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Background: The availability of a number of agents that are efficacious in patients with metastatic prostate cancer (mPC) has led to them being used sequentially, and this has prolonged patient survival. However, in order to maximize their efficacy, clinicians need to be able to obtain a reliable picture of disease evolution by means of monitoring procedures. Methods: As the intensive monitoring protocols used in pivotal trials cannot be adopted in everyday clinical practice and there is no agreement among the available guidelines, a multidisciplinary panel of Italian experts met to develop recommendations for monitoring mPC patients using a modified Delphi method. Results: The consensus project considered methods of clinically, radiographically, and biochemically monitoring patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer undergoing chemotherapy and/or hormonal treatment. The panelists also considered the methods and timing of monitoring castration levels, bone health, and the metabolic syndrome during androgen deprivation therapy. Conclusions: The recommendations, which were drawn up by experts following a formal and validated consensus procedure, will help clinicians face the everyday challenges of monitoring metastatic prostate cancer patients.

Linguistic intergroup bias (LIB) is the tendency to describe positive in-group and negative out-group behaviors more abstractly than negative in-group and positive out-group behaviors. Two experiments investigated the role of in-group-protective motives, by varying threat to ingroup identity of hunters vs. environmentalists (Experiment 1, N = 160) and northern vs. southern Italians (Experiment 2, N = 212). Participants whose in-group had or had not been threatened described positive and negative behaviors of in-group and out-group protagonists. In both experiments, the LIB was greater under identity threat. Experiment 1 also showed that LIB was positively related to postexperimental but not to preexperimental individual and collective self-esteem. Results suggest that the magnitude of LIB depends on in-group-protective motivation and that in-group-favoring language may be functional to self-esteem maintenance. Recently, there has been increasing interest in the role that language may play in the transmission and maintenance of positive in-group perceptions and negative out-group perceptions (Graumann & Wintermantel, 1989; Hamilton, Gibbons, Stroessner, & Sherman, 1992; Maass & Arcuri, 1992; Maass, Salvi, Arcuri, & Semin, 1989). In particular, the linguistic intergroup bias (LIB) model developed by Maass et al. (1989) identifies a systematic bias in language use that may contribute in a subtle way to the maintenance of stereotypes. The main prediction states that positive behaviors are described in more

Alpine ibex is characterized by strong sexual differences, both morphological and in population dynamics. Host sex has been shown to strongly affect parasite load with males usually more infected than females. Moreover ibex exhibit a peculiar pattern of survival with subadult males having a slow growing rate coupled with high survival which rapidly decline in old individual. This peculiar life history has been suggested to have been developed as adaptation to an harsh environment. In this way by investing fewer resources in growing the ibex can direct more energy in survival. At the same time the investment in immunodefence can change over the age. To verify the hypothesis that sex and age affect parasite infection, we analysed the abomasal parasite community of swiss ibexes shot during the 2007 hunting season. We analysed the parasite community of 31 abomasa coming from 17 males,12 females, ranging from 1 to 16 years old. The ibex analysed harboured a mean of 1472 helminth/individual. Seven parasites species have been identified with Teladorsagia circumcincta and Marshallagia marshalli covering the 90% of total parasite count. The mean abundance of total parasite count and of M. marshalli was different between sexes, with more parasites found in males. Age alone did not show any significant effect, but its interaction with sex evidenced different relationship such as T. circumcincta increased with age in males and decreased in females.While these data suggest the influence of sex and age on parasitic infection a comparison with other sampling areas, year and season is needed.

Prostate cancer (PC) is the most common neoplasia in men over 50 years of age in western countries. Nowadays, since there are several alternative medical-surgical treatments for this cancer, health-related quality of life (HQoL) evaluation has become very important. The present study deals with the development and the validation of a questionnaire (BSP-PC), considering the HQoL in prostate cancer patients. The BSP-PC items are mainly related to the subjects' satisfaction. As far as we know, it does not exist any disease specific instrument based on such aspect.Questionnaire development: During three different meetings, with ten experts and twenty patients, we have defined the life aspects which are the most affected by prostate cancer. Subsequently we have created a first 40-item version of the BSP-PC. Patients were asked to fill in this particular questionnaire in addition to a generic and validated one (the EuroQol). A final 24 item questionnaire version, was finally achieved by other statistical analysis and meetings with experts. Questionnaire validation: the BSP-PC was filled in by 261 patients divided into 3 groups: "healthy" (57), "prostate cancer" (103), "other diseases" (100).Questionnaire development: participants' mean age was 59 years (N=71); 46% had prostate cancer, while 53% of the sample did not report notable diseases. The 24 items were selected on the basis of the following criteria: a) r0.50, p0.05 (correlation test re-test), b) p0.05 (ANOVA presence vs absence of PC), c) r0.50, p0.05 (correlation with EuroQol). Questionnaire validation: participants' mean age was 68 years (N=261). Four factors were identified: 1) satisfaction about physical functionality (Crombach alpha=0.95), 2) satisfaction about sexual functionality (alpha=0.94), 3) satisfaction about social functionality (alpha=0.77), 4) satisfaction about urinary functionality (alpha=0.89); total Crombach alpha was 0.94.The BSP-PC questionnaire can be used as an instrument in the evaluation of HQoL in PC patients by principally considering their subjective satisfaction.