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È stata effettuata una revisione sistematica sulle specie del genere Genista in Italia. L'indagine ha permesso di accertare la posizione tassonomica delle diverse entità che rappresentano il genere nel territorio italiano. In questa prima nota sono riferiti i risultati emersi dallo studio delle entità di sezioni a prevalente distribuzione in opposte zone del bacino del Mediterraneo e precisamente Erinacoides Spach del Mediterraneo occidentale ed Ephedrospartum Spach, Aureospartum sect. nova del Mediterraneo centrale. La sezione Erinacoides é rappresentata da G. salzmanii DC. in Sardegna e in Corsica, G. pichisermolliana sp. nov. in Sardegna, G. aspalathoides Lam. in Sicilia, Pantelleria, Africa settentrionale, G. desoleana Valso in Liguria, Toscana, Elba, Corsica e Sardegna, G. arbusensis Vals., G. sulcitana Valso e G. toluensis Valso in Sardegna. La sezione Aureospartum (sect. nova) comprende solo l'endemica sardo-sicula G. aetnensis (Raf.) DC. e l'Ephedrospartum racchiude G. ephedroides DC. presente in Sardegna, G. thyrrena Valso nell'arcipelago ponziano, G. gasparrini in Sicilia e G. cilentina Vals. in Campania e in Sicilia.
Temnothorax (Myrmicinae, Crematogastrini) is one of the most diverse Holarctic ant genera, and new taxonomic advancements are still frequent worldwide. The Mediterranean region, a global biodiversity hotspot characterized by a complex geographic history, is home to a substantial portion of its described diversity. Sicily is the region’s largest island and, as ongoing investigations are revealing, it is inhabited by a long-overlooked but highly diverse ant fauna that combines multiple biogeographic influences. We combined qualitative and quantitative morphology of multiple castes with phylogenomic analysis based on ultra-conserved elements (UCEs) to describe four species of Temnothorax endemic to Sicily and the neighboring Maltese Islands (Sicilian Channel). Three of these species, T. marae Alicata, Schifani & Prebus sp. nov., T. poldii Alicata, Schifani & Prebus sp. nov. and T. vivianoi Schifani, Alicata & Prebus sp. nov., are new to science, while a redescription clarifies the identity of T. lagrecai (Baroni Urbani, 1964). These descriptions highlight the current difficulties of delimiting monophyletic Temnothorax species groups based on morphological characters. The intra-insular endemicity patterns we revealed highlight the importance of Mediterranean paleogeography to contemporary ant diversity and distribution in the region.
Aims: Carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) predicts cardiovascular (CVD) events, but the predictive value of CIMT change is debated. We assessed the relation between CIMT change and events in individuals at high cardiovascular risk.
Methods and results: From 31 cohorts with two CIMT scans (total n = 89070) on average 3.6 years apart and clinical follow-up, subcohorts were drawn: (A) individuals with at least 3 cardiovascular risk factors without previous CVD events, (B) individuals with carotid plaques without previous CVD events, and (C) individuals with previous CVD events. Cox regression models were fit to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) of the combined endpoint (myocardial infarction, stroke or vascular death) per standard deviation (SD) of CIMT change, adjusted for CVD risk factors. These HRs were pooled across studies.
In groups A, B and C we observed 3483, 2845 and 1165 endpoint events, respectively. Average common CIMT was 0.79mm (SD 0.16mm), and annual common CIMT change was 0.01mm (SD 0.07mm), both in group A. The pooled HR per SD of annual common CIMT change (0.02 to 0.43mm) was 0.99 (95% confidence interval: 0.95–1.02) in group A, 0.98 (0.93–1.04) in group B, and 0.95 (0.89–1.04) in group C. The HR per SD of common CIMT (average of the first and the second CIMT scan, 0.09 to 0.75mm) was 1.15 (1.07–1.23) in group A, 1.13 (1.05–1.22) in group B, and 1.12 (1.05–1.20) in group C.
Conclusions: We confirm that common CIMT is associated with future CVD events in individuals at high risk. CIMT change does not relate to future event risk in high-risk individuals.
There is a consensus that transnational soft governance has unleashed the forces of change in higher education. However, individual national HE systems are still anchored in country-specific regulatory regimes, which reflect national-historical, institutional, and cultural developments. Against this background, three crucial questions guide our study: How does the state react to transnational pressures for change? How is transnationally inspired policy change ‘digested’ by the preexisting country-specific governance structures? And to what extent have national HE systems converged on a common governance model? To address these questions, we conduct a multilevel comparative analysis of developments in Germany, France, and Italy. We first break down the concept of higher education governance into sub-dimensions and derive concrete policy indicators for three historically embedded governance ideal types. Drawing on historical institutionalism and institutional isomorphism, we explore how historical legacies and transnational communication have impacted policy pathways over the past 30 years. We graphically illustrate the policy trajectories using our ‘governance triangles’, which encompass the balance of power between multiple actors, including the state and universities, university management and the academic profession, and external stakeholders.
The paper addresses the problem of justifying ethically sound dimensions of poverty or well-being for use in a multidimensional framework. We combine Sen’s capability approach and Rawls’ method of political constructivism and argue that the constitution and its interpretative practice can serve as an ethically suitable informational basis for selecting dimensions, under certain conditions. We illustrate our Constitutional Approach by deriving a set of well-being dimensions from an analysis of the Italian Constitution. We argue that this method is both an improvement on those used in the existing literature from the ethical point of view, and has a strong potential for providing the ethical basis of a conception of well-being for the public affairs of a pluralist society. In the final part, we elaborate on the implications for measuring well-being based on data, by ranking Italian regions in terms of well-being, and pointing out the differences in results produced by different methods.