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The Central Italy earthquake sequence nominally began on 24 August 2016 with a M6.1 event on a normal fault that produced devastating effects in the town of Amatrice and several nearby villages and hamlets. A major international response was undertaken to record the effects of this disaster, including surface faulting, ground motions, landslides, and damage patterns to structures. This work targeted the development of high-value case histories useful to future research. Subsequent events in October 2016 exacerbated the damage in previously affected areas and caused damage to new areas in the north, particularly the relatively large town of Norcia. Additional reconnaissance after a M6.5 event on 30 October 2016 documented and mapped several large landslide features and increased damage states for structures in villages and hamlets throughout the region. This paper provides an overview of the reconnaissance activities undertaken to document and map these and other effects, and highlights valuable lessons learned regarding faulting and ground motions, engineering effects, and emergency response to this disaster.

Over the past 15 years, gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) have emerged from a poorly understood neoplasm to a well-defined tumor entity. Starting from 2000, the discovery of gain-of-function mutations involving KIT or PDGFRα (platelet-derived growth factor-α) genes and the development of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), such as imatinib, revolutionized dramatically the management of GISTs. Due to the almost continual emergence of new data about biological complexity of GISTs and more sophisticated whole-genome technologies, to date, the role of molecular biology is clinically important to drive therapeutic decision making. The possibility of using liquid biopsy in GISTs was reported for the first time at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting. Detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) offers a wide spectrum of applications in GIST management. CtDNA correlates with the tumor burden, thus, after surgery may indicate the presence of minimal residual disease and patients with high risk of recurrence. In addition, during the clinical treatment, this approach could be used to identify early biomarkers of response and assess variations in whole genome, early identifying the development of secondary resistance.

The central Italy earthquakes occurred on 26 and 30 October 2016. The Italy-US GEER team effort combines traditional reconnaissance activities of on-ground recording and mapping of field conditions, with advanced imaging and damage detection routines enabled by state-of-the-art geomatics technology. We describe preliminary findings useful for the broad technical community, emergency responders, and general public. These findings concern attributes of the causative fault system, surface fault rupture, recorded ground motions, landslides and rockfalls, damage to building structures and their spatial patterns, and damage to other types of structures, including bridges.

Background: Long Non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) are emerging as essential regulators of genetic and epigenetic networks, and their deregulation may underlie complex diseases, such as carcinogenesis. Several studies have described lncRNAs alterations in patients with solid tumors. In particular, in Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST), upregulation of HOTAIR has been associated with aggressiveness, metastasis, and poor patients’ survival. In order to gain more detailed insight on the molecular role of lncRNAs in GIST, we analyzed in vivo the expression levels of lncRNAs H19 and MALAT1 in surgically resected patients. Material and Methods: The expression of the lnc-RNAs H19 and MALAT1 was evaluated in primary tumor tissue from 20 GIST patients undergoing surgical resection, and paired normal mucosa samples, using quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase qRT-PCR. The result was considered reliable if the tumor tissue harboured at least 70% of cancer cells. Results: H19 was evaluable in 20 patients, MALAT 1 in 8 patients. H19 was overexpressed in 66% (12/20) cancer tissue from GIST patients, and the difference of expression between the two groups (tumor tissue vs normal tissue) was found to be statistically significant (P= 0.0496). MALAT1 was overexpressed also in 100% (8/8) cancer tissue from GIST patients. Conclusions: H19 and MALAT1 appear frequently upregulated in GIST patients. Further analyses are needed to confirm these data, and evaluate the potential role of such lncRNAs, as prognostic/predictive biomarkers.

In the last decades the approach to cancer patient management has been deeply revolutionized. We are moving from a "one-fits-all" strategy to the "personalized medicine" based on the molecular characterization of the tumor. In this new era it is becoming more and more clear that the monitoring of the disease is fundamental for the success of the treatment, thus there is the need of new biomarker discovery. More precisely in the last years the scientific community has started to use the term "liquid biopsy". A liquid biopsy is a liquid biomarker that can be easily isolated from many body fluids (blood, saliva, urine, ascites, pleural effusion, etc.) and, as well as a tissue biopsy, a representative of the tissue from which it is spread. In this review we will focus our attention on circulating tumor cells, circulating tumor DNA, exosomes and secretomes with the aim to underlie their usefulness and potential application in a clinical setting for lung cancer patient management. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Event Overview and Organization of Reconnaissance Activities,Overview of Reconnaissance Activities, Regional Faults and Seismic Source,Ground Motions, Landslides and Rockfalls, Performance of Building Structures and Damage Patterns,Performance of Bridge Structures, Other Infrastructure Systems, Lessons Learned and Next Steps

In recent times truffles were found in several natural forest ecosystems and reaforestation of Sicily. On the basis of these findings a number of research projects were activated. In the framework of an agreement between the Laboratory of Mycology of the Department of Botany (University of Palermo) and the Farm "Buontempo-Le Due Sicilie", located in the territory of the Madonie Natural Park, a first attempt to cultivate truffles of economic importance were carried out. In the spring of 2006 the experimental truffle-bed was developed on the basis of 100 seedlings of Corylus avellana L. inoculated with Tuber aestivum Vitt. (80%) and T. melanosporum Vittad. (20%). Besides 110 seedlings of Quercus pubescens Willd. s.l., inoculated with T. melanosporum (20%) and T. aestivum (80%) were planted. The tecniques of cultivation and the scheme of planting of the truffle-bed together with the preliminary results of two years of observations are here pointed out.

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate the expression of different genes, including genes involved in cancer progression, angiogenesis and metastasis. Thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1) has been shown to contrast angiogenesis in vivo. TSP-1 expression levels are inversely correlated with tumor vascularity and metastasis in colon cancer. Bio-informatic statistical analysis indicated that TSP-1 is hypothetical target of miR-21, miR-182, overexpressed in CRC, and let-7i which expression is down-regulated in this tumor. In this work we investigated whether TSP-1 expression could be regulated by miR-21, mir-182 and let-7i in HT29 colon cancer cell line. Methods: To investigated whether miR-21, mir-182 and let-7i directly modulates TSP-1 expression, we transfected HT29 cell line with pre-mir21, pre-mir182 and pre-let7i by using siPortNeo FX tranfection agent and after 48h we evaluated TSP-1 mRNA, using Quantitative Real Time-PCR, and intracellular and secreted protein level performed by Western blotting and ELISA. To confirm the modulation of TSP-1 by miRNAs we transfected HT29 cell line with anti-mir to target the mature form of miR-21, miR182 and let-7i. Results: Using Real-Time PCR we did not find any variation of TSP-1 mRNA expression levels after transfection with pre-mir21 in HT29 cell line, but we observed a down-regulation of cytosolic and secreted protein by Western blot and ELISA. In cells transfected with pre-mir182 we did not observe any down-regulation both TSP-1 mRNA and cytosolic and secreted protein. Finally, we did not find any variation of TSP-1 level in cells transfected with let- 7i. Results were confirmed by transfection with anti-mir21, anti- mir182 and anti-let7i and, using the same method, we evaluated TSP-1 expression. Conclusions: Data suggest that mir-182 induces degradation of TSP-1 mRNA in HT29 cell line, whereas mir-21 affects probably by blockage of TSP-1 translation. Let-7i does not seem involved in regulation of TSP-1 expression in HT29 cells. Understanding the molecular mechanism by which miRNAs regulate TSP-1 expression could be used to restore TSP-1 expression to contrast angiogenic events in colon cancer.