The effect of household wealth on educational attainment : demographic and health survey evidence

Primary Education,Earth Sciences&GIS,Economic Theory&Research,Roads&Highways,Teaching and Learning,Roads&Highways,Poverty Assessment,Primary Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Earth Sciences&GIS

How the Marsden Fund has failed to achieve its full potential in the ESA panel: evidence of limitations in scope, biased outcomes, and futile applications

We have analysed the scope of proposals funded by the ‘Earth Sciences and Astronomy’ (ESA) panel of the Marsden Fund for the period 2004 to 2013. The scope of proposals funded is very limited and does not reflect the full remit of the panel: the successful projects fail to encompass the quality and quantity of research being undertaken within the Earth sciences community in New Zealand, and a number of sub-disciplines that seek to address fundamental and important problems within the Earth sciences are largely excluded. Moreover, nearly 50% of the funded proposals for the past decade have been made to just two institutions. To address these limitations, we suggest that: (1) a review is undertaken to examine and widen the scope of the panel to encompass sub-disciplines that demonstrably are never or rarely funded; (2) the composition of panel members be examined and modified to reflect a much wider scope of sub-disciplines within the Earth sciences; and (3) a review of the wide discrepancies in funding distributions on an institutional basis be undertaken. We want to ensure that a more representative range of sub-disciplines, in keeping with modern and realistic definitions of the Earth sciences, is funded through this panel, and so we also recommend the formation of a new panel for ‘Environmental and Earth-system Sciences’ that could encompass the research involving modern-day processes so that applications in these sub-disciplines are not pointless. In addition, it is clear that a very substantial increase in funding to the Marsden Fund must be sought

Controlling factors on clay mineral assemblages : insights from facies analysis of Pliocene to Pleistocene coastal margin deposits, Western Portugal

The clay fractions in the Pliocene to Pleistocene coastal margin record are usually dominated by kaolinite and illite, with lesser amounts of vermiculite, 10-14 mixed layer clays and smectite. The high clay mineral crystallinity, the mineralogical relations to facies and depositional setting and some horizontal variations along coeval deposits suggest that clay assemblages are mainly detrital. Illite is more important in inner shelf deposits and particularly in alluvial deposits from eastern locations. The high illite content in eastern alluvial deposits is explained by the input from the neighbouring Iberian Variscan Massif that is rich in mica. The high kaolinite content in prograding sand and gravel coastal plain is partially explained by the availability of this mineral in the drainage areas. Given the arkosic nature of some of these deposits, post-depositional feldspars weathering would also contribute to an increase in kaolinite content. Vermiculite is particularly important close to the surface and to unconformities, in horizons influenced by pedogenetic processes that have more aluminous illite with relatively low crystallinity. In organic rich mud sediments low pH conditions favour post-depositional transformation of illite to vermiculite and mixed layer clays