Geology & Geochemistry of the Kingman Feldspar, Rare Metals and Wagon Bow Pegmatites

In the Mojave Pegmatite district, located in northwestern AZ, numerous pegmatites intrude syn- to post-collisional Paleoproterozoic granitic rocks. The slightly older Cerbat plutons are associated with the suturing of the Mojave and Yavapai terranes whereas Aquarius granites were emplaced during the Yavapai Orogeny as the sutured terranes docked with North America. A detailed study of 5 pegmatites shows that they are zoned with composite cores and contain REE minerals characteristic of NYF pegmatites. However, they exhibit characteristics atypical for NYF pegmatites including F depletion, white microcline, an absence of columbite and, in the Rare Metals pegmatite, have muscovite and beryl. With the exception of the Kingman pegmatite, they exhibit normal LREE-HREE distributions. The Kingman pegmatite is extremely LREE enriched, HREE depleted and exhibits an unusual Nd enrichment which, in some cases, is sufficiently high that allanite is Nd dominant, thus a new mineral species, allanite-Nd

Geopolitical Storymaking about Tonga and Fiji: how media fooled people to believe Ma'afu wanted Lau

Just when Tongan Democratic Party leader ‘Akilisi Pohiva stumped the public by saying he admired Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama because “he has been able to make things happen and take development to the people,” the Government of Tonga’s Minister for Lands, Lord Ma’afu, came right out of the blue and trumped him (Tonga Daily News, 2014a, 2014b). Ma’afu topped Pohiva at causing public bamboozlement. By this, Pohiva was the progenitor of Tonga’s thirty year old pro-democracy movement. Why would he over romanticise about the former military commodore Frank Bainimarama, the hard-line originator of Fiji’s third coup to take place in a period of twenty eight years? Pohiva’s swinging politics from democracy in Tonga to an overthrow of democracy in Fiji baffled readers (Naidu, 2014; Graue, 2014). But Ma’afu took centre stage as the show stopper. Momentarily, people were gobsmacked and did not know what to make of him. Was Tonga’s Minister for Lands and Survey who was a senior noble in the Tu’ivakano cabinet courting mischief or dead serious? Fiji’s permanent secretary for foreign affairs Amena Yauvoli was certain, we “would just have to wait for the Tongan government’s proposal” (Tonga Daily News, 2014a). But as Tongan journalist Kalafi Moala put it, “they will be waiting for a very long time” on that geopolitical front (Moala, 2014). This essay explores the geopolitical storymaking about Tonga and Fiji instigated by Tonga Daily News publishing online that Lord Ma’afu had said, “In good faith I will propose to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Fiji that they can have Minerva Reef and we get Lau in return” (Tonga Daily News, 2014a). The very thought of drawing up a new map instantly ignited outrage from Fijian readers. How then, might Tonga and Fiji’s argument over ownership of the Minerva Reefs play out this time around? Could the region’s geopolitical atlas ever be imagined differently when its cartography was permanently cemented to the era of Western European colonial empire? When the media fooled people to believe Lord Ma’afu wanted the Lau Islands for the Minerva Reefs, what did this signal about how news sites can manoeuver shock advertising and manipulate what politicians say to up their ratings

Impact of picolitre droplets on superhydrophobic surfaces with ultra-low spreading ratios

EPSR

Overweight and obesity as major, modifiable risk factors for urinary incontinence in young to mid-aged women: a systematic review and meta-analysis

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The purpose of this review and meta-analysis was to evaluate overweight and obesity as risk factors for urinary incontinence in young to mid-aged women. Understanding these relationships during this life stage is important as early onset increases the risk for developing severe and persistent incontinence. A systematic search resulted in 497 citations, 14 of which were retained for review. Data were analysed by overweight and obesity and by subtype of urinary incontinence – stress, urge, mixed and severe. When compared with ‘normal’ body mass index, overweight was associated with a one-third increase in risk of urinary incontinence (relative risk = 1.35, 95% confidence interval = 1.20–1.53), while the risk was doubled in women with obesity (relative risk = 1.95, 95% confidence interval = 1.58–2.42). When estimates were pooled according to urinary incontinence subtype, there was no statistical difference in risk. Overweight and obesity are strong predictors of urinary incontinence, with a significantly greater risk observed for obesity. Clinical advice to young women at risk of, or presenting with, obesity should not be limited to metabolic health only but should emphasize the role of excess weight on pelvic floor weakening and subsequent risk of incontinence

Development and Morphology of the Ventricular Outflow Tracts.

It is customary, at the current time, to consider many, if not most, of the lesions involving the ventricular outflow tract in terms of conotruncal malformations. This reflects the introduction, in the early 1940s, of the terms conus and truncus to describe the components of the developing outflow tract. The definitive outflow tracts in the postnatal heart, however, possess three, rather than two, components. These are the intrapericardial arterial trunks, the arterial roots, and the subvalvar ventricular outflow tracts. Congenital lesions afflicting the arterial roots, however, are not currently considered to be conotruncal malformations. This suggests a lack of logic in the description of cardiac development and its use as a means of categorizing congenital malformations. It is our belief that the developing outflow tract, like the postnatal outflow tracts, can readily be described in tripartite fashion, with its distal, intermediate, and proximal components forming the primordiums of the postnatal parts. In this review, we present evidence obtained from developing mice and human hearts to substantiate this notion. We show that the outflow tract, initially with a common lumen, is divided into its aortic and pulmonary components by a combination of an aortopulmonary septum derived from the dorsal wall of the aortic sac and outflow tract cushions that spiral through its intermediate and proximal components. These embryonic septal structures, however, subsequently lose their septal functions as the outflow tracts develop their own discrete walls. We then compare the developmental findings with the anatomic arrangements seen postnatally in the normal human heart. We show how correlations with the embryologic findings permit logical analysis of the congenital lesions involving the outflow tracts

Forget China: no shark trade in Tonga - yeah right

In the South Pacific winter of 2013, Michael Brassington reported from Tonga that “China is now the South Pacific’s most valued VIP.” The Australian journalist was interviewing Pesi Fonua, longstanding Tongan publisher who commented: “They are definitely calling the shots. Whatever they want they can negotiate or take it.” Referring to China, he ranked this regional power as a twenty first century precursor for South Seas debt, diplomacy, and indebtedness. By Fonua’s description China was the debt stress killer. In 2014, Tonga would start repaying Chinese soft loans worth 40% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) spent on buildings, wharfs, bridges, roads. Ordinary people in this small island developing state were worried the government might default on loan payments. Then what would happen? Would China own Tonga? What have Pakeha New Zealanders’ perceptions of Pacific Islanders got to do with any of this? Reconfiguring South Pacific relations with China as a contending power sparked off anxiety for the United States, Australian, and New Zealand governments. The question was how did political unease shape strategies to control the region? For Tonga’s national affliction of debt distress, did New Zealand’s regional engagement consider how an age old attitude towards Pacific Islanders weighed down this country’s excess baggage carried over from the 19th and 20th centuries, nudging them closer to China

Modern colonialism: dialogues with Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka

For this second article in a series of four stimulated by conversations about present day Tonga, Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka discuss whether there is a Tongan frame or explanation for development. And what about concepts and practices of self-determination? How can sovereignty and self-determination be realised as a national development plan when aid donors have such a tight grip over Tonga, they shape reality in the present and prospects for the future? Linking the discussants’ ideas with the work of the late Tongan professors Futa Helu and Epeli Hau’ofa, Teena Brown Pulu examines why Tongans in the homeland state are socialised by a zealous nationalism that does not question, whose development history is this

Off the Deep End: Tonga's Continental Shelf Politics

Abstract Tonga had gone off the deep end. It proposed to grow its ocean territory in length by 60 nautical miles southeast and southwest. Hardly anyone knew the particulars, apart from a select group of senior bureaucrats in the Government of Tonga persevering to make it happen. The Tongan public paid closer attention to who might come into government at the November 2014 election and whether any women would get voted into parliament. Local media had spoon fed this slant to the masses which uncritically they consumed as the top news feed. Alternatively, raising awareness about continental shelf politics failed to appear on the public information menu. Why should it matter to ordinary Joe Blog Tongan scratching out a living in a distressed economy? The story unfolds that Lord Ma’afu, the Minister for Lands, Environment, Climate Change, and Natural Resources entered office after the first partial submission on the outer limits of Tonga’s continental shelf had been prepared. His predecessor Lord Tuita tabled the document for consideration at the United Nations in April of 2010. Ma’afu was tasked with overseeing a second partial submission to acquire 60 nautical miles in the Lau-Colville Ridge, which he delivered to the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 23rd 2014. It would be weighed up the following year in 2015 (United Nations, 2014). This essay prods two pressure points. Firstly, how did securing Tonga’s continental shelf further than the 200 mile exclusive economic zone relate to deep sea mining? And secondly, what prompted Fiji’s 2005 objection to the International Seabed Authority about Tonga’s sovereign declaration over the Minerva Reefs? In the current geopolitical climate, how would the Tongan state navigate the ocean currents

Disaster politics: cyclone politicking and electioneering in the Kingdom of Tonga

Entering the new year of 2014 the Kingdom of Tonga had enough to worry about; a local economy choking to near death and a finance minister sacked and replaced in a political spectacle leaving the public baffled over what went wrong between him and the Prime Minister (Fayle, 2014; Lopeti, 2014c; Fonua, 2014b). People uttered they looked forward to the end of year election tentatively set for Thursday November 27th. The 2010 register of around forty thousand voters had increased at the 2014 intake by four thousand, mostly voters who had turned the age of suffrage at twenty one years old. The chorus call from the masses was simple, vote them out. Then Cyclone Ian struck on Saturday 11 January 2014 aggravating Tonga’s money shortage. Journalist Pesi Fonua wrote “the impact on the Tongan economy of the cyclone and the salary rise for civil servants at this point of time is a matter of great concern” (Fonua, 2014a). He was right. The state and taxpayers could not afford economic recovery from Tonga’s cruellest cyclone, a symptom of climate change, let alone paying for a 5% rise in the cost of living allowance for public servants. As the national debt distress sore became inflamed the Public Service Association decided it was the right time to fight cabinet for a 22% living allowance rise because 5% was not enough (Lopeti, 2014a). This essay asks a pointed question. Leading up to the general election of November 2014, how was cyclone politicking being manoeuvred to sway the way people would vote