Indicator organisms to determine the use of chilling as a critical point in beef slaughter HACCP

End of project reportDuring chilling, temperatures of carcass surfaces at different sites change over time as do other parameters such as water activity (aw), the structure of the muscle and other tissues, as the carcass enters rigor mortis. Many of these factors are known to have a major effect on cell survival and growth and must be considered in determining the influence of chilling on bacterial survival on carcass surfaces. This study aimed to determine if chilling could be used as a critical control point (CCP) in beef slaughter in relation to pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes, using E. coli and Listeria innocua as pathogen indicators. The present study was designed to determine the influence of (a) chilling at 10oC for 72 h on the survival of E. coli and (b) chilling at 4oC for 72 h on the survival of L. innocua inoculated at different sites on beef carcasses. Three sites (neck, outside round and brisket) were inoculated (1) immediately after dressing while hot (E. coli and L. innocua) and (2) when cold after chilling (L. innocua). The influence of changes in surface aw was also considered and their relationship to the survival of E. coli and L. innocua over time was assessed. The data are discussed in relation to the use of chilling as a CCP in beef hazard analysis (HACCP) and the monitoring of neck temperature as the most suitable CCP.National Development Pla

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

Number and plural semantics: Empirical evidence from Marori

This paper presents new empirical evidence from Marori (a Papuan language of Southern New Guinea) for the semantics of number in a complex number system. Marori has a basic three-way number system, singular/dual/plural. Marori is notable for showing distributed number exponence and constructed number strategies, in sharp contrast with familiar twoway, morphologically simpler number systems in languages such as English. Unlike in English, the reference of plurals in Marori in many contexts is to a group of three or more individuals. While Marori’s number system is typologically quite different from English, it shows an intriguing similarity in that in certain contexts, plural/nonsingular forms allow an inclusive reading (i.e. reference to any number of individuals, including one). The paper also presents evidence that all number types, including constructed dual, can be used for generic reference. The paper concludes with remarks on the theoretical significance of our findings

Policing, Masculinities, and Judicial Acknowledgment

In the 1980s, the Supreme Court held that courts must consider the “totality of the circumstances” when deciding the reasonableness of a police officer’s conduct in an excessive force suit. To this day, the precise meaning of “reasonableness” remains elusive. For years, courts around the country have struggled to articulate what police conduct should and—equally as saliently— should not be considered during reasonableness determinations. Thus far, the Supreme Court has been unwilling to substantively clarify its reasonableness doctrine. This lack of clarity has led to an untenable patchwork of differing legal frameworks throughout the United States. This issue exists in a cultural milieu of exacerbated police tensions and intersects issues of race, class, and gender. This Note focuses on the latter, centering the discussion on how gender increases the potential for police violence. In doing so, it considers how the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has historically turned a blind eye to some of the predominant social forces that shape police culture in America, thereby insulating dangerous forms of police conduct from judicial scrutiny. This Note attempts to wed policy considerations with legal reasoning and argues that the Supreme Court should broaden its reasonableness inquiry for two key reasons: first, to resolve the current circuit split, and second, to acknowledge—and dismantle—the problematic policing culture that its own jurisprudence helped shape

Sex differences in variability across timescales in BALB/c mice.

BackgroundFemales are markedly underinvestigated in the biological and behavioral sciences due to the presumption that cyclic hormonal changes across the ovulatory cycle introduce excess variability to measures of interest in comparison to males. However, recent analyses indicate that male and female mice and rats exhibit comparable variability across numerous physiological and behavioral measures, even when the stage of the estrous cycle is not considered. Hormonal changes across the ovulatory cycle likely contribute cyclic, intra-individual variability in females, but the source(s) of male variability has, to our knowledge, not been investigated. It is unclear whether male variability, like that of females, is temporally structured and, therefore, quantifiable and predictable. Finally, whether males and females exhibit variability on similar time scales has not been explored.MethodsThese questions were addressed by collecting chronic, high temporal resolution locomotor activity (LA) and core body temperature (CBT) data from male and female BALB/c mice.ResultsContrary to expectation, males are more variable than females over the course of the day (diel variability) and exhibit higher intra-individual daily range than females in both LA and CBT. Between mice of a given sex, variability is comparable for LA but the inter-individual daily range in CBT is greater for males. To identify potential rhythmic processes contributing to these sex differences, we employed wavelet transformations across a range of periodicities (1-39 h).ConclusionsAlthough variability in circadian power is comparable between the sexes for both LA and CBT, infradian variability is greater in females and ultradian variability is greater in males. Thus, exclusion of female mice from studies because of estrous cycle variability may increase variance in investigations where only male measures are collected over a span of several hours and limit generalization of findings from males to females

T-Cell Subsets Predict Mortality in Malnourished Zambian Adults Initiating Antiretroviral Therapy.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedTo estimate the prognostic value of T-cell subsets in Zambian patients initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART), and to assess the impact of a nutritional intervention on T-cell subsets.This work was supported by European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership grant # IP.2009.33011.004; trial foods were prepared and supplied by Nutriset, Malauney, Franc