Analysing Scientific Collaborations of New Zealand Institutions using Scopus Bibliometric Data

Scientific collaborations are among the main enablers of development in small national science systems. Although analysing scientific collaborations is a well-established subject in scientometrics, evaluations of scientific collaborations within a country remain speculative with studies based on a limited number of fields or using data too inadequate to be representative of collaborations at a national level. This study represents a unique view on the collaborative aspect of scientific activities in New Zealand. We perform a quantitative study based on all Scopus publications in all subjects for more than 1500 New Zealand institutions over a period of 6 years to generate an extensive mapping of scientific collaboration at a national level. The comparative results reveal the level of collaboration between New Zealand institutions and business enterprises, government institutions, higher education providers, and private not for profit organisations in 2010-2015. Constructing a collaboration network of institutions, we observe a power-law distribution indicating that a small number of New Zealand institutions account for a large proportion of national collaborations. Network centrality concepts are deployed to identify the most central institutions of the country in terms of collaboration. We also provide comparative results on 15 universities and Crown research institutes based on 27 subject classifications.Comment: 10 pages, 15 figures, accepted author copy with link to research data, Analysing Scientific Collaborations of New Zealand Institutions using Scopus Bibliometric Data. In Proceedings of ACSW 2018: Australasian Computer Science Week 2018, January 29-February 2, 2018, Brisbane, QLD, Australi

Desert Island Discs and British emotional life

This chapter explores how the long-running BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs has responded over time to an increasing public appetite for openness and honesty. One of the programme’s presenters once said it was ‘properly impressed by power, wealth and ambition, but… knows that the world is made up of more than that’. This spoke to a longer-term revolution in modern life, as outlined by historians of the emotions: an increasing informality of manners, especially in broadcast talk. How did the BBC navigate these trends in a series that had long been a by-word for decorum? And what did Radio 4 listeners think of its new willingness in the 1980s and 1990s to probe guests more deeply? Drawing on unpublished BBC records and Mass Observation archives, this chapter focuses on how various desires for openness over private lives and feelings - and the anxieties this prompted - were negotiated behind-the-scenes at crucial moments in its history

Natural and anthropogenic lead in sediments of the Rotorua lakes, New Zealand

Global atmospheric sources of lead have increased more than 100-fold over the past century as a result of deforestation, coal combustion, ore smelting and leaded petroleum. Lead compounds generally accumulate in depositional areas across the globe where, due to low solubility and relative freedom from microbial degradation, the history of their inputs is preserved. In lakes there is rapid deposition and often little bioturbation of lead, resulting in an excellent depositional history of changes in both natural and anthropogenic sources. The objective of this study was to use sediments from a regionally bounded set of lakes to provide an indication of the rates of environmental inputs of lead whilst taking into account differences of trophic state and lead exposure between lakes. Intact sediment gravity cores were collected from 13 Rotorua lakes in North Island of New Zealand between March 2006 and January 2007. Cores penetrated sediments to a depth of 16–30 cm and contained volcanic tephra from the 1886 AD Tarawera eruption. The upper depth of the Tarawera tephra enabled prescription of a date for the associated depth in the core (120 years). Each core showed a sub-surface peak in lead concentration above the Tarawera tephra which was contemporaneous with the peak use of lead alkyl as a petroleum additive in New Zealand. An 8 m piston core was taken in the largest of the lakes, Lake Rotorua, in March 2007. The lake is antipodal to the pre-industrial sources of atmospheric lead but still shows increasing lead concentrations from <2 up to 3.5 μg g−1 between the Whakatane eruption (5530 ± 60 cal. yr BP) and the Tarawera eruption. Peaks in lead concentration in Lake Rotorua are associated with volcanic tephras, but are small compared with those arising from recent anthropogenic-derived lead deposition. Our results show that diagenetic processes associated with iron, manganese and sulfate oxidation-reduction, and sulfide precipitation, act to smooth distributions of lead from anthropogenic sources in the lake sediments. The extent of this smoothing can be related to changes in sulfate availability and reduction in sulfide driven by differences in trophic status amongst the lakes. Greatest lead mobilisation occurs in mesotrophic lakes during seasonal anoxia as iron and manganese are released to the porewater, allowing upward migration of lead towards the sediment–water interface. This lead mobilisation can only occur if sulfides are not present. The sub-surface peak in lead concentrations in lake sediments ascribed to lead alkyl in petroleum persists despite the diagenetic processes acting to disperse lead within the sediments and into the overlying water

Historical and contemporary perspectives on the sediments of Lake Rotorua

Lake Rotorua is probably the oldest continuously inundated lake in New Zealand, occupying a caldera formed by or closely associated with the eruption of the Mamaku ignimbrite and the collapse of the Rotorua caldera (Healy, 1975; Lowe and Green, 1991). The lake has undergone drastic changes in size and depth as a result of tectonics, volcanic activity and erosion. Since the Rotoehu eruption, (~60 kyr), the lake level has fluctuated between 120 m above present (280 m asl) and 10 m below present level. The modern lake covers an area of 79 km2 and has a mean depth of 10 m. Despite its long history of sedimentation, Lake Rotorua has an irregular bathymetry with features including faulted blocks, slumps, hydrothermal explosion craters, springs and large methane discharge pock marks

Drought contingency planning for pastoral livelihoods

This publication highlights issues arising from approaches to the mitigation of the impact of drought on pastoral households in Africa. It draws heavily upon drought management experience in Kenya and describes those policies most likely to have a positive impact on pastoral household livelihoods

University of Waikato radiocarbon dates I

This date list reports on samples submitted by University of Waikato researchers and assayed in the Waikato laboratory mainly between 1979 and 1985. Most dates reported here relate to the deposition of distal airfall tephras in lakes and peats in central and northern North Island, New Zealand. Most of the tephras have been correlated with named eruptive units elsewhere using diagnostic mineralogic and chemical criteria, together with stratigraphic and age relationships.The dates listed in Section 2 were obtained on carbonaceous matter associated with the Hinuera Formation, an extensive low-angle fan of volcanogenic alluvium that was deposited in several phases in the Waikato and Hauraki basins before and during the last stale (isotope stage 2) of the last glaciation. In Section 3, the samples comprise materials associated with peat bog growth or local sedimentation that postdates the deposition of the Hinuera Formation, ie, < ca 15,000 BP. Samples in both Sections 2 and 3 are grouped into series according to geographic location, and, where appropriate, arranged stratigraphically with uppermost samples shown first

Interview with David Hendy : Writing an Official History of the BBC in 2020

David Hendy is Professor of Media and Cultural History at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Noise: a Human History of Sound and Listening, which was also a BBC Radio 4 documentary series. He is currently working on a new, authorized history of the BBC, which will be published for the BBC's Centenary in 2022. He is also the Principal Investigator on a five-year project, Connected Histories of the BBC, which involves bringing the BBC's own oral history archive into the public realm ..

Absence of visitors during lockdown reveals natural variation in carbon dioxide level in the Glowworm Cave, Waitomo, New Zealand

Waitomo Glowworm Cave is a highly visited cave where the highlight is viewing the bioluminescence display of a large colony of glowworms. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide build-up in the cave is prevented by management of chimney-effect ventilation aided by a network of microclimate sensors. A cave door prevents ventilationunder drying conditions and promotes it when necessary to clear CO2 and when inflowing air has high relative humidity. A COVID-19-related nationwide “lockdown” in New Zealand from March 2020 resulted in neither staff nor visitors being present in the cave for 60 days, and provided an opportunity to assess the natural microclimate of the cave, especially the natural variation in partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2). In addition, comparison to the previous year showed that the presence of people in the cave increased the cave temperatures but the effect was short-lived due to cave ventilation. During the period of lockdown, the daily increase of carbon dioxide partial pressure (pCO2) due to visitors was absent. When the cave door remained sealed, pCO2 varied and tended to lie at levels above that of the external atmosphere (410 ppm). Notably, rain events raised pCO2 by up to 200 ppm (v/v), which appeared to be sourced from both stream water and drip water. These natural CO2 sources rarely reached the levels associated with cave visitation. The results support current management practices that use door control to enhance cave ventilation when people are in the cave or when natural conditions (high stream levels and high drip-water levels) promote CO2 outgassing into the cave. Suppressing ventilation outside of those times reduces the risk of introducing dry air that could desiccate the glowworms