SmokeFree Sports Project Report

Children and young people are amongst the most vulnerable groups in society and are highly susceptible to smoking experimentation and addiction. In Liverpool, smoking prevalence is significantly higher than the UK average. Therefore early intervention strategies are required for smoking prevention and cessation. Research has found a negative association between smoking and physical activity. SmokeFree Sports aims to explore whether physical activity and sport can be used to promote the smoke free message to children and young people. SmokeFree Sports is an innovative multi-dimensional campaign that incorporates social-marketing strategies alongside the provision of sports and physical activities to: a) de-normalise smoking among youth b) empower youth to stay smoke free, and c) increase awareness of the dangers of smoking using positive messaging through the medium of sport and physical activity. This project is delivered across Liverpool and aims to reduce the prevalence of smoking and prevent the uptake of smoking in children and young people. The initiative, which is managed by Liverpool John Moores University in partnership with Liverpool PCT, employs a variety of strategies to promote and deliver the smoke free message to children and young people including a) training sports coaches and teachers to deliver the smoke free message, b) delivering SFS messages in schools and youth clubs through sport and physical activity, c) asking children to sign a pledge to be smoke free, d) support voluntary sports clubs to adopt a smoke free policy on their playing fields, e) encouraging organizations and individuals interested in health and sport to sign up to the SmokeFree Sports Charter and f) signposting children to smoking cessation services

The Stellar Content of Obscured Galactic Giant H II Regions IV.: NGC3576

We present deep, high angular resolution near-infrared images of the obscured Galactic Giant H II region NGC3576. Our images reach objects to ~3M_sun. We collected high signal-to-noise K-band spectra of eight of the brightest objects, some of which are affected by excess emission and some which follow a normal interstellar reddening law. None of them displayed photospheric features typical of massive OB type stars. This indicates that they are still enshrouded in their natal cocoons. The K-band brightest source (NGC3576 #48) shows CO 2.3 micron bandhead emission, and three others have the same CO feature in absorption. Three sources display spatially unresolved H_2 emission, suggesting dense shocked regions close to the stars. We conclude that the remarkable object NGC3576 #48 is an early-B/late-O star surrounded by a thick circumstellar disk. A number of other relatively bright cluster members also display excess emission in the K-band, indicative of reprocessing disks around massive stars (YSOs). Such emission appears common in other Galactic Giant H II regions we have surveyed. The IMF slope of the cluster, Gamma = -1.51, is consistent with Salpeter's distribution and similar to what has been observed in the Magellanic Cloud clusters and in the periphery of our Galaxy.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in A

HIV infection significantly reduces lipoprotein lipase which remains low after 6 months of antiretroviral therapy

Purpose of the study Fractional clearance rate of apolipoprotein B100-containing lipoproteins is reduced in HIV infection before and after antiretroviral (ARV) treatment [1]. We compared lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity and gene expression in HIV-positive subjects before and 6 months after ARV with HIV-negative controls. Methods Fasting blood post heparin total and hepatic lipase activity,adiponectin, leptin, insulin, glucose, and lipid measurementswere made in 32 HIV-infected and 15 HIVnegative controls. LPL was estimated by subtractinghepatic lipase from total lipase. Adiponectin, LPL andhormone sensitive lipase (HSL) gene expression weremeasured from iliac crest subcutaneous fat biopsies.Patients were tested before, and 6 months after randomisation to AZT/3TC (n = 15) or TDF/FTC (n = 17) with EFV.Between-group comparison was by Mann-Whitney andpaired samples by the Wilcoxon signed rank tests. Summary of results There were no differences in gender, ethnicity, baseline BMI, regional fat distribution (whole body DEXA) and visceral (VAT) and subcutaneous fat (SAT) measured by abdominal CT scans between controls and patients. Trunk fat/BMI ratio, VAT and VAT:SAT ratio significantly increased after 6-month ARV therapy (p = 0.01). There were no differences between groups in serum NEFA,HOMA and leptin levels. Selected other results are shown in Table 1. Conclusion Post heparin lipoprotein lipase activity is reduced in HIV and does not return to control levels after 6 months of ARV therapy. AZT-containing regimens are associated with a greater increase in LPL, LPL gene expression and plasma adiponectin than TDF

From meadows to milk to mucosa – adaptation of Streptococcus and Lactococcus species to their nutritional environments

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are indigenous to food-related habitats as well as associated with the mucosal surfaces of animals. The LAB family Streptococcaceae consists of the genera Lactococcus and Streptococcus. Members of the family include the industrially important species Lactococcus lactis, which has a long history safe use in the fermentative food industry, and the disease-causing streptococci Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococcus pyogenes. The central metabolic pathways of the Streptococcaceae family have been extensively studied because of their relevance in the industrial use of some species, as well as their influence on virulence of others. Recent developments in high-throughput proteomic and DNA-microarray techniques, in in vivo NMR studies, and importantly in whole-genome sequencing have resulted in new insights into the metabolism of the Streptococcaceae family. The development of cost-effective high-throughput sequencing has resulted in the publication of numerous whole-genome sequences of lactococcal and streptococcal species. Comparative genomic analysis of these closely related but environmentally diverse species provides insight into the evolution of this family of LAB and shows that the relatively small genomes of members of the Streptococcaceae family have been largely shaped by the nutritionally rich environments they inhabit.

Waste Corn as a Source of Inoculum of Aspergillus Flavus, the Cause of Aflatoxin

Aspergillus Flavus occurs worldwide in diverse habitats on a variety of plant and animal substrates. In the United States, contamination of susceptible crops particularly maize, peanuts, cottonseed, and tree nuts has become a major health concern because of the development of the carcinogen, aflatoxin. Extensive research into all aspects of the biology of A. flavus over the past twenty years still has left many unanswered but very basic questions about the ecology of this important organism

GASP. XII. The variety of physical processes occurring in a single galaxy group in formation

GAs Stripping Phenomena in galaxies with MUSE (GASP) is a program aimed at studying gas removal processes in nearby galaxies in different environments. We present the study of four galaxies that are part of the same group (z= 0.06359) and highlight the multitude of mechanisms affecting the spatially resolved properties of the group members. One galaxy is passive and shows a regular stellar kinematics. The analysis of its star formation history indicates that the quenching process lasted for a few Gyr and that the star formation declined throughout the disk in a similar way, consistent with strangulation. Another galaxy is characterised by a two-component stellar disk with an extended gas disk that formed a few 10^8 yr ago, most likely as a consequence of gas accretion. The third member is a spiral galaxy at the edges of the group, but embedded in a filament. We hypothesise that the compression exerted by the sparse intergalactic medium on the dense circumgalactic gas switches on star formation in a number of clouds surrounding the galaxy ("cosmic web enhancement"). Alternatively, also ram pressure stripping might be effective. Finally, the fourth galaxy is a spiral with a truncated ionised gas disk and an undisturbed stellar kinematics. An analytical model of the galaxy's restoring pressure, and its location and velocity within the cluster, suggest ram pressure is the most likely physical mechanism in action. This is the first optical evidence for stripping in groups.Comment: 19 page, 12 figure

The XXL Survey VIII: MUSE characterisation of intracluster light in a z∼\sim0.53 cluster of galaxies

Within a cluster, gravitational effects can lead to the removal of stars from their parent galaxies. Gas hydrodynamical effects can additionally strip gas and dust from galaxies. The properties of the ICL can therefore help constrain the physical processes at work in clusters by serving as a fossil record of the interaction history. The present study is designed to characterise this ICL in a ~10^14 M_odot and z~0.53 cluster of galaxies from imaging and spectroscopic points of view. By applying a wavelet-based method to CFHT Megacam and WIRCAM images, we detect significant quantities of diffuse light. These sources were then spectroscopically characterised with MUSE. MUSE data were also used to compute redshifts of 24 cluster galaxies and search for cluster substructures. An atypically large amount of ICL has been detected in this cluster. Part of the detected diffuse light has a very weak optical stellar component and apparently consists mainly of gas emission, while other diffuse light sources are clearly dominated by old stars. Furthermore, emission lines were detected in several places of diffuse light. Our spectral analysis shows that this emission likely originates from low-excitation parameter gas. The stellar contribution to the ICL is about 2.3x10^9 yrs old even though the ICL is not currently forming a large number of stars. On the other hand, the contribution of the gas emission to the ICL in the optical is much greater than the stellar contribution in some regions, but the gas density is likely too low to form stars. These observations favour ram pressure stripping, turbulent viscous stripping, or supernovae winds as the origin of the large amount of intracluster light. Since the cluster appears not to be in a major merging phase, we conclude that ram pressure stripping is the most plausible process that generates the observed ICL sources.Comment: Accepted in A&A, english enhanced, figure location different than in the A&A version due to different style files, shortened abstrac

GASP II. A MUSE view of extreme ram-pressure stripping along the line of sight: kinematics of the jellyfish galaxy JO201

This paper presents a spatially-resolved kinematic study of the jellyfish galaxy JO201, one of the most spectacular cases of ram-pressure stripping (RPS) in the GASP (GAs Stripping Phenomena in Galaxies with MUSE) survey. By studying the environment of JO201, we find that it is moving through the dense intra-cluster medium of Abell 85 at supersonic speeds along our line of sight, and that it is likely accompanied by a small group of galaxies. Given the density of the intra-cluster medium and the galaxy's mass, projected position and velocity within the cluster, we estimate that JO201 must so far have lost ~50% of its gas during infall via RPS. The MUSE data indeed reveal a smooth stellar disk, accompanied by large projected tails of ionised (Halpha) gas, composed of kinematically cold (velocity dispersion <40km/s) star-forming knots and very warm (>100km/s) diffuse emission which extend out to at least ~50 kpc from the galaxy centre. The ionised Halpha-emitting gas in the disk rotates with the stars out to ~6 kpc but in the disk outskirts becomes increasingly redshifted with respect to the (undisturbed) stellar disk. The observed disturbances are consistent with the presence of gas trailing behind the stellar component, resulting from intense face-on RPS happening along the line of sight. Our kinematic analysis is consistent with the estimated fraction of lost gas, and reveals that stripping of the disk happens outside-in, causing shock heating and gas compression in the stripped tails.Comment: ApJ, revised version after referee comments, 15 pages, 16 figures. The interactive version of Figure 9 can be viewed at web.oapd.inaf.it/gasp/publications.htm