Changes and continuity in Japanese official development assistance : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology at Massey University

This paper is about Japanese official development assistance (ODA), based on document research and monitoring of media reports in the period between January and October, 2005. It analyses changes in this aspect of Japanese foreign policy since its inception in the 1950's with this analysis then used to predict what further change may be likely to result in the programme in the immediate future. Building on a conflict model of the Japanese state that treats the bureaucracy as a divided but powerful power centre, the paper argues that recent developments in Japanese society have led to a situation where the political wing of government and civil society have come to play a larger part in both the implementation of ODA and, to a lesser extent, the creation of aid policy. It concludes that the individual ministries of the bureaucracy are unlikely to transfer power to these groups without any resistance and that this resistance will hinder efforts to provide more political leadership of, and wider societal input into, the Japanese ODA programme

The impact of locus of control and control on performance during painful stimulation : an experimental investigation : a dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

Pain interrupts cognitive processing, is hard to ignore and demands priority attention (Crombez, Baeyens & Eelen, 1994). Focusing on the effect of pain on attention, the primary task paradigm was used to investigate the effect pain had on the task performance of 59 psychology undergraduate students assessed for their locus of control (LOC) beliefs using Rotters (1964) LOC Scale. In a mixed experimental design, participants were required to discrimination between 250 and 750 MHz tones while being exposed to the experimental pain stimulus potassium iontophoresis, a control stimulus of an old man's face and tone only baseline trials. A control manipulation gave all participants both control and no control over the presentation of three levels of pain; high, medium and low pain. The results show that pain interfered with the accuracy of tone discriminations but not reaction times (RT). Additionally, the interference effect from painful stimulation was greater at 250 ms after the onset of the tone compared to the 750 ms onset. A signalling/warning effect is discussed as an explanation for this finding. The external LOC group performed worse when they had control over pain compared to no control. The internal LOC group showed less task degradation overall during the pain condition compared to the external group. These results are discussed in relation with current theories of attention, the effects of control and LOC beliefs

The ester hydrolytic and synthetic activities of X-prolyl dipeptidyl peptidase from Streptococcus thermophilus : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biochemistry at Massey University, New Zealand

X-prolyl dipeptidyl peptidase (EC 3.4.14.11), or PepX, is a dipeptidase found in most dairy lactic acid bacteria that hydrolyses N-terminal dipeptides from larger peptides where proline is the residue penultimate to the scissile bond. It has recently been found that PepX will also catalyse the hydrolysis of some chromogenic esters and synthesise esters via an acyltransferase mechanism that uses ethanol as the acceptor molecule and tributyrin as the donor molecule. In this study, the pepX gene from Streptococcus thermophilus strain B2513 was cloned and sequenced. This sequence was found to differ in several positions from the recently published pepX sequence of S.thermophilus strain ACA-DC4. None of the observed substitutions occurred in the catalytic domain of the enzyme, all being localised to the C-terminal β-sheet domain. An activity assay using a chromogenic peptide substrate with tributyrin as an was used to prove that PepX binds peptide substrates and acylglycerides at the same binding site, implying that the same catalytic machinery carries out both peptide hydrolysis and activities involving acylglycerides. PepX was found to form esters only from the acylglyceride tributyrin, and was not active on any of the larger triglycerides tested. The chemical mechanism for this ester formation is proposed to involve the direct transfer of an acyl group from the donor to an acceptor, rather than acyl hydrolysis followed by the separate transfer of a carboxylic acid product onto an acceptor, as the enzyme does not form esters when provided with butyric acid and ethanol. PepX was found to be incapable of hydrolysing milkfat and tributyrin in aqueous solution. This contrasts with the ability of PepX to hydrolyse the synthetic ester p-nitrophenyl butyrate, which probably is a reflection of the lability of the ester bond in this substrate. The results of this study show that PepX is a peptidase that has a secondary acyltransferase activity, with no hydrolase activity on natural acylglyceride substrates

Comparing the cost-effectiveness of methods for estimating population density for primates in the Amazon rainforest Peru

With increasingly extreme fluctuations in flood levels in the Amazon basin (Malhi et al. 2008, Marengo et al. 2012, Bodmer et al. 2014) the future of its' fauna is becoming more uncertain. It is essential therefore that effective monitoring is in place in order to detect drops in population before irreversible damage is done. In developing countries such as the ones situated in the Amazon basin funding for conservation is very limited (Danielsen et al. 2003), it is therefore vital that cost effective methods of monitoring the wildlife of the Amazon are found. Three surveying techniques for monitoring primates are compared in this thesis to find the most cost effective method of estimating population densities of primate species local to the Amazon basin; these are terrestrial transects, aquatic transects and audio-playback point counts. Data was collected in the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve using these methods over a period of four months, from January to May 2014. For both terrestrial and aquatic transects, transect lines were traversed and data was recorded every time an individual or group of the 7 primates species were spotted. Audio-playback point counts were used to record data for red howler monkeys (Alouatta seniculus)and brown capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). This was done by mimicking primate vocalisations at a point and recording any resultant responses or sightings of the species under observation. Each survey technique was compared with regards to three qualities; precision, ability to react to change and cost. On average over all 7 species of primate aquatic transects produced the most precise estimations of population density with a mean estimation CV% (percentage coefficient of variance) of 36.35% in comparison the 47.3% averaged by terrestrial transects. Both methods failed to produce precise results for the two rarest species present, the monk saki monkey (Pithecia monachus) and the white fronted capuchin monkey (Cebus albifrons). Aquatic transects were also shown to react to sudden change in population levels. For the two species Alouatta seniculus and Cebus apella aquatic transects once again on average gained the most precise results with a mean estimation CV% value of 20.05% in comparison to the 31.08% of terrestrial transects and 36.35% for audio-playback point counts. The estimates created using audio-playback point counts used considerably less time and resources than the other two methods for single species and was also shown to be the quickest to react to immediate changes in population densities. Thus it was concluded that audio-playback point counts can produce relatively precise estimates that react to population changes at low cost. However only one species can be observed at a time using audio-playback point counts; when observing multiple species at one time it was concluded that aquatic transects are by far the cheapest survey technique and the method that produces precise estimates more consistently. I would therefore recommend for a monitoring effort of several primate species at one given time in the Amazon basin, that aquatic transects be used as it is the most cost-effective overall. However if a single species is a monitoring target, perhaps to be used as an indicator species or because the primate is of most concern, then audio-playback point counts be used as it is possible to gain relatively precise results at a minimal cost. I would also like to suggest that the use of audio-playback point counts be tested on rarer primate species in future as neither terrestrial transects nor aquatic transects could produce a useful estimate in a combined effort of 104 half days. If audio-playback point counts could be used to get good estimates for rare primate species then monitoring strategies could be developed combining the use of audio- playback point counts and aquatic transects to gain precise density estimates for all primate species in an area whilst keeping costs low. A generic decision tree is presented at the end of this thesis as a guideline to cost-effective primate monitoring for any seasonally flooding rainforest study site

The Saturated and Supercritical Stirling Cycle Thermodynamic Heat Engine Cycle

On the assumption that experimentally validated tabulated thermodynamic properties of saturated fluids published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology are accurate, a theoretical thermodynamic cycle can be demonstrated that produces a net-negative entropy generation to the universe. The experimental data on the internal energy can also be used to obtain a simple, empirical equation for the change in internal energy of a real fluid undergoing isothermal expansion and compression. This demonstration provides experimental evidence to the theory that temperature-dependent intermolecular attractive forces can be an entropic force that can enhance the thermodynamic efficiency of a real-fluid macroscopic heat engine to exceed that of the Carnot efficiency.Comment: 27 pages, No figures, 21 tables, 52 reference

Challenges concerning the discriminatory optical force for chiral molecules

In response to arXiv:1506.07423v1 we discuss the authors work, and our own, on proposed schemes aiming to achieve a discriminatory optical force for chiral molecules

An implementation of Sub-CAD in Maple

Cylindrical algebraic decomposition (CAD) is an important tool for the investigation of semi-algebraic sets, with applications in algebraic geometry and beyond. We have previously reported on an implementation of CAD in Maple which offers the original projection and lifting algorithm of Collins along with subsequent improvements. Here we report on new functionality: specifically the ability to build cylindrical algebraic sub-decompositions (sub-CADs) where only certain cells are returned. We have implemented algorithms to return cells of a prescribed dimensions or higher (layered {\scad}s), and an algorithm to return only those cells on which given polynomials are zero (variety {\scad}s). These offer substantial savings in output size and computation time. The code described and an introductory Maple worksheet / pdf demonstrating the full functionality of the package are freely available online at http://opus.bath.ac.uk/43911/.Comment: 9 page