Vegetation restoration plan, New Plymouth Fitzroy to Bell Block coastal walkway extension

In 1999, the New Plymouth District Council began construction of its award winning coastal walkway. Along with providing an area for recreation, this new walk and cycle path serves as an alternate route for commuting along the city away from arterial roads. The New Plymouth District Council is in the process of extending this walkway a further three kilometres from Fitzroy Motor Camp to Ellesmere Avenue, Bell Block. This will encompass Peringa Park, Hickford Park and the Mangati Walkway, with completion expected by mid 2010. As part of this $4.2 million project, the District Council aims to restore the surrounding native duneland vegetation. The Centre for Biodiversity and Ecology Research (University of Waikato) was contracted by the New Plymouth District Council to provide a vegetation restoration plan for the Fitzroy to Bell Block section of the coastal walkway. This report considers the current vegetation of this three km section of the walkway, based on a rapid qualitative assessment undertaken in June, 2010. The target ecosytems Spinifex sandfield, flax-taupata shrubland and coastal forest vegetation types once dominant in the area are described in detail. Restoration recommendations are included to assist in the recreation of these ecosystems, including planting zones, weed control strategies and ongoing monitoring objectives

Anti-lensing: the bright side of voids

More than half of the volume of our Universe is occupied by cosmic voids. The lensing magni ca- tion e ect from those under-dense regions is generally thought to give a small dimming contribution: objects on the far side of a void are supposed to be observed as slightly smaller than if the void were not there, which together with conservation of surface brightness implies net reduction in photons received. This is predicted by the usual weak lensing integral of the density contrast along the line of sight. We show that this standard e ect is swamped at low redshifts by a relativistic Doppler term that is typically neglected. Contrary to the usual expectation, objects on the far side of a void are brighter than they would be otherwise. Thus the local dynamics of matter in and near the void is crucial and is only captured by the full relativistic lensing convergence. There are also signi cant nonlinear corrections to the relativistic linear theory, which we show actually under-predicts the e ect. We use exact solutions to estimate that these can be more than 20% for deep voids. This remains an important source of systematic errors for weak lensing density reconstruction in galaxy surveys and for supernovae observations, and may be the cause of the reported extra scatter of eld supernovae located on the edge of voids compared to those in clusters.Web of Scienc

Youth ‘at-risk’ and ‘resilient’ to crime: Sharing the perspectives of young women who engage in crime in Aotearoa

The perspective of young people, and especially young women who engage in crime has been under-represented in risk and resilience research and policy interventions in New Zealand and in other developed nations. This limits understandings of why young people might engage in crime as well as the effectiveness of interventions that aim to reduce youth crime. In response, this thesis presents insights on youth crime, risk and resilience gained from interviews with eight young women who have engaged in crime between the ages of 15 and 20 years old and lived in Auckland, New Zealand. This thesis sought to examine participants’ understandings of their pathways into and out of crime, the terms ‘at-risk’ and ‘resilient’ as well as what these young women desire for their futures. An analysis of the interviews reveal how the experiences and perspectives of young women who engage in crime contextualises and extends the dominant, individually-focussed view of risk and resilience. This view tends to locate the cause of crime within the individual and their immediate context. Participants’ stories add nuance and deepen the understanding of how ‘risk’ and ‘protective’ factors influence young women to engage in crime. Their stories support the incorporation of an ecologically-focussed view of risk and resilience into mainstream literature and policy. Participants realise that external factors including social, structural and political factors shape their environments, constrain their personal agency and influence their involvement in crime. There is an obvious awareness of how the high-risk neighbourhoods normalise pathways that eventuate in crime and negatively influence thoughts and behaviours. Some participants discussed the importance of replacing their role of ‘offender’ with socially accepted roles including mother, romantic partner, employee or church-goer in their efforts to reduce their involvement in crime. While participants were aware of being associated with the term ‘at-risk’, none of the participants had heard of the term ‘resilient’. Participants’ understanding of these terms reflect notions of individual responsibility indicating that risk and resilience terminology may stigmatise and marginalise youth offenders. Participants revealed that they have socially desirable goals such as access to wealth and resources and having a family. Yet their circumstances (e.g. poverty and lack of formal education) limit their ability to achieve these goals through socially acceptable methods. Listening to young women and utilising theories of structuration and habitus, may encourage future researchers to balance their approach by refraining from an exclusive focus on risk and protective factors tied to the individual and including environmentally-located factors in risk and resilience literature. The key recommendation is to develop existing risk and resilience literature and advance policy by addressing structural issues such as poverty and unemployment alongside factors linked to the individual such as anti-social behaviour and family criminality

Who plays with whom: farrowing environment influences isolation of foster piglets in play

Cross fostering piglets is a common management practise in the pig industry to manage large and heterogeneous litters, whereby piglets are moved from their biological litter to be reared by another sow. At present research has focused on immediate survival consequences and time of cross fostering, with little attention given to positive aspects of welfare such as social affiliations and the potential for positive interactions for these piglets such as play behaviour. The focus of our study was purely observational to record behaviour of piglets reared in either impoverished (farrowing crates) or enriched neonatal environments (PigSAFE pens) where fostering was practised as part of normal husbandry routines to promote piglet survival. We employed social network analysis to understand more about the behaviour of foster piglets in these environments and their acceptance into their new litter. In line with previous work, piglets exposed to enriched neonatal farrowing pens demonstrated more play behaviour than piglets reared in farrowing crates. We showed that pen piglets received and initiated more play invitations (higher degree centrality) than piglets in crates. We also found effects of cross fostering irrespective of neonatal environment. Non-foster piglets received and initiated more play behaviours (higher degree centrality) 2–3 weeks post-farrowing compared to piglets fostered into the litter and as such, fostered piglets remained isolated from play for the first few weeks of life. However, our data suggests this may be mitigated by neonatal environment; foster piglets reared in pens were better connected (betweenness centrality) within their foster litter than those fostered in crates. Our findings highlight the importance of the neonatal environment and its potential influence on the isolation of cross-fostered piglets and suggest that rearing in enriched neonatal environments may help mitigate against social isolation in early life of cross-fostered piglets, having obvious immediate, and long-term consequences for piglet welfare and behaviour. We also highlight the importance and application of methodologies such as social network analysis, for gaining more insight and understanding about the sociality of animal behaviour and its potential for measuring indicators of positive welfare, thus highlighting its application for veterinary science and animal behaviour and welfare research

Child-led research with young children:Challenging the ways to do research

Child-led research is gaining increasing attention. Such research involves children leading throughout the research process, from research design to dissemination. Child-led research has tested adult-centric research assumptions, with debates in the literature about researchers’ expertise and responsibilities. If these debates are testing for child-led research undertaken with older children and young people, they are even more so for young children below school-starting age. This article examines child-led research undertaken in a Froebelian early years setting, over 11 months, with 36 children aged between 2 and 5 years, from the adult facilitators’ perspectives. The article utilises the research’s documentation, including mind maps, photographs and story books, songs and video recordings, and an interview undertaken with the facilitating early years practitioner and supporting academic. Learning from this, the article challenges the assumption, in much of the literature on child-led research, that adults need to transmit their knowledge of research methods to children. Instead, a ‘slow pedagogy’ can build on children’s own knowledge, collectively, with time to come to research understandings. The article concludes that child-led research is feasible with young children, but the research process can include or exclude certain forms of children’s communication, making some children more ‘competent’ to undertake research than others

Psychology, behaviour, and the family environment in children with diagnoses of precocious pubertal development

The aim of the thesis was to identify whether children with a diagnosis of Premature Adrenarche (PA) or Central Precocious Puberty (CPP) presented with an atypical psychological profile in comparison to typically-developing children. A battery of psychometrics was constructed to study several domains, including eating behaviour, self-perception and intellectual ability. Measures of family environment and parental stress were also included. In addition, an interpretative phenomenological analysis was conducted on five interviews with parents to gain a greater insight into the experience of parenting a child with a diagnosis of early puberty. It was found that several differences between groups, such as weight gain, internalising behaviours and sleep problems, could be attributed to hormonal or behavioural changes typically associated with pubertal development across all groups. Other observations were specific to the pubertal disorders, such as risk of obesity, problem eating behaviours, anxiety and depression, and aggression. Furthermore, being from a family with a single-parent or non-parent care-giver, and increased family stress were related to earlier pubertal development. In summary, children with a diagnosis of PA or CPP may be more likely to display altered behaviour and psychopathology, but some of these difficulties may also occur in typical pubertal development

The relationship between sleep and daytime behaviour in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This volume includes three chapters, the first of which is a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of insomnia in clinical and non-clinical populations of children and adolescents. The second chapter is an empirical paper exploring the relationship between sleep problems and daytime challenging behaviour in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. The final chapter is a document summarising chapters one and two for the purpose of public dissemination

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Targeting the substrate preference of a type I nitroreductase to develop antitrypanosomal quinone-based prodrugs.

Nitroheterocyclic prodrugs are used to treat infections caused by Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma brucei. A key component in selectivity involves a specific activation step mediated by a protein homologous with type I nitroreductases, enzymes found predominantly in prokaryotes. Using data from determinations based on flavin cofactor, oxygen-insensitive activity, substrate range, and inhibition profiles, we demonstrate that NTRs from T. cruzi and T. brucei display many characteristics of their bacterial counterparts. Intriguingly, both enzymes preferentially use NADH and quinones as the electron donor and acceptor, respectively, suggesting that they may function as NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductases in the parasite mitochondrion. We exploited this preference to determine the trypanocidal activity of a library of aziridinyl benzoquinones against bloodstream-form T. brucei. Biochemical screens using recombinant NTR demonstrated that several quinones were effective substrates for the parasite enzyme, having K(cat)/K(m) values 2 orders of magnitude greater than those of nifurtimox and benznidazole. In tests against T. brucei, antiparasitic activity mirrored the biochemical data, with the most potent compounds generally being preferred enzyme substrates. Trypanocidal activity was shown to be NTR dependent, as parasites with elevated levels of this enzyme were hypersensitive to the aziridinyl agent. By unraveling the biochemical characteristics exhibited by the trypanosomal NTRs, we have shown that quinone-based compounds represent a class of trypanocidal compound

Identification and removal of laser-induced noise in photoacoustic imaging using singular value decomposition

Singular value decomposition (SVD) was used to identify and remove laserinduced noise in photoacoustic images acquired with a clinical ultrasound scanner. This noise, which was prominent in the radiofrequency data acquired in parallel from multiple transducer elements, was induced by the excitation light source. It was modelled by truncating the SVD matrices so that only the first few largest singular value components were retained, and subtracted prior to image reconstruction. The dependency of the signal amplitude and the number of the largest singular value components used for noise modeling was investigated for different photoacoustic source geometries. Validation was performed with simulated data and measured noise, and with photoacoustic images acquired from the human forearm and finger in vivo using L14-5/38 and L40-8/12 linear array clinical imaging probes. The use of only one singular value component was found to be sufficient to achieve near-complete removal of laser-induced noise from reconstructed images. This method has strong potential to increase image quality for a wide range of photoacoustic imaging systems with parallel data acquisition.</p