An optical spectrophotometric survey of abundances in Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae

Optical spectroscopic data for 71 Planetary Nebulae (PN) in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds have been analysed. The line fluxes have been used to determine nebular temperatures, densities, and the abundances of He, N, O, Ne, and Ar, relative to H. In our sample there are 12 nebulae with N/O≽0.5, resembling Peimbert's Type I PN; six low-excitation (LE) objects [1≼I(5007)/I(Hβ)≼4]; and four very-low-excitation (VLE) nebulae [I(Hβ)>I(5007)], similar to the Galactic VLE class. Mean abundances have been calculated for the nebulae not in these special groups. After correction for collisional excitation contributions to the nebular He I lines, PN in the SMC and LMC yield mass fractions of Y=0.249±0.025 and Y=0.258±0.015, respectively. Compared with PN in our own Galaxy, the abundances of Ne and Ar, which are the elements in our sample least affected by nucleosynthesis, are lower by 0.6 and 0.35 dex for the SMC and LMC respectively. The oxygen and neon abundances in the Magellanic Cloud PN are the same as those previously found for H II regions in the LMC and SMC, but the nitrogen in PN is enhanced by 0.9 and 1.0 dex in each galaxy, respectively. This is found to be consistent with the processing of all of the original carbon to nitrogen by the CN cycle, operating in the progenitor stars at the time of the first dredge-up. This process seems to have operated much more efficiently in the metal-poor Magellanic Clouds than in the Milky Way, in agreement with theoretical predictions. Five Wolf–Rayet central stars are detected in the sample (two SMC, three LMC). The frequency of occurrence of these helium-rich central stars in low- and medium-excitation PN (15 per cent) is very similar to that of helium-rich white dwarfs in the solar neighbourhood, suggesting that events at the end of the AGB phase may be reponsible for the observed fractions of helium- and hydrogen-rich white dwarf stars

IRAS observations of active galaxies

The IRAS survey gives an unbiased view of the infrared properties of the active galaxies. Seyfert galaxies occupy much the same area in color-color plots as to normal infrared bright galaxies, but extend the range towards flatter 60 to 25 mm slopes. Statistically the Seyfert 1 galaxies can be distinguished from the Seyfert 2 galaxies, lying predominantly closer to the area with constant slopes between 25 and 200 mm. The infrared measurements of the Seyfert galaxies cannot distinguish between the emission mechanisms in these objects although they agree with the currently popular ideas; they do provide a measure of the total luminosity of the Seyferts. The quasar's position in the color-color diagrams continue the trend of the Seyferts. The quasar 3C48 is shown to be exceptional among the radio loud quasars in that it has a high infrared luminosity which dominates the power output of the quasar and is most likely associated with the underlying host galaxy

Pattern recognition of estradiol, testosterone and dihydrotestosterone in children's saliva samples using stochastic microsensors

Stochastic microsensors based on diamond paste and three types of electroactive materials (maltodextrin (MD), α-cyclodextrin (α-CD) and 5,10,15,20-tetraphenyl-21H,23H porphyrin (P)) were developed for the assay of estradiol (E2), testosterone (T2) and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in children's saliva. The main advantage of utilization of such tools is the possibility to identify and quantify all three hormones within minutes in small volumes of childen's saliva. The limits of quantification obtained for DHT, T2, and E2 (1 fmol/L for DHT, 1 pmol/L for T2, and 66 fmol/L for E2) determined using the proposed tools allows the utilization of these new methods with high reliability for the screening of saliva samples from children. This new method proposed for the assay of the three hormones overcomes the limitations (regarding limits of determination) of ELISA method which is the standard method used in clinical laboratories for the assay of DHT, T2, and E2 in saliva samples. The main feature of its utilization for children's saliva is to identify earlier problems related to early puberty and obesity

Clinical research:Developing an appropriate career structure

The veterinary profession needs to become more successful in producing the next generation of clinician scientists, say Richard Mellanby and others, who set out a roadmap for future academic postgraduate clinical training

Adrenalectomy alters the sensitivity of the central nervous system melanocortin system

Removal of adrenal steroids by adrenalectomy (ADX) reduces food intake and body weight in rodents and prevents excessive weight gain in many genetic and dietary models of obesity. Thus, glucocorticoids appear to play a key role to promote positive energy balance in normal and pathological conditions. By comparison, central nervous system melanocortin signaling provides critical inhibitory tone to regulate energy balance. The present experiments sought to test whether glucocorticoids influence energy balance by altering the sensitivity to melanocortin receptor ligands. Because melanocortin-producing neurons are hypothesized to be downstream of leptin in a key weight-reducing circuit, we tested rats for their sensitivity to leptin and confirmed reports that the hypophagic response to third ventricular (i3vt) leptin is increased in ADX rats and is normalized by glucocorticoid replacement. Next we tested rats for their sensitivity to the melanocortin agonist melanotan II and found that, as for leptin, ADX enhanced the hypophagic response via a glucocorticoid-dependent mechanism. The central nervous system melanocortin system is unique in that it includes the endogenous melanocortin receptor antagonist, AgRP. The orexigenic effect of i3vt AgRP was absent in ADX rats and restored by glucocorticoid replacement. We conclude that the potent weight-reducing effects of ADX likely involve heightened responsiveness to melanocortin receptor stimulation

A cost-effectiveness analysis of a hydration response technology dressing in the treatment of venous leg ulcers in the UK

Introduction: Venous leg ulceration causes significant pain and suffering for patients, additionally it places considerable financial and service burden on the National Health Service (NHS). A large proportion of venous leg ulceration do not heal within the standard time frames of 16 – 24 weeks, resulting in static wounds which commonly have issues with increasing exudate production. Static wounds can have significant negative impact on the patients quality of life, the wound bed and periwound skin, increased risk of infection all of which results in delayed wound healing and increased health service costs. As the NHS continues to face times of austerity, services need to find solutions to be able to reduce cost and release nursing time whilst maintaining standards of care. Cutimed® Sorbion® Sachet S is a treatment option for the management of patients with a venous leg ulceration. The objective of this study was to provide an update of the health economic analysis of Cutimed® Sorbion® Sachet S in comparison to relevant comparators in the UK with current cost data. Methods: Cutimed® Sorbion® Sachet S was compared against Zetuvit Plus, DryMax extra, KerraMax Care and Eclypse from a cost effectiveness perspective. Clinical data were derived from literature and expert opinion. Cost input was utilized based on publicly available data and literature. The average patient in the model is assumed to be 65 years with a diagnosed venous leg ulcer. It is assumed that patients in the different treatment arms have the same background mortality, hence the endpoint mortality is not included in the model. The analysis is based on a deterministic Markov model derived from Harding et al. with weekly cycles. The following assumptions are made: First, all patients start in a static health state with a non-healed but non-progressing venous leg ulcer. It is assumed in the model that patients can transition to a deteriorating health state where a wound is improving or the wound could progress. Additionally, venous leg ulcers could be healed from a progressed wound (i.e. improved wound), they could develop into a severe wound with complications (infections) to be treated in hospitals. The time frame for the analysis was fixed for one year and no re-occurence after healing was assumed to happen. Results: The cost-effectiveness analysis demonstrates health economic dominance of Cutimed® Sorbion® Sachet S being more effective and cost-saving against all analysed comparators. When using literature-based input values the incrementally higher healing rates for Cutimed® Sorbion® Sachet S are 11.04 months (versus Zetuvit Plus), 29.04 months (versus DryMax extra), 1.68 months (versus KerraMax Care) and 11.04 months (versus Eclypse). Cost savings per patient were 37.60£ (versus Zetuvit Plus), 171.68£ (versus DryMax extra), 3.13£ (versus KerraMax Care) and 43.63£ (versus Eclypse). Clinical benefits and cost savings are increasing when real life practice assumptions based on expert opinion are included. Conclusions: Based on the underlying health economic model, Cutimed® Sorbion® Sachet S is more effective and less costly than other comparative products in venous leg ulcers in the UK

Language and social/emotional problems identified at a universal developmental assessment at 30 months

Non peer reviewedPublisher PD

Extending programs with debug-related features, with application to hardware development

The capacity and programmability of reconfigurable hardware such as FPGAs has improved steadily over the years, but they do not readily provide any mechanisms for monitoring or debugging running programs. Such mechanisms need to be written into the program itself. This is done using ad hoc methods and primitive tools when compared to CPU programming. This complicates the programming and debugging of reconfigurable hardware. We introduce Program-hosted Directability (PhD), the extension of programs to interpret direction commands at runtime to enable debugging, monitoring and profiling. Normally in hardware development such features are fixed at compile time. We present a language of directing commands, specify its semantics in terms of a simple controller that is embedded with programs, and implement a prototype for directing network programs running in hardware. We show that this approach affords significant flexibility with low impact on hardware utilisation and performance.This work has received funding from the EPSRC NaaS grant EP/K034723/1, European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme 2014-2018 under the SSICLOPS (grant agreement No. 644866), the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship ECF-2016-289 and the Newton Trust