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Australia is a federation of States. This political structure necessitates collaborative arrangements between Australian governments to harmonize national regulation of gene technology and food standards. Extensive political negotiation among institutions of federal government has managed regulation of GM crops and food. Well-developed human resources in Australian government provided numerous policy documents facilitating a transparent political process. Workable legislation has been devised in the face of criticisms of gene technology though the political process. Conflicts between potential disruptions to food commodity trade by precautionary proposals for environmental protection were one cause of political tensions, and differences in policy priorities at regional political levels versus national and international forums for negotiation were another. Australian policy outcomes on GM crops reflect (a) strong economic self-interest in innovative and productive farming, (b) reliance on global agricultural market reforms through the Cairns trade group and the WTO, and (c) the importance of Codex Alimentarius and WTO instruments SPS and TBT. Precautionary frameworks for GM food safety assurance that are inconsistent with WTO obligations were avoided in legislation. Since 2008 the 2 major parties, Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Liberals appear to have reached a workable consensus at the Federal policy level about an important role for agricultural biotechnology in Australia's economic future.

Gene technology is regulated in Australia by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR), a federal government agency with responsibility for managing health and environmental risks of GM organisms under the Gene Technology Act 2000. The OGTR liaises with other national agencies, governments of States and Territories of Australia and local councils. Current national risk management regulation is the result of three decades of experience with oversight of gene technology. A major operational feature of Australian regulation is reliance on Institutional Biosafety Committees (IBCs) located within the regulated institutions. In 2009–2010 the OGTR managed 45 licenses relating to GM crop field trials, and inspected crop trials that included canola, wheat, barley, banana, sugarcane, cotton, Indian mustard and grapevines. States and Territories of Australia make decisions on market related (non-safety) issues, and adopt different political stances with respect to commercialization of GM crops. Some Australian states support environmental release of licensed GM crops (e.g., Queensland), others ban them (Tasmania), while some have re-positioned themselves, after initially opposing commercialization, to currently allowing regulated commercial use (Victoria, Western Australia). Flexibility exhibited by the Australian regulatory system is facilitated by separation of political decision-making in the Gene Technology Ministerial Council away from the OGTR.

This article focuses on the safety of genetically modified foods. In the developed world consumers have the luxury of worrying about hypothetical fears while people suffer and die in the developing world from very real food hazards that are preventable by better technology. Satisfying the concerns of wealthy western Europeans about hypothetical food hazards can interfere with the provision of better nutrition for the poor in countries like India, Brazil and Bangladesh. The basic theme explored in this article is that decisions about the safety of GM food need to be comprehensive in assessing safety emphasise actual hazards, and balance the possible harm of using a novel food against the harm that can come from interfering with its availability and making food innovation impossible by excessive precaution. Plants are not mtrinsically safe to eat. They are selected by evolution not to provide perfectly nutritious and safe food for humans but to be successful in producing seeds that flourish for succeeding generations. Potentially hazardous foods can be eaten because humans have discovered ways of cooking and processing the food so that the poisons are eliminated or destroyed, and because humans have a high tolerance to many toxins because the human liver produces special enzymes that neutralise many of the plant's chemical defences against being eaten.

ABSTRACTA multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme has been developed for Enterococcus faecium. Internal fragments from seven housekeeping genes of 123 epidemiologically unlinked isolates from humans and livestock and 16 human-derived isolates from several outbreaks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and The Netherlands were analyzed. A total of 62 sequence types were detected in vancomycin-sensitive E. faecium(VSEF) and vancomycin-resistant E. faecium(VREF) isolates. VSEF isolates were genetically more diverse than VREF isolates. Both VSEF and VREF isolates clustered in host-specific lineages that were similar to the host-specific clustering obtained by amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis. Outbreak isolates from hospitalized humans clustered in a subgroup that was defined by the presence of a unique allele from the housekeeping gene purKand the surface protein gene esp. The MLST results suggest that epidemic lineages of E. faeciumemerged recently worldwide, while genetic variation in both VREF and VSEF was created by longer-term recombination. The results show that MLST of E. faeciumprovides an excellent tool for isolate characterization and long-term epidemiologic analysis.

Two major clades, designated Groups I and II, of nucleopolyhedroviruses (NPVs) from lepidopteran hosts have been previously identified. To reveal more detailed relationships, a series of DNA polymerase nucleotide sequences from the taxa MbMNPV, SeMNPV, HzSNPV, HearNPV, SpltNPV, BusuNPV, and OranNPV have been determined using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based approach. This technique enabled gene sequence determination using microliter samples of NPV-infected insect cadavers. Polyhedrin genes from HearNPV, OranNPV, SeMNPV, and SpltNPV were also isolated and sequenced using a similar approach. These sequences, together with other database entries, were aligned for positional homology of peptide sequences. Phylogenetic analysis of DNA polymerase molecular sequence alignments supports LdMNPV as a taxon of Group II and three Group II subclades, designated A, B, and C. Comparison of DNA polymerase trees with those estimated from occlusion protein molecular sequences enabled identification of three subclades of Group II. These are Subgroup II-A [MbMNPV, LeseNPV, MacoNPV, PaflNPV, SeMNPV, SpltNPV (India isolate), SfMNPV]; Subgroup II-B [SpliNPV, SpltNPV (Japan isolate), SpltNPV (Queensland isolate), and possibly HzSNPV, HearNPV, and ManeNPV], and Subgroup II-C [OpSNPV, OranNPV (S-type), BusuNPV (S-type), and possibly EcobNPV (S-type)]. Notably, all Subgroup II-A taxa are from noctuid hosts. Correlations of virus and host evolution within Group II taxa are discussed. The methods and data developed in this study will allow rapid sequencing of NPV DNA polymerase genes.

In the USA, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium(VREF) is endemic in hospitals, despite lack of carriage among healthy individuals. In Europe, however, hospital outbreaks are rare, but VREF carriage among healthy individuals and livestock is common. We used amplified fragment-length polymorphism analysis to genotype 120 VREF isolates associated with hospital outbreaks and 45 non-epidemic isolates from the USA, Europe, and Australia. We also looked for the espvirulence gene in these isolates and in 98 VREF from animals. A specific E faeciumsubpopulation genetically distinct from non-epidemic VREF isolates was found to be the cause of the hospital epidemics in all three continents. This subpopulation contained a variant of the espgene that was absent in all non-epidemic and animal isolates. Identification of the variant espgene will be important in guiding infection-control strategies, and the Esp protein could be a new target for antibacterial therapy.

Communication Research: An International Quarterly (quarterly/$18 for institutions; $12 for individuals; $9 for students per year) and is published by Sage PublicationsCommunication (twice a year/$24 for institutions; $12 for individuals from the publisher: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1 Park Ave., New York 10016)Communicontents (monthly/$3.00 from Communicontents, Communication Research Center, Department of Speech and Theatre, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz. 85281)Bibliographic Annual in Speech Communication (New York: Speech Communication Association, 1973-price not known, paper)Jay E. Daily's The Anatomy of Censorship (New York: Marcel Dekker, 95 Madison Ave, 1973-$13.75)David Tribe's Questions of Censorship (London: Allen & Unwin, 1973-about $12.00)Alan Casty's Mass Media and Mass Man (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1973-price not known, paper)Martin Gross' Nostalgia Quiz Book No. 2 (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1974-$7.95)

In the article, the author discusses issues in history as of December 2014, particularly the questions on the names given for historical periods like the Enlightenment, which is defined by the 1990 edition of "Encyclopaedia Britannica Micropaedia" as a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Analysis of atypical meningococci from invasive disease that either (i) did not produce acid from maltose and glucose or (ii) were gamma-glutamyl peptidase test negative for porAand porBDNA variable region (VR) type, multilocus sequence type, and for presence of capsule transport gene ctrA,conclusively demonstrated that these are Neisseria meningitidis.