their growth patterns and the possible relationships of granular cells with other nerve sheath-related cell types (i.e., Schwann and perineurial cells, and dendritic cells displaying CD34/vimentin immunoreactivity). An expansive growth pattern was detected in five cases, a pseudoinfiltrative growth pattern in nine cases and a mixture of the above in the remaining 16 cases. Besides immunoreactivity for S-100 protein, neuron-specific enolase, vimentin, CD57, CD68, MAC 387, alpha-1-antitrypsin and alpha-1-antichymotrypsin in granular cells, we documented intimate architectural relationships between granular cells, Schwann and perineurial cells, and a third type of CD34/vimentin-positive nerve sheath-related cell in most GCTs. These results suggest that GCTs are heterogeneous lesions. Some of them show a pseudoinfiltrative growth pattern and retain close relationships with the normal components of the nerve sheath. In other lesions, granular cells grow in an expansive fashion and constitute the predominant cell component of the tumour. These architectural and immunophenotypic differences may reflect a different nature of GCTs: they may initially represent reactive or hamartomatous lesions that subsequently acquire truly neoplastic potential.

An ideal prognostic factor would provide information about the biological behaviour of a tumour, permitting the prediction of the outcome and response to therapy. Nowadays there is a considerable confusion concerning the value, significance and use of the know prognostic factors in head and neck cancer.A meta-analysis of works published in literature between 1993 and August 1997 on prognostic factors in head and neck oncology was carried out.Prognostic factors were analysed and classified according to Wennenberg in the following groups: patient-related factors, tumour-related factors and factors predicting response to therapy.We propose a classification of prognostic factors in head and neck cancer according to their significance and reliability: factors of proven significance and experimental factors. This classification might be useful to select guidelines to use in clinical practice.

The telencephalon of 12 and 18 week-old human foetuses was examined for evidence of astroglia-microvessel relationship. Immature astroglia cells (radial glia and astroblasts) and astrocytes were immunostained using antibodies to the cytoskeletal proteins vimentin (VIM) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). The microvessels were detected using an antibody to the blood-brain barrier (BBB)-specific glucose transporter GLUT1. Two extracellular matrix (ECM) glycoproteins, laminin (LM), an endothelial-derived molecule, and tenascin-C (TN-C), a glia-derived molecule, were also analyzed. In the two stages examined, VIM- and GFAP-positive fibers of the radial glia establish close relationships with the radial and periventricular microvessels, which are GLUT1-positive and lined by an LM-positive basal lamina-like matrix. At the 18th week, also radial glia transitional forms and immature astrocytes exhibit extensive contacts with the microvasculature. A TN-C-rich ECM is revealed around the vascular plexus of ventricular zones at the 12th week, and around the newly growing radial microvessels and the microvessel branching sites at the 18th week. The observations taken as a whole, suggest that during the telencephalon morphogenesis the immature astroglia cells play a role in the early establishment of the distribution pattern of the neural microvessels and in their growth and maturation.

Transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1) is a potent modulator of cell proliferation in vitro, and recent studies have demonstrated its overexpression in several different tumours; nevertheless, the molecular mechanisms of TGF-beta1 action on cell growth and differentiation have not been fully elucidated. To clarify the role of TGF-beta and its receptor in human endometrial proliferation and differentiation, TGF-beta1 expression at both the mRNA and protein levels has been evaluated by using Northern blotting and immunohistochemistry, in both normal (atrophic, proliferative and secretory) and neoplastic (adenocarcinoma) endometrial samples. This study demonstrates that TGF-beta1 mRNA expression is dramatically reduced in endometrial carcinomas with respect to non-neoplastic tissues, whereas the immunohistochemical expression of TGF-beta1 is enhanced in the epithelial component of endometrial carcinomas compared with non-neoplastic tissues. These data suggest that TGF-beta1 acts as a paracrine regulator of endometrial cell proliferation and that it may contribute to the carcinogenic mechanisms of endometrial carcinoma.

Objectives This study aims to describe the sonographic abnormalities of the major salivary glands in patients evaluated for sicca syndrome. Methods 110 consecutive patients with sicca syndrome, 104 females and 6 males, aged between 23 and 81 years (mean age 50,9), were studied for suspected diagnosis of Sjogren’s Syndrome (SS). The classification of patients with SS was made according to the American-European Consensus Group criteria. Minor salivary gland biopsy was performed in accordance with the procedure proposed by Daniels et al and the histopathologic findings were evaluated through the Chisholm and Mason classification: the presence of at least 1 focus of mononuclear leukocytes in 4 mm 2 was considered positive (Daniels et al.). US of both the parotid and submandibular glands was assessed with the grading proposed by Salaffi et al.(range 0-4). Results 70 of the110 considered patients were classified as affected by SS (SS group: 4 males and 66 females, mean age 52,5, 41 with primary SS and 29 with secondary SS). In 40 patients the data were inadequate for the definition of SS (NSS group: 2 males and 38 females, mean age 48,2, 22 with undifferentiated connective tissue disease (UCTD) and 18 with essential sicca syndrome). Sonographic abnormalities (range 1-4) were found in 91,4% of the SS patients vs 75,0% in NSS group (p Conclusions The mayor salivary gland US in our experience, if considered by itself was shown to be a sensitive but nonspecific technique, very specific but less sensitive when considered in combination with histology or anti-Ro/anti-La antibodies positivity. The SS patients presented more often an advanced US grading than the NSS patients. Finally in the SS patients with positive histology or anti-Ro/anti-La antibodies positivity we frequently found a more advanced US grading. Disclosure of Interest None Declared

The clinical and histopathological findings of 6 cases of necrotizing sialometaplasia (NS) are discussed and compared with the literature. The authors report 4 cases of NS of the minor salivary glands and 2 cases with associated tumor of the parotid gland and describe age, sex, site, clinical presentations, prognosis, etiopathogenesis and histological features of NS. Analysis of the data shows the difficulty of a differential diagnosis of NS of the minor salivary glands with other ulcero-erosive diseases of the oral cavity with traumatic, neoplastic or inflammatory origin.

Using indirect immunocytochemical techniques, neurons with VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Polypeptide)-like immunoreactivity (ir) have been demonstrated in the human cerebral cortex of the parietal lobe. In all the cortical layers containing positive neurons, perivascular immunoreactive neuronal processes have been detected: in arterioles, they are located in the adventitial and smooth muscle layers; in capillaries, they establish tight anatomical relations with the endothelium-pericyte layer and the perivascular glial sheath. Bodies of positive neurons have also been seen adhering to capillary walls. The detection of perivascular VIP-like ir provides morphological evidence of the role played by this polypeptide in the regulation of the cerebral blood flow. Moreover, the relationships between immunoreactive neuronal processes and perivascular glia might corroborate the suggestion that VIP is involved in the functioning of the blood-brain barrier.

Ten cases of so-called "tubular" adenoma and six cases of fibroadenoma of the breast have been investigated with an immunohistochemical technique with the aim of providing both more details on their immunophenotype and of ascertaining the possible relationships between tubular adenoma and fibroadenoma. Smooth Muscle Actin, Cytokeratin 14, GFAP, S-100 Protein and Vimentin immunoreactivity have clearly demonstrated that cells with myoepithelial immunophenotype are one of the major cell components in breast adenomas. Epithelial Membrane Antigen (EMA), Human Milk Fat Globule II (HMFG II), Estrogen and Progesterone receptors have been detected in adluminal epithelial cells exclusively. Furthermore, Smooth Muscle Actin and Vimentin highlighted an abundant myofibroblastic component, intermingled with tubular structures in both tumor types. A low percentage (10-22%) of adluminal cells and of myofibroblasts showed Ki-67 immunoreactivity in tubular adenomas and in fibroadenomas, whereas only rare myoepithelial cells demonstrated Ki-67 positivity in both tumor types. These data seem to indicate that several cell components of both epithelial and mesenchymal origin (epithelial cells, myoepithelial cells, myofibroblasts) are involved in the genesis of tubular adenomas. The morphological and immunohistochemical features of tubular adenomas closely resemble, in some areas of the tumors, those of fibroadenoma. Therefore, they may represent histogenetically related neoplasms with exuberant ductular component in tubular adenomas and predominant stromal component in fibroadenoma.

An immunohistochemical study was performed on the articular disk and periarticular tissues of the temporo-mandibular joint (TMJ) in order to ascertain the presence of neuroreceptors (NRec) in these sites. The study was carried out with the APAAP technique on tissue samples obtained from 10 subjects without known TMJ disease and from 5 patients with severe TMJ arthritis or arthrosis. The antibodies used were directed against the following antigens: Gliofibrillary Acidic Protein (GFAP), Leu-7, Myelin Basic Protein (MBP), Neurofilaments 68 kD (NF), Neuron Specific Enolase (NSE), S-100 protein (S-100) and Synaptophysin (SYN). This study revealed that Ruffini's-like, Pacini's-like and Golgi's-like receptors can be demonstrated in TMJ periarticular tissues and that free nervous endings are present in the subsynovial but not within the articular disk. In the latter, elongated cytoplasmic processes of chondrocytes demonstrated strong S-100 immunoreactivity but they were unreactive with all other antibodies. These cytoplasmic processes were more abundant and thicker in the samples obtained from patients with diseased TMJ. The results of this study confirm that different NRec are detectable in TMJ periarticular tissues but they are absent within the articular disk. In the latter site, only chondrocytic processes are evident, especially in diseased TMJ, and they might have been confused with nervous endings in previous morphological studies. Nevertheless the absence of immunoreactivity for NF, NSE and SYN proves that they are not of neural origin.

A series of 76 cases of adenolymphoma (Warthin's tumor) of the salivary glands is presented with emphasis on its epidemiological, clinico-pathological and therapeutic features; together with the analysis of the clinical records and of the epidemiological data, this study has reevaluated the histopathological features of the 76 cases of Warthin's tumor on hematoxylin-eosin stained slides. On these bases, the authors underline the frequent multifocality and/or bilaterality of Warthin's tumor (11.3% of cases), its frequent association with tumors of other sites (11.3% of cases), the prevalence in males (M:F ratio = 24:1) and in adults (mean age: 57 years) of this type of tumor. Furthermore, this study confirms the parotid gland as the elective site for Warthin's tumor and the possibility to categorize this entity into four different histological types. The latter finding should be kept in mind especially when fine needle aspiration (FNA) is used as a preoperative diagnostic procedure for Warthin's tumor to avoid misleading diagnosis and overtreatment. From the analysis of the results the authors underline the need for a complex and multidisciplinary approach to the diagnosis of Warthin's tumor in order to allow conservative surgery with preservation of the facial nerve.

Phosphotyrosine (pTyr) is the product of activation of Epidermal Growth Factor receptor (EGFr) in normal and neoplastic oral keratinocytes. As previous studies revealed that EGFr expression may vary with differentiation in several squamous cell carcinomas (SCC), we investigated the expression of pTyr in 30 cases of oral SCC in which EGFr-immunoreactivity had been previously studied. This study was carried out with monoclonal antibodies using an immunohistochemical APAAP method on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded samples. The results of this study show that pTyr is expressed in all cases of oral SCC and that its expression is not correlated with tumor differentiation. The Authors suggest that the mechanism of EGFr-mediated cell differentiation and mitosis might short-circuit EGFr in some instances and lead to the phosphorilation of Tyrosine, probably following the stimulation by other factors. This hypothesis needs to be confirmed by appropriate studies on the dynamic biology of oral squamous cells.

The spatial relationship established between glial cells and microvasculature in the human cerebral cortex was analysed on peritumoral tissue of the parietal lobe removed during surgery. Observations performed by light microscope immunocytochemistry demonstrated that processes of astrocytes, strongly immunoreactive to both glial fibrillary acidic protein and S-100 protein, form sheaths to the capillaries, and that isolated cells positive to the oligodendrocyte marker 2',3'-cyclic nucleotide 3'-phosphodiesterase are detectable in perivascular areas. Morphometrical analysis by transmission electron microscopy showed that 80% of the vascular endothelium-pericyte layer is invested by small endfeet of astrocyte processes. This study demonstrates that either astrocyte bodies or oligodendrocytes as well as microgliocytes may substitute the astrocytic endfeet adhering to the capillary basement lamina.

The malignant transformation of lichen ruber planus (LRP) is a quite frequent event for which, at present, no clear pathogenetic explanation has been given. Recently, attention has been paid to growth factors and growth factor receptors as possible pathogenetic factors of malignancy, even if not enough studies have been performed to exploit their role in oral diseases. Aim of the present study was to investigate the expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFr) in squamous carcinomas arising in patients with LRP. The study has been performed on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue biopsies obtained from 11 patients with previous diagnosis of LRP in which squamous carcinoma had developed. A monoclonal anti-EGFr antibody has been used, with the ABC technique, on histological sections. EGFr has been immunolocalized in basal and suprabasal epithelial layers in LRP with the highest intensity of staining in the areas with strong inflammation. EGFr immunostaining could be detected in dysplastic areas as well, even if the intensity of staining seemed to decrease with severity of dysplasia. In well-differentiated squamous carcinoma EGFr was intensely expressed, especially in mature keratinized cells. Weaker or absent EGFr immunoreaction was detected in moderately and poorly differentiated carcinomas. The results of the present study seem to show that EGFr is expressed in squamous carcinomas arising from LRP. The variability of EGFr expression in inflamed oral mucosa, in dysplastic areas and in tumors with different degrees of differentiation seem to point out that EGFr might somehow regulate the maturation and replication of epithelial cells in LRP and in its malignant counterpart. The speculations achieved from the present study need further evaluation on wider series of cases and, possibly, with different antibodies which would allow the identification of mutant forms of the receptor.