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Luca Imperatori,1 Damiano Giardini,2 Gino Latini,2 Giuseppe Migliori,2 Claudio Blasi,3 Feisal Bunkheila,3 Cesare Breschi,4 Rodolfo Mattioli,1 Silvia Pelliccioni,1 Carmen Laurino,5 Maria Vadalà,5 Beniamino Palmieri,5 Tommaso Iannitti6 1UOC Oncologia Medica Azienda Ospedaliera Ospedali Riuniti Marche Nord, Fano, Italy; 2UOC Otorinolaringoiatria Az. Ospedaliera Ospedali Riuniti Marche Nord, Fano, Italy; 3UOC Radioterapia Az. Ospedaliera Ospedali Riuniti Marche Nord, Fano, Italy; 4UOC Anestesia e Rianimazione Az. Ospedaliera Ospedali Riuniti Marche Nord, Fano, Italy; 5Department of General Surgery and Surgical Specialties, Surgical Clinic, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Medical School, Modena, Italy; 6KWS BioTest, Marine View Office Park, Portishead, Somerset, UK Background: Neoplasms of the head and neck represent approximately 5% of cancers and they require complex multidisciplinary clinical management. Desmodium adscendens (Desmodium) is a plant that possesses anti-allergic, antioxidant and hepato-protective properties. Lithothamnium calcareum (Lithothamnium) is a calcified seaweed that possesses remineralization properties and the ability to maintain homeostasis.Aim: In this single-arm study, we investigated the efficacy of a combination therapy based on Desmovit® which contains Desmodium and Lithothamnium, and chemotherapy in patients with head and neck cancer.Methods: Twelve patients with histological or cytological diagnosis of stage IV head and neck cancer were enrolled in this study that was approved by the ethics committee of the Unità Operativa Complessa (UOC) di Oncologia Medica Azienda Ospedaliera Ospedali Riuniti Marche Nord and followed the Declaration of Helsinki guidelines. The patients were monitored by investigation of the performance status according to the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS), which evaluates the plasma level of C-reactive protein and albumin levels, and the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) examination. Pain and fatigue were also monitored using the visual analog scale and visual analog fatigue scale, respectively. All the above parameters were assessed biweekly to week 10.Results: GPS, ECOG, and albumin remained stable throughout the study with a trend towards a decrease in GPS and albumin at week 10 post-treatment. Pain significantly improved at week 8 (P

A broad interest exists in developing structure-based indicators to use as proxies for other attributes that are difficult to assess, such as biological diversity. Summary variables that account for stand-scale forest structural complexity could facilitate the comparison among stands and provide a means of ranking stands in terms of their potential contribution to biodiversity. We developed an index of structural heterogeneity (SHI) for beech forests in southern Italy: (i) we established a preliminary list of 23 structural variables obtained from data routinely collected in forest inventories; (ii) we quantified these variables in a set of 64 beech-dominated stands encompassing a wide range of variability in the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park; (iii) we identified a core set of attributes that take into account the main sources of structural he­terogeneity identified in reference old-growth forests; and (iv) we combined these core attributes into a simple additive index (SHI). We identified eight core attributes that were rescaled to the range 0 to 10 using regression equations based on raw attribute data. The SHI was calculated as the sum of these attribute scores and then expressed as a percentage. The index performance was evaluated against ten reference old-growth beech stands in the Apennines. The index ranged between 38 and 79.1 (median=59.4) and was distri­buted normally for the calibration dataset. The SHI successfully discriminated between old-growth (range=71.9-99.9, median=85.1) and early-mature to mature forests. Furthermore, the SHI linearly increased with stand age and was higher in multi-layer high forests than in single- and double-layer forests. However, a large variation was detected within both management types and age classes. SHI could be helpful for foresters as a tool for quantifying and compa­ring structural heterogeneity before and after a silvicultural intervention ai­med at restoring the structural complexity in second-growth stands.

Map of the natural and semi-natural environments and forest types map for the Latium region (Italy). The paper presents the main methodological aspects and the most important results achieved in the implementation of the “Map of natural and semi-natural environments” and of the “Forest types map” in Lazio region at a scale of 1:10.000. The project was carried out for the Agenzia dei Parchi and for the Area Foreste of Regione Lazio through a collaboration between e-GEOS , the University of Rome "La Sapienza", the University of Tuscia and Forestlab Centre , a spin- off of the University of Molise . The project is based on the integrated use of high-resolution satellite imagery and ADS40 false-color infrared digital orthophotos and led to the creation of two maps geometrically and thematically consistent with each other. The “Map of natural and semi-natural environments” is integrated with the pre-existing land use map of the Lazio region deepening the thematic detail up to the 6th Corine level. The “Forest types map” is based on a typological system organized in 17 categories and 36 forest types .

Forest composition is a faithful indicator of the stressors and disturbances that influence forest ecosystems, and it should be accounted for in Sustainable Forest Management policies. Indeed, the classification of forest ecosystems in forest types is considered as a key tool to improve the assessment and monitoring of forest biological diversity, and for the definition of management guidelines. Accordingly, the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe has recognized the need of developing a pan-European forest classification in forest types, and has identified indicators of Sustainable Forest Management that should be applied by forest types. The classification of vegetation has always been among the main aims of the plant sociology. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of plant species composition, performed through the plant sociological approach, condenses compositional and structural information within a hierarchical system, and expresses all historical, sociological and habitat factors that influence the actual and potential vegetation. In a modern perspective the integration of plant sociology and ecological analysis represents a key to a hierarchical land classification and to the understanding of vegetation dynamics; furthermore the long history of plant sociology determined the availability of large datasets of vegetation data throughout Europe. Starting from these considerations, in this paper we briefly describe how plant sociology could represent a tool for the assessment of the indicators of SFM that should be applied by forest types, giving insights on how this discipline could contribute to the assessment of each of these indicators.

The availability of spatialised climatic data is an essential pre-requisite for the implementation of GIS-based analysis in many application fields. Among the different methodologies for the spatialization of climatic data collected in weather-stations the most used are those based on geostatistical approaches, on parametric correlative models or on neural networks. Within the “Completamento delle Conoscenze Naturalistiche di Base” project, funded by the Italian Ministry for the Environment (Department of Nature Protection) a database of 403 weather-stations distributed across Italy with a time series of thirty years was collected. Data of mean monthly temperature (minimum and maximum) and rainfalls were spatialized by a local linear univariate regressive method based on elevation as independent variable. A total of 36 monthly maps with a geometric resolution of 250 m was generated. The present paper introduces the adopted methodology and the accuracy results estimated by leave-one-out cross validation.