Sequence analysis and distribution in Salmonella enterica serovars of IS3-like elements

The genome of Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis was shown to possess three IS3-like insertion elements, designated IS1230A, B and C, and each was cloned and their respective deoxynucleotide sequences determined. Mutations in elements IS1230A and B resulted in frameshifts in the open reading frames that encoded a putative transposase to be inactive. IS1230C was truncated at nucleotide 774 relative to IS1230B and therefore did not possess the 3' terminal inverted repeat. The three IS1230 derivatives were closely related to each other based on nucleotide sequence similarity. IS1230A was located adjacent to the sef operon encoding SEF14 fimbriae located at minute 97 of the genome of S. Enteritidis. IS1230B was located adjacent to the umuDC operon at minute 42.5 on the genome, itself located near to one terminus of an 815-kb genome inversion of S. Enteritidis relative to S. Typhimurium. IS1230C was located next to attB, the bacteriophage P22 attachment site, and proB, encoding gamma-glutamyl phosphate reductase. A truncated 3' remnant of IS1230, designated IS1230T, was identified in a clinical isolate of S. Typhimurium DT193 strain 2391. This element was located next to attB adjacent to which were bacteriophage P22-like sequences. Southern hybridisation of total genomic DNA from eighteen phage types of S. Enteritidis and eighteen definitive types of S. Typhimurium showed similar, if not identical, restriction fragment profiles in the respective serovars when probed with IS1230A.

Conspicuous redemption? Reflections on the promises and perils of the 'celebritization' of climate change

With rising public awareness of climate change, celebrities have become an increasingly important community of non nation-state ‘actors’ influencing discourse and action, thereby comprising an emergent climate science–policy–celebrity complex. Some feel that these amplified and prominent voices contribute to greater public understanding of climate change science, as well as potentially catalyze climate policy cooperation. However, critics posit that increased involvement from the entertainment industry has not served to influence substantive long-term advancements in these arenas; rather, it has instead reduced the politics of climate change to the domain of fashion and fad, devoid of political and public saliency. Through tracking media coverage in Australia, Canada, the United States, and United Kingdom, we map out the terrain of a ‘Politicized Celebrity System’ in attempts to cut through dualistic characterizations of celebrity involvement in politics. We develop a classification system of the various types of climate change celebrity activities, and situate movements in contemporary consumer- and spectacle-driven carbon-based society. Through these analyses, we place dynamic and contested interactions in a spatially and temporally-sensitive ‘Cultural Circuits of Climate Change Celebrities’ model. In so doing, first we explore how these newly ‘authorized’ speakers and ‘experts’ might open up spaces in the public sphere and the science/policy nexus through ‘celebritization’ effects. Second, we examine how the celebrity as the ‘heroic individual’ seeking ‘conspicuous redemption’ may focus climate change actions through individualist frames. Overall, this paper explores potential promises, pitfalls and contradictions of this increasingly entrenched set of ‘agents’ in the cultural politics of climate change. Thus, as a form of climate change action, we consider whether it is more effective to ‘plant’ celebrities instead of trees.

Direct involvement, partnership and setting: a study in bounded diversity

This paper brings a comparative aspect to the analysis of direct involvement as the foundation for partnership. It considers how various forms of direct involvement can represent components of a broader partnership paradigm of people management, or a limited shallow partnership concession to facilitate the diffusion of top-down human resource management policies. Through the use of survey evidence, we explore the settings in which involvement is more likely to be encountered. Contrary to predictions in much of the literature as to their universal applicability, we found that they tended to be concentrated in specific locales, organisational types and sectors, as part and parcel of wider cooperative production paradigms; in practical terms, if involvement is a prerequisite for meaningful partnership, then the latter is more likely to be encountered in more coordinated varieties of capitalism. This does not suggest, however, that ‘shallow’ or instrumentalist partnerships do not occur, or that in infertile ground genuine partnerships are not possible. On one hand, national variations encountered were broadly on the lines of the literature on comparative capitalism. On the other hand, there was much diversity within national settings; we identify the contexts in which such engagement is more or less likely and consider the implications.

The look: style, technology and televisuality in the New Who

This chapter explores the distinctive qualities of the Matt Smith era Doctor Who, focusing on how dramatic emphases are connected with emphases on visual style, and how this depends on the programme's production methods and technologies. Doctor Who was first made in the 1960s era of live, studio-based, multi-camera television with monochrome pictures. However, as technical innovations like colour filming, stereo sound, CGI and post-production effects technology have been routinely introduced into the programme, and now High Definition (HD) cameras, they have given Doctor Who’s creators new ways of making visually distinctive narratives. Indeed, it has been argued that since the 1980s television drama has become increasingly like cinema in its production methods and aesthetic aims. Viewers’ ability to view the programme on high-specification TV sets, and to record and repeat episodes using digital media, also encourage attention to visual style in television as much as in cinema. The chapter evaluates how these new circumstances affect what Doctor Who has become and engages with arguments that visual style has been allowed to override characterisation and story in the current Doctor Who. The chapter refers to specific episodes, and frames the analysis with reference to earlier years in Doctor Who’s long history. For example, visual spectacle using green-screen and CGI can function as a set-piece (at the opening or ending of an episode) but can also work ‘invisibly’ to render a setting realistically. Shooting on location using HD cameras provides a rich and detailed image texture, but also highlights mistakes and especially problems of lighting. The reduction of Doctor Who’s budget has led to Steven Moffat’s episodes relying less on visual extravagance, connecting back both to Russell T. Davies’s concern to show off the BBC’s investment in the series but also to reference British traditions of gritty and intimate social drama. Pressures to capitalise on Doctor Who as a branded product are the final aspect of the chapter’s analysis, where the role of Moffat as ‘showrunner’ links him to an American (not British) style of television production where the preservation of format and brand values give him unusual power over the look of the series.

When rules and principles are not enough: insiders’ views and narratives on the global financial crisis

Much has been written about Wall Street and the global financial crisis (GFC). From a fraudulent derivatives market to a contestable culture of banking bonuses, culpability has been examined within the frames of American praxis, namely that of American exceptionalism. This study begins with an exploratory analysis of non-US voices concerning the nature of the causes of the GFC. The analysis provides glimpses of the globalized extent of assumptions shared, but not debated within the globalization convergence of financial markets as the neo-liberal project. Practical and paradigmatic tensions are revealed in the capture of a London-based set of views articulated by senior financial executives of financial service organizations, the outcomes of which are not overly optimistic for any significant change in praxis within the immediate future.

Representing 3D shape and location

The 3D shape of an object and its 3D location have traditionally thought of as very separate entities, although both can be described within a single 3D coordinate frame. Here, 3D shape and location are considered as two aspects of a view-based approach to representing depth, avoiding the use of 3D coordinate frames.

The drivers of corporate climate change strategies and public policy: a new resource-based view perspective

Effective public policy to mitigate climate change footprints should build on data-driven analysis of firm-level strategies. This article’s conceptual approach augments the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and identifies investments in four firm-level resource domains (Governance, Information management, Systems, and Technology [GISTe]) to develop capabilities in climate change impact mitigation. The authors denote the resulting framework as the GISTe model, which frames their analysis and public policy recommendations. This research uses the 2008 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) database, with high-quality information on firm-level climate change strategies for 552 companies from North America and Europe. In contrast to the widely accepted myth that European firms are performing better than North American ones, the authors find a different result. Many firms, whether European or North American, do not just “talk” about climate change impact mitigation, but actually do “walk the talk.” European firms appear to be better than their North American counterparts in “walk I,” denoting attention to governance, information management, and systems. But when it comes down to “walk II,” meaning actual Technology-related investments, North American firms’ performance is equal or superior to that of the European companies. The authors formulate public policy recommendations to accelerate firm-level, sector-level, and cluster-level implementation of climate change strategies.

Identifying and explaining framing strategies of low carbon lifestyle movement organisations

Over the last decade we have seen the growth and development of low carbon lifestyle movement organisations, which seek to encourage members of the public to reduce their personal energy use and carbon emissions. As a first step to assess the transformational potential of such organisations, this paper examines the ways in which they frame their activities. This reveals an important challenge they face: in addressing the broader public, do they promote ‘transformative’ behaviours or do they limit themselves to encouraging ‘easy changes’ to maintain their appeal? We find evidence that many organisations within this movement avoid ‘transformative’ frames. The main reasons for this are organisers’ perceptions that transformational frames lack resonance with broader audiences, as well as wider cultural contexts that caution against behavioural intervention. The analysis draws on interviews with key actors in the low carbon lifestyle movement and combines insights from the literatures on collective action framing and lifestyle movements.

Separating real incentives and accountability

In experimental investigations of the effect of real incentives, accountability—the implicit or explicit expectation of a decision maker that she may have to justify her decisions in front of somebody else—is often confounded with the incentives themselves. This confounding of accountability with incentives makes causal attributions of any effects found problematic. We separate accountability and incentives, and find different effects. Accountability is found to reduce preference reversals between frames, for which incentives have no effect. Incentives on the other hand are found to reduce risk seeking for losses, where accountability has no effect. In a choice task between simple and compound events, accountability increases the preference for the simple event, while incentives have a weaker effect going in the opposite direction. It is thus shown that the confounding of accountability and incentives is relevant for studies on the effect of the latter, and that existing conclusions on the effect of incentives need to be reconsidered in light of this issue.

On the origins and timescales of geoeffective IMF

Southward Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) in the Geocentric Solar Magnetospheric (GSM) reference frame is the key element that controls the level of space-weather disturbance in Earth’s magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere. We discuss the relation of this geoeffective IMF component to the IMF in the Geocentric Solar Ecliptic (GSE) frame and, using the almost continuous interplanetary data for 1996-2015 (inclusive), we show that large geomagnetic storms are always associated with strong southward, out-of-ecliptic field in the GSE frame: dipole tilt effects, that cause the difference between the southward field in the GSM and GSE frames, generally make only a minor contribution to these strongest storms. The time-of-day/time-of-year response patterns of geomagnetic indices and the optimum solar wind coupling function are both influenced by the timescale of the index response. We also study the occurrence spectrum of large out-of-ecliptic field and show that for one-hour averages it is, surprisingly, almost identical in ICMEs (Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections), around CIRs/SIRs (Corotating and Stream Interaction Regions) and in the “quiet” solar wind (which is shown to be consistent with the effect of weak SIRs). However, differences emerge when the timescale over which the field remains southward is considered: for longer averaging timescales the spectrum is broader inside ICMEs, showing that these events generate longer intervals of strongly southward average IMF and consequently stronger geomagnetic storms. The behavior of out-of-ecliptic field with timescale is shown to be very similar to that of deviations from the predicted Parker spiral orientation, suggesting the two share common origins.