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•Triple-negative metastatic breast cancer represents a challenging scenario.•Besides chemotherapy, several novel agents are now available in clinical practice.•A modified Delphi ...approach was adopted to address high-priority statements.•A set of prioritized consensus statements was provided.•Relevant/unexpected results and divisive statements were discussed by the Panel.
Triple-negative (TN) metastatic breast cancer (mBC) represents the most challenging scenario withing mBC framework, and it has been only slightly affected by the tremendous advancements in terms of drug availability and survival prolongation we have witnessed in the last years for advanced disease. However, although chemotherapy still represents the mainstay of TN mBC management, in the past years, several novel effective agents have been developed and made available in the clinical practice setting. Within this framework, a panel composed of a scientific board of 17 internationally recognized breast oncologists and 42 oncologists working within local spoke centers, addressed 26 high-priority statements, including grey areas, regarding the management of TN mBC. A structured methodology based on a modified Delphi approach to administer the survey and the Nominal Group Technique to capture perceptions and preferences on the management of TN mBC within the Italian Oncology community were adopted. The Panel produced a set of prioritized considerations/consensus statements reflecting the Panel position on diagnostic and staging approach, first-line and second-line treatments of PD-L1-positive/germline BRCA (gBRCA) wild-type, PD-L1-positive/gBRCA mutated, PD-L1-negative/gBRCA wild-type and PD-L1-negative/gBRCA mutated TN mBC. The Panel critically and comprehensively discussed the most relevant and/or unexpected results and put forward possible interpretations for statements not reaching the consensus threshold.
In this study, the results of a continuous monitoring of (i) CO2 fluxes, and (ii) CO2 and CH4 concentrations and carbon isotopic ratios (δ13C-CO2 and δ13C-CH4) in air, carried out from 7 to 21 July ...2017 and from October 10 to December 15, 2017 in the city centre of Florence, are presented. The measurements were performed from the roof of the historical building of the Ximenes Observatory. CO2 flux data revealed that the metropolitan area acted as a net source of CO2 during the whole observation period. According to the Keeling plot analysis, anthropogenic contributions to atmospheric CO2 were mainly represented by vehicular traffic (about 30%) and natural gas combustion (about 70%), the latter contributing 7 times more in December than in July. Moreover, the measured CO2 fluxes were about 80% higher in fall than in summer, confirming that domestic heating based on natural gas is the dominant CO2 emitting source in the municipality of Florence. Even though the continuous monitoring revealed a shift in the δ13C-CO2 values related to photosynthetic uptake of atmospheric CO2, the isotopic effect induced by plant activity was restricted to few hours in October and, to a lesser extent, in November. This suggests that urban planning policies should be devoted to massively increase green infrastructures in the metropolitan area in order to counterbalance anthropogenic emissions. During fall, the atmospheric CH4 concentrations were sensibly higher with respect to those recorded in summer, whilst the δ13C-CH4 values shifted towards heavier values. The Keeling plot analysis suggested that urban CH4 emissions were largely related to fugitive emissions from the natural gas distribution pipeline network. On the other hand, δ13C-CH4 monitoring allowed to recognize vehicular traffic as a minor CH4 emitting source.
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•Reducing urban greenhouse gas emissions requires recognition of emitting sources.•Isotopic partitioning method was applied for source identification in Florence.•Florence acts as a net source of CO2 resulting from traffic and gas combustion.•Green infrastructures are not sufficient to counterbalance anthropogenic emissions.•CH4 emissions are mostly related to fugitive leakages from natural gas pipelines.
An eddy covariance station was installed in the city center of Firenze, Italy, to measure carbon fluxes at half-hourly intervals over a mostly homogeneous urban area. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission ...observations made over an initial period of 3.5 months were compared with indirect estimates of CO₂ emissions based on inventory data sources of vehicle circulation and natural gas consumption for domestic heating and cooking. Such a comparison provided proper evaluation of the measurements. Using seasonal dynamics of observed fluxes, the overall CO₂ source of the city center was partitioned into its major components (i.e., road traffic and domestic heating). Results were directly compared with CO₂ source estimates based on inventory sources.
The delay in autumnal senescence that has occurred in recent decades has been linked to rising temperatures. Here, we suggest that increasing atmospheric CO₂ may partly account for delayed autumnal ...senescence and for the first time, through transcriptome analysis, identify gene expression changes associated with this delay. Using a plantation of Populus x euramericana grown in elevated CO₂ (eCO₂) with free-air CO₂ enrichment (FACE) technology, we investigated the molecular and biochemical basis of this response. A Populus cDNA microarray was used to identify genes representing multiple biochemical pathways influenced by eCO₂ during senescence. Gene expression changes were confirmed through real-time quantitative PCR, and leaf biochemical assays. Pathways for secondary metabolism and glycolysis were significantly up-regulated by eCO₂ during senescence, in particular, those related to anthocyanin biosynthesis. Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) representing the two most significantly up-regulated transcripts in eCO₂, LDOX (leucoanthocyanidin dioxgenase) and DFR (dihydroflavonol reductase), gave (eCO₂/ambient CO₂ (aCO₂)) expression ratios of 39.6 and 19.3, respectively. We showed that in eCO₂ there was increased autumnal leaf sugar accumulation and up-regulation of genes determining anthocyanin biosynthesis which, we propose, prolongs leaf longevity during natural autumnal senescence.
Incorporation of charcoal produced by biomass pyrolysis (biochar) in agricultural soils is a potentially sustainable strategy for climate change mitigation. However, some side effects of large-scale ...biochar application need to be investigated. In particular a massive use of a low-reflecting material on large cropland areas may impact the climate via changes in surface albedo. Twelve years of MODIS-derived albedo data were analysed for three pairs of selected agricultural sites in central Italy. In each pair bright and dark coloured soil were identified, mimicking the effect of biochar application on the land surface albedo of complex agricultural landscapes. Over this period vegetation canopies never completely masked differences in background soil colour. This soil signal, expressed as an albedo difference, induced a local instantaneous radiative forcing of up to 4.7 W m−2 during periods of high solar irradiance. Biochar mitigation potential might therefore be reduced up to ∼30%. This study proves the importance of accounting for crop phenology and crop management when assessing biochar mitigation potential and provides more insights into the analysis of its environmental feedback.
The European CARBOEUROPE/FLUXNET monitoring sites, spatial remote sensing observations via the EOS-MODIS sensor and ecosystem modelling provide independent and complementary views on the effect of ...the 2003 heatwave on the European biosphere's productivity and carbon balance. In our analysis, these data streams consistently demonstrate a strong negative anomaly of the primary productivity during the summer of 2003. FLUXNET eddy-covariance data indicate that the drop in productivity was not primarily caused by high temperatures ('heat stress') but rather by limitation of water (drought stress) and that, contrary to the classical expectation about a heat wave, not only gross primary productivity but also ecosystem respiration declined by up to more than to 80 gC m⁻² month⁻¹. Anomalies of carbon and water fluxes were strongly correlated. While there are large between-site differences in water-use efficiency (WUE, 1-6 kg C kg⁻¹ H₂O) here defined as gross carbon uptake divided by evapotranspiration (WUE=GPP/ET), the year-to-year changes in WUE were small (<1 g kg⁻¹) and quite similar for most sites (i.e. WUE decreased during the year of the heatwave). Remote sensing data from MODIS and AVHRR both indicate a strong negative anomaly of the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation in summer 2003, at more than five standard deviations of the previous years. The spatial differentiation of this anomaly follows climatic and land-use patterns: Largest anomalies occur in the centre of the meteorological anomaly (central Western Europe) and in areas dominated by crops or grassland. A preliminary model intercomparison along a gradient from data-oriented models to process-oriented models indicates that all approaches are similarly describing the spatial pattern of ecosystem sensitivity to the climatic 2003 event with major exceptions in the Alps and parts of Eastern Europe, but differed with respect to their interannual variability.
Biochar incorporation in agricultural soils has been proposed as a climate change mitigation strategy and has proved to substantially increase crop productivity via physical, chemical and biological ...mechanisms. The changes induced in soil properties are known to have a direct impact on soil ecosystem with consequences for soil biota community that, in turn, can influence biochar aging in soil. Despite several studies investigated in the interplay between biochar and soil microbiology, there is a clear lack of information on groups that live in the most superficial ground layers: soil meso and macro fauna. These groups are of great importance if we consider that biochar application should ideally be located in the soil's surface layer (0–30cm). Our study is the first attempt to investigate the interactions between biochar soil amendments and aboveground soil macro-meso fauna in a field crop. This was made setting-up a randomized-block experiment on a processing tomato crop in northern Italy, using three different biochar types and periodically monitoring soil parameters and fauna abundances along the crop growing cycle in summer 2013. Results show that the impact of biochar application on soil fauna as a whole is small when compared to that of agricultural management, suggesting that this amendment does not have short-term ecological interferences. Nevertheless, ants exhibited variations in abundances and distribution connected to properties of amended soils such as temperature, pH and humidity, proving that they can be effectively used as a target group in the study of interactions between biochar and soil biota.
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•We use a field study to evaluate the effects of biochar on aboveground fauna.•We focus on ants as useful bioindicators for biochar environmental safety.•Biochar has less impact on soil fauna compared to agricultural management.•Ant distribution can be connected to properties of amended soils.
Vegetation has a substantial impact on the local climate. Land cover changes through afforestation or deforestation can amplify or mitigate climate warming by changes in biophysical and ...biogeochemical mechanisms. In the montane to subalpine area of the Eastern Alps in Europe, where forests have constantly expanded in the last four decades, data of meteorological stations show a consistent reduction in incoming global radiation for the period 2000-2015. To assess the potential role of forests in contributing to such a reduction, three site pairs in Central Europe with neighbouring forest and non-forest sites were analysed. In all the pairs, a lower amount of incoming radiation was recorded at the forest site. When biophysical mechanisms such as albedo, surface roughness and Bowen ratio changes were modelled together with changes in global radiation, the total radiative forcing accounted for a rate of change in air temperature was equal to 0.032 °C ± 0.01 °C per Wm−2. These results suggest that local climate is influenced by land cover change through afforestation both via albedo and radiation feedbacks but also by means of indirect biophysical and species-dependent mechanisms. The data obtained for the site pairs in Central Europe are finally discussed to infer the occurrence of similar forest-driven effects in the Eastern Alps which may explain part of the solar dimming observed in high elevation weather stations.
•HER2-negative (HER2-) metastatic breast cancer (MBC) represents a biologically and clinically heterogeneous disease.•Chemotherapy is an important element of the treatment armamentarium for ...HER2-MBC.•To date, there is not a univoque algorithm capable of guiding the choice of the proper CT sequence.•Results from prospective trials and meta-analysis suggest that specific subsets of patients could preferentially benefit from particular CT agents.•The decision making process should be conducted on a patient-by-patient basis.
HER2negative (HER2-) metastatic breast cancer (MBC) represents a challenging scenario for clinicians due to its great biological and clinical heterogeneity. Although management of HER2-MBC currently relies on several options, CT still remains a worthwhile strategy to be exploited. However, to date, there is not an univoque algorithm capable of guiding the choice of the proper CT agent/regimen, sequence and duration. Evidence from randomized clinical trials (RCT) and meta-analyses can actually help guiding the decision making process, however the definition of a standard of care for all HER2-MBC patients may be impractical, also in the light of the identification of new promising molecular and immunotherapeutic agents. The purpose of this work is to review available evidence on the role of CT for HER2-MBC with particular emphasis on the need to outline personalized therapeutic strategies for each patient.
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