A new species of mudfish, Neochanna (Teleostei: Galaxidae), from northern New Zealand

A new species of mudfish, Neochanna, is described from Northland. Neochanna heleios n.sp. is known from only three ephemeral wetland sites on the Kerikeri volcanic plateau and is abundant only at the type locality. The new species has a head resembling that of the brown mudfish, Neochanna apoda, and a caudal region resembling that of the black mudfish, Neochanna diversus. It can be distinguished from all Neochanna species in having a reduced number of principal caudal fin rays (13 or less). Morphometric and meristic comparisons with N. apoda and N. diversus are provided

Implementation of the FAA research and development electromagnetic database

The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) has been assisting the FAA in developing a database of information about lightning. The FAA Research and Development Electromagnetic Database (FRED) will ultimately contain data from a variety of airborne and ground-based lightning research projects. An outline of the data currently available in FRED is presented. The data sources which the FAA intends to incorporate into FRED are listed. In addition, it describes how the researchers may access and use the FRED menu system

Total Determination of Material Parameters from Electromagnetic Boundary Information

In this paper we complete the proof that the material parameters can be obtained for a chiral electromagnetic body from the boundary admittance map. We prove that from the admittance map, the parameters are uniquely determined to infinite order at the boundary. This removes the assumption of such knowledge in the result of the second author regarding interior determination for chiral media

Stable Determination of the Electromagnetic Coefficients by Boundary Measurements

The goal of this paper is to prove a stable determination of the coefficients for the time-harmonic Maxwell equations, in a Lipschitz domain, by boundary measurements

Children's informal learning at home during COVID-19 lockdown

The national COVID-19 lockdown during school Term 1 2020 provided a unique context to investigate children’s experiences of informal, everyday learning in their household bubble. In Terms 3 and 4, 178 children in Years 4–8 from 10 primary schools agreed to participate in a group art-making activity and an individual interview about their experiences. The research adopted a strengths-based approach on the basis that most children are capable actors in their social worlds. This report documents children’s accounts of the multiple ways in which they negotiated the novel experience of forced confinement over a period of several weeks with family and whānau. The report is rich with children’s own accounts of their everyday living and learning during lockdown. To foreground children’s descriptions and explanations of their lockdown experience in this way is an acknowledgement of their right to express their views on matters of interest to them in their lives, and to have those views listened to, and acted on, by adults. Similarly, the approach reflects a growing educational research interest in student voice: enabling children to articulate their experiences so that adults can use this knowledge to better respond to and support children’s learning aspirations and needs. This research report does not speak for all children or all children’s experiences. Nevertheless, it does provide valuable insights about the phenomenon of children’s informal and everyday learning during lockdown, gained from a group of children for whom it was a mostly positive experience, and through which they learned much about themselves as persons and as members of a family and whānau. Several months after the event, children in this study were able and willing to recall their experiences of learning during lockdown. They could identify social, cultural, and historical dimensions of their learning at home. Some children were able to recount rich, detailed stories about their lockdown experience and the ways in which they organised their days and activities. For some others, their days were largely shaped for them by family and whānau members, but even so, the children were able to explain what they enjoyed, or did not, and why. Variations in children’s learning across the group highlighted the complexity of learning that each child experienced, and the importance of having social relations, environments, and contexts that encourage and support their learning. Children demonstrated an understanding and appreciation of the value of this learning.falsehttp://www.nzcer.org.nz/research/publications/learning-during-lockdownNew Zealand Council for Educational Researc

Distribution and abundance of fish and crayfish in a Waikato stream in relation to basin area

The aim of this study was to relate the longitudinal distribution of fish and crayfish to increasing basin area and physical site characteristics in the Mangaotama Stream, Waikato region, North Island, New Zealand. Fish and crayfish were captured with two-pass removal electroshocking at 11 sites located in hill-country with pasture, native forest, and mixed land uses within the 21.6 km2 basin. Number of fish species and lineal biomass of fish increased with increasing basin area, but barriers to upstream fish migration also influenced fish distribution; only climbing and non-migratory species were present above a series of small waterfalls. Fish biomass increased in direct proportion to stream width, suggesting that fish used much of the available channel, and stream width was closely related to basin area. Conversely, the abundance of crayfish was related to the amount of edge habitat, and therefore crayfish did not increase in abundance as basin area increased. Densities of all fish species combined ranged from 17 to 459 fish 100 m-2, and biomass ranged from 14 to 206 g m-2. Eels dominated the fish assemblages, comprising 85-100% of the total biomass; longfinned eels the majority of the biomass at most sites. Despite the open access of the lower sites to introduced brown trout, native species dominated all the fish communities sampled

Inverse Transport Theory of Photoacoustics

We consider the reconstruction of optical parameters in a domain of interest from photoacoustic data. Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) radiates high frequency electromagnetic waves into the domain and measures acoustic signals emitted by the resulting thermal expansion. Acoustic signals are then used to construct the deposited thermal energy map. The latter depends on the constitutive optical parameters in a nontrivial manner. In this paper, we develop and use an inverse transport theory with internal measurements to extract information on the optical coefficients from knowledge of the deposited thermal energy map. We consider the multi-measurement setting in which many electromagnetic radiation patterns are used to probe the domain of interest. By developing an expansion of the measurement operator into singular components, we show that the spatial variations of the intrinsic attenuation and the scattering coefficients may be reconstructed. We also reconstruct coefficients describing anisotropic scattering of photons, such as the anisotropy coefficient $g(x)$ in a Henyey-Greenstein phase function model. Finally, we derive stability estimates for the reconstructions

Alternative display and interaction devices

While virtual environment systems are typically thought to consist of a head mounted display and a flex-sensing glove, alternative peripheral devices are beginning to be developed in response to application requirements. Three such alternatives are discussed: fingertip sensing gloves, fixed stereoscopic viewers, and counterbalanced head mounted displays. A subset of commercial examples that highlight each alternative is presented as well as a brief discussion of interesting engineering and implementation issues

A study relating the composition of follicular fluid and blood plasma from individual Holstein dairy cows to the in vitro developmental competence of pooled abattoir-derived oocytes

The fertility of high performance (high milk yield) dairy breeds such as the Holstein within the Australian dairy herd has been on the decline for the past two decades. The 12-month calving interval for pasture-based farming practises results in oocyte maturation coinciding with peak lactation, periods of negative energy balance and energy partitioning for lactation, causing energy deficiency in some organ systems, including the reproductive system. Oocyte developmental competence (the ability to undergo successful fertilisation, embryo development and establishment of pregnancy) is intrinsically linked with the composition of follicular fluid (FF). The aim of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between the fat and carbohydrate levels in plasma and FF and the ability to support in vitro oocyte maturation (IVM). Plasma and FF were collected in vivo from eight Holstein cows between 52-151 days post-partum. Plasma glucose trended (P = 0.072) higher and triglyceride levels were significantly higher than in FF (P < 0.05) but there were no relationships between FF and plasma composition. Glucose FF concentration was negatively related to follicular lactate and NEFA levels and days post-partum. Conversely, FF triglyceride concentrations were positively related to FF NEFA levels and negatively related to milk fat and protein composition. Abattoir-derived cumulus oocyte complexes (COCs) were cultured in either 50% FF (FF-IVM) or 50% plasma (plasma-IVM), with on time embryo development then assessed. While there were no differences between animals, blastocyst rates following FF-IVM were negatively related to plasma glucose and days post-partum and positively related to body condition score (BCS) and plasma NEFA levels. In comparison to previous studies, total NEFA levels in FF were not related to animal parameters and did not influence oocyte developmental competence in vitro. Results from this study suggest that days post-partum and BCS influence carbohydrate metabolism within the follicular environment and this may be attributed to the pasture-based feed system applied in the Australian dairy industry.Melanie L Sutton-McDowall, Robert Yelland, Keith L MacMillan, Rebecca L Robker & Jeremy G Thompso