The Physiography of Canada

The physiographic features of Canada have a complex history which involve a Precambrian peneplain, followed by a long period of sedimentation interrupted in places by diastrophic events, and finally extensive glaciation. Since the turn of the nineteenth century several men have proposed classifications of these features, and have divided Canada into a number of physiographic provinces. A review of these classifications shows that Canada may be divided into six major divisions, each characterized by a continuity of physical aspects

Hawkes Bay Apple and Pear Growers' Attitudes Towards the Proposed Deregulation in the Pipfruit Industry in New Zealand

Apple and pear· growers are major stakeholders in the current debate about the proposed deregulation of the Producer Boards in New Zealand. Unfortunately there does not appear to have been any systematic attempt to find out what their attitudes are to the proposed deregulation of the Producer Boards and of the NZ Apple and Pear Marketing Board (ENZA) in particular. This study is an attempt to assess the attitudes and opinions of the Hawkes Bay apple and pear growers, who represent about 55 percent of the apple and pear growers in New Zealand. A questionnaire was developed and sent to a stratified random sample of 394 growers in the Hawkes Bay region, with an attempt to gain a representative cross section from large, medium and small growers. A total of 180 valid responses were received. These responses were analysed statistically by orchard size and the comments made by respondents were also analysed in a qualitative manner. The overall results indicated that about seventy five percent of the respondents do not support the proposed government legislation to deregulate the industry, although about 40 percent of large growers do. However, nearly 90 percent of respondents want more information, particularly about the expected financial and economic implications of the deregulation and about the experiences of overseas countries that have introduced competitive export marketing of pipfruit. The majority of small and medium sized growers were concerned that deregulation may threaten the quality of fruit exported, and result in less cost effective delivery systems and in lower returns, whereas large growers were more confident that this would not happen and they would gain from improvements in innovation and efficiency. However, a clear majority of growers (80%) support the single desk marketing approach, although over 30 percent of large growers do not. The research findings should be of particular value to the New Zealand pipfruit growers, the New Zealand Apple and Pear Marketing Board, and the Government Select Committee and departments that are currently considering issues associated with deregulating the Producer Boards

Doing Language Together: Collaborative Writing Practice for Design Teams in Higher Education

This thesis offers and evaluates collaborative writing practices for teams of Design students at M-Level in Higher Education (HE). The research begins by asking why writing is included in current art and design HE, and identifies an assumption about the role of writing across the sector derived from a misreading of the 1960 and 1970 Coldstream Reports. As a result, drawing on recommendations that were made in the Reports for non-studio studies to be complementary to art and design practice in HE, I focus on how teams of design students can complement their design skills with collaborative writing. Some studies for addressing how design students learn from writing in HE already exist, but none have established a practice-centred teaching method for collaborative writing for design teams at M-level. My research captures the effects of my Approaches, Practices and Tools (APTs) across three case study workshops. I compare these with the most common writing model in HE designed for text-based study in the humanities. My APTs use participants' designerly strengths to redesign how they can use writing to complement their practice. This provides learners with a means of identifying and creating their own situated writing structures and practices. I document how my practice-centred APTs position collaborative writing practices as a designerly mode of communication between design practitioners working in teams. I show it to be more complementary to practice and so more effective in comparison to models imported from the humanities. My explorations are carried out through two thesis sections. Section One is an in-depth literature-based rationale that critically informs my investigations. Section Two presents my methodologies and reports three case studies, in which I explore the emergent data collected through a range of qualitative methods, mapping and evaluative techniques. The findings are of importance to those teaching M-Level design courses

Testing the Empathy Theory of Dreaming: The Relationships Between Dream Sharing and Trait and State Empathy

In general, dreams are a novel but realistic simulation of waking social life, with a mixture of characters, motivations, scenarios, and positive and negative emotions. We propose that the sharing of dreams has an empathic effect on the dreamer and on significant others who hear and engage with the telling of the dream. Study 1 tests three correlations that are predicted by the theory of dream sharing and empathy: that trait empathy will be correlated with frequency of telling dreams to others, with frequency of listening to others' dreams, and with trait attitude toward dreams (ATD) (for which higher scores indicate positive attitude). 160 participants completed online the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire and the Mannheim Dream Questionnaire. Pearson partial correlations were conducted, with age and sex paddled out. Trait empathy was found to be significantly associated with the frequency of listening to the dreams of others, frequency of telling one's own dreams to others, and attitude toward dreams. Study 2 tests the effects of discussing dreams on state empathy, using an adapted version of the Shen (2010) state empathy scale, for 27 pairs of dream sharers and discussers. Dream discussion followed the stages of the Ullman (1996) dream appreciation technique. State empathy of the dream discusser toward the dream sharer was found to increase significantly as a result of the dream discussion, with a medium effect size, whereas the dream sharer had a small decrease in empathy toward the discusser. A proposed mechanism for these associations and effects is taken from the robust findings in the literature that engagement with literary fiction can induce empathy toward others. We suggest that the dream acts as a piece of fiction that can be explored by the dreamer together with other people, and can thus induce empathy about the life circumstances of the dreamer. We discuss the speculation that the story-like characteristics of adult human dreams may have been selected for in human evolution, including in sexual selection, as part of the selection for emotional intelligence, empathy, and social bonding

Apportioning sources of organic matter in streambed sediments: An integrated molecular and compound-specific stable isotope approach

We present a novel application for quantitatively apportioning sources of organic matter in streambed sediments via a coupled molecular and compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) of long-chain leaf wax n-alkane biomarkers using a Bayesian mixing model. Leaf wax extracts of 13 plant species were collected from across two environments (aquatic and terrestrial) and four plant functional types (trees, herbaceous perennials, and C3 and C4 graminoids) from the agricultural River Wensum catchment, UK. Seven isotopic (δ13C27, δ13C29, δ13C31, δ13C27–31, δ2H27, δ2H29, and δ2H27–29) and two n-alkane ratio (average chain length (ACL), carbon preference index (CPI)) fingerprints were derived, which successfully differentiated 93% of individual plant specimens by plant functional type. The δ2H values were the strongest discriminators of plants originating from different functional groups, with trees (δ2H27–29 = − 208‰ to − 164‰) and C3 graminoids (δ2H27–29 = − 259‰ to − 221‰) providing the largest contrasts. The δ13C values provided strong discrimination between C3 (δ13C27–31 = − 37.5‰ to − 33.8‰) and C4 (δ13C27–31 = − 23.5‰ to − 23.1‰) plants, but neither δ13C nor δ2H values could uniquely differentiate aquatic and terrestrial species, emphasizing a stronger plant physiological/biochemical rather than environmental control over isotopic differences. ACL and CPI complemented isotopic discrimination, with significantly longer chain lengths recorded for trees and terrestrial plants compared with herbaceous perennials and aquatic species, respectively. Application of a comprehensive Bayesian mixing model for 18 streambed sediments collected between September 2013 and March 2014 revealed considerable temporal variability in the apportionment of organic matter sources. Median organic matter contributions ranged from 22% to 52% for trees, 29% to 50% for herbaceous perennials, 17% to 34% for C3 graminoids and 3% to 7% for C4 graminoids. The results presented here clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of an integrated molecular and stable isotope analysis for quantitatively apportioning, with uncertainty, plant-specific organic matter contributions to streambed sediments via a Bayesian mixing model approach

Isotopic evidences for microbiologically mediated and direct C input to soil compounds from three different leaf litters during their decomposition

We show the potentiality of coupling together different compound-specific isotopic analyses in a laboratory experiment, where 13C-depleted leaf litter was incubated on a 13C-enriched soil. The aim of our study was to identify the soil compounds where the C derived from three different litter species is retained. Three 13C-depleted leaf litter (Liquidambar styraciflua L., Cercis canadensis L. and Pinus taeda L., δ13CvsPDB ≈ −43‰), differing in their degradability, were incubated on a C4 soil (δ13CvsPDB ≈ −18‰) under laboratory-controlled conditions for 8 months. At harvest, compound-specific isotope analyses were performed on different classes of soil compounds [i.e. phospholipids fatty acids (PLFAs), n-alkanes and soil pyrolysis products]. Linoleic acid (PLFA 18:2ω6,9) was found to be very depleted in 13C (δ13CvsPDB ≈ from −38 to −42‰) compared to all other PLFAs (δ13CvsPDB ≈ from −14 to −35‰). Because of this, fungi were identified as the first among microbes to use the litter as source of C. Among n-alkanes, long-chain (C27–C31) n-alkanes were the only to have a depleted δ13C. This is an indication that not all of the C derived from litter in the soil was transformed by microbes. The depletion in 13C was also found in different classes of pyrolysis products, suggesting that the litter-derived C is incorporated in less or more chemically stable compounds, even only after 8 months decomposition

Tropical limestone forest resilience during MIS-2: implications for Pleistocene foraging & modern conservation

In this paper we present a multi-proxy study of tropical limestone forest and its utilization by human groups during the major climatic and environmental upheavals of MIS-2 (29-11.7 ka BP). Our data are drawn from new field research within the Tràng An World Heritage property, on the edge of the Red River Delta, northern Vietnam. Key findings from this study include 1) that limestone forest formations were resilient to the large-scale landscape transformation and inundation of the Sunda continent at the end of the last glaciation; 2) that prehistoric human groups were probably present in this habitat through-out MIS-2; and 3) that the forested, almost insular, karst of Tràng An provided foragers with a stable resource-base in a wider changing landscape. These results have implications for our understanding of the prehistoric utilization of karst environments and resonance for conservation efforts in the face of climate and environmental change today

Formation of noble metal nanocrystals in the presence of biomolecules

textOne of the most promising, yet least studied routes for producing biocompatible nanostructures involves synthesis in the presence of biomolecules. I hypothesized that globular proteins could provide a suitable framework to regulate the formation of noble metal nanocrystals. As proof of concept, I designed two novel synthesis protocols utilizing bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein to regulate the formation of gold nanocrystals. In the first case, the standard protocol for polyol reduction was modified by replacing ethylene glycol with glycerin, replacing synthetic polymers with BSA as protecting agent, and decreasing the reaction temperature. In the second case, the BrustSchiffrin two-phase reduction was modified by replacing alkylthiols with BSA as protecting agent, which facilitated a strictly aqueous phase synthesis. Due to superior product yield and rapid reduction at room temperature, the aqueous protocol became the foundation for subsequent studies. I extended this approach to produce well-dispersed ~2nm silver, gold, and platinum nanocrystals. Having demonstrated the feasibility of BSA-functionalized nanocrystals, some potential uses were explored. BSA-functionalized silver nanocrystals were employed in a broader study on the interaction of silver nanocrystals with HIV. BSA-functionalized gold nanocrystals were utilized for in vivo dosage of a contrast enhancing agent to bacteria. BSAfunctionalized platinum nanocrystals were studied as hydrogenation catalysts. Since many intriguing uses for protein-functionalized nanocrystals involve incorporation into biosystems, I sought to enhance biocompatibility by using ascorbic acid as reducing agent. Initial experiments revealed elongated and branched nanocrystals. Such structures were not observed in previous synthesis protocols with BSA, so I hypothesized ascorbic acid was driving their formation. To test my assertion, I reduced ionic gold in an aqueous solution of ascorbic acid, thereby discovering a new method for producing multiply-branched gold nanocrystals. Two conditions were necessary to achieve multiply-branched structures: rapid kinetics, and strongly acidic pH. By exploiting ascorbic acid complexation with BSA to moderate reaction kinetics, and using sodium hydroxide to provide basic pH, the two conditions for branching were negated, and well-dispersed ~2.5nm gold nanocrystals were obtained. This protocol represents a novel, environmentally benign approach to producing biocompatible nanocrystals, relying on proteins, ascorbic acid, sodium hydroxide, and water, all at ambient temperature.Chemical Engineerin