Baby Steps - a structured group education programme with accompanying mobile web application designed to promote physical activity in women with a history of gestational diabetes: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

Background A diagnosis of gestational diabetes (GDM) is associated with an over sevenfold increase in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D), while among parous women with T2D, up to 30% have a history of GDM. Lifestyle interventions have been shown to reduce the risk of incident T2D in adults with impaired glucose tolerance, including in women with a history of GDM. The aim of this study is to establish whether a group self-management education programme, supported by a mobile web application, can improve levels of physical activity at 12 months in women who have had GDM. Methods The study is a randomised controlled trial with follow-up at 6 and 12 months. Primary outcome is change in objectively measured average daily physical activity at 12 months. Secondary outcomes include lipid profile, blood pressure, glycated haemoglobin, obesity, smoking and alcohol status, self-reported physical activity, anxiety, depression and quality of life. Participants are recruited from maternity and diabetes departments in hospital trusts in two sites in the UK. Women aged > 18 years, with a diagnosis of GDM during any pregnancy in the previous 60 months are eligible. Participants need to have a good understanding of written and verbal English, be able to give informed consent and have access to a smart-phone. Women who are pregnant or have type 1 or type 2 diabetes are not eligible. In total, 290 participants will be recruited and randomly assigned, with stratification for age and ethnicity, to either the control group, receiving usual care, or the intervention group who are invited to participate in the Baby Steps programme. This comprises a group education programme and access to a mobile web application which provides an education component and interacts with a wrist-worn activity monitor providing automated messages, setting challenges and encouraging motivation. Discussion If effective, the Baby Steps programme could be translated into a primary care-based intervention that women with GDM are referred to in the postnatal period. This could help them make lifestyle changes that could reduce their future risk of T2D. Trial registration ISRCTN, ISRCTN17299860. Registered on 5 April 2017

Making sense of urban food festivals: cultural regeneration, disorder and hospitable cities

This article examines urban food festivals, and in doing so it carries out a case study of Nottingham’s Food and Drink Festival (NFDF). It contends that such festivals need to be understood in relation to local contexts, such as the reputation for alcohol-related disorder associated with Nottingham’s night-time economy. Rather than being used to attract tourism, NFDF was primarily directed at existing residents of Nottingham, where it sought to produce particular kinds of guests who would be able to invest in the city’s wider regeneration. Here, the article draws on recent academic work on hospitality in demonstrating how NFDF attempted to rebrand the city centre as a more hospitable place. It concludes by showing how visitors to NFDF exhibited a sense of generosity and pride, and argues that the meaning of urban food festivals cannot therefore simply be reduced to the logic of neoliberal governance

Asymmetric dimethylarginine enables depolarizing spikes and vasospasm in mesenteric and coronary resistance arteries

BACKGROUND: Increased vasoreactivity due to reduced endothelial NO bioavailability is an underlying feature of cardiovascular disease, including hypertension. In small resistance arteries, declining NO enhances vascular smooth muscle (VSM) reactivity partly by enabling rapid depolarizing Ca2+-based spikes that underlie vasospasm. The endogenous NO synthase inhibitor asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) is metabolized by DDAH1 (dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase 1) and elevated in cardiovascular disease. We hypothesized ADMA might enable VSM spikes and vasospasm by reducing NO bioavailability, which is opposed by DDAH1 activity and L-arginine. METHODS: Rat isolated small mesenteric arteries and myogenic rat-isolated intraseptal coronary arteries (RCA) were studied using myography, VSM intracellular recording, Ca2+ imaging, and DDAH1 immunolabeling. Exogenous ADMA was used to inhibit NO synthase and a selective DDAH1 inhibitor, NG-(2-methoxyethyl) arginine, to assess the functional impact of ADMA metabolism. RESULTS: ADMA enhanced rat-isolated small mesenteric arteries vasoreactivity to the α1-adrenoceptor agonist, phenylephrine by enabling T-type voltage-gated calcium channel-dependent depolarizing spikes. However, some endothelium-dependent NO-vasorelaxation remained, which was sensitive to DDAH1-inhibition with NG-(2-methoxyethyl) arginine. In myogenically active RCA, ADMA alone stimulated depolarizing Ca2+ spikes and marked vasoconstriction, while NO vasorelaxation was abolished. DDAH1 expression was greater in rat-isolated small mesenteric arteries endothelium compared with RCA, but low in VSM of both arteries. L-arginine prevented depolarizing spikes and protected NO-vasorelaxation in rat-isolated small mesenteric artery and RCA. CONCLUSIONS: ADMA increases VSM electrical excitability enhancing vasoreactivity. Endothelial DDAH1 reduces this effect, and low levels of DDAH1 in RCAs may render them susceptible to endothelial dysfunction contributing to vasospasm, changes opposed by L-arginine

A contribution to the critical theory of organisations (NEO) human relations management theory, ideology and subjectivity

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN024161 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

PHOTOCURRENT MEASUREMENTS OF ELECTRIC-FIELD-INDUCED CARRIER ENERGY SHIFTS AND TUNNELLING IN IN1-XGAXAS/INP QUANTUM WELLS

The authors have measured photocurrent in In1-xGa xAs/InP quantum well samples as a function of temperature and applied electric field in order to study the escape of carriers initially photo-excited into the wells. For fields 8*104 V cm-1, there is suppression of the excitonic features in the spectrum which is attributed to a low exciton ionisation rate which causes carriers to recombine within the well rather than to undergo perpendicular transport. At higher fields, the authors observe strong Stark shifts of the excitons. They observe clear evidence of carrier tunnelling at low temperatures, and at higher temperatures they detect phonon-assisted tunnelling. The experimental results are shown to be in good agreement with the predictions of an exact theoretical calculation

The isolation of alpha and flavi viruses in the Northern Territory, 1982-85

Over 180,000 mosquitoes were collected in the Top End of the Northern Territory between January 1982 and June 1985, and tested for the presence of arbo viruses. Thirty-one isolates of alpha and flavi virus were made and positive identifications included fifteen Ross River virus, eleven Sindbis virus and three Kunjin virus. The remaining two flavi viruses are unknown but were not Kunjin or Murray Valley Encephalitis. The isolations were from four species of mosquitoes, representing 124,756 individuals of the total mosquitoes collected. Aedes normanensis yielded ten isolates of Ross River virus and one isolate of Sindbis, Aedes notoscriptus yielded one isolate of Ross River, Aedes vigilax yielded one of Ross River, while Culex annulirostris yielded ten isolates of Sindbis, one of Ross River and three of Kunjin. These isolations add significantly to the number of isolations of toga viruses from mosquitoes in the Northern Territory