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Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill 40 million people each year. The management of chronic respiratory NCDs such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is particularly critical in Italy, where they are widespread and represent a heavy burden on healthcare resources. It is thus important to redefine the role and responsibility of respiratory specialists and their scientific societies, together with that of the whole healthcare system, in order to create a sustainable management of COPD, which could become a model for other chronic respiratory conditions. Methods: These issues were divided into four main topics (Training, Organization, Responsibilities, and Sustainability) and discussed at a Consensus Conference promoted by the Research Center of the Italian Respiratory Society held in Rome, Italy, 3–4 November 2016. Results and conclusions: Regarding training, important inadequacies emerged regarding specialist training - both the duration of practical training courses and teaching about chronic diseases like COPD. A better integration between university and teaching hospitals would improve the quality of specialization. A better organizational integration between hospital and specialists/general practitioners (GPs) in the local community is essential to improve the diagnostic and therapeutic pathways for chronic respiratory patients. Improving the care pathways is the joint responsibility of respiratory specialists, GPs, patients and their caregivers, and the healthcare system. The sustainability of the entire system depends on a better organization of the diagnostic-therapeutic pathways, in which also other stakeholders such as pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies can play an important role.

Measurement of body temperature provides relevant data on postmortem interval, and different studies have been so far attempted to apply temperature assessment methods also under extreme environmental conditions; however, none of them has been performed yet on charred or heated bodies, where temperature measurement is presumed to be unreliable because of the possible influence of heating. This study aimed at verifying any possible early-stage alterations of rectal and endocranial temperature due to fire on an animal model during the charring process. Three pigs, 2 adults (pigs 1 and 2) whose weight was about 50 kg each and 1 piglet weighing 3 kg, were heated and burnt on a natural fire lit on top of a wooden stack, without the use of accelerants; 2 thermocouples were positioned in the rectum and in the cranium to record second-by-second rectal and endocranial temperature values. Results demonstrate that the rectal temperature does not seem to increase in adult pigs for 40 to 50 minutes after the body has been exposed to fire, probably because of the thermal insulating characteristics of the adipose tissue. Therefore, temperature may still be of some help for estimating postmortem interval on heated or burnt cadavers.

One of the most notable old cultivars still used today for canning and jam production and cited in recipes dating back to the end of the nineteenth century is the plum ‘Prugna di Lentigione’ grown in the Reggio Emilia Province of northern Italy’s Emilia-Romagna Region. We undertook a two-year investigation via comparative phenological, pomological and molecular analyses to determine genotype, clonal populations, tree sanitary status and fruit quality. The survey was also extended to similar cultivars earmarked for the same uses, for a total of 14 accessions. The results made it possible to check the identity of and synonymies with other old cultivars cited in monographs of plums grown in Italy during the last 50 years.

Cinque nuovi portinnesti di melo della serie CG (29, 30, 202, 707 e 934) ottenuti dal dr. J.N. Cummins alla Stazione di Geneva (Cornell University, N.Y.) sono stati sperimentati a Cadriano (Bologna) con la cv Golden Delicious, in confronto a M9. Dopo cinque anni di rilievi è risultato che CG29 e CG30 hanno indotto una nanizzazione maggiore di M9, con un’efficienza produttiva però superiore (CG29) o eguale (CG30) ad M9. Molto buona anche la risposta dei cloni 202 e 707 che, in presenza di una moderata crescita iniziale degli alberi, statisticamente assimilabile ad M9, hanno pure accentuato l’efficienza produttiva. Più vigoroso e produttivo invece si è rivelato il clone 934, accompagnato anche da una perdita di efficienza. Sul piano qualitativo spiccano gli ottimi risultati, in termini di pezzatura, conseguiti dai cloni 202 (che ha raggiunto l’M9 nel favorire l’innalzamento del grado zuccherino), 30, 707 e 934. Il CG29 è assimilabile all’M9, ad un livello leggermente inferiore agli altri citati. Nonostante l’ottima performance produttiva di alcuni GC non è ancora stato possibile stabilire in che modo i p.i. della serie CG influenzano la qualità del prodotto, in modo differenziato rispetto ad M9.