Being a non-drinking student: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

Recent research suggests that safer student alcohol consumption might be assisted by understanding how social occasions are managed by non-drinkers. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with five 19-22 year old non-drinking English undergraduates were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). We present five inter-linked themes: ‘living with challenges to non drinking’; ‘seeing what goes on in drinking environments’; ‘dealing with conversations about non-drinking (‘making excuses vs. coming out’)’; ‘knowing which friends care about you’; and ‘the importance of withholding “legroom” for peer pressure’. Participants felt under persistent peer scrutiny (as a form of peer pressure) and could feel alienated in drinking environments. Talking about non-drinking was characterised by whether to ‘come out’ (as a non-drinker) or ‘fake it’ (e.g., ‘I’m on antibiotics’). Loyal friendships were reported as particularly important in this context. The decision not to drink was experienced as providing a successful buffer to peer pressure for former drinkers. Our findings unsettle traditional health promotion campaigns which advocate moderate drinking among students without always suggesting how it might be most successfully accomplished, and offer tentative guidance on how non-drinking during specific social occasions might be managed more successfully. Findings are discussed in relation to extant literature and future research directions are suggested

The Larson-Tinsley Effect in the UV: Interacting vs. `Normal' Spiral Galaxies

We compare the UV-optical colors of a well-defined set of optically-selected pre-merger interacting galaxy pairs with those of normal spirals. The shorter wavelength colors show a larger dispersion for the interacting galaxies than for the spirals. This result can best be explained by higher star formation rates on average in the interacting galaxies, combined with higher extinctions on average. This is consistent with earlier studies, that found that the star formation in interacting galaxies tends to be more centrally concentrated than in normal spirals, perhaps due to gas being driven into the center by the interaction. As noted in earlier studies, there is a large variation from galaxy to galaxy in the implied star formation rates of the interacting galaxies, with some galaxies having enhanced rates but others being fairly quiescent.Comment: To appear in the Astronomical Journal. 22 pages, 22 figure

Star Clusters in M31: V. Internal Dynamical Trends: Some Troublesome, Some Reassuring

We present internal velocity dispersions and precise radial velocities for 200 globular clusters (GCs) in M31 that are derived using new high-resolution spectra from MMT/Hectochelle. Of these, 163 also have King model structural parameters that allow us to estimate their mass-to-light ratios. This is, by far, the largest such dataset available for any galaxy, including the Milky Way. These data strongly confirm earlier suggestions that the optical and near-infrared mass-to-light ratios of M31 GCs decline with increasing metallicity. This behavior is the opposite of that predicted by stellar population models for a standard initial mass function. We show that this phenomenon does not appear to be caused by standard dynamical evolution. A shallower mass function for metal-rich GCs (with dN/dM ~ M^-0.8 to M^-1.3 below one solar mass) can explain the bulk of extant observations. We also observe a consistent, monotonic correlation between mass-to-light ratio and cluster mass. This correlation, in contrast to the correlation with metallicity, is well-explained by the accepted model of dynamical evolution of GCs through mass segregation and the preferential loss of low-mass stars, and these data are among the best available to constrain this process.Comment: AJ in press. 11 pages, 7 figures (not including tables) in emulate forma

Placental Malaria: From Infection to Malfunction

Malaria during pregnancy is a major factor in infant morbidity and mortality. In this issue of Cell Host and Microbe, Conroy et al. (2013) propose that C5a, a product of complement cascade activation, counteracts the placental vascular remodeling response induced by Plasmodium infection and contributes to fetal growth restriction

Linking haloes to galaxies: how many halo properties are needed?

Recent studies emphasize that an empirical relation between the stellar mass of galaxies and the mass of their host dark matter subhaloes can predict the clustering of galaxies and its evolution with cosmic time. In this paper we study the assumptions made by this methodology using a semi-analytical model (SAM). To this end, we randomly swap between the locations of model galaxies within a narrow range of subhalo mass (M_infall). We find that shuffled samples of galaxies have different auto-correlation functions in comparison with the original model galaxies. This difference is significant even if central and satellite galaxies are allowed to follow a different relation between M_infall and stellar mass, and can reach a factor of 2 for massive galaxies at redshift zero. We analyze three features within SAMs that contribute to this effect: a) The relation between stellar mass and subhalo mass evolves with redshift for central galaxies, affecting satellite galaxies at the time of infall. b) The stellar mass of galaxies falling into groups and clusters at high redshift is different from the mass of central galaxies at the same time. c) The stellar mass growth for satellite galaxies after infall can be significant and depends on the infall redshift and the group mass. We show that the above is true for differing SAMs, and that the effect is sensitive to the treatment of dynamical friction and stripping of gas in satellite galaxies. We find that by using the FoF group mass at redshift zero in addition to M_infall, an empirical model is able to accurately reproduce the clustering properties of galaxies. On the other hand, using the infall redshift as a second parameter does not yield as good results because it is less correlated with stellar mass. Our analysis indicates that environmental processes are important for modeling the clustering and abundance of galaxies. (Abridged)Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, minor changes from version

The SAVI Report: Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland. Executive Summary

The SAVI Report: Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland. Executive Summar

The Luminosity Profiles of Brightest Cluster Galaxies

(Abridged) We have derived detailed R band luminosity profiles and structural parameters for a total of 430 brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), down to a limiting surface brightness of 24.5 mag/arcsec^2. Light profiles were initially fitted with a Sersic's R^(1/n) model, but we found that 205 (~48) BCGs require a double component model to accurately match their light profiles. The best fit for these 205 galaxies is an inner Sersic model, with indices n~1-7, plus an outer exponential component. Thus, we establish the existence of two categories of the BCGs luminosity profiles: single and double component profiles. We found that double profile BCGs are brighter ~0.2 mag than single profile BCG. In fact, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test applied to these subsamples indicates that they have different total magnitude distributions, with mean values M_R=-23.8 +/- 0.6 mag for single profile BCGs and M_R=-24.0 +/- 0.5 mag for double profile BCGs. We find that partial luminosities for both subsamples are indistinguishable up to r = 15 kpc, while for r > 20 kpc the luminosities we obtain are on average 0.2 mag brighter for double profile BCGs. This result indicates that extra-light for double profile BCGs does not come from the inner region but from the outer regions of these galaxies. The best fit slope of the Kormendy relation for the whole sample is a = 3.13 +/- 0.04$. However, when fitted separately, single and double profile BCGs show different slopes: a_(single) = 3.29 +/- 0.06 and a_(double)= 2.79 +/- 0.08. On the other hand, we did not find differences between these two BCGs categories when we compared global cluster properties such as the BCG-projected position relative to the cluster X-ray center emission, X-ray luminosity, or BCG orientation with respect to the cluster position angle.Comment: August 2011 issue of ApJS, volume 195, 15 http://iopscience.iop.org/0067-0049/195/2/1

Gender differences in the presentation and management of acute coronary syndromes: a national sample of 1365 admissions

Background Gender differences in presentation and management of acute coronary syndromes (ACS) are well established internationally. This study investigated differences in a national Irish sample. Design Cross-sectional survey. Methods All centres (n= 39) admitting cardiac patients to intensive/coronary care provided information on 25 consecutive acute myocardial infarction patients and other ACS patients admitted concurrently (n= 1365 episodes). Patient data was analyzed in terms of those with prior ACS/revascularization, and those without. Results Men with prior established ACS/revascularization were twice as likely to have received revascularization procedures (coronary artery bypass graft or percutaneous coronary intervention) prior to admission when controlling for age, total cholesterol and insurance status [odds ratio (OR) 1.97, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.18–3.29, P = 0.011]. No gender differences were seen in acute-phase reperfusion (OR 0.96, 95% CI 0.76–1.24, P \u3e0.05) or antiplatelet therapy (OR 0.99, 95% CI 0.69–1.41, P \u3e 0.05). For patients with prior ACS/revascularization, men were twice as likely to receive statins on discharge after adjustment for age and total cholesterol (OR 1.94, 95% CI 1.02–3.71, P= 0.045). Conclusions Women were treated differently to men. Fewer women with a positive history of ACS received revascularization prior to current admission and fewer women were prescribed lipid-lowering medications on discharge. Acute phase hospital treatment was not gender determined. These findings have implications for secondary prevention in Ireland

Dust attenuation in disk-dominated galaxies: evidence for the 2175A dust feature

The attenuation of starlight by interstellar dust is investigated in a sample of low redshift, disk-dominated star-forming galaxies using photometry from GALEX and SDSS. By considering broadband colors as a function of galaxy inclination we are able to confidently separate trends arising from increasing dust opacity from possible differences in stellar populations, since stellar populations do not correlate with inclination. All commonly employed dust attenuation curves (such as the Calzetti curve for starbursts, or a power-law curve) provide poor fits to the ultraviolet colors for moderately and highly inclined galaxies. This conclusion rests on the fact that the average FUV-NUV color varies little from face-on to edge-on galaxies, while other colors such as NUV-u and u-r vary strongly with inclination. After considering a number of model variations, we are led to speculate that the presence of the strong dust extinction feature at 2175A seen in the Milky Way (MW) extinction curve is responsible for the observed trends. Independent of our interpretation, these results imply that the modeling of dust attenuation in the ultraviolet is significantly more complicated than traditionally assumed. These results also imply a very weak dependence of the FUV-NUV color on total FUV attenuation, and we conclude from this that it is extremely difficult to use only the observed UV spectral slope to infer the total UV dust attenuation, as is commonly done. We propose several simple tests that might finally identify the grain population responsible for the 2175A feature.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures. ApJ accepte