SPARC 2022 book of abstracts

Welcome to the Book of Abstracts for the 2022 SPARC conference. Our conference is called “Moving Forwards” reflecting our re-emergence from the pandemic and our desire to reconnect our PGR community, in celebration of their research. PGRs have continued with their research endeavours despite many challenges, and their ongoing successes are underpinned by the support and guidance of dedicated supervisors and the Doctoral School Team. To recognise supervision excellence we will be awarding our annual Supervisor of the Year prizes, based on the wonderful nominations received from their PGR students.Once again, we have received a tremendous contribution from our postgraduate research community; with over 60 presenters, 12 Three-Minute Thesis finalists, and 20 poster presentations, the conference showcases our extraordinarily vibrant, inclusive, and resilient PGR community at Salford. This year there will be prizes to be won for ‘best in conference’ presentations, in addition to the winners from each parallel session. Audience members too could be in for a treat, with judges handing out spot prizes for the best questions asked, so don’t miss the opportunity to put your hand up. These abstracts provide a taster of the diverse and impactful research in progress and provide delegates with a reference point for networking and initiating critical debate. Take advantage of the hybrid format: in online sessions by posting a comment or by messaging an author to say “Hello”, or by initiating break time discussions about the amazing research you’ve seen if you are with us in person. Who knows what might result from your conversation? With such wide-ranging topics being showcased, we encourage you to take up this great opportunity to engage with researchers working in different subject areas from your own. As recent events have shown, researchers need to collaborate to meet global challenges. Interdisciplinary and international working is increasingly recognised and rewarded by all major research funders. We do hope, therefore, that you will take this opportunity to initiate interdisciplinary conversations with other researchers. A question or comment from a different perspective can shed new light on a project and could lead to exciting collaborations, and that is what SPARC is all about. SPARC is part of a programme of personal and professional development opportunities offered to all postgraduate researchers at Salford. More information about this programme is available on our website: Doctoral School | University of Salford. Registered Salford students can access full details on the Doctoral School hub: Doctoral School Hub - Home (sharepoint.com) You can follow us on Twitter @SalfordPGRs and please use the #SPARC2022 to share your conference experience.We particularly welcome taught students from our undergraduate and master’s programmes as audience members. We hope you enjoy the presentations on offer and that they inspire you to pursue your own research career. If you would like more information about studying for a PhD here at the University of Salford, your lecturers can advise, or you can contact the relevant PGR Support Officer; their details can be found at Doctoral School | University of Salford. We wish you a rich and rewarding conference experience

Clinical isolates of Vibrio cholerae O1 El Tor Ogawa of 2009 from Kolkata, India: preponderance of SXT element and presence of Haitian ctxB variant.

BACKGROUND: Increase in the number of multidrug resistant pathogens and the accompanied rise in case fatality rates has hampered the treatment of many infectious diseases including cholera. Unraveling the mechanisms responsible for multidrug resistance in the clinical isolates of Vibrio cholerae would help in understanding evolution of these pathogenic bacteria and their epidemic potential. This study was carried out to identify genetic factors responsible for multiple drug resistance in clinical isolates of Vibrio cholerae O1, serotype Ogawa, biotype El Tor isolated from the patients admitted to the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Kolkata, India, in 2009. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: One hundred and nineteen clinical isolates of V. cholerae were analysed for their antibiotic resistance phenotypes. Antibiogram analysis revealed that majority of the isolates showed resistance to co-trimoxazole, nalidixic acid, polymixin B and streptomycin. In PCR, SXT integrase was detected in 117 isolates and its sequence showed 99% identity notably to ICEVchInd5 from Sevagram, India, ICEVchBan5 from Bangladesh and VC1786ICE sequence from Haiti outbreak among others. Antibiotic resistance traits corresponding to SXT element were transferred from the parent Vibrio isolate to the recipient E. coli XL-1 Blue cells during conjugation. Double-mismatch-amplification mutation assay (DMAMA) revealed the presence of Haitian type ctxB allele of genotype 7 in 55 isolates and the classical ctxB allele of genotype 1 in 59 isolates. Analysis of topoisomerase sequences revealed the presence of mutation Ser83 → Ile in gyrA and Ser85→ Leu in parC. This clearly showed the circulation of SXT-containing V. cholerae as causative agent for cholera in Kolkata. CONCLUSIONS: There was predominance of SXT element in these clinical isolates from Kolkata region which also accounted for their antibiotic resistance phenotype typical of this element. DMAMA PCR showed them to be a mixture of isolates with different ctxB alleles like classical, El Tor and Haitian variants

Agarose gel (1%) analysis of PCR product of SXT integrase from IDH isolates and their transconjugants.

<p>PCR products obtained using genomic DNA templates from clinical isolates or their transconjugants have been electrophoresed in different lanes as follows: Lane M : 1 kb ladder (Fermentas); Lane 1: Positive control <i>V.cholerae</i> O139 MO10; Lane 2: Recipient <i>E. coli</i> XL-1 Blue; Lanes 3 and 4: Negative controls of no DNA template and SXT-negative IDH02095 isolate respectively; Lanes 5 and 6 : IDH01572 (SXT-positive) isolate and its transconjugant respectively; Lanes 7 and 8 : IDH01738 (SXT-positive) isolate and its transconjugant respectively.</p

Antibiotic susceptibility profile of 119 clinical isolates from Kolkata, India, in 2009.

<p>AMP, Ampicillin; CHL, Chloramphenicol; CIP, Ciprofloxacin; COT, Co-Trimoxazole; GEN, Gentamicin; KAN, Kanamycin; NAL, Nalidixic Acid; NEO, Neomycin; NOR, Norfloxacin; PB, Polymixin B; STR, Streptomycin; SUL, Sulfisoxazole; TET, Tetracycline; TRI, Trimethoprim.</p

Antimicrobial susceptibility of IDH01572, IDH01738 and their transconjugants.

<p>The antibiotic names are as described in legend to <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0056477#pone-0056477-g001" target="_blank">figure 1</a>.</p><p>Bold face indicates the resistance traits from recipient XL-1Blue cells.</p

Towards a Ubiquitous Semantics of Interaction: phenomenology, scenarios and traces

Abstract. This paper begins a process of building a semantic framework to link the many diverse interface notations that are used in more formal communities of HCI. The focus in this paper is on scenarios – single traces of user behaviour. These form a point of contact between approaches that embody very different models of interface abstractions or mechanisms. The paper looks first at discrete time models as these are more prevalent and finds that even here there are substantive issues to be addressed, especially concerning the different interpretation of timing that become apparent when you relate behaviour from different models/notations. Ubiquitous interaction, virtual reality and rich media all involve aspects of more continuous interaction and the relevant models are reviewed. Because of their closer match to the real world, they are found to differ less in terms of ontological features of behaviour