Placing the Waitangi Tribunal: Attitudes Towards the Claims Settlement Process in New Zealand

This article reports the findings of a 1998 survey of the general New Zealand public\u27s attitudes towards race relations and the Treaty of Waitangi. The survey sought to determine whether demographic variables such as age, gender, race, and educational level impact attitudes towards the Treaty of Waitangi and the Treaty Claims Settlement Process. The survey findings indicate some polarisation among New Zealanders according to ethnicity on certain issues, and a general lack of knowledge and/or informed opinions about sovereignty, Treaty, and Tribunal issues

Habitat and Population Assessments of the Lake Sturgeon \u3ci\u3eAcipenser fulvescens\u3c/i\u3e Reintroduced to the Upper Tennessee River

The Lake Sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens historically occurred throughout the United States and Canada. However, due to widespread overfishing and habitat loss it was extirpated from much of its range, especially in the lower latitudes. Since the year 2000, fisheries managers have been working to restore this species to the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers where it has been extirpated since c. 1961. This reintroduction is comprised of annual releases of young-of-the-year Lake Sturgeon reared in head-start aquaculture facilities around the Southeastern U.S., and annual monitoring efforts that track the spread and growth of reintroduced individuals. In 2015, a management plan guiding this reintroduction effort was drafted which included a variety of research needs to assist with and improve the ongoing restoration of this species. Two of these research needs are an assessment of habitats available to and occupied by Lake Sturgeon in the Upper Tennessee River, and a quantitative assessment of population size.In this dissertation, I explain how I addressed these two research needs, and based on the results, I offer management recommendations for the continued success of Lake Sturgeon recovery in the Southeastern U.S. I characterized two important types of habitat relevant to different life stages of the species: spawning habitat and summer holding areas. I also used 5 years of mark-recapture data to generate the first quantitative assessments of population density and size-specific survival. My results indicate that there is ample suitable spawning substrate within the tailwaters I surveyed. I collected detailed measurements of various physical habitat variables from an area suspected to be important summer refugia for this species and describe in detail the physical habitat characteristics of this important area of habitat. I used a population model to evaluate the mark-recapture data, and found that while Lake Sturgeon are persisting in the Upper Tennessee River, many fall into the slowest-growth category. Finally, I used simulations to show that without natural recruitment, current stocking rates are unlikely to reach stated population goals through stocking alone. The information I provide here will be instrumental in aiding the adaptive management of this population

ZEW-Jahresbericht 2009

2009 war ein gutes Jahr für das ZEW. Wir konnten unsere Stellung als eines der führenden Wirtschaftsforschungsinstitute in Deutschland und Europa weiter festigen und unser internationales Ansehen steigern. Eine besondere Herausforderung im Jahr 2009 war die Evaluierung des ZEW durch die Leibniz-Gemeinschaft. Die Evaluierung soll die wissenschaftliche Qualität der Forschungseinrichtungen der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft sichern. Ihr Ergebnis, das im Sommer 2010 offiziell mitgeteilt wird, entscheidet über die weitere finanzielle Förderung des Instituts

Classification tree models for the prediction of blood−brain barrier passage of drugs

The use of classification trees for modeling and predicting the passage of molecules through the blood−brain barrier was evaluated. The models were built and evaluated using a data set of 147 molecules extracted from the literature. In the first step, single classification trees were built and evaluated for their predictive abilities. In the second step, attempts were made to improve the predictive abilities using a set of 150 classification trees in a boosting approach. Two boosting algorithms, discrete and real adaptive boosting, were used and compared. High-predictive classification trees were obtained for the data set used, and the models could be improved with boosting. In the context of this research, discrete adaptive boosting gives slightly better results than real adaptive boosting