112 research outputs found
Perspectives on Reoffenders: The Views of Detainees, the General Public and Those Working with Offenders
The literature has offered significant data on reoffending: for example, the relationship with drug taking, addiction, mental illness and security. However, research directly involving the voices of detainees and those intervening in the prevention of reoffending appears to be less developed. The present research aims to observe how reoffending is approached by the various players involved: the detainees (whether reoffenders or not), educators and ordinary people. In particular we endeavour to determine how reoffending is perceived, interpreted and managed. The ultimate aim is to assist those involved in the improvement of social reintegration. Interviews revealed substantial differences in how reoffending is interpreted and perceived, and this influences both the management of the risk of reoffending and the process of rehabilitation into society. Furthermore, the results showed some improvements, such as in the teamwork by all players involved, in education for the detainees, and in the implementation of social reintegration projects as alternatives to imprisonment
17,β-estradiol inhibits hepatitis C virus mainly by interference with the release phase of its life cycle
Rationale & Aim:
Estrogen and estrogen-mediated signalling protect from hepatitis C virus through incompletely understood mechanisms. We aimed to ascertain which phase(s) of HCV life cycle is/are affected by estrogens.
Methods:
Huh7 cells infected with the JFH1 virus (genotype 2a) were exposed to dehydroepiandrosterone, testosterone, progesterone and 17β-estradiol (tested with/without its receptor antagonist fulvestrant). Dose-response curves were established to calculate IC50 values. To dissect how 17β-estradiol interferes with phases of HCV life cycle, its effects were measured on the HCV pseudo-particle system (viral entry), the sub-genomic replicon N17/JFH1 and the replicon cell line Huh7-J17 (viral replication). Finally, in a dual-step infection model, infectious supernatants, collected from infected cells exposed to hormones, were used to infect naïve cells.
Results:
Progesterone and testosterone showed no inhibitory effect on HCV; dehydroepiandrosterone was only mildly inhibitory. In contrast, 17β-estradiol inhibited infection by 64-67% (IC50 values 140 to 160 nM). Fulvestrant reverted the inhibition by 17β-estradiol in a dose-dependent manner. 17β-estradiol exerted only a slight inhibition (<20%) on HCV pseudo-particles, and had no effect on cells either transiently or stably (Huh7-J17 cells) expressing the N17/JFH1 replicon. In the dual-step infection model, a significant IC50 decline occurred between primary (134 nM) and secondary (100 nM) infections (p=0.02), with extracellular HCV RNA and infectivity being reduced to a higher degree in comparison to its intracellular counterpart.
Conclusions:
17β-estradiol inhibits HCV acting through its intracellular receptors, mainly interfering with late phases (assembly/release) of the HCV life cycle
Stem photosynthesis contributes to non-structural carbohydrate pool and modulates xylem vulnerability to embolism in Fraxinus ornus L
Stem photosynthesis can significantly contribute to the carbon budget of woody plants, providing an extra carbon gain that might be crucial under drought stress causing leaf photosynthesis impairment and/or a reduced phloem transport.Stems of Fraxinus ornus L. saplings were covered with aluminum foil to test the impact of inhibition of stem photosynthesis on plant vulnerability to drought. Plants were water-stressed to target xylem water potential of-3.5 MPa and were then re-irrigated to field capacity to quantify their recovery capacity. Vulnerability to xylem embolism was assessed in light-exposed and stem-shaded saplings with both the hydraulic method and in vivo with X-ray phase contrast micro-computed tomography. We also measured non-structural carbohydrate (NSC) concentration and osmotic potential in bark and wood, separately.Stem shading increased xylem vulnerability to embolism formation under drought but did not influence the recovery phase. This difference was coupled with modification of the NSC pool and impaired osmoregulation, in particular in the wood of stem-shaded saplings compared to control ones.Our results indicate stem photosynthesis as an important source of local NSCs, directly or indirectly involved in osmoregulation processes, which could be crucial to enhance the hydraulic resistance to embolism formation and to endure drought
The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N at TNG. III: The retrograde orbit of HAT-P-18b
The measurement of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect for transiting exoplanets
places constraints on the orientation of the orbital axis with respect to the
stellar spin axis, which can shed light on the mechanisms shaping the orbital
configuration of planetary systems. Here we present the interesting case of the
Saturn-mass planet HAT-P-18b, which orbits one of the coolest stars for which
the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect has been measured so far. We acquired a
spectroscopic time-series, spanning a full transit, with the HARPS-N
spectrograph mounted at the TNG telescope. The very precise radial velocity
measurements delivered by the HARPS-N pipeline were used to measure the
Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. Complementary new photometric observations of
another full transit were also analysed to obtain an independent determination
of the star and planet parameters. We find that HAT-P-18b lies on a
counter-rotating orbit, the sky-projected angle between the stellar spin axis
and the planet orbital axis being lambda=132 +/- 15 deg. By joint modelling of
the radial velocity and photometric data we obtain new determinations of the
star (M_star = 0.770 +/- 0.027 M_Sun; R_star= 0.717 +/- 0.026 R_Sun;
Vsin(I_star) = 1.58 +/- 0.18 km/s) and planet (M_pl = 0.196 +/- 0.008 M_J; R_pl
= 0.947 +/- 0.044 R_J) parameters. Our spectra provide for the host star an
effective temperature T_eff = 4870 +/- 50 K, a surface gravity of log(g_star) =
4.57 +/- 0.07 cm/s, and an iron abundance of [Fe/H] = 0.10 +/- 0.06. HAT-P-18b
is one of the few planets known to transit a star with T_eff < 6250 K on a
retrograde orbit. Objects such as HAT-P-18b (low planet mass and/or relatively
long orbital period) most likely have a weak tidal coupling with their parent
stars, therefore their orbits preserve any original misalignment. As such, they
are ideal targets to study the causes of orbital evolution in cool
main-sequence stars.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N at TNG. X. Differential abundances in the XO-2 planet hosting binary
Binary stars hosting exoplanets are a unique laboratory where chemical
tagging can be performed to measure with high accuracy the elemental abundances
of both stellar components, with the aim to investigate the formation of
planets and their subsequent evolution. Here, we present a high-precision
differential abundance analysis of the XO-2 wide stellar binary based on high
resolution HARPS-N@TNG spectra. Both components are very similar K-dwarfs and
host planets. Since they formed presumably within the same molecular cloud, we
expect they should possess the same initial elemental abundances. We
investigate if the presence of planets can cause some chemical imprints in the
stellar atmospheric abundances. We measure abundances of 25 elements for both
stars with a range of condensation temperature K, achieving
typical precisions of dex. The North component shows abundances in
all elements higher by dex on average, with a mean
difference of +0.078 dex for elements with K. The
significance of the XO-2N abundance difference relative to XO-2S is at the
level for almost all elements. We discuss the possibility that this
result could be interpreted as the signature of the ingestion of material by
XO-2N or depletion in XO-2S due to locking of heavy elements by the planetary
companions. We estimate a mass of several tens of in heavy
elements. The difference in abundances between XO-2N and XO-2S shows a positive
correlation with the condensation temperatures of the elements, with a slope of
dex K, which could mean that both
components have not formed terrestrial planets, but that first experienced the
accretion of rocky core interior to the subsequent giant planets.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics. Numbering
of the series change
The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N@TNG XIV. Investigating giant planet migration history via improved eccentricity and mass determination for 231 transiting planets
We carried out a Bayesian homogeneous determination of the orbital parameters
of 231 transiting giant planets (TGPs) that are alone or have distant
companions; we employed DE-MCMC methods to analyse radial-velocity (RV) data
from the literature and 782 new high-accuracy RVs obtained with the HARPS-N
spectrograph for 45 systems over 3 years. Our work yields the largest sample of
systems with a transiting giant exoplanet and coherently determined orbital,
planetary, and stellar parameters. We found that the orbital parameters of TGPs
in non-compact planetary systems are clearly shaped by tides raised by their
host stars. Indeed, the most eccentric planets have relatively large orbital
separations and/or high mass ratios, as expected from the equilibrium tide
theory. This feature would be the outcome of high-eccentricity migration (HEM).
The distribution of , where and are the semi-major axis
and the Roche limit, for well-determined circular orbits peaks at 2.5; this
also agrees with expectations from the HEM. The few planets of our sample with
circular orbits and values may have migrated through disc-planet
interactions instead of HEM. By comparing circularisation times with stellar
ages, we found that hot Jupiters with au have modified tidal quality
factors are
required to explain the presence of eccentric planets at the same orbital
distance. As a by-product of our analysis, we detected a non-zero eccentricity
for HAT-P-29; we determined that five planets that were previously regarded to
have hints of non-zero eccentricity have circular orbits or undetermined
eccentricities; we unveiled curvatures caused by distant companions in the RV
time series of HAT-P-2, HAT-P-22, and HAT-P-29; and we revised the planetary
parameters of CoRoT-1b.Comment: 44 pages (16 pages of main text and figures), 11 figures, 5
longtables, published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 602, A107 (2017).
Tables with new HARPS-N and TRES radial-velocity data (Tables 1 and 2),
stellar parameters (Table 7), orbital parameters and RV jitter (Table 8), and
planet physical parameters (Table 9) are available as ancillary files
(sidebar on the right
The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N@TNG IX. The multi-planet system KELT-6: detection of the planet KELT-6 c and measurement of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect for KELT-6 b
Aims. For more than 1.5 years we monitored spectroscopically the star KELT-6
(BD+312447), known to host the transiting hot Saturn KELT-6b, because a
previously observed long-term trend in radial velocity time series suggested
the existence of an outer companion. Methods. We collected a total of 93 new
spectra with the HARPS-N and TRES spectrographs. A spectroscopic transit of
KELT-6b was observed with HARPS-N, and simultaneous photometry was obtained
with the IAC-80 telescope. Results. We proved the existence of an outer planet
with a mininum mass Msini=3.710.21 M and a
moderately eccentric orbit () of period P3.5
years. We improved the orbital solution of KELT-6b and obtained the first
measurement of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, showing that the planet has a
likely circular, prograde, and slightly misaligned orbit, with a projected
spin-orbit angle =3611 degrees. We improved the KELT-6b
transit ephemeris from photometry, and we provided new measurements of the
stellar parameters. KELT-6 appears as an interesting case to study the
formation and evolution of multi-planet systems.Comment: Letter, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. Some language
editing and numbering of the paper series changed (from X to IX
The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N@TNG VI: The Curious Case of TrES-4b
We revisit the TrES-4 system parameters based on high-precision HARPS-N
radial-velocity measurements and new photometric light curves. A combined
spectroscopic and photometric analysis allows us to determine a spectroscopic
orbit with an amplitude m s. The derived mass of TrES-4b is
found to be , significantly lower than
previously reported. Combined with the large radius () inferred from our analysis, TrES-4b becomes
the second-lowest density transiting hot Jupiter known. We discuss several
scenarios to explain the puzzling discrepancy in the mass of TrES-4b in the
context of the exotic class of highly inflated transiting giant planets.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Letter accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N at TNG VIII: Observations of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect and characterisation of the transiting planetary systems HAT-P-36 and WASP-11/HAT-P-10
We determine the true and the projected obliquity of HAT-P-36 and
WASP-11/HAT-P-10 systems, respectively, which are both composed of a relatively
cool star and a hot-Jupiter planet. Thanks to the high-resolution spectrograph
HARPS-N, we observed the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect for both the systems by
acquiring precise radial-velocity measurements during planetary transit events.
We also present photometric observations comprising six light curves covering
five transit events, obtained using three medium-class telescopes and the
telescope-defocussing technique. One transit of WASP-11/HAT-P-10 was followed
simultaneously from two observatories. The three transit light curves of
HAT-P-36b show anomalies that are attributable to starspot complexes on the
surface of the parent star, in agreement with the analysis of its spectra that
indicate a moderate activity. By analysing the complete HATNet data set of
HAT-P-36, we estimated the stellar rotation period by detecting a periodic
photometric modulation in the light curve caused by star spots, obtaining
Prot=15.3 days, which implies that the inclination of the stellar rotational
axis with respect to the line of sight is 65 degree. We used the new
spectroscopic and photometric data to revise the main physical parameters and
measure the sky-projected misalignment angle of the two systems. We found
\lambda=-14 degree for HAT-P-36 and \lambda=7 degree for WASP-11/HAT-P-10,
indicating in both cases a good spin-orbit alignment. In the case of HAT-P-36,
we also measured its real obliquity, which turned out to be 25 degrees.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figure
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