Antibacterial Properties, Arabinogalactan Proteins, and Bioactivities of New Zealand Honey

Honey has been used for centuries for its antibacterial and healing properties. The aim of this study was to investigate the antibacterial properties, arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs), antioxidant activities, and polyphenolic content of eight different types of New Zealand honey (clover, mānuka, beech honeydew, pōhutukawa, kānuka, rewarewa, kāmahi and thyme honey). The results showed varying antibacterial activities across the honey types, with mānuka, pōhutukawa, and kāmahi honey exhibiting significant inhibitory effects. Interestingly, all honey samples demonstrated inhibitory effects on bacterial growth at 25% concentration. Furthermore, AGPs were found in all eight honey samples, with higher amounts in kānuka, kāmahi, pōhutukawa, mānuka, and rewarewa honey. Thyme had the highest antioxidant values in terms of CUPRAC, FRAP and DPPH, while kāmahi honey had the lowest antioxidant value. Beech honeydew honey had the highest Total Flavonoid Content (TFC) values, while thyme and clover honey had the lowest TFC values. Similarly, thyme honey exhibited the highest Total Phenolic Content (TPC) value, with kāmahi and clover honey having the lowest TPC values. Furthermore, only thyme and beech honeydew New Zealand honeys contained vitamin C. The different honeys contained varying concentrations of polyphenols, with mānuka, kānuka, and pōhutukawa honeys having high amounts of quercetin, luteolin, and gallic acid, respectively. In contrast, clover honey had notable levels of chrysin, pinocembrin, caffeic acid, and pinobanksin. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the antibacterial properties and bioactivities of native New Zealand honeys, contributing to our understanding of the potential health benefits associated with these honeys and their potential use as natural alternatives to improve human health

Decolonising Screen Production: The Practice of the Māori Film Producer

The film production ecology of Aotearoa New Zealand is an industrial and creative space controlled almost solely by Pākehā (European New Zealanders). However, since the turn of the century, Māori (Indigenous) filmmakers have risen to increasing prominence. They are becoming owners of the means of production and of the intellectual property generated when a film is made. Story sovereignty, or Māori control over Māori stories, is the heart of the enterprise for Māori filmmakers and implicit in this is how the story is made, that is, the process of filmmaking. This article examines the practice of Māori film producers and discusses how they bring te ao Māori (the Māori way of being or world view) into the day-to-day management of a film production. With non-Indigenous financiers and audiences to please, these producers walk simultaneously in two worlds, bringing their understanding of mainstream expectations together with their Indigenous world view, to realise film stories told from the Indigenous heart. Concepts such as tikanga (protocol), manaakitanga (respect for others), whanaungatanga (kinship) and mana (spiritual power) are elements of the daily practice of these producers, as they adapt the Western-originated filmmaking process to their own ends. Analysing such complexities requires a theoretical framework which accommodates not just the work of the individual, but also the relevant social and cultural context within which they operate. In recent years, a variety of researchers in the fields of cultural and media production have found common ground in applying systems thinking to analysing various forms of creative production. In particular, the exploration of the phenomenon of creativity within the production of culture has shifted since the late twentieth century towards an approach which recognises that the value of creative acts depends not just on what the individual brings to the act, nor just on the artefact created, but also on social and historical perspectives and positions. Prominent among the models being applied is the systems approach initially developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi maintains that creativity arises when three essential features interact: the domain, or existing body of knowledge; the individual who produces variation within that body (that is, creates something new); and the field, or network of experts who recognize value in the new and facilitate its absorption into the domain. Through critical exploration of the practice of the Māori film producer, this researcher has developed a revised version of Csikszentmihalyi’s model and presents it from an Indigenous perspective: the revision incorporates and extends the original by connecting the elements of the model through the holistic framework of te ao Māori or the Māori world view, to enable analysis of the practice of the screen producer within its specific Indigenous context

Intimate Partner Violence and Post-migration Stressors Reported by Refugee Women Accessing Settlement Services.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is highly prevalent globally, with increased risk for women in situations of conflict, post conflict and resettlement. The Safety and Health after Arrival (SAHAR) study tested IPV screening with women accessing settlement services in New South Wales, Australia, using the validated ACTS tool, along with brief response involving risk assessment, safety planning and referral. A three month follow-up telephone survey was administered to women who had attended four participating sites which delivered the intervention. The survey explored the nature of any IPV experienced, factors associated with disclosure, and responses provided to those who identified IPV. Data is reported on 316 women of whom 48 (15%) identified current IPV. For 45 women who responded to Composite Abuse Scale items, the most common forms of abuse were forced isolation from family/friends (56% 25/45), blame for abusive behaviour (53% 24/45), "put downs" (44% 20/45) and physical violence 38% (17/45). Psychological distress and post-migration stressors were significantly higher for women who disclosed IPV compared to those who did not. Length of residency in Australia and whether the screening occurred during the first or subsequent service visits, were not associated with the likelihood of disclosing IPV. The majority of women who disclosed reported the caseworker's response to be helpful and involved risk assessment, safety planning and referral. Screening and response to disclosure in settlement services provide opportunities to address abuse experienced by this group of women who are less likely to report experiences of abuse or use mainstream services

Investigating the Link Between Oral Health Conditions and Systemic Diseases: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

This study investigates the association between oral health issues, specifically periodontitis and dental caries, and systemic health conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. The goal is to determine the strength of these associations using statistical analysis. We conducted a cross-sectional study utilizing the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data from 2017-2020, focusing on 13,772 adults with complete data on oral and systemic health variables. Oral health indicators were periodontitis and dental caries, while systemic health variables included diabetes and hypertension. The statistical analysis involved Cramer's V to assess the strength of associations between these health conditions. The study found statistically significant associations between oral and systemic health conditions. There was a moderate association between periodontitis and diabetes (Cramer's V = 0.14) and a moderate association between dental caries and hypertension (Cramer's V = 0.12). The results underscore the interconnected nature of oral and systemic health, suggesting that poor oral health can be an indicator of broader health issues. These associations could guide integrated health care strategies, emphasizing the need for dental health evaluations in patients with diabetes and hypertension

MRI-T2 Relaxometry is Increased in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Indications of Acute Brain Abnormalities After Injury

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a common condition, particularly pervasive in contact sports environments. A range of symptoms can accompany this type of injury and negatively impact people's lives. As mTBI diagnosis and recovery largely rely on subjective reports, more objective injury markers are needed. The current study compared structural brain MRI-T2 relaxometry between a group of 40 male athletes with mTBI within 14 days of injury and 40 age-matched male controls. Voxel-averaged T2 relaxometry within the gray matter was increased for the mTBI group compared to controls (p < 0.001), with statistically significant increased T2 relaxometry particularly in superior cortical regions. Our findings indicate subtle brain abnormalities can be identified in acute mTBI using MRI-T2 relaxometry. These brain abnormalities may reflect inflammation present in the brain and could constitute an objective injury marker to supplement current subjective methods that dominate clinical decisions regarding diagnosis and prognosis. Future research should validate this potential marker with other data types, such as blood biomarkers or histological samples

A Comprehensive Review of Partial Power Converter Topologies and Control Methods for Fast Electric Vehicle Charging Applications

This paper provides a comprehensive review of Partial Power Converter (PPC) topologies and control methods for fast electric vehicle (EV) charging applications. Partial Power Converters are gaining traction to enhance converter efficiency, reduce power losses, and minimize component sizes by processing only a portion of the total power. This review covers key PPC topologies, including different partial power converters, and highlights their advantages and limitations in the context of EV charging. Various control methods that optimize the performance of these converters are also discussed. The paper presents a comparative analysis between partial power and full power converters. Finally, this review synthesizes the main findings and proposes guidelines for selecting appropriate PPC architectures for future fast EV charging stations

The Nexus Between Sustainability Dimensions and Support for Climate Action: Perspectives of Highway Professionals in Ghana

The impact of climate change on sustainable development is felt across all areas of life, including transportation. The United Nations, however, reports that maximizing on the interlinkages between the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement by leveraging climate action and SDG synergies, has the potential of achieving both agendas. Taking inspiration from the reported synergies and trade-offs, which exist between climate action and the delivery of the SDGs, this study explored the bidirectional relationships between climate action support and the level of importance attached to sustainability criteria by highway professionals in Ghana. Stated preference data was collected from 162 highway professionals in Ghana using a structured questionnaire. The study employed structural equation modelling approach for hypothesis testing. Six sustainability criteria were considered: economics, environment, technical aspects, project implementation, social equity and culture, and resource utilization. The results highlight the complex interplay between sustainability priorities and climate action support in highway development. Economic considerations and resource management practices emerged as key drivers of climate action support. Surprisingly, environmental, technical, social, and project management dimensions did not significantly influence climate action support. However, climate action support positively and significantly influenced attitudes towards all highway sustainability dimensions. This study addresses a major gap in the literature in terms of establishing bidirectional relationships between climate action support and sustainability perceptions, particularly in the field of highway infrastructural development. It also provides insights for regulatory and policy development in developing countries for sustainable highway infrastructure development. The bidirectional relationships imply the need for policies, which consider broader systems by prioritizing actions that target both ends of the relationship. This will promote collaboration across fields, leading to more comprehensive and long-term solutions. Moreover, this study contributes to the broader discussion on integrating climate action with sustainable development goals in the context of highway infrastructure

Towards Superior Quantization for Large Language Models

Large Language Models (LLMs) have exhibited remarkable capabilities in tasks such as natural language comprehension, content generation, and knowledge retrieval. However, training and serving these models require substantial computational resources, posing a significant barrier to AI application development and research. To address these challenges, various model compression techniques have been explored, with quantization emerging as a key approach. Nonetheless, existing quantization methods predominantly apply uniform quantization configurations, failing to account for the varying quantization difficulty across different layers in billion-scale models. This results in a rigid memory-accuracy trade-off and leaves the potential for improving quantization accuracy through differentiated memory allocation largely unexplored. To bridge these research gaps, this thesis advances the study of LLM quantization with two key contributions. First, it introduces MXQ, a mixed-quantization method designed to provide a more flexible memory-accuracy balance. MXQ formulates a novel optimization approach to determine optimal layer-wise quantization parameters while enforcing overall memory constraints. Experimental results demonstrate that MXQ unlocks a broader spectrum of quantization configurations, simplifying the memory-accuracy trade-off while maintaining performance comparable to the baseline. Second, this thesis proposes SensiBoost and KurtBoost, two methods that enhance quantization accuracy by leveraging layer-sensitive features such as activation sensitivity and weight distribution kurtosis to identify critical layers. These approaches outperform existing baselines, achieving up to 9% lower perplexity with only a 2% increase in memory budget on Llama models

The Well-being of People With Anterior Cruciate Ligament Rupture-related Post-traumatic Osteoarthritis in Aotearoa New Zealand

Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures are a potent risk factor for post-traumatic knee osteoarthritis (PTOA). Annually, in Aotearoa New Zealand, approximately 2,500 people under the age of 30 undergo ACL reconstruction surgery. Due to the young age of injury and surgery, many develop osteoarthritis before age 50 and have a higher likelihood of requiring total knee replacement compared to the general population. This study aimed to gain insight into the medium- to long-term impacts of ACL rupture on people's well-being in Aotearoa New Zealand, by exploring their lived experiences five or more years post-injury. Method: In this Interpretive Description observational study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with people who had ruptured their ACL and had or were at risk of developing PTOA. Analysis was conducted guided by Braun and Clarke’s Reflexive Thematic Analysis. Findings: Twelve people (7 women, median age 49.5 [25–62] years) were interviewed. Three themes were generated from the data: 1) Nobody Ever Told Me…, 2) The Post-Rehabilitation Void, and 3) The Elephant in the Room: The Psychosocial Impact. Participants commonly described fear, grief and long-term psychological impacts, and most reported wanting to know more about the long-term management of their knees. Conclusion and impact: The study highlights opportunities to provide better long-term support and management, improve outcomes, and reduce the burden on these individuals. ACL injury can profoundly impact people's lives in the long term. Better education, support services, and consideration of psychosocial factors are needed. Addressing identified barriers could reduce the individual and socioeconomic burden of PTOA for New Zealanders. Future research involving stakeholders must establish acceptable long-term management programmes tailored to ensure they meet the population's needs and address the unique socioeconomic context and ethnic disparities in Aotearoa New Zealand