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Conservation of heritage buildings still poses many challenges. Throughout the history, monuments have been exposed to catastrophic earthquakes. Assessment and retrofitting of this architectural heritage are effective measures to prevent heavy damage by future earthquakes. These operations require good knowledge of the material mechanical properties, it being one of the most important steps for a suitable seismic assessment. Mechanical characteristics may be determined through destructive, semi-destructive and non-destructive tests. As the application of destructive and semi-destructive testing on heritage buildings is often impossible, many attempts have been made to propose fully non-destructive methods for determining mechanical properties. One of the methods is called the Masonry Quality Index (MQI), only based on visual inspection. This method aims to develop a simple and systematic approach to the analysis of masonry constructions based on idealised typologies, different parameters and the mechanical properties of the constitutive materials (stone, brick, mortar, etc.). The aim of the present research is to propose a simplified approach to obtain mechanical properties of the historical masonry walls with lime mortar in Campania, by correlating the MQI, double flat jack and further non-destructive test results.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable hematologic neoplasm, whose poor prognosis is deeply affected by the propensity of tumor cells to localize in the bone marrow (BM) and induce the protumorigenic activity of normal BM cells, leading to events associated with tumor progression, including tumor angiogenesis, osteoclastogenesis, and the spread of osteolytic bone lesions. The interplay between MM cells and the BM niche does not only rely on direct cell-cell interaction, but a crucial role is also played by MM-derived extracellular vesicles (MM-EV). Here, we demonstrated that the oncogenic NOTCH receptors are part of MM-EV cargo and play a key role in EV protumorigenic ability. We used in vitro and in vivo models to investigate the role of EV-derived NOTCH2 in stimulating the protumorigenic behavior of endothelial cells and osteoclast progenitors. Importantly, MM-EV can transfer NOTCH2 between distant cells and increase NOTCH signaling in target cells. MM-EV stimulation increases endothelial cell angiogenic ability and osteoclast differentiation in a NOTCH2-dependent way. Indeed, interfering with NOTCH2 expression in MM cells may decrease the amount of NOTCH2 also in MM-EV and affect their angiogenic and osteoclastogenic potential. Finally, we demonstrated that the pharmacologic blockade of NOTCH activation by γ-secretase inhibitors may hamper the biological effect of EV derived by MM cell lines and by the BM of MM patients. These results provide the first evidence that targeting the NOTCH pathway may be a valid therapeutic strategy to hamper the protumorigenic role of EV in MM as well as other tumors.