Third sector organizations and earthquake recovery planning in Christchurch, New Zealand

On September 4, 2010, an earthquake struck rural Canterbury and the most deadly of over 2,000 aftershocks devastated the Christchurch Central Business District on February 22, 2011 (Ardagh et al. 2012). Questions have arisen regarding population dynamics (Love 2011), marginalized groups, health and social care, and overall recovery efforts. Addressing some of these concerns are various non-profit, non-governmental, and faith based groups, collectively referred to as Third Sector Organizations (TSOs). By providing an alternative to and back-stopping government and private health and social services, TSOs are able to build resiliency following a natural disaster, and are especially able to identify and address unmet needs within their target audiences and maintain a sense of community within their operating areas. The nature of community recovery, also changes the role of TSOs in formal and grassroots efforts over time. In New Zealand, TSOs have shared community health burdens with government and private practices since the 1990s (Larner and Craig 2005) and have championed healthcare policy measures for ethnic minorities (Came 2014). Nevertheless, the earthquakes have presented challenges to TSOs. An inventory of 92 TSOs four months after the earthquakes, 106 one year after, and 454 two years after by Carlton and Vallance (2013) shows that although many TSOs have emerged to address earthquake related issues, other TSOs may have been unable to re-establish themselves outside areas with earthquake damage found to be too severe to inhabit by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA). Others reported “burn-out” and 52 were inactive or closed because of shifting needs during recovery. This research identifies shared experiences across the third sector in Canterbury to illuminate shifting roles in mid to long-term earthquake recovery

A comparison of pilot-scale supersonic direct steam injection to conventional steam infusion and tubular heating systems for the heat treatment of protein-enriched skim milk-based beverages

peer-reviewedDirect supersonic steam injection, direct steam infusion, and indirect tubular heating were each applied to protein-enriched skim milk-based beverages with 4, 6 and 8% (w/w) total protein, and the effect of final heat temperature on the physical properties of these beverages was investigated. Supersonic steam injection resulted in significantly lower levels of denaturation of β-lactoglobulin (34.5%), compared to both infusion (76.3%) and tubular (97.1%) heating technologies. Viscosity, particle size and accelerated physical stability of formulations did not differ significantly between the heating technologies, while noticeable colour differences due to heat treatment (mainly attributed to increasing b* value) were observed, particularly for tubular heating. Overall, the extent of protein denaturation in high-protein dairy products was significantly influenced by the particular heating technology applied. The application of supersonic steam injection technology, with rapid heating and high shear characteristics, may enable differenciated product characteristics for ready-to-drink ambient-delivery high-protein dairy beverages. Industrial relevance: The design and application of novel direct supersonic steam injection technology was comprehensively studied and found to provide significant benefits over direct steam infusion and indirect tubular heating technologies for skim milk-based protein beverages. This type of injection heating system resulted in heat-treated formulations with lower levels of denatured whey proteins, compared to tubular and infusion heating, offering an alternative opportunity to the industry in terms of producing shelf-stable dairy protein beverages

Response to the Letter to the Editor

This paper has attracted interest around the world from the media (both TV and newspapers). In addition, we have received letters, emails and telephone calls. One of our favorites was a voicemail message asking us to return a call to Australia at which point we would learn who really killed JFK. We welcome the opportunity to respond to the letter to the editor from Mr. Fiorentino. Mr. Fiorentino claims that our ``statement relating to the likelihood of a second assassin based on the premise of three or more separate bullets is demonstrably false.'' In response we would like to simply quote from page 327 of Gerald Posner's book Case Closed, one of the most well known works supporting the single assassin theory: ``If Connally was hit by another bullet, it had to be fired from a second shooter, since the Warren Commission's own reconstructions showed that Oswald could not have operated the bolt and refired in 1.4 seconds.'' Mr. Fiorentino also claims that the ``second fatal flaw is the use of a rather uncomplicated formula based on Bayes Theorem.'' Let $E$ denote the evidence and $T$ denote the theory that there were just two bullets (and hence a single shooter). We used Bayes Theorem to hypothetically calculate $P(T|E)$ from $P(E|T)$ and the prior probability $P(T)$. In order to make $P(T|E)$ ten times more likely than $P(\bar{T}|E)$, the ratio of the prior probabilities [i.e., $P(T) / P(\bar{T})$] would have to be greater than 15. Thus, we again conclude that this casts serious doubt on Dr. Guinn's conclusion that the evidence supported just two bullets. Sadly, this is far from the first time that probability has been misunderstood and/or misapplied in a case of public interest. A notable British example is the Clark case. See Nobles and Schiff (2005) for details. Finally, we welcome and, in fact, encourage members of the scientific community to provide alternative analyses of the data.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AOAS154 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Symplectic No-core Shell-model Approach to Intermediate-mass Nuclei

We present a microscopic description of nuclei in an intermediate-mass region, including the proximity to the proton drip line, based on a no-core shell model with a schematic many-nucleon long-range interaction with no parameter adjustments. The outcome confirms the essential role played by the symplectic symmetry to inform the interaction and the winnowing of shell-model spaces. We show that it is imperative that model spaces be expanded well beyond the current limits up through fifteen major shells to accommodate particle excitations that appear critical to highly-deformed spatial structures and the convergence of associated observables.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Predicted Colors and Flux Densities of Protostars in the Herschel PACS and SPIRE Filters

Upcoming surveys with the Herschel Space Observatory will yield far-IR photometry of large samples of young stellar objects, which will require careful interpretation. We investigate the color and luminosity diagnostics based on Herschel broad-band filters to identify and discern the properties of low-mass protostars. We compute a grid of 2,016 protostars in various physical congurations, present the expected flux densities and flux density ratios for this grid of protostars, and compare Herschel observations of three protostars to the model results. These provide useful constraints on the range of colors and fluxes of protostar in the Herschel filters. We find that Herschel data alone is likely a useful diagnostic of the envelope properties of young starsComment: Part of HOPS KP papers to the Herschel special A&A issu

On the nature of the deeply embedded protostar OMC-2 FIR 4

We use mid-infrared to submillimeter data from the Spitzer, Herschel, and APEX telescopes to study the bright sub-mm source OMC-2 FIR 4. We find a point source at 8, 24, and 70 $\mu$m, and a compact, but extended source at 160, 350, and 870 $\mu$m. The peak of the emission from 8 to 70 $\mu$m, attributed to the protostar associated with FIR 4, is displaced relative to the peak of the extended emission; the latter represents the large molecular core the protostar is embedded within. We determine that the protostar has a bolometric luminosity of 37 Lsun, although including more extended emission surrounding the point source raises this value to 86 Lsun. Radiative transfer models of the protostellar system fit the observed SED well and yield a total luminosity of most likely less than 100 Lsun. Our models suggest that the bolometric luminosity of the protostar could be just 12-14 Lsun, while the luminosity of the colder (~ 20 K) extended core could be around 100 Lsun, with a mass of about 27 Msun. Our derived luminosities for the protostar OMC-2 FIR 4 are in direct contradiction with previous claims of a total luminosity of 1000 Lsun (Crimier et al 2009). Furthermore, we find evidence from far-infrared molecular spectra (Kama et al. 2013, Manoj et al. 2013) and 3.6 cm emission (Reipurth et al 1999) that FIR 4 drives an outflow. The final stellar mass the protostar will ultimately achieve is uncertain due to its association with the large reservoir of mass found in the cold core.Comment: Accpeted by ApJ, 17 pages, 11 figure