From York to New Earswick: reforming working-class homes, 1899-1914

How to improve the lives of the working class and the poor in Britain has been a key concern for social reformers, architects and designers, and local and national governments throughout twentieth century, but the origins of this were in the preceding century. From the middle of the nineteenth century, reformers had understood the necessity of improving the living conditions, diet and material environment of those with low incomes. Housing, at the core of this, was increasingly a political issue, but as this case study of the development of a garden village in the North of England demonstrates, it was also a moral and aesthetic one

Architectural taste and patronage in Newcastle upon Tyne, 1870-1914

This thesis examines architectural taste and patronage in Newcastle upon Tyne between 1870 and 1914. During this period, the city experienced dramatic expansion as the wealth generated in industry, finance and retail was channelled into commercial and public architecture. The overall aim is to determine whether Newcastle formed a distinctive architectural culture. Newcastle's economic and social profile gave rise to specific patterns of taste and patronage. The thesis explores the cultural networks that shaped the built form of the city, arguing that architectural patronage in Newcastle was dominated by a cultural oligarchy. This group formed an 'architectural culture', a relatively self-contained community in which particular styles and architects were favoured above others. Newcastle was a major centre of industry, finance and retail, and played a significant role in the national economy. The thesis seeks to reposition Newcastle within the context of the dynamic forces that were reshaping Britain's built environment. As the period progressed, the distinctive patterns of taste and patronage within the city were eroded by the increasingly national economy, the influence of the metropolis and the more active role played by the centralised state. The thesis relates the architectural culture under study to the national mainstream, thus shedding light on the relationship between provincial architecture and the metropolis. The thesis employs a range of methodological strategies in order to bring the different facets of architecture into focus. With clearly defined geographical and temporal boundaries, it seeks to clarify the economic, social and cultural factors that underpin architectural production, thus offering a new insight into architectural patronage.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Cytotoxic and Pathogenic Properties of Klebsiella oxytoca Isolated from Laboratory Animals

Klebsiella oxytoca is an opportunistic pathogen implicated in various clinical diseases in animals and humans. Studies suggest that in humans K. oxytoca exerts its pathogenicity in part through a cytotoxin. However, cytotoxin production in animal isolates of K. oxytoca and its pathogenic properties have not been characterized. Furthermore, neither the identity of the toxin nor a complete repertoire of genes involved in K. oxytoca pathogenesis have been fully elucidated. Here, we showed that several animal isolates of K. oxytoca, including the clinical isolates, produced secreted products in bacterial culture supernatant that display cytotoxicity on HEp-2 and HeLa cells, indicating the ability to produce cytotoxin. Cytotoxin production appears to be regulated by the environment, and soy based product was found to have a strong toxin induction property. The toxin was identified, by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy, as low molecular weight heat labile benzodiazepine, tilivalline, previously shown to cause cytotoxicity in several cell lines, including mouse L1210 leukemic cells. Genome sequencing and analyses of a cytotoxin positive K. oxytoca strain isolated from an abscess of a mouse, identified genes previously shown to promote pathogenesis in other enteric bacterial pathogens including ecotin, several genes encoding for type IV and type VI secretion systems, and proteins that show sequence similarity to known bacterial toxins including cholera toxin. To our knowledge, these results demonstrate for the first time, that animal isolates of K. oxytoca, produces a cytotoxin, and that cytotoxin production is under strict environmental regulation. We also confirmed tilivalline as the cytotoxin present in animal K. oxytoca strains. These findings, along with the discovery of a repertoire of genes with virulence potential, provide important insights into the pathogenesis of K. oxytoca. As a novel diagnostic tool, tilivalline may serve as a biomarker for K oxytoca-induced cytotoxicity in humans and animals through detection in various samples from food to diseased samples using LC-MS/MS. Induction of K. oxytoca cytotoxin by consumption of soy may be in part involved in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal disease

Capturing Single Cell Genomes of Active Polysaccharide Degraders: An Unexpected Contribution of Verrucomicrobia

Microbial hydrolysis of polysaccharides is critical to ecosystem functioning and is of great interest in diverse biotechnological applications, such as biofuel production and bioremediation. Here we demonstrate the use of a new, efficient approach to recover genomes of active polysaccharide degraders from natural, complex microbial assemblages, using a combination of fluorescently labeled substrates, fluorescence-activated cell sorting, and single cell genomics. We employed this approach to analyze freshwater and coastal bacterioplankton for degraders of laminarin and xylan, two of the most abundant storage and structural polysaccharides in nature. Our results suggest that a few phylotypes of Verrucomicrobia make a considerable contribution to polysaccharide degradation, although they constituted only a minor fraction of the total microbial community. Genomic sequencing of five cells, representing the most predominant, polysaccharide-active Verrucomicrobia phylotype, revealed significant enrichment in genes encoding a wide spectrum of glycoside hydrolases, sulfatases, peptidases, carbohydrate lyases and esterases, confirming that these organisms were well equipped for the hydrolysis of diverse polysaccharides. Remarkably, this enrichment was on average higher than in the sequenced representatives of Bacteroidetes, which are frequently regarded as highly efficient biopolymer degraders. These findings shed light on the ecological roles of uncultured Verrucomicrobia and suggest specific taxa as promising bioprospecting targets. The employed method offers a powerful tool to rapidly identify and recover discrete genomes of active players in polysaccharide degradation, without the need for cultivation

Fashion archive fervour: the critical role of fashion archives in preserving, curating, and narrating fashion

Fashion items and artefacts across the 19th and 20th centuries were once considered unworthy of placement in museums and archives on account of their perishable nature and their association with the shallow pleasures of low culture. The perceived fragile and ephemeral nature of fashion garments and accessories has been reevaluated with material objects now considered worth saving for multiple purposes and uses. Awareness of the high social, cultural, economic, and historic value of physical fashion relics has resulted in the trend for fashion designers, brands, and museums to collate, create, and manage fashion archives. The article analyses the importance for both industry and consumer of preserving and accessing fashion archives in the 21st century in both digital and traditional ways. It highlights the benefits of collating a holistic multi-modal archive by combining material and textual cultural objects in various forms to portray and contextualize the lived social experience. A case study will analyse a selected educational fashion archive based in postcolonial Hong Kong. The contemporary fashion archive’s role is evaluated from the perspective of archivist and user regarding contested issues such as commercialization, curatorial objectivity, or controlled access, while evaluating future directions for the fashion archive as ultimate style repository

Optimising Treatment Outcomes for Children and Adults Through Rapid Genome Sequencing of Sepsis Pathogens. A Study Protocol for a Prospective, Multi-Centre Trial (DIRECT)

BackgroundSepsis contributes significantly to morbidity and mortality globally. In Australia, 20,000 develop sepsis every year, resulting in 5,000 deaths, and more than AUD$846 million in expenditure. Prompt, appropriate antibiotic therapy is effective in improving outcomes in sepsis. Conventional culture-based methods to identify appropriate therapy have limited yield and take days to complete. Recently, nanopore technology has enabled rapid sequencing with real-time analysis of pathogen DNA. We set out to demonstrate the feasibility and diagnostic accuracy of pathogen sequencing direct from clinical samples, and estimate the impact of this approach on time to effective therapy when integrated with personalised software-guided antimicrobial dosing in children and adults on ICU with sepsis.MethodsThe DIRECT study is a pilot prospective, non-randomized multicentre trial of an integrated diagnostic and therapeutic algorithm combining rapid direct pathogen sequencing and software-guided, personalised antibiotic dosing in children and adults with sepsis on ICU.Participants and interventionsDIRECT will collect microbiological and pharmacokinetic samples from approximately 200 children and adults with sepsis admitted to one of four ICUs in Brisbane. In Phase 1, we will evaluate Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION sequencing direct from blood in 50 blood culture-proven sepsis patients recruited from consecutive patients with suspected sepsis. In Phase 2, a further 50 consecutive patients with suspected sepsis will be recruited in whom MinION sequencing will be combined with Bayesian software-guided (ID-ODS) personalised antimicrobial dosing.Outcome measuresThe primary outcome is time to effective antimicrobial therapy, defined as trough drug concentrations above the MIC of the pathogen. Secondary outcomes are diagnostic accuracy of MinION sequencing from whole blood, time to pathogen identification and susceptibility testing using sequencing direct from whole blood and from positive blood culture broth.DiscussionRapid pathogen sequencing coupled with antimicrobial dosing software has great potential to overcome the limitations of conventional diagnostics which often result in prolonged inappropriate antimicrobial therapy. Reduced time to optimal antimicrobial therapy may reduce sepsis mortality and ICU length of stay. This pilot study will yield key feasibility data to inform further, urgently needed sepsis studies. Phase 2 of the trial protocol is registered with the ANZCTR (ACTRN12620001122943).Trial registrationRegistered with the Australia New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry Number ACTRN1262000112294