Non-curliation of Escherichia coli O78:K80 isolates associated with IS1 insertion in csgB and reduced persistence in poultry infection

The elaboration of curli fimbriae by Escherichia coli is associated with the development of a lacy colony morphology when grown on colonisation factor antigen agar at 25 degrees C. Avian colisepticaemia E. coli isolates screened for curliation by this culture technique showed lacy and smooth colonial morphologies and the genetic basis of the non-curliated smooth colonial phenotype was analysed. Two smooth E. coli O78:K80 isolates possessed about 40 copies of the IS1 element within their respective genomes of which one copy insertionally inactivated the csgB gene, the nucleator gene for curli fibril formation. One of these two isolates also possessed a defective rpoS gene which is a known regulator of curli expression. In the day-old chick model, both smooth isolates were as invasive as a known virulent O78:K80 isolate as determined by extent of liver and spleen colonisation post oral inoculation but were less persistent in terms of caecal colonisation.

Sequence analysis and distribution of an IS3-like insertion element isolated from Salmonella enteritidis

The nucleotide sequence of a 3 kb region immediately upstream of the sef operon of Salmonella enteritidis was determined. A 1230 base pair insertion sequence which shared sequence identity (> 75%) with members of the IS3 family was revealed. This element, designated IS1230, had almost identical (90% identity) terminal inverted repeats to Escherichia coli IS3 but unlike other IS3-like sequences lacked the two characteristic open reading frames which encode the putative transposase. S. enteritidis possessed only one copy of this insertion sequence although Southern hybridisation analysis of restriction digests of genomic DNA revealed another fragment located in a region different from the sef operon which hybridised weakly which suggested the presence of an IS1230 homologue. The distribution of IS1230 and IS1230-like elements was shown to be widespread amongst salmonellas and the patterns of restriction fragments which hybridised differed significantly between Salmonella serotypes and it is suggested that IS1230 has potential for development as a differential diagnostic tool.

A new role for Low German? Language insertion as bilingual practice in the process of language shift

This article analyses language insertion as a bilingual communicative practice, applying a functional, speaker-focused approach to the study of sociolinguistics and language contact. The article is based on a study of contact phenomena in a formerly diglossic region in Northern Germany, where the previously spoken language – Low German – is in the process of being replaced by the dominant standard variety, German. It examines regional publications in order to establish the linguistic techniques by which Low German elements are incorporated into the Standard German texts and the communicative purposes that they serve. The paper concludes that in the process of language shift an emblematic repertoire from Low German is created which can be applied into the dominant contact language, German, for specific communicative purposes.

Introduction:thought leadership in brand management

This special issue contains eight articles developed from presentations at the fourth annual Thought Leaders' International Conference on Brand Management, held in Birmingham, UK in April 2008. Following a blind reviewing process, 65 papers were accepted and presented at the conference and all authors had the opportunity to revise their papers for possible inclusion in this special issue. A further round of double blind reviewing resulted in the selection of these eight articles. This introduction presents an overview of this thought-leading research into brand management.

Introduction : thought leadership in brand management

This JBR Special Issue contains ten articles developed from presentations at the Seventh Annual Thought Leaders' International Conference on Brand Management, held at Universitá della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland in March 2011. The conference organizing committee received submissions and following a double blind reviewing process papers were accepted for presentation at the conference. After the conference all authors wishing to submit papers for this Special Edition had the opportunity to revise their papers and submit them. A further round of rigorous double-blind reviewing resulted in the selection of ten articles. This introduction presents an overview of this thought-leading research into brand management. © 2012 Elsevier Inc.

Introduction:thought leadership in brand management

This special issue contains fifteen articles developed from presentations at the sixth annual Thought Leaders' International Conference on Brand Management, held at Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland in April 2010. The conference received 154 submissions and following a double blind reviewing process, a little under half of these, 75 papers, were accepted and presented at the conference. The authors of the accepted conference papers had the opportunity to revise their papers after the conference and submit them for possible inclusion in this special issue. A further round of rigorous double-blind reviewing resulted in the selection of these fifteen articles. This introduction presents an overview of this thought-leading research into brand management. © 2011.

Are school-of-thought words characterizable?

School of thought analysis is an important yet not-well-elaborated scientific knowledge discovery task. This paper makes the first attempt at this problem. We focus on one aspect of the problem: do characteristic school-of-thought words exist and whether they are characterizable? To answer these questions, we propose a probabilistic generative School-Of-Thought (SOT) model to simulate the scientific authoring process based on several assumptions. SOT defines a school of thought as a distribution of topics and assumes that authors determine the school of thought for each sentence before choosing words to deliver scientific ideas. SOT distinguishes between two types of school-of-thought words for either the general background of a school of thought or the original ideas each paper contributes to its school of thought. Narrative and quantitative experiments show positive and promising results to the questions raised above © 2013 Association for Computational Linguistics. © 2013 Association for Computational Linguistics.

“I thought I’d be safe there”:pre-empting blame in the talk of women reporting rape

One routine “common sense” means of explaining sexual violence is the ideologically facilitated tendency to blame the victim, and previous research has identified patterns of victim-blaming in the talk of perpetrators of rape, and also in that of the professionals who deal with rape in their day-to-day work. This article focuses on the discursive resources drawn on in police interviews by rape victims themselves as they attempt to account for their own behaviour in relation to the attack. It identifies and describes points within interviewees’ talk where they produce “accounts” (Potter and Wetherell, 1987), and considers what these tell us about the participants’ shared understanding of what is relevant to the on-going talk. Occasions when there is evidence of a mis-match in the understanding of the participants will also be discussed. The analyses illustrate that for the accounts of interviewees to be heard as relevant, a number of prevalent and problematic themes of victim-blaming must be assumed. Interviewees anticipate and pre-empt implications that various aspects of their own behaviour contributed to their attack, and interviewers vary in the level of skill they display at negotiating these shared understandings.

Intentional forgetting in dysphoria:investigating the inhibitory effects of thought substitution using independent cues

Background Individuals with clinical and subclinical depression (dysphoria) exhibit problems intentionally forgetting unwanted memories on the think/no-think (TNT) paradigm (Anderson & Green, 2001). However, providing substitute words to think about instead of the to-be-forgotten targets can improve forgetting in depressed patients. Objectives To determine if thought substitution can enhance forgetting in dysphoric participants and to examine the potential mechanisms (blocking or inhibition) that might underpin successful forgetting. Methods Thirty-six dysphoric and 36 non-dysphoric participants learned neutral word-pairs and then practiced responding with the targets to some cues (think trials) and suppressing responses to others (no think trials). Half the participants were provided with substitute words to recall instead of the original targets (aided suppression) and half were simply told to avoid thinking about the targets (unaided suppression). Finally, participants completed two recall tests for the targets; one cued with the original probes and one with independent probes. Results Regardless of suppression condition (aided or unaided), dysphoric participants exhibited impaired forgetting, relative to their non-dysphoric counterparts, but only when cued with the original probes. Furthermore, higher depression scores were associated with poorer forgetting. In the aided condition, successful forgetting was observed on both the original and independent probe tasks, which supports the inhibitory account of thought substitution. Limitations Non-clinical status of the dysphoric participants was not confirmed using a validated measure. Conclusions Findings do not support the utility of thought substitution as a method of improving the forgetting in depressed participants, but do support the inhibition account of thought substitution.

Examining the impact of thought substitution on intentional forgetting in induced and naturally occurring dysphoria

Two experiments were conducted to determine if natural and induced dysphoria is associated with impaired forgetting and, whether a thought-substitution strategy would ameliorate any observed deficits. Study 1: 36 dysphoric & 36 non-dysphoric participants learnt a series of emotional word pairs. Participants were subsequently presented with some of the cues and were asked to recall the targets or prevent the targets from coming to mind. Half of the participants were provided with substitute words to recall instead of the original targets (aided suppression). At final memory testing, participants were asked to recall the targets to all cues. Dysphoric participants exhibited impaired forgetting, even when using a thought substitution strategy. Non-dysphoric participants, however, were able to use substitutes to suppress words. Study 2: 50 healthy participants initially completed the aided condition of the forgetting task. Participants were then given a positive or negative mood-induction, followed by another version of the forgetting task. Although all participants showed a forgetting effect prior to the mood-induction, only the positive group was successful at forgetting after the mood induction. Taken together, these findings do not support the utility of thought-substitution as an aid to forgetting in individuals in a naturally or induced dysphoric mood.

Femtosecond laser inscription of fiber bragg gratings with low insertion loss and minor polarization dependence

The inscription of low insertion loss and negligibly polarization dependent fiber Bragg gratings inscribed using a femtosecond laser system is reported. Insertion losses were <0.4dB/20mm and polarization wavelength shift of <5pm, with transmission changes <0.1dB. © 2010 Optical Society of America.