Political brand identity: an examination of the complexities of Conservative brand and internal market engagement during the 2010 UK General Election campaign

This paper seeks to build an understanding of the importance of internal communications when building a strong political brand. Using Kapferer’s brand prism as a conceptual framework, the paper explores UK Conservative Party members’ attitudes towards the development of the Conservative brand as personified by David Cameron. There are clear implications for political strategists as the findings suggest that it is crucial to engage the internal market in the co-creation of the marketing communications strategy for as brand evangelists they interpret the brand promise at the local level

A study exploring learners' informal learning space behaviors, attitudes, and preferences

What makes a successful informal learning space is a topic in need of further research. The body of discourse on informal space design is drawn from learning theory, placemaking and architecture, with a need for understanding of the synergy between the three. Findings from a longitudinal, quantitative and qualitative study at Sheffield Hallam University, explore learners' behaviours, attitudes and preferences towards informal learning spaces in higher education, within and outside of the context of the academic library. The learning spaces study contributes to the discourse on informal learning spaces design by producing a typology of nine learning space preference attributes which address aspects of learning theory, placemaking and architecture. The typology can be used to evaluate existing spaces and inform redevelopment of informal learning spaces in higher education institutions. Implementing the typology will be subject to localised conditions, but at Sheffield Hallam University the key conclusions have included developing a portfolio of discrete, interrelated learning environments, offering spaces with a clear identity and encouraging students to translate their learning preferences into space selection

Early versus Delayed Decompression for Traumatic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury: Results of the Surgical Timing in Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study (STASCIS)

BACKGROUND:There is convincing preclinical evidence that early decompression in the setting of spinal cord injury (SCI) improves neurologic outcomes. However, the effect of early surgical decompression in patients with acute SCI remains uncertain. Our objective was to evaluate the relative effectiveness of early (<24 hours after injury) versus late (≥ 24 hours after injury) decompressive surgery after traumatic cervical SCI. METHODS:We performed a multicenter, international, prospective cohort study (Surgical Timing In Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study: STASCIS) in adults aged 16-80 with cervical SCI. Enrolment occurred between 2002 and 2009 at 6 North American centers. The primary outcome was ordinal change in ASIA Impairment Scale (AIS) grade at 6 months follow-up. Secondary outcomes included assessments of complications rates and mortality. FINDINGS:A total of 313 patients with acute cervical SCI were enrolled. Of these, 182 underwent early surgery, at a mean of 14.2(± 5.4) hours, with the remaining 131 having late surgery, at a mean of 48.3(± 29.3) hours. Of the 222 patients with follow-up available at 6 months post injury, 19.8% of patients undergoing early surgery showed a ≥ 2 grade improvement in AIS compared to 8.8% in the late decompression group (OR = 2.57, 95% CI:1.11,5.97). In the multivariate analysis, adjusted for preoperative neurological status and steroid administration, the odds of at least a 2 grade AIS improvement were 2.8 times higher amongst those who underwent early surgery as compared to those who underwent late surgery (OR = 2.83, 95% CI:1.10,7.28). During the 30 day post injury period, there was 1 mortality in both of the surgical groups. Complications occurred in 24.2% of early surgery patients and 30.5% of late surgery patients (p = 0.21). CONCLUSION:Decompression prior to 24 hours after SCI can be performed safely and is associated with improved neurologic outcome, defined as at least a 2 grade AIS improvement at 6 months follow-up

Population genomics of the critically endangered kākāpō

Summary The kākāpō is a flightless parrot endemic to New Zealand. Once common in the archipelago, only 201 individuals remain today, most of them descending from an isolated island population. We report the first genome-wide analyses of the species, including a high-quality genome assembly for kākāpō, one of the first chromosome-level reference genomes sequenced by the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP). We also sequenced and analyzed 35 modern genomes from the sole surviving island population and 14 genomes from the extinct mainland population. While theory suggests that such a small population is likely to have accumulated deleterious mutations through genetic drift, our analyses on the impact of the long-term small population size in kākāpō indicate that present-day island kākāpō have a reduced number of harmful mutations compared to mainland individuals. We hypothesize that this reduced mutational load is due to the island population having been subjected to a combination of genetic drift and purging of deleterious mutations, through increased inbreeding and purifying selection, since its isolation from the mainland ∼10,000 years ago. Our results provide evidence that small populations can survive even when isolated for hundreds of generations. This work provides key insights into kākāpō breeding and recovery and more generally into the application of genetic tools in conservation efforts for endangered species

Supporting Runtime Tool Interaction for Parallel Simulations

: Scientists from many disciplines now routinely use modeling and simulation techniques to study physical and biological phenomena. Advances in high-performance architectures and networking have made it possible to build complex simulations with parallel and distributed interacting components. Unfortunately, the software needed to support such complex simulations has lagged behind hardware developments. We focus here on one aspect of such support: runtime program interaction. We have developed a runtime interaction framework and we have implemented a specific instance of it for an application in seismic tomography. That instance, called TierraLab, extends the geoscientists&apos; existing (legacy) tomography code with runtime interaction capabilities which they access through a MATLAB interface. The scientist can stop a program, retrieve data, analyze and visualize that data with existing MATLAB routines, modify the data, and resume execution. They can do this all within a familiar MATLAB..

Evolutionary changes in gene expression, coding sequence and copy-number at the Cyp6g1 locus contribute to resistance to multiple insecticides in Drosophila

Widespread use of insecticides has led to insecticide resistance in many populations of insects. In some populations, resistance has evolved to multiple pesticides. In Drosophila melanogaster, resistance to multiple classes of insecticide is due to the overexpression of a single cytochrome P450 gene, Cyp6g1. Overexpression of Cyp6g1 appears to have evolved in parallel in Drosophila simulans, a sibling species of D. melanogaster, where it is also associated with insecticide resistance. However, it is not known whether the ability of the CYP6G1 enzyme to provide resistance to multiple insecticides evolved recently in D. melanogaster or if this function is present in all Drosophila species. Here we show that duplication of the Cyp6g1 gene occurred at least four times during the evolution of different Drosophila species, and the ability of CYP6G1 to confer resistance to multiple insecticides exists in D. melanogaster and D. simulans but not in Drosophila willistoni or Drosophila virilis. In D. virilis, which has multiple copies of Cyp6g1, one copy confers resistance to DDT and another to nitenpyram, suggesting that the divergence of protein sequence between copies subsequent to the duplication affected the activity of the enzyme. All orthologs tested conferred resistance to one or more insecticides, suggesting that CYP6G1 had the capacity to provide resistance to anthropogenic chemicals before they existed. Finally, we show that expression of Cyp6g1 in the Malpighian tubules, which contributes to DDT resistance in D. melanogaster, is specific to the D. melanogaster–D. simulans lineage. Our results suggest that a combination of gene duplication, regulatory changes and protein coding changes has taken place at the Cyp6g1 locus during evolution and this locus may play a role in providing resistance to different environmental toxins in different Drosophila species

Evolutionary changes in gene expression, coding sequence and copy-number at the Cyp6g1 locus contribute to resistance to multiple insecticides in Drosophila

Widespread use of insecticides has led to insecticide resistance in many populations of insects. In some populations, resistance has evolved to multiple pesticides. In Drosophila melanogaster, resistance to multiple classes of insecticide is due to the overexpression of a single cytochrome P450 gene, Cyp6g1. Overexpression of Cyp6g1 appears to have evolved in parallel in Drosophila simulans, a sibling species of D. melanogaster, where it is also associated with insecticide resistance. However, it is not known whether the ability of the CYP6G1 enzyme to provide resistance to multiple insecticides evolved recently in D. melanogaster or if this function is present in all Drosophila species. Here we show that duplication of the Cyp6g1 gene occurred at least four times during the evolution of different Drosophila species, and the ability of CYP6G1 to confer resistance to multiple insecticides exists in D. melanogaster and D. simulans but not in Drosophila willistoni or Drosophila virilis. In D. virilis, which has multiple copies of Cyp6g1, one copy confers resistance to DDT and another to nitenpyram, suggesting that the divergence of protein sequence between copies subsequent to the duplication affected the activity of the enzyme. All orthologs tested conferred resistance to one or more insecticides, suggesting that CYP6G1 had the capacity to provide resistance to anthropogenic chemicals before they existed. Finally, we show that expression of Cyp6g1 in the Malpighian tubules, which contributes to DDT resistance in D. melanogaster, is specific to the D. melanogaster-D. simulans lineage. Our results suggest that a combination of gene duplication, regulatory changes and protein coding changes has taken place at the Cyp6g1 locus during evolution and this locus may play a role in providing resistance to different environmental toxins in different Drosophila species

Cyp6g1 and Cyp6g2 copy number in twelve Drosophila species.

<p>Cyp6g1 is duplicated in D. willistoni, D. grimshawi and some strains of D. melanogster, and triplicated in D. virilis. The third copy of <i>Cyp6g1</i> in the strain of <i>D. virilis</i> used for this study has an inactivating mutation, but this mutation is not present in the sequenced strain, so it is not formally a pseudogene. Comparison with the phylogeny of the species suggests that multiple independent duplication events occurred (cladogram inferred from Stark et al. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0084879#pone.0084879-Stark1" target="_blank">[21]</a>). In contrast, Cyp6g2 has 1∶1 orthologs in all twelve Drosophila species analyzed.</p

Unrooted neighbour-joining tree of predicted CYP6G1 amino acid sequences from twelve Drosophila species.

<p>The node labels show bootstrap values from 1000 iterations. Paralogs labelled in the same colour are from the same species. The clustering of paralogs from the same species rather than of orthologs between species supports the hypothesis that the duplications and triplications occurred independently in the separate lineages.</p