Towards using NMR to screen for spoiled tomatoes stored in 1,000 L, aseptically sealed, metal-lined totes.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is used to track factory relevant tomato paste spoilage. It was found that spoilage in tomato paste test samples leads to longer spin lattice relaxation times T1 using a conventional low magnetic field NMR system. The increase in T1 value for contaminated samples over a five day room temperature exposure period prompted the work to be extended to the study of industry standard, 1,000 L, non-ferrous, metal-lined totes. NMR signals and T1 values were recovered from a large format container with a single-sided NMR sensor. The results of this work suggest that a handheld NMR device can be used to study tomato paste spoilage in factory process environments

Models of the ICM with Heating and Cooling: Explaining the Global and Structural X-ray Properties of Clusters

(Abridged) Theoretical models that include only gravitationally-driven processes fail to match the observed mean X-ray properties of clusters. As a result, there has recently been increased interest in models in which either radiative cooling or entropy injection play a central role in mediating the properties of the intracluster medium. Both sets of models give reasonable fits to the mean properties of clusters, but cooling only models result in fractions of cold baryons in excess of observationally established limits and the simplest entropy injection models do not treat the "cooling core" structure present in many clusters and cannot account for entropy profiles revealed by recent X-ray observations. We consider models that marry radiative cooling with entropy injection, and confront model predictions for the global and structural properties of massive clusters with the latest X-ray data. The models successfully and simultaneously reproduce the observed L-T and L-M relations, yield detailed entropy, surface brightness, and temperature profiles in excellent agreement with observations, and predict a cooled gas fraction that is consistent with observational constraints. The model also provides a possible explanation for the significant intrinsic scatter present in the L-T and L-M relations and provides a natural way of distinguishing between clusters classically identified as "cooling flow" clusters and dynamically relaxed "non-cooling flow" clusters. The former correspond to systems that had only mild levels (< 300 keV cm^2) of entropy injection, while the latter are identified as systems that had much higher entropy injection. This is borne out by the entropy profiles derived from Chandra and XMM-Newton.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Effects of negative energy balance on liver gene and protein expression during the early postpartum period and its impacts on dairy cow fertility

End of project reportNegative energy balance (NEB) is a severe metabolic affecting high yielding dairy cows early post partum with both concurrent and latent negative effects on cow fertility as well as on milk production and cow health. The seasonal nature of Irish dairy production necessitates high cow fertility and a compact spring calving pattern in order to maximise grass utilisation. Poor dairy cow reproductive performance currently costs the Irish cattle industry in excess of €400 million annually. High milk yields have been associated with lower reproductive efficiency, and it has been suggested that this effect is probably mediated through its effects on the energy balance of the cow during lactation. The modern high genetic merit dairy cow prioritises nutrient supply towards milk production in early lactation and this demand takes precedence over the provision of optimal conditions for reproduction. In this study we used the bovine Affymetrix 23,000 gene microarray, which contains the most comprehensive set of bovine genes to be assembled and provides a means of investigating the modifying influences of energy balance on liver gene expression. Cows in severe negative energy balance (SNEB) in early lactation showed altered hepatic gene expression in metabolic processes as well as a down regulation of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system, where insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), growth hormone receptor variant 1A (GHR1A) and insulin-like growth factor binding protein-acid labile subunit (IGFBP-ALS) were down regulated compared to the cows in the moderate negative energy balance MNEB group, consistent with a five-fold reduction in systemic concentrations of IGF1 in the SNEB group.Cows in SNEB showed elevated expression of key genes involved in the inflammatory response such as interleukin-8 (IL-8). There was a down regulation of genes involved in cellular growth in SNEB cows and moreover a negative regulator of cellular proliferation (HGFIN) was up regulated in SNEB cows, which is likely to compromise adaptation and recovery from NEB. The puma method of analysis revealed that 417 genes were differentially regulated by EB (P<0.05), of these genes 190 were up-regulated while 227 were down-regulated, with 405 genes having known biological functions. From Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA), lipid catabolism was found to be the process most affected by differences in EB status

Demonstrating Diversity in Star Formation Histories with the CSI Survey

We present coarse but robust star formation histories (SFHs) derived from spectro-photometric data of the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS Survey, for 22,494 galaxies at 0.3<z<0.9 with stellar masses of 10^9 Msun to 10^12 Msun. Our study moves beyond "average" SFHs and distribution functions of specific star formation rates (sSFRs) to individually measured SFHs for tens of thousands of galaxies. By comparing star formation rates (SFRs) with timescales of 10^10, 10^9, and 10^8 years, we find a wide diversity of SFHs: 'old galaxies' that formed most or all of their stars early; galaxies that formed stars with declining or constant SFRs over a Hubble time, and genuinely 'young galaxies' that formed most of their stars since z=1. This sequence is one of decreasing stellar mass, but, remarkably, each type is found over a mass range of a factor of 10. Conversely, galaxies at any given mass follow a wide range of SFHs, leading us to conclude that: (1) halo mass does not uniquely determine SFHs; (2) there is no 'typical' evolutionary track; and (3) "abundance matching" has limitations as a tool for inferring physics. Our observations imply that SFHs are set at an early epoch, and that--for most galaxies--the decline and cessation of star formation occurs over a Hubble-time, without distinct "quenching" events. SFH diversity is inconsistent with models where galaxy mass, at any given epoch, grows simply along relations between SFR and stellar mass, but is consistent with a 2-parameter lognormal form, lending credence to this model from a new and independent perspective.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures; accepted by ApJ; version 2 - no substantive changes; clarifications and correction