Bacteriocins: Novel Solutions to Age Old Spore-Related Problems?

peer-reviewedBacteriocins are ribosomally synthesized antimicrobial peptides produced by bacteria, which have the ability to kill or inhibit other bacteria. Many bacteriocins are produced by food grade lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Indeed, the prototypic bacteriocin, nisin, is produced by Lactococcus lactis, and is licensed in over 50 countries. With consumers becoming more concerned about the levels of chemical preservatives present in food, bacteriocins offer an alternative, more natural approach, while ensuring both food safety and product shelf life. Bacteriocins also show additive/synergistic effects when used in combination with other treatments, such as heating, high pressure, organic compounds, and as part of food packaging. These features are particularly attractive from the perspective of controlling sporeforming bacteria. Bacterial spores are common contaminants of food products, and their outgrowth may cause food spoilage or food-borne illness. They are of particular concern to the food industry due to their thermal and chemical resistance in their dormant state. However, when spores germinate they lose the majority of their resistance traits, making them susceptible to a variety of food processing treatments. Bacteriocins represent one potential treatment as they may inhibit spores in the post-germination/outgrowth phase of the spore cycle. Spore eradication and control in food is critical, as they are able to spoil and in certain cases compromise the safety of food by producing dangerous toxins. Thus, understanding the mechanisms by which bacteriocins exert their sporostatic/sporicidal activity against bacterial spores will ultimately facilitate their optimal use in food. This review will focus on the use of bacteriocins alone, or in combination with other innovative processing methods to control spores in food, the current knowledge and gaps therein with regard to bacteriocin-spore interactions and discuss future research approaches to enable spores to be more effectively targeted by bacteriocins in food settings.KE, DF, CH, PC, MR, RR are supported by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan, through the Food Institutional Research Measure, administered by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Ireland (DAFM 13/F/462) to PC and MR, a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Technology and Innovation Development Award (TIDA 14/TIDA/2286) to DF, SFI-PI funding (11/PI/1137) to PDC and the APC Microbiome Insitute under Grant Number SFI/12/RC/2273

Examining monetary policy reaction in the People’s Republic of China – a Markov switching policy index approach

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the Irish Research Council (IRC) and The Paul Tansey Postgraduate Research Scholarship in Economics.This paper estimates a monetary policy rule for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) using a standard OLS estimation and a Markov switching model. As the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) generally uses a battery of instruments in the conduct of its monetary policy, these models are estimated using a constructed monetary policy index (MPI) in place of the traditional interest rate. This allows for a better understanding of the role the PBOC has played in the PRC’s unprecedented economic growth and its relatively low inflation over the last twenty years. This paper will not only examine the unique characteristics of Chinese monetary policy but may also give a more general insight into the dynamics of monetary policy reactions in other emerging markets and economies in transition.PostprintPeer reviewe

Examining monetary policy transmission in the People's Republic of China – structural change models with a Monetary Policy Index

The financial support of the Irish Research Council and The Paul Tansey Economics Postgraduate Research Scholarship is greatly appreciated.This paper estimates augmented versions of the Investment–Saving curve for the People's Republic of China in an attempt to examine the relationship between monetary policy and the real economy. It endeavors to account for any structural break, nonlinearity, or asymmetry in the transmission process by estimating a breakpoint model and a Markov switching model. The Investment–Saving curve equations are estimated using a Monetary Policy Index, which has been calculated using the Kalman filter. This index will account for the various monetary policy tools, both quantitative and qualitative, that the People's Bank of China has used over the period 1991–2014. The results of this paper suggest that monetary policy has an asymmetric affect depending on the level of output in relation to potential, and that the People's Republic of China's exchange rate policy has restricted the effectiveness of the People's Bank of China's monetary policy response.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Eliciting Uncertain Resilience Information for Risk Mitigation

The literature of risk, mitigation, and resilience is rich in classifications and recommendations. The missing link is evaluation: ideally, data based; initially, based on expert judgment. We present a novel approach for eliciting probability distributions describing mitigation effectiveness. This approach can be used by subject matter experts (SMEs) who are not specialists in mathematics or engineering. A visual interface permits each expert to sketch a distribution by moving five colored dots on the user interface. The engine can weight and combine estimates from several SMEs into an aggregate density function suitable for presentation, and an aggregate cumulated distribution for use in Monte Carlo simulations. Additional supporting software adapts the tool for real-time support of virtual Delphi-type sessions involving multiple distributed experts. Use of the tool in a study aimed at controlling information and communication technology supply chain risks yields valuable information on those threats, and on the tool itself

Bacteriocins: antibiotics in the age of the microbiome

Antibiotics have revolutionised the treatment of infectious disease and improved the lives of billions of people worldwide over many decades. With the rise in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and corresponding lack of antibiotic development, we find ourselves in dire need of alternative treatments. Bacteriocins are a class of bacterially produced, ribosomally synthesised, antimicrobial peptides that may be narrow or broad in their spectra of activity. Animal models have demonstrated the safety and efficacy of bacteriocins in treating a broad range of infections; however, one of the principal drawbacks has been their relatively narrow spectra when compared with small-molecule antibiotics. In an era where we are beginning to appreciate the role of the microbiota in human and animal health, the fact that bacteriocins cause much less collateral damage to the host microbiome makes them a highly desirable therapeutic. This review makes a case for the implementation of bacteriocins as therapeutic antimicrobials, either alone or in combination with existing antibiotics to alleviate the AMR crisis and to lessen the impact of antibiotics on the host microbiome

Reinvestigating the oil price-stock market nexus : Evidence from Chinese industry stock returns

This paper investigates the influence of international oil prices on China’s stock market returns across twenty-nine different industries. It attempts to account for any structural breaks and nonlinearity in this relationship. The results find that the effect of changes in the international price of oil on stock returns differs substantially across industries. The stock returns of the coal, chemicals, mining and oil industries are found to be positively affected by crude oil price movements. Conversely, electronics, food manufacturing, general equipment, pharmaceuticals, retail, rubber and vehicle industries are found to be negatively affected by movements in the price of crude oil. The results of the estimations also suggest that the majority of Chinese industries have been significantly affected by oil prices since 2004. The influence of international oil prices on Chinese stocks was also found to have a stronger effect in the presence of high volatility, but the effect varies across industries.PostprintPeer reviewe

EXPRESS: As clear as glass: How figurativeness and familiarity impact simile processing in readers with and without dyslexia

For skilled readers, idiomatic language confers faster access to overall meaning compared with non-idiomatic language, with a processing advantage for figurative over literal interpretation. However, currently very little research exists to elucidate whether atypical readers – such as those with developmental dyslexia – show such a processing advantage for figurative interpretations of idioms, or whether their reading impairment implicates subtle differences in semantic access. We wanted to know whether an initial figurative interpretation of similes, for both typical and dyslexic readers, is dependent on familiarity. Here, we tracked typical and dyslexic readers’ eye movements as they read sentences containing similes (e.g. as cold as ice), orthogonally manipulated for novelty (e.g. familiar: as cold as ice, novel: as cold as snow) and figurativeness (e.g. literal: as cold as ice [low temperature], figurative: as cold as ice [emotionally distant]), with figurativeness being defined by the sentence context. Both participant groups exhibited a processing advantage for familiar and figurative similes over novel and literal similes. However, compared to typical readers, participants with dyslexia had greater difficulty processing similes both when they were unfamiliar, and when the context biased the simile meaning toward a literal rather than a figurative interpretation. Our findings suggest a semantic processing anomaly in dyslexic readers, which we discuss in light of recent literature on sentence-level semantic processing

Mentoring Experiences of Aging and Disability Rehabilitation Researchers

Objectives. To explore research mentoring experiences and perceived mentoring needs of aging and disability researchers at different career stages. Design. Focus group and individual interviews with rehabilitation researchers at various career stages based in hospitals, universities, and hospital-based research institutes in Ontario, Canada. Results. The overall theme was mentoring for transition. Participants across career stages referred to helpful mentoring experiences as those that assisted them to move from their previous stage into the present stage or from the present stage into their next career progression. Unhelpful mentoring experiences were characterized by mentor actions that were potentially detrimental to transition. Subsumed under this theme were three categories. The first, “hidden information” referred to practical information that was difficult to access. The second “delicate issues” referred to helping the participant work through issues related to sensitive matters, the discussion of which could put the participants or their colleagues in a vulnerable position. The third category was “special challenges of clinician-researchers”. Conclusions. Helpful mentoring for rehabilitation researchers working on concerns related to aging and disability appears to be characterized by interaction with more experienced individuals who aid the researcher work through issues related to career transition