Epidemiological studies of samonella and campylobacter in poultry

Salmonella and Campylobacter are major human bacterial enteropathogens and the reported incidence is increasing in Great Britain despite efforts to control the problem. Most cases of disease are acquired by the ingestion of contaminated food and poultry are primary sources of infection. It is essential to reduce the carriage of these bacteria by poultry and the work contained within this thesis contributes to the understanding of the epidemiology of these infections in British poultry flocks. This knowledge is fundamental to the development of appropriate preventive measures. A national case control study of Salmonella enteritidis PT4 infection in poultry breeding flocks identified major risk factors for infection. Both the feed and the farm environment, including animal reservoirs, were shown to be sources of infection but there was no evidence of vertical transmission of infection from grandparent flocks. The most important factors that are likely to reduce the risk of infection in breeding flocks are thorough cleansing and disinfection of sites following a salmonella incident, strict hygiene measures between the site and the hatchery, effective isolation of the poultry unit from other domestic species and the use of heat treated poultry feed. Epidemiological studies of Campylobacter infection in broiler flocks revealed that Campylobacter jejuni infection was widespread within the British broiler industry. The national prevalence survey reported that at 5 weeks of age 45% of flocks were colonised (95% confidence limits: 36.9-53.1%) and a longitudinal study showed that this increased to more than 90% by 7 weeks of age. The environment, including contaminated drinking systems, appeared to be the main reservoir of Campylobacter infection for broiler flocks and the use of strict hygiene barriers at the entrances to broiler houses was shown to reduce the risk of infection. Interventions aimed at improving hygiene standards on sites are thus likely to reduce the prevalence of Campylobacter infection at slaughter

Modelling of food transportation systems - a review

In 2002, over a million refrigerated road vehicles, 400,000 refrigerated containers and many thousands of other forms of refrigerated transport systems are used to distribute chilled and frozen foods throughout the world. All these transportation systems are expected to maintain the temperature of the food within close limits to ensure its optimum safety and high quality shelf life. Increasingly, modelling is being used to aid the design and optimisation of food refrigeration systems. Much of this effort has concentrated on the modelling of refrigeration processes that change the temperature of the food such as chilling, freezing and thawing. The purpose of a refrigerated transport system is to maintain the temperature of the food and appears to have attracted less attention from modellers. This paper reviews the work that has been carried out specifically on the modelling of food temperature, microbial growth and other parameters in the transportation of food. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd and IIR

Application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling to retail display and storage of food

This paper describes the work that has been conducted at the University of Bristol on the use of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modelling to aid the design of retail display cabinets and storage rooms

Lithium Prescribing during Pregnancy: A UK Primary Care Database Study

Women taking lithium must decide whether to continue the medication if they conceive or plan to conceive. Little is known about the extent of prescribing of lithium during pregnancy

"Blue energy" from ion adsorption and electrode charging in sea- and river water

A huge amount of entropy is produced at places where fresh water and seawater mix, for example at river mouths. This mixing process is a potentially enormous source of sustainable energy, provided it is harnessed properly, for instance by a cyclic charging and discharging process of porous electrodes immersed in salt and fresh water, respectively [D. Brogioli, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 058501 (2009)]. Here we employ a modified Poisson-Boltzmann free-energy density functional to calculate the ionic adsorption and desorption onto and from the charged electrodes, from which the electric work of a cycle is deduced. We propose optimal (most efficient) cycles for two given salt baths involving two canonical and two grand-canonical (dis)charging paths, in analogy to the well-known Carnot cycle for heat-to-work conversion from two heat baths involving two isothermal and two adiabatic paths. We also suggest a slightly modified cycle which can be applied in cases that the stream of fresh water is limited.Comment: 7 Figure

MRI-derived arterial input functions for PET kinetic modelling in rats

Simultaneous PET–MR acquisition provides the high temporal and spatial resolution of MRI with the specificity of PET. In PET, accurate modelling of physiological function in vivo requires the time-activity curve of tracer in blood plasma, known as the arterial input function (AIF). As the gold standard method of blood sampling is inherently prohibitive in the small animal case, here we discuss how we prepare to rapidly sample MRI signals from gadolinium-doped tracer to obtain the tracer input functions from a simultaneous PET-MR measurement. ΔR2⁎ measurements taken from EPI images were used to obtain first pass bolus AIFs in the rat brain from DSC-MRI datasets of 5 rats. AIFs obtained using our automatic algorithm were found to be consistent between animals and compared well with manual methods without need for a priori voxel selection. A variable flip angle FLASH sequence used for T1 mapping was successfully tested in a phantom study, providing accurate measurements of Gd concentration.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org10.1016/j.nima.2012.08.08

BEATLES HERITAGE IN LIVERPOOL AND ITS ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL SECTOR IMPACT: A REPORT FOR LIVERPOOL CITY COUNCIL

This report and the underlying research were undertaken by three research institutes based in the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University: the Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool; the European Institute of Urban Affairs at Liverpool John Moores University; and the Institute of Cultural Capital, a department jointly supported by both universities, established after the 2008 European Capital of Culture. The report is based on interviews with a snowball sample of the Beatles industry in Liverpool across Core, Semiperiphery and Periphery stakeholders. Interviews were supplemented by data from literature, prior work and regional economic data

P,P-Bis[4-(dimethylamino)phenyl]-N,N-bis(propan-2-yl)phosphinic amide

The molecular structure of the title compound, C22H 34N3OP, adopts a distorted tetrahedral geometry at the P atom, with the most noticeable distortion being for the O - P - N angle [117.53 (10)°]. An effective cone angle of 187° was calculated for the compound. In the crystal, weak C - H⋯O interactions create infinite chains along [100], whereas C - H⋯π interactions propagating in [001] generate a herringbone motif

Rac-[2-(Dicyclohexylphosphanyl)phenyl](phenyl)phosphinic diisopropylamide-borane hemihydrate

In the title compound, C30H48BNOP2·0.5H2O, the water molecule is disordered about an inversion centre. Both phosphorus atoms shows distortions in their tetrahedral environments with the cyclohexyl substituents disordered over two orientations in a 0.851 (3):0.149 (3) occupancy ratio. The crystal structure is assembled via O - H⋯O interactions between pairs of phosphininc amide molecules and water molecules, creating hydrogen-bonded dimers with graph-set R 2 4(8) along [001]. Weak C - H⋯O interactions are also observed