Mapping the ionised gas around the luminous QSO HE 1029-1401: Evidence for minor merger events?

We present VIMOS integral field spectroscopy of the brightest radio-quiet QSO on the southern sky HE 1029-1401 at a redshift of z=0.086. Standard decomposition techniques for broad-band imaging are extended to integral field data in order to deblend the QSO and host emission. We perform a tentative analysis of the stellar continuum finding a young stellar population (<100Myr) or a featureless continuum embedded in an old stellar population (10Gyr) typical for a massive elliptical galaxy. The stellar velocity dispersion of sigma_*=320\pm90 km/s and the estimated black hole mass log(M_BH/M_sun)=8.7\pm0.3 are consistent with the local M_BH-sigma_* relation within the errors. For the first time we map the two-dimensional ionised gas distribution and the gas velocity field around HE 1029-1401. While the stellar host morphology is purely elliptical we find a highly structured distribution of ionised gas out to 16 kpc from the QSO. The gas is highly ionised solely by the QSO radiation and has a significantly lower metallicity than would be expected for the stellar mass of the host, indicating an external origin of the gas most likely due to minor mergers. We find a rotating gas disc around the QSO and a dispersion-dominated non-rotating gas component within the central 3 kpc. At larger distances the velocity field is heavily disturbed, which could be interpreted as another signature of past minor merger events. Alternatively, the arc-like structure seen in the ionised gas might also be indicative of a large-scale expanding bubble, centred on and possibly driven by the active nucleus.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in A&

Prevalence and correlates of frailty in an older rural African population:findings from the HAALSI cohort study

Background: Frailty is a key predictor of death and dependency, yet little is known about frailty in sub-Saharan Africa despite rapid population ageing. We describe the prevalence and correlates of phenotypic frailty using data from the Health and Aging in Africa: Longitudinal Studies of an INDEPTH Community cohort. Methods: We analysed data from rural South Africans aged 40 and over. We used low grip strength, slow gait speed, low body mass index, and combinations of self-reported exhaustion, decline in health, low physical activity and high self-reported sedentariness to derive nine variants of a phenotypic frailty score. Each frailty category was compared with self-reported health, subjective wellbeing, impairment in activities of daily living and the presence of multimorbidity. Cox regression analyses were used to compare subsequent all-cause mortality for non-frail (score 0), pre-frail (score 1–2) and frail participants (score 3+). Results: Five thousand fifty nine individuals (mean age 61.7 years, 2714 female) were included in the analyses. The nine frailty score variants yielded a range of frailty prevalences (5.4% to 13.2%). For all variants, rates were higher in women than in men, and rose steeply with age. Frailty was associated with worse subjective wellbeing, and worse self-reported health. Both prefrailty and frailty were associated with a higher risk of death during a mean 17 month follow up for all score variants (hazard ratios 1.29 to 2.41 for pre-frail vs non-frail; hazard ratios 2.65 to 8.91 for frail vs non-frail). Conclusions: Phenotypic frailty could be measured in this older South African population, and was associated with worse health, wellbeing and earlier death

Systemic AAV vectors for widespread and targeted gene delivery in rodents

We recently developed adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids to facilitate efficient and noninvasive gene transfer to the central and peripheral nervous systems. However, a detailed protocol for generating and systemically delivering novel AAV variants was not previously available. In this protocol, we describe how to produce and intravenously administer AAVs to adult mice to specifically label and/or genetically manipulate cells in the nervous system and organs, including the heart. The procedure comprises three separate stages: AAV production, intravenous delivery, and evaluation of transgene expression. The protocol spans 8 d, excluding the time required to assess gene expression, and can be readily adopted by researchers with basic molecular biology, cell culture, and animal work experience. We provide guidelines for experimental design and choice of the capsid, cargo, and viral dose appropriate for the experimental aims. The procedures outlined here are adaptable to diverse biomedical applications, from anatomical and functional mapping to gene expression, silencing, and editing

Mechanisms Involved in Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor-Induced Neurotransmitter Release from Sympathetic Nerve Terminals in the Mouse Vas Deferens

Prejunctional nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) amplify postganglionic sympathetic neurotransmission, and there are indications that intraterminal Ca2+ stores might be involved. However, the mechanisms by which nAChR activation stimulates neurotransmitter release at such junctions is unknown. Rapid local delivery (picospritzing) of the nAChR agonist epibatidine was combined with intracellular sharp microelectrode recording to monitor spontaneous and field-stimulation-evoked neurotransmitter release from sympathetic nerve terminals in the mouse isolated vas deferens. Locally applied epibatidine (1 µM) produced ‘epibatidine-induced depolarisations’ (EIDs) that were similar in shape to spontaneous excitatory junction potentials (SEJPs) and were abolished by nonselective nAChR antagonists and the purinergic desensitizing agonist α,β-methylene ATP. The amplitude distribution of EIDs was only slightly shifted towards lower amplitudes by the selective α7 nAChR antagonists α-bungarotoxin and methyllcaconitine, the voltage-gated Na+ channel blocker tetrodotoxin or by blocking voltage-gated Ca2+ channels with Cd2+. Lowering the extracellular Ca2+ concentration reduced the frequency of EIDs by 69%, but more surprisingly, the Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release blocker ryanodine greatly decreased the amplitude (by 41%) and the frequency of EIDs by 36%. Ryanodine had no effect on electrically-evoked neurotransmitter release, paired-pulse facilitation, SEJP frequency, SEJP amplitude or SEJP amplitude distribution. These results show that activation of non-α7 nAChRs on sympathetic postganglionic nerve terminals induces high-amplitude junctional potentials that are argued to represent multipacketed neurotransmitter release synchronized by intraterminal Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release, triggered by Ca2+ influx directly through the nAChR. This nAChR-induced neurotransmitter release can be targeted pharmacologically without affecting spontaneous or electrically-evoked neurotransmitter release

The limits of corporate social responsibility : Techniques of neutralization, stakeholder management and political CSR

Since scholarly interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has primarily focused on the synergies between social and economic performance, our understanding of how (and the conditions under which) companies use CSR to produce policy outcomes that work against public welfare has remained comparatively underdeveloped. In particular, little is known about how corporate decision-makers privately reconcile the conflicts between public and private interests, even though this is likely to be relevant to understanding the limitations of CSR as a means of aligning business activity with the broader public interest. This study addresses this issue using internal tobacco industry documents to explore British-American Tobacco’s (BAT) thinking on CSR and its effects on the company’s CSR Programme. The article presents a three-stage model of CSR development, based on Sykes and Matza’s theory of techniques of neutralization, which links together: how BAT managers made sense of the company’s declining political authority in the mid-1990s; how they subsequently justified the use of CSR as a tool of stakeholder management aimed at diffusing the political impact of public health advocates by breaking up political constituencies working towards evidence-based tobacco regulation; and how CSR works ideologically to shape stakeholders’ perceptions of the relative merits of competing approaches to tobacco control. Our analysis has three implications for research and practice. First, it underlines the importance of approaching corporate managers’ public comments on CSR critically and situating them in their economic, political and historical contexts. Second, it illustrates the importance of focusing on the political aims and effects of CSR. Third, by showing how CSR practices are used to stymie evidence-based government regulation, the article underlines the importance of highlighting and developing matrices to assess the negative social impacts of CSR

EXPORTS Measurements and Protocols for the NE Pacific Campaign

EXport Processes in the Ocean from Remote Sensing (EXPORTS) is a large-scale NASA-led and NSF co-funded field campaign that will provide critical information for quantifying the export and fate of upper ocean net primary production (NPP) using satellite information and state of the art technology

Harnessing the potential of ligninolytic enzymes for lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment

Abundant lignocellulosic biomass from various industries provides a great potential feedstock for the production of value-added products such as biofuel, animal feed, and paper pulping. However, low yield of sugar obtained from lignocellulosic hydrolysate is usually due to the presence of lignin that acts as a protective barrier for cellulose and thus restricts the accessibility of the enzyme to work on the cellulosic component. This review focuses on the significance of biological pretreatment specifically using ligninolytic enzymes as an alternative method apart from the conventional physical and chemical pretreatment. Different modes of biological pretreatment are discussed in this paper which is based on (i) fungal pretreatment where fungi mycelia colonise and directly attack the substrate by releasing ligninolytic enzymes and (ii) enzymatic pretreatment using ligninolytic enzymes to counter the drawbacks of fungal pretreatment. This review also discusses the important factors of biological pretreatment using ligninolytic enzymes such as nature of the lignocellulosic biomass, pH, temperature, presence of mediator, oxygen, and surfactant during the biodelignification process

Measurement of atmospheric neutrino mixing with improved IceCube DeepCore calibration and data processing

We describe a new data sample of IceCube DeepCore and report on the latest measurement of atmospheric neutrino oscillations obtained with data recorded between 2011–2019. The sample includes significant improvements in data calibration, detector simulation, and data processing, and the analysis benefits from a sophisticated treatment of systematic uncertainties, with significantly greater level of detail since our last study. By measuring the relative fluxes of neutrino flavors as a function of their reconstructed energies and arrival directions we constrain the atmospheric neutrino mixing parameters to be sin2θ23=0.51±0.05 and Δm232=2.41±0.07×10−3  eV2, assuming a normal mass ordering. The errors include both statistical and systematic uncertainties. The resulting 40% reduction in the error of both parameters with respect to our previous result makes this the most precise measurement of oscillation parameters using atmospheric neutrinos. Our results are also compatible and complementary to those obtained using neutrino beams from accelerators, which are obtained at lower neutrino energies and are subject to different sources of uncertainties

Ciliopathies: an expanding disease spectrum

Ciliopathies comprise a group of disorders associated with genetic mutations encoding defective proteins, which result in either abnormal formation or function of cilia. As cilia are a component of almost all vertebrate cells, cilia dysfunction can manifest as a constellation of features that include characteristically, retinal degeneration, renal disease and cerebral anomalies. Additional manifestations include congenital fibrocystic diseases of the liver, diabetes, obesity and skeletal dysplasias. Ciliopathic features have been associated with mutations in over 40 genes to date. However, with over 1,000 polypeptides currently identified within the ciliary proteome, several other disorders associated with this constellation of clinical features will likely be ascribed to mutations in other ciliary genes. The mechanisms underlying many of the disease phenotypes associated with ciliary dysfunction have yet to be fully elucidated. Several elegant studies have crucially demonstrated the dynamic ciliary localisation of components of the Hedgehog and Wnt signalling pathways during signal transduction. Given the critical role of the cilium in transducing “outside-in” signals, it is not surprising therefore, that the disease phenotypes consequent to ciliary dysfunction are a manifestation of aberrant signal transduction. Further investigation is now needed to explore the developmental and physiological roles of aberrant signal transduction in the manifestation of ciliopathy phenotypes. Utilisation of conditional and inducible murine models to delete or overexpress individual ciliary genes in a spatiotemporal and organ/cell-specific manner should help clarify some of the functional roles of ciliary proteins in the manifestation of phenotypic features

Measurement of Atmospheric Neutrino Mixing with Improved IceCube DeepCore Calibration and Data Processing

We describe a new data sample of IceCube DeepCore and report on the latest measurement of atmospheric neutrino oscillations obtained with data recorded between 2011-2019. The sample includes significant improvements in data calibration, detector simulation, and data processing, and the analysis benefits from a detailed treatment of systematic uncertainties, with significantly higher level of detail since our last study. By measuring the relative fluxes of neutrino flavors as a function of their reconstructed energies and arrival directions we constrain the atmospheric neutrino mixing parameters to be $\sin^2\theta_{23} = 0.51\pm 0.05$ and $\Delta m^2_{32} = 2.41\pm0.07\times 10^{-3}\mathrm{eV}^2$, assuming a normal mass ordering. The resulting 40\% reduction in the error of both parameters with respect to our previous result makes this the most precise measurement of oscillation parameters using atmospheric neutrinos. Our results are also compatible and complementary to those obtained using neutrino beams from accelerators, which are obtained at lower neutrino energies and are subject to different sources of uncertainties