Tracking of Salmonella through the Pork Slaughter Process

End of project reportTo help address the problem of salmonellosis in the Republic of Ireland (RoI), a national Salmonella control programme was introduced in 1997 with a view to reducing the prevalence of Salmonella in pigs on the farm and on pig carcasses. The primary objective of this present study was to determine the correlation between the Salmonella serological and bacteriological status of pigs presented for slaughter and the Salmonella status of pork cuts following slaughter, dressing and chilling. Two additional studies investigated the prevalence and numbers of Salmonella spp. in the boning halls of four commercial pork abattoirs and at retail level in butcher shops and supermarkets in the RoI. The results indicated that categorisation of pig herds on the basis of a historical serological test for Salmonella was not a good predictor of the bacteriological Salmonella status of individual pigs at time of slaughter. However, it is acknowledged that serological testing does help in giving a rough estimate of the overall Salmonella status of a pig herd. There was a linear correlation between prevalence of Salmonella in caecal contents and on pork cuts at factory level; therefore, if the number of herds presented for slaughter with high levels of Salmonella (category 3) was reduced, there would be less potential for contamination of the lairage, equipment etc. and so less likelihood of Salmonella contamination on pork. The impact of crosscontamination during transport, lairage, processing and distribution cannot be ignored and measures to diminish this would significantly reduce the dissemination of Salmonella in the chain and the consequent risk posed. A key finding was the considerable variation in the incidence of Salmonella on different sampling days and in different slaughter plants.National Development Plan 2007-201

Wild record of an apple snail in the Waikato River, Hamilton, New Zealand and their incidence in freshwater aquaria

We report the discovery of a single specimen of a live apple snail Pomacea diffusa Blume 1957 (Ampullariidae: Prosobranchia), from the Waikato River, Hamilton city, central North Island, New Zealand. This species, along with the congeneric P. insularum, is imported for the aquarium trade, and its occurrence in the river likely stemmed from an aquarium release. A survey of 55 aquaria belonging to 43 hobbyists revealed 27 apple snails, with one owner having 22 snails. Assessment of environmental tolerances and impacts of P. diffusa, based largely on studies of the closely related and commonly confused congener P. bridgesii, suggests that direct habitat impacts by this species are likely to be minor. However, there could be indirect influences on native biodiversity through predation on eggs or competition for food supplies with other detritivorous species if densities were to become high. Water temperatures in the Waikato River below Hamilton (10-23˚C in 2009) may enable released individuals to persist for an extended period, and over summer may exceed the threshold required to enable breeding. However, population establishment would be most likely in locations where water is heated through geothermal influences or industrial cooling water discharges

Social Functions of the Medieval Epic in the Romance Literatures

Joseph J. Duggan, Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, has made many important contributions to the study of medieval texts with roots in oral tradition, perhaps most notably The Song of Roland: Formulaic Style and Poetic Craft (1973) and Oral Literature: Seven Essays (1975). He is editor of Romance Philology

A synthesis of the Late Woodland Mason Phase in the Normandy and Tims Ford Reservoirs in Middle Tennessee

From ca. 600 A.D. to 1100 A.D. Late Woodland groups occupied the upper Duck and Elk River valleys in the Eastern Highland Rim Physiographic Section in Middle Tennessee. These Mason phase peoples lived primarily on the older alluvial terraces where they exploited a wide range of locally available resources from three types of habitation loci: base camps, seasonal encampments and task-specific stations. Artifactual and floral data suggest that these people were Woodland hunter-gatherers who were familiar with horticultural practices

Being Cherokee in a White World: Ethnic Identity in a Post-Removal American Indian Enclave

Within a few years of 1838, when most members of the Cherokee Nation were forced to emigrate to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears, a small group of Cherokee families reestablished settlements in and around the Ducktown Basin in the southeastern comer of Tennessee, away from the major Eastern Cherokee remnants in North Carolina. This dissertation reconstructs the history of these Cherokees from 1838 through the 1910s, focusing on the nature of their communities; their economic, social, and religious relationships with local whites; their associations with other Cherokee enclaves and individuals; and their ultimate disappearance from the Basin. Data are drawn from a broad spectrum of primary and secondary sources, and include evidence derived from documentary, oral, ethnohistoric, ethnographic, folkloric, and material sources. Theories of Fredrik Barth (1969) and Edward H. Spicer (1962, 1971, 1972c) on ethnicity and ethnic persistence and Eric Wolf\u27s Europe and the People Without History (1982) provide a framework for interpreting the Ducktown Basin Cherokee experience within the broader contexts of Cherokee, American Indian, local, regional, and national history and culture. Historic and contemporary Indian and non-Indian voices as well as multiple layers of thick description (Geertz 1973) are employed to represent this historically obscured American Indian enclave and to reveal how its members collectively and individually enacted being Cherokee in the course of daily living after the extreme disruptions of Removal. In terms of economic pursuits, material culture in general, and material wealth, the Basin Cherokees differed little from their non-Indian neighbors. Boundaries protecting their sense of Cherokee identity, however, were marked and maintained in several important ways. A central ethnic marker for this post-Removal group was the recreation of and participation in traditional matrilineally-and matrilocally-focused community. Continued use of the Cherokee language, values, and intermediaries were equally important signals of the members\u27 Cherokee-ness, as well as forms of passive resistance against the new non-Indian majority. Maintenance of traditional rivercane basketry by some women connected the group economically and socially with non-Indians, but at the same time produced objects imbued with symbolic links to past lifeways and to contemporary social affiliations: family, locality, and tribe. Economic and social interactions between the Ducktown Basin enclave and non-Indians stand in marked contrast to the experience of other Eastern Cherokee enclaves during the same period. In particular, the discovery of a major copper reserve in 1843 quickly led to national and international industrial speculation and development in the Ducktown Basin. The Cherokees who had reestablished communities in the Basin, and other Cherokees drawn in as peripheral industrial workers during the first copper boom, were profoundly affected by the changing nature of local white society and by shifting perceptions about Indian-ness in America and the South. As the Ducktown Basin\u27s copper industry developed, competition for limited agricultural lands and industrial work intensified. these changes, coupled with local and national tightening of racial boundaries, increased social and racial stratification, and growing racial intolerance eventually caused Cherokee families to withdraw from the Basin. Links maintained with traditionalist Cherokee communities in North Carolina, however, ensured their continued participation in the traditional kinship and social relationships then central to Cherokee community and ethnicity. In this symbolic sense the Ducktown Basin Cherokee enclave continues; as one descendant says, We are all from there