New Tobacco and Tobacco-Related Products: Early Detection of Product Development, Marketing Strategies, and Consumer Interest.

A wide variety of new tobacco and tobacco-related products have emerged on the market in recent years

A genetic fingerprint of Amphipoda from Icelandic waters – the baseline for further biodiversity and biogeography studies

Source at https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.731.19931.Amphipods constitute an abundant part of Icelandic deep-sea zoobenthos yet knowledge of the diversity of this fauna, particularly at the molecular level, is scarce. The present work aims to use molecular methods to investigate genetic variation of the Amphipoda sampled during two IceAGE collecting expeditions. The mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) of 167 individuals originally assigned to 75 morphospecies was analysed. These targeted morhospecies were readily identifiable by experts using light microscopy and representative of families where there is current ongoing taxonomic research. The study resulted in 81 Barcode Identity Numbers (BINs) (of which >90% were published for the first time), while Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery revealed the existence of 78 to 83 Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs). Six nominal species (Rhachotropis helleri, Arrhis phyllonyx, Deflexilodes tenuirostratus, Paroediceros propinquus, Metopa boeckii, Astyra abyssi) appeared to have a molecular variation higher than the 0.03 threshold of both p-distance and K2P usually used for amphipod species delineation. Conversely, two Oedicerotidae regarded as separate morphospecies clustered together with divergences in the order of intraspecific variation. The incongruence between the BINs associated with presently identified species and the publicly available data of the same taxa was observed in case of Paramphithoe hystrix and Amphilochus manudens. The findings from this research project highlight the necessity of supporting molecular studies with thorough morphology species analyses

Amphipod family distributions around Iceland

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Neural and cognitive determinants of smoking addiction and cessation

More than a billion people worldwide smoke and at least half of them will eventually die from the consequences. Smoking addiction is supported in part by the rewarding effects of nicotine in the brain. This PhD research examined the neural and cognitive effects of a vaccine that would keep nicotine out of the brain. Active and former smokers are often tempted to smoke because their attention is drawn to smoking-associated cues in their environment. This dissertation describes the neural origins of this process and an intervention programme aimed at reducing automatic attention to smoking cues

Exploring Neurobehaviour in Zebrafish Embryos as a Screening Model for Addictiveness of Substances

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide and is highly addictive. Nicotine is the main addictive compound in tobacco, but less is known about other components and additives that may contribute to tobacco addiction. The zebrafish embryo (ZFE) has been shown to be a good model to study the toxic effects of chemicals on the neurological system and thus may be a promising model to study behavioral markers of nicotine effects, which may be predictive for addictiveness. We aimed to develop a testing protocol to study nicotine tolerance in ZFE using a locomotion test with light-dark transitions as behavioral trigger. Behavioral experiments were conducted using three exposure paradigms: (1) Acute exposure to determine nicotine’s effect and potency. (2) Pre-treatment with nicotine dose range followed by a single dose of nicotine, to determine which pre-treatment dose is sufficient to affect the potency of acute nicotine. (3) Pre-treatment with a single dose combined with acute exposure to a dose range to confirm the hypothesized decreased potency of the acute nicotine exposure. These exposure paradigms showed that (1) acute nicotine exposure decreased ZFE activity in response to dark conditions in a dose-dependent fashion; (2) pre-treatment with increasing concentrations dose-dependently reversed the effect of acute nicotine exposure; and (3) a fixed pre-treatment dose of nicotine induced a decreased potency of the acute nicotine exposure. This effect supported the induction of tolerance to nicotine by the pre-treatment, likely through neuroadaptation. The interpretation of these effects, particularly in view of prediction of dependence and addictiveness, and suitability of the ZFE model to test for such effects of other compounds than nicotine, are discussed

Omgaan met het erfgoed van de 'vijand'. Duitse WO1-monumenten op stedelijke begraafplaatsen in België

During the First World War, the Germans established monuments in Belgium to commemorate their fallen soldiers. They built these memorials in the front region, but also in the city cemeteries on Belgian territory under German occupation. In this article, we study the history of the German FWW monuments built on the three main city cemeteries of occupied Belgium: the Cemetery of Brussels in Evere, Schoonselhof in Antwerp and Robermont in Liège. The Germans built these monuments without asking permission and without submitting any designs to the city councils of Brussels, Antwerp or Liège. This raises some questions. How did the city councils react to this breach of municipal law during the war, when the occupation regime limited their capacity to take decisive actions? How did they deal after the war with the monumental heritage that the enemy had constructed during the war on ‘their’ cemeteries? Did they decide to respect and to maintain the German monuments, or did they tore them down as soon as they had the opportunity? We argue that these monuments are more than just local curiosities. The German monuments of the city cemeteries in occupied Belgium functioned as real arenas. During the almost one hundred years of their existence, their meaning and importance was renegotiated. For nearly a century, they have been a battleground where Belgians and Germans accepted, denied or even challenged each other’s war memory, depending on the political and economic context of both countries