Framing fracking: which frames are heard in English planning and environmental policy and practice?

Fracking in England has been the subject of significant controversy and has sparked not only public protest but also an associated framing war with differing social constructions of the technology adopted by different sides. This article explores the frames and counter-frames which have been employed by both the anti-fracking movement and by government and the oil and gas industry. It then considers the way in which the English planning and regulatory permitting systems have provided space for these frames within the relevant machinery for public participation. The article thus enables one to see which frames have been allowed a voice and which have been excluded.

Frames and the interpreter in the Imperial War Museum photographic archive

Using Azoulay's frame of the civil gaze, this chapter examines selected Second World War images, catalogued under 'interpreter' in the IWM's photographic archive, looking at representative situations in which interpreters typically operate in wartime - communicating with clandestine forces, liaising between the army and civilians, and dealing with the aftermath of war.

Diverse mariner-like elements in fig wasps

Mariner transposable elements are widespread and diverse in insects. We screened 10 species of fig wasps (Hymenoptera: Agaonidae) for mariner elements. All 10 species harbour a large diversity of mariner elements, most of which have interrupted reading frames in the transposase gene region, suggesting that they are inactive and ancient. We sequenced two full-length mariner elements and found evidence to suggest that they are inserted in the genome at a conserved region shared by other hymenopteran taxa. The association between mariner elements and fig wasps is old and dominated by vertical transmission, suggesting that these 'selfish genetic elements' have evolved to impart only very low costs to their hosts.

Rapid parallel expression in E-coli and insect cells: Analysis of five lef gene products of the Autographa californica multiple nuclear polyhedrosis virus (AcMNPV)

A number of strategies are emerging for the high throughput (HTP) expression of recombinant proteins to enable structural and functional study. Here we describe a workable HTP strategy based on parallel protein expression in E. coli and insect cells. Using this system we provide comparative expression data for five proteins derived from the Autographa californica polyhedrosis virus genome that vary in amino acid composition and in molecular weight. Although the proteins are part of a set of factors known to be required for viral late gene expression, the precise function of three of the five, late expression factors (lefs) 6, 7 and 10, is unknown. Rapid expression and characterisation has allowed the determination of their ability to bind DNA and shown a cellular location consistent with their properties. Our data point to the utility of a parallel expression strategy to rapidly obtain workable protein expression levels from many open reading frames (ORFs).

Nutritional status and clinical outcome in elderly female surgical orthopaedic patients

The possible relationship between nutritional status and clinical outcome following orthopaedic hip surgery was investigated. The nutritional status of 60 elderly female patients admitted for elective total hip replacement (THR) and emergency fractured neck of femur surgery (FNF) was measured over time. Specific measures of clinical outcome, including well-being and functional status, were monitored during hospital stay and at 4, 8 and 26 weeks following discharge. Patients were allocated to a high nutritional risk group where any three of the following were less than the 5th percentile value: serum albumin, haemoglobin, triceps skinfold thickness, mid-upper arm muscle circumference and body weight. Using this definition, malnutrition was present in 4% of THR patients and 41% of FNF patients. It was found that the high risk patients had significantly longer convalescence periods, (median stay27.5 days compared with 0 days, P < 0.0009), and a greater proportion were dependent upon walking frames at 6 months (46% compared with 11%, P < 0.01). Fifty percent of the high risk patients had been living independently prior to admission, in contrast only 29% had returned to their homes at 6 months after discharge. The results indicate an apparent link between clinical outcome and nutritional status based upon the allocation procedure employed, which has the potential for ensuring cost-effective nutritional intervention.

Caste, livelihoods and livestock: an exploration of the uptake of livestock vaccination adoption among poor farmers in India

The study explores the uptake of livestock vaccination among poor farming communities in Tamil Nadu State, India by revisiting innovation diffusion theory. Overall, 601 farmers participated in the study. We found the adoption of particular vaccines was strongly influenced by socio-cultural grouping i.e. caste, rather than other factors such as income, age, education-level or gender. Adoption was also related to specific knowledge frames regarding disease causality, rather than any wider ethno-veterinary beliefs. Thus, the adoption of livestock vaccination is unlikely to improve without knowledge transfer activities, which acknowledge both social divisions and local epistemologies regarding animal health. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Parallel pipelined array architectures for real-time histogram computation in consumer devices

The real-time parallel computation of histograms using an array of pipelined cells is proposed and prototyped in this paper with application to consumer imaging products. The array operates in two modes: histogram computation and histogram reading. The proposed parallel computation method does not use any memory blocks. The resulting histogram bins can be stored into an external memory block in a pipelined fashion for subsequent reading or streaming of the results. The array of cells can be tuned to accommodate the required data path width in a VLSI image processing engine as present in many imaging consumer devices. Synthesis of the architectures presented in this paper in FPGA are shown to compute the real-time histogram of images streamed at over 36 megapixels at 30 frames/s by processing in parallel 1, 2 or 4 pixels per clock cycle.

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.

Building the niche through time: using 13,000 years of data to predict the effects of climate change on three tree species in Europe

Aim  Species distribution models (SDMs) based on current species ranges underestimate the potential distribution when projected in time and/or space. A multi-temporal model calibration approach has been suggested as an alternative, and we evaluate this using 13,000 years of data. Location  Europe. Methods  We used fossil-based records of presence for Picea abies, Abies alba and Fagus sylvatica and six climatic variables for the period 13,000 to 1000 yr bp. To measure the contribution of each 1000-year time step to the total niche of each species (the niche measured by pooling all the data), we employed a principal components analysis (PCA) calibrated with data over the entire range of possible climates. Then we projected both the total niche and the partial niches from single time frames into the PCA space, and tested if the partial niches were more similar to the total niche than random. Using an ensemble forecasting approach, we calibrated SDMs for each time frame and for the pooled database. We projected each model to current climate and evaluated the results against current pollen data. We also projected all models into the future. Results  Niche similarity between the partial and the total-SDMs was almost always statistically significant and increased through time. SDMs calibrated from single time frames gave different results when projected to current climate, providing evidence of a change in the species realized niches through time. Moreover, they predicted limited climate suitability when compared with the total-SDMs. The same results were obtained when projected to future climates. Main conclusions  The realized climatic niche of species differed for current and future climates when SDMs were calibrated considering different past climates. Building the niche as an ensemble through time represents a way forward to a better understanding of a species' range and its ecology in a changing climate.

Morphological decomposition in Broca's aphasia

Background: Few studies have investigated how individuals diagnosed with post-stroke Broca’s aphasia decompose words into their constituent morphemes in real-time processing. Previous research has focused on morphologically complex words in non-time-constrained settings or in syntactic frames, but not in the lexicon. Aims: We examined real-time processing of morphologically complex words in a group of five Greek-speaking individuals with Broca’s aphasia to determine: (1) whether their morphological decomposition mechanisms are sensitive to lexical (orthography and frequency) vs. morphological (stem-suffix combinatory features) factors during visual word recognition, (2) whether these mechanisms are different in inflected vs. derived forms during lexical access, and (3) whether there is a preferred unit of lexical access (syllables vs. morphemes) for inflected vs. derived forms. Methods & Procedures: The study included two real-time experiments. The first was a semantic judgment task necessitating participants’ categorical judgments for high- and low-frequency inflected real words and pseudohomophones of the real words created by either an orthographic error at the stem or a homophonous (but incorrect) inflectional suffix. The second experiment was a letter-priming task at the syllabic or morphemic boundary of morphologically transparent inflected and derived words whose stems and suffixes were matched for length, lemma and surface frequency. Outcomes & Results: The majority of the individuals with Broca’s aphasia were sensitive to lexical frequency and stem orthography, while ignoring the morphological combinatory information encoded in the inflectional suffix that control participants were sensitive to. The letter-priming task, on the other hand, showed that individuals with aphasia—in contrast to controls—showed preferences with regard to the unit of lexical access, i.e., they were overall faster on syllabically than morphemically parsed words and their morphological decomposition mechanisms for inflected and derived forms were modulated by the unit of lexical access. Conclusions: Our results show that in morphological processing, Greek-speaking persons with aphasia rely mainly on stem access and thus are only sensitive to orthographic violations of the stem morphemes, but not to illegal morphological combinations of stems and suffixes. This possibly indicates an intact orthographic lexicon but deficient morphological decomposition mechanisms, possibly stemming from an underspecification of inflectional suffixes in the participants’ grammar. Syllabic information, however, appears to facilitate lexical access and elicits repair mechanisms that compensate for deviant morphological parsing procedures.

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.

The rulB gene of plasmid pWW0 is a hotspot for the site-specific insertion of integron-like elements found in the chromosomes of environmental Pseudomonas fluorescens group bacteria

The rulAB operon of Pseudomonas spp. confers fitness traits on the host and has been suggested to be a hotspot for insertion of mobile elements that carry avirulence genes. Here, for the first time, we show that rulB on plasmid pWW0 is a hotspot for the active site-specific integration of related integron-like elements (ILEs) found in six environmental pseudomonads (strains FH1–FH6). Integration into rulB on pWW0 occurred at position 6488 generating a 3 bp direct repeat. ILEs from FH1 and FH5 were 9403 bp in length and contained eight open reading frames (ORFs), while the ILE from FH4 was 16 233 bp in length and contained 16 ORFs. In all three ILEs, the first 5.1 kb (containing ORFs 1–4) were structurally conserved and contained three predicted site-specific recombinases/integrases and a tetR homologue. Downstream of these resided ORFs of the ‘variable side’ with structural and sequence similarity to those encoding survival traits on the fitness enhancing plasmid pGRT1 (ILEFH1 and ILEFH5) and the NR-II virulence region of genomic island PAGI-5 (ILEFH4). Collectively, these ILEs share features with the previously described type III protein secretion system effector ILEs and are considered important to host survival and transfer of fitness enhancing and (a)virulence genes between bacteria.

Playful language alternation in an online discussion forum: the example of digital code plays

This paper explores the linguistic practice of digital code plays in an online discussion forum, used by the community of English-speaking Germans living in Britain. By adopting a qualitative approach of Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis, the article examines the ways in which these bilinguals deploy linguistic and other semiotic resources on the forum to co-construct humorous code plays. These performances occur in the context of negotiating language norms and are based on conscious manipulations of both codes, English and German. They involve play with codes at three levels: play with forms, meanings, and frames. Although, at first sight, such alternations appear to be used mainly for a comic effect, there is more to this than just humour. By mixing both codes at all levels, the participants deliberately produce aberrant German ‘polluted’ with English and, in so doing, dismantle the ideology of language purity upheld by the purist movement. The deliberate character of this type of code alternation demonstrates heightened metalinguistic awareness as well as creativity and criticality. By exploring the practice of digital code plays, the current study contributes to the growing body of research on networked multilingualism as well as to practices associated with translanguaging, poly- and metrolingualism.