Digital encounters with Pacific Island Radio and Television Archives

Although the Archive of Maori and Pacific Music is located within the University of Auckland and is used by staff and students, the last decade has seen a steady increase in the proportion of non-university users to the point now where more than 80% of people requesting copies of items in its holdings are members of the public or students from other educational institutions. Although this bias has created some difficulties of funding from a body receiving Government monies for purposes of teaching and research, the broad-based availability of ethnographic recordings is entirely within the aspirations for the Archive when it was formed in 1970 as a "national institution for the purposes of teaching and research, serving the cultural heritage needs of Maori and the indigenous peoples of the Pacific". One result of the Archive Director's years of fieldwork experience in Samoa, Tonga and the Cook Islands was recognition of the need for urgent action to conserve archival audio recordings held in at-risk conditions within insecure premises at the Government radio stations in these countries. A meeting with two influential businessmen in the music industry led to a direct approach by them to two Government Ministers who subsequently awarded the Archive funds to digitise the radio station holdings. The archival holdings of Samoa's Televise Samoa were included in the funding. Under the protocol signed with the New Zealand Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, each organisation sent a specified quantity of its at-risk holdings, together with a technician who would receive three-weeks of training in digitisation and noise removal. The Archive offered to curate the original materials under separate contract, and made a second set of CDs for teaching and research purposes within the University. The Ministry grant covered all related expenses. All four Pacific Island organisations readily agreed to participate, but each brought a set of unexpected and often frustrating circumstances. Political difficulties soon surfaced, focusing on the ownership of the materials, and not all were resolvable. And, although the digitisation and denoising proceeded smoothly, the physical quality of the analogue tapes presented challenges. Such problems, however, were complemented by bonuses, and requests for an ongoing relationship with the Archive. The overall project was successful and plans are under way for extensions elsewhere in the Pacific. On both a philosophical and practical level, it is now realistic to consider framing future archiving directions within the South Pacific in terms of clusters of regional archives in liaison with one or more central repositories.Australian Academy of the Humanities; Australian E-Humanities Network; Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sydney; School of Society, Culture and Performance, Faculty of Arts, University of Sydne

Remediation of Deep Uncontrolled Fill using Dynamic Compaction

This thesis examines the geotechnical remediation of a backfilled quarry for residential and commercial development. The study involved two parts: the characterisation and settlement characteristics of the uncontrolled fill; and the implementation of dynamic compaction. The first part focuses on the mechanism and magnitude of settlement of the fill, in particular, collapse settlement. The results of a study are presented quantifying the magnitude of the collapse with respect to the density ratio of the soil. The results enable a detailed understanding of the mechanism involved in collapse of uncontrolled fill. Also presented are relationships between in situ wet density and collapse strain. These relationships are used to quantify the amount of collapse strain within the fill, from which the ground surface settlement profile can be calculated. A process for compacting the fill (Dynamic Compaction, or DC) was adopted to mitigate the potential of collapse settlement and is focus of the second part of the thesis. The results of full scale trials using DC are presented that quantify the effects of changing the grid spacing and number of blows forming part of the DC process. Based on the trials, new relationships are presented for assessing the effect of DC and designing the number of blows and grid spacing. Literature on DC is primarily focused on the settlement resulting from DC; however none of the literature presents information about the heave that also occurs. The depth and extent of the heave have been quantified, and modified bearing capacity theory has been used to estimate the heave resulting from DC. Historical relationships have been presented for the depth and magnitude of settlement resulting from DC. Based on the results of the trials, amendments to previously established relationships are provided to increase the knowledge in the field of DC

California Water Myths

Presents eight common myths about water supply, ecosystems, and the legal and political aspects of governing California's water system and explains how each myth drives the debate, the reality, and alternatives for better informed policy discussions

Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Analyzes expected changes to the hub of California's water system and presents a comparative assessment of four water management strategies for environmental sustainability and water supply reliability. Discusses policy and regulatory implications

PineappleDB: An online pineapple bioinformatics resource

BACKGROUND: A world first pineapple EST sequencing program has been undertaken to investigate genes expressed during non-climacteric fruit ripening and the nematode-plant interaction during root infection. Very little is known of how non-climacteric fruit ripening is controlled or of the molecular basis of the nematode-plant interaction. PineappleDB was developed to provide the research community with access to a curated bioinformatics resource housing the fruit, root and nematode infected gall expressed sequences. DESCRIPTION: PineappleDB is an online, curated database providing integrated access to annotated expressed sequence tag (EST) data for cDNA clones isolated from pineapple fruit, root, and nematode infected root gall vascular cylinder tissues. The database currently houses over 5600 EST sequences, 3383 contig consensus sequences, and associated bioinformatic data including splice variants, Arabidopsis homologues, both MIPS based and Gene Ontology functional classifications, and clone distributions. The online resource can be searched by text or by BLAST sequence homology. The data outputs provide comprehensive sequence, bioinformatic and functional classification information. CONCLUSION: The online pineapple bioinformatic resource provides the research community with access to pineapple fruit and root/gall sequence and bioinformatic data in a user-friendly format. The search tools enable efficient data mining and present a wide spectrum of bioinformatic and functional classification information. PineappleDB will be of broad appeal to researchers investigating pineapple genetics, non-climacteric fruit ripening, root-knot nematode infection, crassulacean acid metabolism and alternative RNA splicing in plants

Towards a history of Holocene P dynamics for the Northern Hemisphere using lake sediment geochemical records

Present-day lake water phosphorus (P) enrichment and accelerated P cycling are changes superimposed on a dynamic Holocene history of landscape development following glaciation, changes in climate, and long-term low-intensity human activity. Knowledge of the history of long-term P dynamics is essential for understanding present-day landscape P export and for managing both terrestrial and aquatic environments. This study is the first attempt to constrain the timing and magnitude of terrestrial changes in Holocene P dynamics across the Northern Hemisphere using lake sediment records. Here we reconstruct trajectories in terrestrial Holocene P dynamics for the Northern Hemisphere. We apply a simple process model to published lake sediment geochemical P records from 24 sites, producing records of landscape P yield and reconstructing lake water total phosphorus (TP) concentrations. Individual site trajectories of landscape P yield and lake water TP vary systematically, with differences attributable to local landscape development history. Three distinct traits are apparent. Mountain sites with minimal direct human impact show falling P supply and conform to conceptual models of natural soil development (Trait 1). Lowland sites where substantial (pre-)historic agriculture was present show progressively increasing P supply (Trait 2). Lowland sites may also show a rapid acceleration in P supply over the last few centuries, where high-intensity land use, including settlements and farming, is present (Trait 3). Where data availability permitted comparison, our reconstructed TP records agree well with monitored lake water TP data, and our sediment-inferred P yields are comparable to reported catchment export coefficients. Comparison with diatom-inferred TP reveals good agreement for recent records. Our reconstructions form the first systematic assessment of average terrestrial P export for the Northern Hemisphere over the Holocene and provide the empirical data needed for constraining long-term landscape P cycling models and values for terrestrial P export that could be used for ocean P cycling models. The long-term perspective provided by our sediment-inferred TP can be used to identify pre-disturbance baselines for lake water quality, information essential to target-driven lake management. We find the first detectable anthropogenic impacts on P cycling ca. 6000 BP, with more substantial impacts as early as 3000 BP. Consequently, to characterize pre-disturbance lake P conditions at Trait 2 and Trait 3 sites, it is necessary to consider time periods before the arrival of early farmers. Our use of trait classifications has a predictive power for sites without sediment records, allowing prediction of TP baselines and P trajectories based on regional landscape development history.</p