Edward Baigent : a pioneer Nelson settler, businessman, and politician : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University

Edward Baigent arrived in New Zealand almost 140 years ago, and except for a few months in Nelson, spent his entire life in Wakefield. Unfortunately neither Edward Baigent nor any of his children seem to have kept diaries, or been prolific letter writers. The information this thesis is based upon, does thus come almost entirely from early newspaper articles, diaries of Baigent's contemporary settlers, and old ledgers and journals, dating back to 1870, which were found by chance last year in the demolition of an old building on Baigents' Rutherford Street property. The completion of this thesis would not have been possible if not for the willing assistance I have had from a number of people. Special thanks must go to Mr John Bush, who began collecting information relating to the Baigent family several years ago, with the intention of eventually writing a family/company history. With characteristic unselfishness, Mr Bush passed on to me all the material he had accumulated, and I am extremely grateful for the initial help he provided. To Mrs M. Palmer, a great grand-daughter of Edward Baigent, I also extend my special thanks. Mrs Palmer has always taken a great deal of interest in the Baigent family, and wherever possible, has been of great assistance to me. Nelson is fortunate that early events were faithfully recorded by newspaper reporters almost immediately settlement was commenced. The Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle which began in 1842 and continued until 1874, provided much valuable information on the early years of settlement in the Nelson Province. An almost complete file of this paper is available at the Nelson Public Library, and to the staff of the Library I wish to record my thanks

Fishes of the Mountain Province Section of the Ouachita River

A survey of the fishes of the mountain province section of the Ouachita River from the headwaters to Remmel Dam using field collections, literature records, and museum collections showed the ichthyofauna to be made up of 80 species representing 16 families. Fourteen species not previously reported from the mountain province section of the river were collected in this survey. These species include Ichthyomyzon gagei, Nocomis asper, Notropis ortenburgeri, N. rubellus, Pimephales promelas, Moxostoma carinatum, Noturus taylori, Fundulus notatus, Lepomis humilis, Etheostoma histrio, E. proeliare, Percina maculata, P. nasuta, and P. uranidea. The Nocomis specimens were the first collected from the Ouachita River system and the discovery of Noturus taylori represents a major range extension

Releasing wind farm equity via post-construction yield analysis

During pre-construction yield analysis, an extrapolated site wind regime is applied to a site model in order to produce estimated yield figures. However, once the site has been operational, many of the uncertainties involved in this modelling, such as electrical losses, wake losses, turbulence and power performance, may be resolved into measured operational parameters. This means that off-site anemometry may be directly related to power production on the site. In a post-construction yield analysis, the pre-construction figures are refined using actual operational data. This allows: a) The initial yield report figures to be reassessed in the light of wind farm performance, and b) The uncertainties associated with annual yield figures to be reduced and understood more fully. This increasing reduction in uncertainty allows improvements in financial modelling to take place over the operational life of the wind farm, releasing equity from the wind farm investmen

Lateralized Repetition Priming for Unfamiliar Faces

Peer reviewedPreprin

WASP-12b as a prolate, inflated and disrupting planet from tidal dissipation

The class of exotic Jupiter-mass planets that orbit very close to their parent stars were not explicitly expected before their discovery. The recently found transiting planet WASP-12b has a mass Mp = 1.4(+/-0.1) Jupiter masses (MJ), a mean orbital distance of only 3.1 stellar radii (meaning it is subject to intense tidal forces), and a period of 1.1 days. Its radius 1.79(+/- 0.09) RJ is unexpectedly large and its orbital eccentricity 0.049(+/-0:015) is even more surprising as such close orbits are in general quickly circularized. Here we report an analysis of its properties, which reveals that the planet is losing mass to its host star at a rate ~ 10^-7 MJ yr^-1. The planets surface is distorted by the stars gravity and the light curve produced by its prolate shape will differ by about ten per cent from that of a spherical planet. We conclude that dissipation of the stars tidal perturbation in the planets convective envelope provides the energy source for its large volume. We predict up to 10mJy CO band-head (2.292 micron) emission from a tenuous disk around the host star, made up of tidally stripped planetary gas. It may also contain a detectable resonant super-Earth, as a hypothetical perturber that continually stirs up WASP-12b's eccentricity.Comment: Accepted to Nature, 14 pages, 1 figur

The other race effect in perception and recognition: Insights from the complete composite task

This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.People are more accurate at recognizing faces of their own race than faces from other races, a phenomenon known as the other-race effect. Other-race effects have also been reported in some perceptual tasks. Across 3 experiments, White and Chinese participants completed recognition tests as well as the complete paradigm of the composite task, which measures participants’ abilities to selectively attend to the target region of a face while ignoring the task-irrelevant region of the face. Each task was completed with both own- and other-race faces. At a group level, participants showed significant own-race effects in recognition, but not in the composite task. At an individual difference level, the results provided no support for the hypothesis that a deficit in holistic processing for other-race faces drives the other-race effect in recognition. We therefore conclude that the other-race effect in recognition is not driven by the processes that underpin the composite effect.Australian Research Counci

Land snail diversity can reflect degrees of anthropogenic disturbance

Faunal indicators of old-growth forests in heavily-disturbed regions are virtually non-existent. However, land snails, in particular micro-snails, could reflect the impact of land-use on ecosystem integrity. Because of their size, limited mobility, and propensity to spend their entire lives at one locality due to lack of migratory behavior, micro-snails are susceptible to changes in land-use within forested ecosystems. Therefore, we proposed the hypothesis that micro-snails would reflect land-use in forested ecosystems. We sampled snail communities in paired old-growth and second-growth forests in three distinct ecoregions. Species diversity, richness, and abundance were greater in two of the three old-growth sites compared to paired second-growth sites. Across all of the ecoregions, 21 out of 70 species had an affinity for old-growth. Eighteen of which were statistically significant. These results suggest that anthropogenic disturbance plays a key role in shaping species diversity and community structure of land snail fauna. However, site specific factors also appear to be important moderators of the response, and the mechanisms of the process remain to be studied. Snails appear to be a promising group of organisms to use as indicators of historic forest disturbance. In order to maintain ecological integrity, forest managers should consider management strategies that are low impact and protect existing patches of old-growth forests

A Data Cube Extraction Pipeline for a Coronagraphic Integral Field Spectrograph

Project 1640 is a high contrast near-infrared instrument probing the vicinities of nearby stars through the unique combination of an integral field spectrograph with a Lyot coronagraph and a high-order adaptive optics system. The extraordinary data reduction demands, similar those which several new exoplanet imaging instruments will face in the near future, have been met by the novel software algorithms described herein. The Project 1640 Data Cube Extraction Pipeline (PCXP) automates the translation of 3.8*10^4 closely packed, coarsely sampled spectra to a data cube. We implement a robust empirical model of the spectrograph focal plane geometry to register the detector image at sub-pixel precision, and map the cube extraction. We demonstrate our ability to accurately retrieve source spectra based on an observation of Saturn's moon Titan.Comment: 35 pages, 15 figures; accepted for publication in PAS

Enhancing student transitions into engineering from underrepresented backgrounds

Traditionally, women and students from deprived communities are underrepresented in engineering programmes across Scotland and elsewhere. The HEA-funded EnTICE project sought to evaluate factors affecting transitions for these target groups. In the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, women and students from deprived areas of Scotland make up 21% and 18% of our current undergraduate population, respectively. Both figures track above national averages. The transition factors of particular interest were recruitment, retention, and progression in the critical first two years of study. Analyses identified that students from these backgrounds were performing as well as, if not better than, their classmates, though discrepancies remained at the highest levels of achievement. Student feedback from focus groups and anonymous surveys identified maths and engineering mechanics as the curriculum areas where further support would be most helpful. Further gaps were identified in the transition between college and university maths, which is particularly important for our mature students. These results informed a package of curriculum changes, tutorial support, peer mentoring, and faculty support for all students. This presentation will explore lessons learned during the EnTICE project and practical measures that other institutions can pursue to support successful transitions of students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds