Heavenly Images

The film Heavenly Creatures, fictionalised the murder of Honora Parker by her daughter and her friend and probable lover. The article discuss the Insanity defense law of New Zealand

Rethinking Information Literacy in a Globalized World

As a profession, librarians have an important and unique role to play in higher education in producing information literate students equipped to be successful in a complex, twenty-first century global society. It is our contention that our guiding professional information literacy definitions and standards need to be reconsidered in order to remain relevant within the global learning context. Our preliminary conclusion is that the predominantly skills-based approach facilitated by the current ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, is not sufficient to facilitate teaching of twenty-first century deep information literacy, which we feel encompasses additional content-based engagement with the social, cultural, economic and political contexts of information access, retrieval, use, and creation. Within the global education context, the ways we may engage with such an expanded notion of information literacy and the challenges associated with this, are discussed

Lady-Husbands and Kamp Ladies: Pre-1970 Lesbian Life in Aotearoa/New Zealand

This study explores pre-1970 lesbian life and lives in Aotearoa/New Zealand before the impact of women's and gay liberation and lesbian-feminism, using written sources and oral histories. The thesis argues that before 1970 most women could make lesbianism the organising principle of their lives only through the strategies of discretion and silence. Despite apparent censorship, many classical, religious, legal, medical and fictional discourses on lesbianism informed New Zealand opinion, as regulation of this material was one thing, but enforcement another, and most English language material was available here. These discourses functioned as cautionary tales, warning women of the consequences of disclosure, while at the same time alerting them to lesbian possibilities. Though lesbian sexual acts were not criminalised in New Zealand, lesbianism was contained, regulated and controlled through a variety of mechanisms including the fear of forced medical treatment, social exclusion and disgrace, as well as the loss of employment, housing and family relationships. Class and race affected these outcomes, and this study concludes that learning how to read a wide variety of lesbian lives is essential to furthering research into lesbian histories in New Zealand. The study examined pre-1970 published and unpublished writing suggesting lesbian experiences by selected New Zealand women, within a context informed by writing from contemporaries who have been identified as lesbian, and oral histories from pre-1970 self-identified lesbians.. Many of these women led secretive, often double lives, and of necessity deceived others through silence and omission, actual denial, or sham heterosexual marriages and engagements. The lies, secrecy and silence of self-censorship has often meant the deliberate destruction of written records such as letters or diaries, by women themselves, or later by family members and friends. The study concludes that the private lesbianism of most pre-1970 lesbian lives cannot be understood in isolation, and that scholars must move beyond the women's necessary masquerades to place their lives into a lesbian context in order to recognize and understand them. Each life informs an understanding of the others and by considering them together the study provides a picture of lesbianism in pre-1970 New Zealand, with the stories of the narrators illuminating the written experiences. Silences should not be mistaken for absences, or heterosexuality assumed for all pre-1970 New Zealand women. The stories of resistance and rebellion told by the self-identified lesbian narrators indicate that the women whose lesbian experiences are suggested by their writings similarly resisted societal expectations and prescriptions. Learning how to interpret and understand these materials is essential for moving beyond superficial and heterosexualised accounts of their lives. Towards the end of the period, influenced by other social changes, some lesbians in this study began to resist the need for caution and discretion, providing the basis for the liberation movements of the 1970s

Heavenly Images

The film Heavenly Creatures, fictionalised the murder of Honora Parker by her daughter and her friend and probable lover. The article discuss the Insanity defense law of New Zealand

Breaking the Cycle of Hate: A Phenomenological Study of Teachers' Lived Experiences as Both Other and Otherer

In this phenomenological study I explore the lived experiences of five k-12 teachers around prejudice and discrimination, both in their lives and in the school context. My research question asks, What is the lived experience of teachers as both other and otherer, as target and perpetrator? Embedded in this larger question are two sub-questions: 1) What are the teachers' experiences participating in and mitigating othering in the classroom? and 2) In what manner do they understand the shaping of their prior experiences as they participate in and mitigate othering in the classroom? My research is grounded in the philosophical writings of Levinas and Derrida, and I rely on van Manen to guide me through the methodology of phenomenology. I listen to the stories of teachers who share their personal experiences around othering, digging for meaning that contributes to my understanding of the process. In my preliminary conversations I explore the role of place and emotions in our relations with the other. The complexity of identity begins to unfold. The five participants in my study share vivid experiences around othering. Through their stories I come to understand that our experiences around othering have very much to do with our sense of self. My participants do not have consistent relationships with others. Their interactions seem very much influenced by their own identity development, their relationship to the other, and the strength of their memories. In the school context, my participants experience othering from parents, students, and colleagues, and they, too, other, but they remain committed to challenging acts of bias in the school. They move beyond the self, reaching out to their students-as-others, forming relationships that transform the classroom from a place of learning to a place of living, seeing, and being seen. Finally, from my participants' words, I draw implications for pre-service and in-service education programs, imagining how we can prepare teachers to reflect critically, thinking about their personal experiences around othering in ways that enable them to teach for transformation in their classrooms

Analysis of Alternative Storage Conditions for DNA Recovery from Field Samples

As ecologists increasingly employ molecular methods, they find that tried and true preservation solutions (e.g. ethanol or formalin) may not be optimal when samples are targeted for genetic analyses. Before traveling to remote sample sites, researchers need to consider which preservation methods are likely to yield the largest quantity and highest quality of DNA based on their travel times and field conditions. They also need to consider whether they will have access to preservatives at remote sites and whether those preservatives can be safely transported. To determine which preservation methods would most reliably preserve tissue for genetic analysis under a range of field conditions, we examined total DNA recovery from female fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) individually held in various solutions (70% ethanol; 2% SDS, 100 mM EDTA; 1% SDS, 50 mM EDTA; 0.66% SDS, 33 mM EDTA; Zymo© lysis buffer; Zymo Xpedition© lysis buffer) at three different temperatures (22oC, 4oC and -20oC) for varying lengths of time (1 day, 4 weeks, and 8 weeks). We predicted that insects held in Zymo Xpedition© buffer would yield the overall highest DNA recovery since this buffer was designed for field collected animal tissue. We also predicted that variation in DNA recovery from insects held in different solutions would increase with preservation time and holding temperature. Although we observed significant differences in total DNA recovery from some of our samples, no trends were identified. Preliminary band quality analyses of PCR products utilizing stored DNA as template for amplification of the mCOI gene generally indicated decline in product quality as storage time increased. Future work will focus on better quantifying stored DNA quality and examining the relationship between total DNA recovered and overall DNA quality

"Vamos fazer-nos ouvir": ativismo climático de crianças na floresta local

UIDB/04647/2020 UIDP/04647/2020Este estudo visa compreender a potencialidade de dispositivos participativos no ativismo de crianças, procurando perceber como problematizam e como intervêm em questões ambientais da floresta local. Envolveu, durante três meses consecutivos, 22 crianças com dez anos do 4.º ano do 1.º ciclo do ensino básico em momentos de participação, numa lógica de ação-reflexão. Com base numa abordagem de perfil comunitário, as crianças investigaram a floresta local e foram implicadas num processo de exploração dos problemas e de identificação de soluções para as questões que identificaram como pertinentes. Os dados foram recolhidos através de vários dispositivos: diários de bordo, desenhos e projetos elaborados pelas crianças; fotografias, vídeos do processo, e notas de terreno da investigadora contendo registos de discussões conjuntas com as crianças e de conversas informais com familiares; e entrevistas semiestruturadas com as professoras. A análise revela as crianças como agentes ambientais com práticas ativistas, por exemplo, ações coletivas que desenvolveram na floresta, a solicitação de parcerias na comunidade para a resolução de problemas ambientais locais e a organização de uma manifestação na comunidade, para se fazerem ouvir. A aprendizagem na floresta não só promoveu uma tomada de consciência por parte das crianças, designadamente a respeito do impacto da visão dominante antropocêntrica na sustentabilidade, como também as motivou a pôr em prática o seu ativismo ambiental.publishersversionpublishe

Dermal fibroblasts derived from fetal and postnatal humans exhibit distinct responses to insulin like growth factors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It has been well established that human fetuses will heal cutaneous wounds with perfect regeneration. Insulin-like growth factors are pro-fibrotic fibroblast mitogens that have important roles in both adult wound healing and during development, although their relative contribution towards fetal wound healing is currently unknown. We have compared responses to IGF-I and -II in human dermal fibroblast strains derived from early gestational age fetal (<14 weeks) and developmentally mature postnatal skin to identify any differences that might relate to their respective wound healing responses of regeneration or fibrosis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have established that the mitogenic response of fetal cells to both IGF-I and -II is much lower than that seen in postnatal dermal fibroblasts. Further, unlike postnatal cells, fetal cells fail to synthesise collagen in response to IGF-I, whereas they do increase synthesis in response to IGF-II. This apparent developmentally regulated difference in response to these related growth factors is also reflected in changes in the tyrosine phosphorylation pattern of a number of proteins. Postnatal cells exhibit a significant increase in phosphorylation of ERK 1 (p44) in response to IGF-I and conversely the p46 isoform of Shc on IGF-II stimulation. Fetal cells however only show a significant increase in an unidentified 100 kDa tyrosine-phosphorylated protein on stimulation with IGF-II.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Dermal fibroblasts exhibit different responses to the two forms of IGF depending on their developmental maturity. This may relate to the developmental transition in cutaneous wound healing from regeneration to fibrosis.</p