Highly skilled South African immigrants in New Zealand : a thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Management at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

This exploratory research represents a first step into investigating the acculturation strategies employed by highly skilled South African immigrants to New Zealand. It answers the call for information to be added to the body of knowledge, in this emergent research area for New Zealand, on this specific immigrant group. The report examines the match between the South African and New Zealand acculturation strategies in the workplace, and highlights the relationships expected as a result. It also identifies factors helping and hindering the acculturation of South African immigrants. Limiting factors such as time constrained the report; however, results add new information to the body of knowledge in the fields of immigration to New Zealand, emigration from South Africa, and acculturation in New Zealand. The research used convenience and snowball techniques to identify participants, and structured interviews with open ended questions were used to elicit their migration experiences. Data analysis was qualitative, and consisted of identification of themes that could be used to classify participant groups. The research concluded that highly skilled South African immigrants to New Zealand pursue either an integrative or assimilative acculturation strategy. Those pursuing an integrative strategy are likely to have consensual relationships with New Zealanders in the workplace, given the New Zealand expectation that immigrants should integrate into the host culture. However, those pursuing an assimilation strategy may experience more problematic relationships in the New Zealand workplace. The main factors helping the integration group to acculturate were developing shared understanding and acceptance between different cultural groups. The factors helping the assimilation group were their ability to be flexible and adapt to change. The main factor hindering the acculturation of the integration group was that their expectations of New Zealand workplaces were not met. For the assimilation group the main hindering factor was suffering from acculturative stress. A major implication of the research for New Zealand workplaces is developing a better understanding of highly skilled South African employees, which in particular will affect selection and retention practices for this group. By developing shared understanding, a better fit between the person and their environment can be achieved. This can help ensure the skills of this immigrant group are utilised in New Zealand's growing knowledge economy

Identifying Bisphosphonate Protein Biomarkers in Equine Sera Using Mass Spectrometry Methods

Bone resorptive diseases affect humans and horses, alike. Examples of these diseases include osteoporosis, Paget’s disease, and osteogenesis imperfecta in humans, and navicular disease in the horse (Mitchell et al., 2019; Suva et al., 2021). Bisphosphonates are used to treat these diseases, and may remain in the bone for several years after administration, demonstrating the need for newer drug testing methods. The purpose of the discovery phase of this study was to use blood samples of in-training horses which had been given an initial administration of the bisphosphonate tiludronate and identify protein biomarkers that changed in response to this class of drugs. In the targeted phase, the objective was to validate the previously identified protein biomarkers that can be added into a biomarker library. This library is meant to be referenced when drug testing racehorses and can lengthen the detection window of prohibited or restricted substances. Fractionation, digestion, and de-salting were performed on sera samples from 19 equine subjects in-training. These samples were injected in an Orbitrap™ Exploris 480d coupled with an Ultimate 3000 RSLCnanoj. Label-free quantitation of proteins was performed in both phases. Four key protein biomarkers were identified in the discovery phase and validated in the targeted phase

Description and Predictive Factors of individual outcomes in a refugee camp based mental health intervention (Beirut, Lebanon)

There is little evidence on the effectiveness of services for the care of people with mental disorders among refugee populations. Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) has established a mental health centre in a mixed urban-refugee population in Beirut to respond to the significant burden of mental health problems. Patients received comprehensive care through a multidisciplinary team. A cohort of people with common and severe mental disorders has been analysed between December 2008 and June 2011 to evaluate individual outcomes of treatment in terms of functionality

Targeting Quorum Sensing: High-Throughput Screening to Identify Novel LsrK Inhibitors

Since quorum sensing (QS) is linked to the establishment of bacterial infection, its inactivation represents one of the newest strategies to fight bacterial pathogens. LsrK is a kinase playing a key role in the processing of autoinducer-2 (AI-2), a quorum-sensing mediator in gut enteric bacteria. Inhibition of LsrK might thus impair the quorum-sensing cascade and consequently reduce bacterial pathogenicity. Aiming for the development of a target-based assay for the discovery of LsrK inhibitors, we evaluated different assay set-ups based on ATP detection and optimized an automation-compatible method for the high-throughput screening of chemical libraries. The assay was then used to perform the screening of a 2000-compound library, which provided 12 active compounds with an IC50 ≤ 10 µM confirming the effectiveness and sensitivity of our assay. Follow-up studies on the positive hits led to the identification of two compounds, harpagoside and rosolic acid, active in a cell-based AI-2 QS interference assay, which are at the moment the most promising candidates for the development of a new class of antivirulence agents based on LsrK inhibition