This investigation extends by 1000 km the northernmost documented source of oysters that caused illness due to V. parahaemolyticus. Rising temperatures of ocean water seem to have contributed to one of the largest known outbreaks of V. parahaemolyticus in the United States.

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In this article, we discuss procedures for comparing the cultural salience of semantic domains and their constitutive signifiers between groups of respondents based on free list data. These methods allow us to assess the relative similarity and difference of the cognitive salience of elements within a domain across groups of respondents. We argue that cultural salience is an important but often overlooked variable in the structure of semantic domains. Comparing cultural salience provides one grounds for claims of cultural difference (or lack thereof) between different socially defined groups (e.g., national, ethnic, gender, academic). We use data collected on the cultural salience of countries in a project on perceptions of Southeast Asia as an example of the methods described.

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Transnational mobility affects both high-status and low-income workers, disrupting traditional assumptions of the boundedness of communities. There is a need to reconfigure our most basic theoretical and analytical constructs. In this article I engage in this task by illustrating a complex set of distinctions (as well as connections) between 'communities' as ideationally constituted through cultural practices and 'social networks' constituted through interaction and exchange. I have grounded the analysis ethnographically in the experiences of foreign workers in Singapore, focusing on domestic and construction workers from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh. I examine the cultural, social and communicative role that mobile phones play in the lives of workers who are otherwise constrained in terms of mobility, living patterns and activities. Mobile phones are constituted as symbol status markers in relationship to foreign workers. Local representations construct foreign workers as users and consumers of mobile telephony, reinscribing ideas of transnational identities as well as foreignness within the context of Singapore. Migrant workers demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the various telephony options available, but the desire to use phones to communicate can overwhelm their self-control and lead to very high expenditures. The research highlights the constraints -as well as possibilities -individuals experience as subjects and agents within both social and cultural systems, and the ways in which those constraints and possibilities are mediated by a particular technology -in this case, mobile phones. WORKERSAs the diffusion of mobile communications has proceeded apace over the past decade, both the technology and the social contexts within which it operates have been transformed (for example Haddon 2005; Woolgar 2005). Research on the proliferation of mobile phone use in less affluent social contexts is now demonstrating the variety of social-technological configurations that mobile phone adoption can Eric C. Thompson

International marriage migration is a fraught terrain of gender and power relations. Based on research among Thai women married to Singaporean men, we argue that patriarchal outcomes -a distinctive system of transnational patriarchy -result from a complex interaction of women, men and nation-states. We draw on Deniz Kandiyoti's insights into patriarchal bargains as a productive framework through which to identify key elements in the making of transnational patriarchal relations. This article provides a detailed account of conditions in Thailand, Singapore and the contact zones in which Thai women and Singaporean men negotiate marriage migration. Relating this case to previous research, particularly among Filipina migrant women, demonstrates points of commonality while also highlighting the importance of attending to difference and diversity among transnational contexts.

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We examine the contribution to economic growth of entrepreneurial “marketplace information” within a regional endogenous growth framework. Entrepreneurs are posited to provide an input to economic growth through the information revealed by their successes and failures. We empirically identify this information source with the regional variation in establishment births and deaths, which create geographic information asymmetries that influence subsequent entrepreneurial activity and economic growth. We find that local establishment birth and death rates are significantly and positively correlated with subsequent entrepreneurship for US counties. To account for the potential endogeneity caused by forward-looking entrepreneurs, we utilize instruments based on historic mining activity. We find that the information spillover component of local establishment birth and death rates have significant positive effects on subsequent entrepreneurship and employment growth for US counties and metropolitan areas. With the help of these intruments, we show that establishment births have a positive and significant effect on future employment growth within all counties, and that in line with the information hypothesis, local establishment death rates have a similar positive effect within metropolitan counties.