Factor markets in England before the Black Death

Modern English factor markets originated during the two centuries of active commercialization that preceded the Black Death. An active labour market was established by the late twelfth century. Evolution of a land market followed the legal reforms of the 1170s and 1180s, which created legally secure and defensible property rights in land. These rights stimulated growth of a capital market, since land became a security against which credit could be obtained. Nevertheless, none of these nascent factor markets functioned unconstrained and each became embedded in legal, tenurial, and institutional complexities and rigidities which it took later generations centuries to reform.

Sonic Geography, Place and Race in the Formation of Local Identity: Liverpool and Scousers

The concept of identity has attracted significant academic attention. This article unpacks what constitutes the Scouse identity, how it is constructed and its different dimensions, with particular reference to place, phonology and race. Its novelty lies in developing the underused concept of “sonic geography” to examine the extent to which sound, for example a distinctive accent and/or dialect, affects the construction of local identity. Empirically this is conducted through a detailed analysis of the Scouse, or Liverpudlian, identity. The article also deploys the concept of “sonic exclusion” to examine the role a distinguishing vernacular plays in shaping local identity and the extent to which it determines “who is in” and “who is out” as a Scouser. The conclusion is that an effective understanding of a Scouser is not only spatial – someone born in Liverpool – because the sonoric landscape of spoken Scouse, and thereby Scouse identity, extends beyond the contemporary political and geographic boundaries of the City of Liverpool.

Development of a novel PCR assay for the identification of the black yeast, Exophiala (Wangiella) dermatitidis from adult patients with cystic fibrosis (CF)

Cystic fibrosis (CF) patients may suffer increased morbidity and mortality through colonisation, allergy and invasive infection from fungi. The black yeast, Exophiala dermatitidis (synonym Wangiella dermatitidis) has been found with increasing frequency in sputum specimens of CF patients, with reported isolation rates ranging from 1.1 to 15.7%. At present, no diagnostic PCR exists to aid with the clinical laboratory detection and identification of this organism. A novel species-specific PCR-based assay was developed for the detection of E. dermatitidis, based on employment of rDNA operons and interspacer (ITS) regions between these rDNA operons. Two novel primers, (designated ExdF & ExdR) were designed in silico with the aid of computer-aided alignment software and with the alignment of multiple species of Exophiala, as well as with other commonly described yeasts and filamentous fungi within CF sputum, including Candida. Aspergillus and Scedosporium. An amplicon of approximately 455 by was generated, spanning the partial ITS I region - the complete 5.8S rDNA region - partial ITS2 region, employing ExdF (forward primer [16-mer], 5'-CCG CCT ATT CAG GTC C-3' and ExdR (reverse primer [16-mer], 5'-TCT CTC CCA CTC CCG C-3', was employed and optimised on extracted genomic DNA from a well characterised culture of E. dermatitidis, as well as with high quality genomic DNA template from a further 16 unrelated fungi, including Candida albicans, C. dubliniensis, C. parapsilosis, C. glabrata, Scedosporium apiospermum, Penicillium sp., Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus versicolor, Pichia guilliermondii, Rhodotorula sp., Trichosporon sp., Aureobasidium pullulans, Fusarium sp., Mucor hiemalis, Bionectria ochroleuca, Gibberella pulicaris. Results demonstrated that only DNA from E. dermatitidis gave an amplification product of the expected sire, whilst none of the other fungi were amplifiable. Subsequent employment of this primer pair detected this yeast from mycological cultures from 2/50 (4%) adult CF patients. These two patients were the only patients who were previously shown to have a cultural history of E. dermatitidis from their sputum. E. dermatitidis is a slow-growing fungus, which usually takes up to two weeks to culture in the microbiology laboratory and therefore is slow to detect conventionally, with the risk of bacterial overgrowth from common co-habiting pan- and multiresistant bacterial pathogens from sputum. namely Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cepacia complex organisms, hence this species-specific PCR assay may help detect this organism from CF sputum more specifically and rapidly. Overall, employment of this novel assay nay help in the understanding of the occurrence. aetiology and epidemiology of E. dermatitidis, as an emerging fungal agent in patients with CF. (C) 2008 European Cystic Fibrosis Society. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.