Foodborne Outbreak of Extended Spectrum Beta-lactamase Producing Shigella sonnei Associated with Contaminated Spring Onions in the United Kingdom.

Globalization of the food supply chain has created conditions favorable for emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) foodborne pathogens. In November 2021, the UK Health Security Agency detected an outbreak of 17 cases infected with the same strain of MDR extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Shigella sonnei. Phylogenetic analysis of whole-genome sequencing data revealed the outbreak was closely related to strains of S. sonnei isolated from travelers returning to the UK from Egypt. None of the outbreak cases reported travel and all 17 cases reported eating food from a restaurant/food outlet in the week prior to symptom onset, of which 11/17 (64.7%) ate at branches of the same national restaurant franchise. All 17 cases were adults and 14/17 (82.4%) were female. Ingredient-level analyses of the meals consumed by the cases identified spring onions as the common ingredient. Food chain investigations revealed that the spring onions served at the implicated restaurants could be traced back to a single Egyptian producer. The foodborne transmission of ESBL-producing bacteria is an emerging global health concern, and concerted action from all stakeholders is required to ensure an effective response to mitigate the risks to public health.

Conceptualizing the relations between executive functions and self-regulated learning.

An interdisciplinary approach to comparing constructs can inform theoretical and applied perspectives. In this study, the author considered executive functions and self-regulated learning to clarify mutual conceptual relations. College students (N = 108) completed the Executive Function Index (M. Spinella, 2005) and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (P. R. Pintrich, D. A. F. Smith, T. Garcia, & W. J. McKeachie, 1991) Analyses revealed points of overlap and separation. The executive functions of planning, impulse control, and motivational drive were significant predictors of cognitive strategy use, metacognitive strategy use, and academic effort regulation. Attributional and affective components of self-regulated learning failed to correlate with executive functions. Overall, results suggested an overlapping relation rather than a hierarchical relation between the construct clusters.

A complex dynamic systems perspective on identity and its development: The dynamic systems model of role identity.

Current prominent models of identity face challenges in bridging across divergent perspectives and apparent dichotomies such as personal or social-collective, conscious or unconscious, and epigenetic or discursive-relational, and affording pursuit of research questions that allows integrative answers. This article presents a coherent theoretical perspective on the integrative nature of identity and its developmental mechanisms. Adopting the contextual social role as a primary unit of analysis, the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) conceptualizes role identity as a Complex Dynamic System (CDS) anchored in action that comprises the actor's ontological and epistemological beliefs, purpose and goals, self-perceptions and self-definitions, and perceived action possibilities in the role. These system components are conceptualized as interdependent, and identity development is viewed as emergent, continuous, nonlinear, contextualized, and given to influences from within and without the system. The role identity itself constitutes an element within a multilevel hierarchy, which at the unit of analysis of the individual reflects a CDS of the multiple roles that constitute the person's psychosocial identity. Identity development involves the formation and restructuring of relations within and among role identities through intra- and interpersonal processes that are mediated by sociocognitive and cultural means, and framed by the context as well as by implicit dispositions. The DSMRI provides a framework to conceptualize and investigate the nature of the identity system, its development, and the relationship between identity development and psychological functioning at different units of-analysis, across different developmental stages and contexts, and using quantitative and qualitative methodologies. (PsycINFO Database Record