Sustainability, transport and design: reviewing the prospects for safely encouraging eco-driving

Private vehicle use contributes a disproportionately large amount to the degradation of the environment we inhabit. Technological advancement is of course critical to the mitigation of climate change, however alone it will not suffice; we must also see behavioural change. This paper will argue for the application of Ergonomics to the design of private vehicles, particularly low-carbon vehicles (e.g. hybrid and electric), to encourage this behavioural change. A brief review of literature is offered concerning the effect of the design of a technological object on behaviour, the inter-related nature of goals and feedback in guiding performance, the effect on fuel economy of different driving styles, and the various challenges brought by hybrid and electric vehicles, including range anxiety, workload and distraction, complexity, and novelty. This is followed by a discussion on the potential applicability of a particular design framework, namely Ecological Interface Design, to the design of in-vehicle interfaces that encourage energy-conserving driving behaviours whilst minimising distraction and workload, thus ensuring safety

Detection and characterisation of Complement protein activity in bovine milk by bactericidal sequestration assay

Susan Maye is in receipt of a Teagasc Walsh Fellowship. Financial support by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is gratefully acknowledged.Copyright © Proprietors of Journal of Dairy Research 2015 (Institute of Food Research and the Hannah Research Institute)peer-reviewedWhile the Complement protein system in human milk is well characterised, there is little information on its presence and activity in bovine milk. Complement forms part of the innate immune system, hence the importance of its contribution during milk ingestion to the overall defences of the neonate. A bactericidal sequestration assay, featuring a Complement sensitive strain, Escherichia coli 0111, originally used to characterise Complement activity in human milk was successfully applied to freshly drawn bovine milk samples, thus, providing an opportunity to compare Complement activities in both human and bovine milks. Although not identical in response, the levels of Complement activity in bovine milk were found to be closely comparable with that of human milk. Differential counts of Esch. coli 0111 after 2 h incubation were 6·20 and 6·06 log CFU/ml, for raw bovine and human milks, respectively – the lower value representing a stronger Complement response. Exposing bovine milk to a range of thermal treatments e.g. 42, 45, 65, 72, 85 or 95 °C for 10 min, progressively inhibited Complement activity by increasing temperature, thus confirming the heat labile nature of this immune protein system. Low level Complement activity was found, however, in 65 and 72 °C heat treated samples and in retailed pasteurised milk which highlights the outer limit to which high temperature, short time (HTST) industrial thermal processes should be applied if retention of activity is a priority. Concentration of Complement in the fat phase was evident following cream separation, and this was also reflected in the further loss of activity recorded in low fat variants of retailed pasteurised milk. Laboratory-based churning of the cream during simulated buttermaking generated an aqueous (buttermilk) phase with higher levels of Complement activity than the fat phase, thus pointing to a likely association with the milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) layer.Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marin

Proteolysis - induced changes in meat collagen during conditioning.

Changes in intramuscular connective tissue brought about by conditioning were investigated in bovine muscles of different quality. Perimysial and endomysial collagens were solubilized to a small extent during conditioning and residual insoluble collagens in both connective tissue domains were damaged by proteolytic processing. Yields of soluble perimysial material from unconditioned muscles were significantly lower (p = 0.096) than from conditioned muscles. Solubilized perimysial collagen from unconditioned muscles was significantly lower (p = 0.015) than from conditioned muscles with 1±0.8 % of original collagen solubilized for unconditioned muscles and 3.4 ± 3.3 % for conditioned muscles. 87.5 % of the muscles examined showed an increase in percentage solubilized collagen due to conditioning. The main peptide components observed on analysis of insoluble perimysial fractions after CNBr digestion were derived from types I and III collagen. No changes were observed in the major peptide bands due to conditioning. Yields of soluble endomysial fractions representedo, n average,9 4.5 % of total extracted endomysial material for unconditioned muscles compared with 97.5 % for conditioned muscles. Soluble endomysial fractions contained, on average, 0.13 % collagen from unconditioned muscles and 0.22 % collagen from conditioned muscles. The main peptide components observed on analysis of insoluble endomysial fractions after CNBr-digestion were derived from types I and III collagen. Changes observed on the peptide maps, evident as the appearanceo f a number of new bandsf rom conditioned samples,a ppearedt o be muscle specific. % Type III collagen decreased on conditioning, indicating that endomysial type III collagen was preferentially destroyed during - conditioning. In model systems, insoluble perimysium treated with pepsin over 24 h resulted in little damage to the insoluble collagenous residue remaining. Insoluble perimysium treated with cathepsin resulted in changes to the major peptide bands on one-dimensional SDSpolyacrylamide gel electrophoresisw hich were evident after 24 h treatment. Two-dimensional peptide maps obtained from conditioned insoluble perimysium and from insoluble perimysium treated with cathepsin for 24 h were altered relative to the unconditioned insoluble perimysium, indicating proteolytic damage to high molecular weight fractions. The in vitro case was extreme, but was comparable with conditioned insoluble perimysium. In addition, new peptide material in conditioned perimysium and endomysium in the molecular weight range 40 000 to 50 000 was observed, while perimysial samples revealed loss of peptide material, due to conditioning. Percentage solubilized collagen was higher (p < 0.05) from three muscles of varying quality when pre-injected with 0.1 M lactic acid and conditioned from 1 to 14 days than from untreated muscles. Analysis of the high molecular weight collagen peptides from lactic acid treated muscles by two-dimensional SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed increased incidence of degradation in this region compared with untreated controls. Sensory profiling using quality descriptive analysis (QDA) was carried out on three muscles of varying quality, pre-injected with 0.1 M lactic acid and results compared with untreated muscles. The results obtained failed to correlate the observed biochemical changes due to lactic acid treatment with perceived textural changes in these muscles. However, variability of the taste panel scores contributed significantly to the results obtained

Landing the first job: the value of intermediaries in online hiring

Online markets for remote labor services allow workers and firms to contract with each other directly. Despite this, intermediaries - called outsourcing agencies - have emerged in these markets. This paper shows that agencies signal to employers that inexperienced workers are high quality. Workers affiliated with an agency have substantially higher job-finding probabilities and wages at the beginning of their careers compared to similar workers without an agency affiliation. This advantage declines after high-quality non-affiliated workers receive good public feedback scores. The results indicate that intermediaries have arisen endogenously to permit a more efficient allocation of workers to jobs

Landing the first job: the value of intermediaries in online hiring

Online markets for remote labour services allow workers and firms to contract with each other directly. Despite this, intermediaries—called outsourcing agencies—have emerged in these markets. This article shows that agencies signal to employers that inexperienced workers are high quality. Workers affiliated with an agency have substantially higher job-finding probabilities and wages at the beginning of their careers compared to similar workers without an agency affiliation. This advantage declines after high-quality non-affiliated workers receive good public feedback scores. The results indicate that intermediaries have arisen endogenously to permit a more efficient allocation of workers to jobs

Proteomics as the final step in the functional metagenomics study of antimicrobial resistance

peer-reviewedThe majority of clinically applied antimicrobial agents are derived from natural products generated by soil microorganisms and therefore resistance is likely to be ubiquitous in such environments. This is supported by the fact that numerous clinically important resistance mechanisms are encoded within the genomes of such bacteria. Advances in genomic sequencing have enabled the in silico identification of putative resistance genes present in these microorganisms. However, it is not sufficient to rely on the identification of putative resistance genes, we must also determine if the resultant proteins confer a resistant phenotype. This will require an analysis pipeline that extends from the extraction of environmental DNA, to the identification and analysis of potential resistance genes and their resultant proteins and phenotypes. This review focuses on the application of functional metagenomics and proteomics to study antimicrobial resistance in diverse environments.The Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre is a research centre funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). This publication has emanated from research supported in part by a research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under Grant Number SFI/12/RC/2273 and by FP7 funded CFMATTERS (Cystic Fibrosis Microbiome-determined Antibiotic Therapy Trial in Exacerba- tions: Results Stratified, Grant Agreement no. 603038)

The Production of Relevant Scales: Social Identification of Migrants During Rapid Demographic Change in One American Town

This essay explores the question of relevant scale: which of the many potentially relevant processes – from interactional through local through global, from nearly instantaneous through those emergent over months, years or centuries – in fact contributes to social identification in any given case, and how do these heterogeneous processes interrelate? Contemporary answers to this question have moved beyond the détente of the “micro-macro dialectic,” in which purportedly homogeneous “macro” processes constrain events and actions, while being simultaneously constituted by “micro” events and actions. We review contemporary work on these issues, with particular reference to the use of language in social identification, and we argue that an adequate account must go beyond “micro” and “macro.” We illustrate our argument with data from a seven-year ethnographic project in an American town that has received thousands of Mexican immigrants over the past decade, focusing on two types of narratives that residents tell about immigrants: stories about “payday muggings” in which immigrants are victimized, and stories about the town\u27s historical trajectory and immigrants\u27 role in it. These narratives emerge and move across different scales, and they are an important resource for residents as they socially identify themselves and others

Life as a Chord: Heterogeneous Resources in the Social Identification of One Migrant Girl

The social and natural worlds provide heterogeneous resources that contribute both to instances of social identification and to life trajectories. One might claim or be assigned membership in various groups, which emerge at different spatial and temporal scales, and resources for social identification are often combined in novel ways to yield unexpected identities. To account for the trajectories of identification that any individual travels, analysts must determine which configurations of resources become relevant in a given case. Of the many resources that might be relevant to identifying an individual, event, or setting, a few generally become salient—somewhat like several musical notes coming together to constitute a chord. We illustrate this contingent process by describing one young Mexican migrant in the USA, sketching relevant aspects of family interactions, educational practices, local community characteristics, and national discourses. This girl, her family, and other actors combine heterogeneous resources in contingent ways as they navigate and establish an emerging trajectory of identification through which she becomes a ‘good reader’

16S rRNA gene sequencing of mock microbial populations- impact of DNA extraction method, primer choice and sequencing platform

peer-reviewedBackground Next-generation sequencing platforms have revolutionised our ability to investigate the microbiota composition of complex environments, frequently through 16S rRNA gene sequencing of the bacterial component of the community. Numerous factors, including DNA extraction method, primer sequences and sequencing platform employed, can affect the accuracy of the results achieved. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of these three factors on 16S rRNA gene sequencing results, using mock communities and mock community DNA. Results The use of different primer sequences (V4-V5, V1-V2 and V1-V2 degenerate primers) resulted in differences in the genera and species detected. The V4-V5 primers gave the most comparable results across platforms. The three Ion PGM primer sets detected more of the 20 mock community species than the equivalent MiSeq primer sets. Data generated from DNA extracted using the 2 extraction methods were very similar. Conclusions Microbiota compositional data differed depending on the primers and sequencing platform that were used. The results demonstrate the risks in comparing data generated using different sequencing approaches and highlight the merits of choosing a standardised approach for sequencing in situations where a comparison across multiple sequencing runs is required.This publication has emanated from research supported in part by a research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under Grant Numbers SFI/12/RC/2273 and 11/PI/1137 and by FP7 funded CFMATTERS (Cystic Fibrosis Microbiome-determined Antibiotic Therapy Trial in Exacerbations: Results Stratified, Grant Agreement no. 603038)