June Pallot: A Voice of Reason

oai:ipmr.journals.sfu.ca:article/156This article commences with an outline of June Pallot’s career during which she took part in New Zealand’s public sector financial management reforms. Her interest in public sector financial management issues preceded 1984, the year New Zealand commenced an extreme and rapid period of economic and public sector reforms (see for example, Pallot and Clark, 1981; Hutton and Pallot, 1982), and continued until her death. The second part of the article identifies themes in the work June regarded as her most significant. June Pallot’s death from cancer on 5 November 2004 at the age of 51 is a great loss to the academic world. Her research on public sector financial management, and New Zealand’s public sector financial management reforms in particular, was both prodigious and insightful. June Pallot had a vibrant personality, a great sense of humour, she supported and cared for others, and she always exhibited graciousness and optimism. Beyond recognizing her professional accomplishments, for many, June’s death is also the loss of a dear friend

Book Review

Book Review: Graham Scott, 2001. Public Sector Management in New Zealand: Lessons and Challenges.Wellington, Australian National University, 407 pages

Agenda entrance complexity in international accounting standard setting: the case of IFRS for SMEs

Features of rational decision making (such as agenda entrance criteria and statement of jurisdiction) barely conceal the complexity of international accounting standard setting. In 2003, when the international financial reporting standard for small and medium-sized entities (IFRS for SMEs) project achieved agenda entrance, the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) jurisdiction was to develop, ‘a single set of … accounting standards … to help participants in the world’s capital markets’. Drawing on interviewees’ recollections and other material, this study of how the project achieved agenda entrance finds within-IASB opposition to the project, arguing it was outside the IASB’s jurisdiction that dissolved with the realisation that the IASB’s jurisdiction would be changed to encompass the project. Earlier accounting works have shown that an understanding of agenda entrance is critical to understanding the accounting standard setting process. Consider Walker and Robinson (1993; 1994) and Ryan (1998). Kingdon’s (2011) model of agenda entrance helps to show the complexity of the politics and decision making messiness that resulted in a standard setting project for simplified IFRS but titled IFRS for SMEs. The complexity was particularly associated with: (i) the broader international regulatory context requiring adaptation; (ii) the limitations of ostensibly technical barriers to agenda entrance, including the boundary of the IASB’s standard-setting jurisdiction; (iii) jurisdictional competition; and (iv) sensitivities over the language such that the IASB could not agree on a suitably descriptive title. The paper responds to calls for attention to actions of individual board members and staff (Walker and Robinson, 1993; Howieson, 2009)

Biohydrogenation of soybean oil in spray dried casein-oil emulsions from different treatments

The objectives of this investigation were (1) to produce substrates consisting of spray dried casein-soybean oil emulsions treated with different chemical compounds and (2) to investigate the biohydrogenation of the oil in these substrates in vitro using bovine ruminal fluid. Prior to spray drying, substrates, casein: soybean oil, 1:1, w/w, were produced by 7 different treatments: untreated (T1) and treated with acetaldehyde (T2), formaldehyde (T3), peanut skin aqueous extract (T4), tobacco stem aqueous extract (T5), diacetyl (T6) or tannic acid (T7). Two replications were run with a single replication consisting of substrates from the 7 treatments being digested 0 and 23 hr by ruminal fluid. The relative percentages of the following fatty acids: 14.0, 16:0, 16:1, 18:0, 18:1 trans, 18:1 cis, 18:1 isomer, 18:2, 18:3, 20:0, 20:1 and 20:4 were determined in each substrate digest at 0 and 23 hr digestion time. The percentage of each acid was statistically analyzed as a function of treatment, digestion time and their interaction. Micrographs of the spray dried emulsion of each treatment also were obtained by scanning electron microscopy. When averaged across treatment, the percentages of 18:0 and 18:1 trans increased and the percentage of 18:2 decreased (P\u3c.05) during 23 hr digestion showing that biohydrogenation occurred in the substrates. When averaged across digestion time, the percentages of 18:0, 18:1 trans and 18:1 isomer were higher and the percentages of 18:2 and 20:0 were lower (P\u3c.05) in group 1 treatments (T1, T2, and T5) than in group 2 treatments (T3, T6 and T7). This showed that more 18:2 was biohydrogenated by ruminal microbes to 18:1 isomer, 18:1 trans and 18:0 in group 1 treatments than in group 2 treatments. Group 2 treatments protected the unsaturated fatty acids from biohydrogenation better than group 1 treatments. The fatty acid composition of T4 digests was most like group 1 treatments, and T4 also did not prevent biohydrogenation . During 23 hr digestion, the level of 18:1 trans increased in T1, T2, T4, T5 and T6 but not in T3 and T7. This indicated that T6 was not as effective in preventing biohydrogenation as T3 and T7. The microstructure of emulsions from T1, T2, T4 and T5 were similar to those of spray dried casein in the absence of fat, and the microstructure of emulsions from T3, T6 and T7 were similar to spray dried cheese powders with a protein:fat ratio of approximately 1:1

49. Detection of Yersiniabactin system in ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae isolates

Siderophores are small molecules that bind and act as vehicles of ferric iron across the cell membrane of microorganisms. Siderophores are important virulence factors and are known for foraging Fe(III) from their environment or host. Many pathogens, such as uropathogenic Escherichia coli, encode for multiple siderophores in their genome to sequester ferric iron, ultimately enabling them to cause both systemic and/or localized infections within their host. Yersiniabactin (Ybt) siderophore and its cognate receptor FyuA, are key virulence factors that appear to enhance the ability of bacteria to grow within the host. Deletion of YbtA or FyuA leads reduced virulence of uropathogenic E. coli. In this study, we analyzed the prevalence of Ybt genes in antibiotic resistant bacteria isolated from a waste water treatment plant. 36 isolates were tested for the presence of ybtA and fyuA genes by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gel electrophoresis. 17 of the strains were positive for ybtA, whereas 6 of the strains were positive for fyuA. However, 4 out of 36 strains were positive for both ybtA and fyuA. These 4 strains consist of ¾ E. coli and a Klebsiella sp

New Zealand's Public Sector Financial Management System: Financial Resource Erosion in Government Departments

New Zealand's public sector reforms have been hailed as a model of theoretical consistency and coherence. The associated financial management reforms, known internationally as new public financial management (NPFM), were world-leading although they are no longer unique. The underlying nature and intent of public sector reforms have been the subject of considerable debate internationally. Early public sector reforms openly sought privatisation, often on ideological grounds. However, in the face of gathering public opposition, public discussion of privatisation softened. NPM and NPFM have been promoted instead mainly on more pragmatic grounds such as improving public sector performance. In New Zealand, the Public Finance Act 1989 is the key legislation underpinning the financial management reforms. The Act delegates regulatory powers to the Treasury and, over time, a considerable body of secondary regulation, including accounting rules, has been developed. However, this secondary regulation, and its contribution to the success or otherwise of the public sector reforms, has not been examined in detail to date. In 1999, New Zealand s Controller and Auditor-General suggested that the financial management system erodes government departments resources and that somehow this resource erosion escapes parliamentary scrutiny. The Treasury, on the other hand, defended the foundations of the financial management system as solid, arguing that retention of the existing framework would allow further and faster progress towards improved performance and value-for-money than would be achieved by a new set of reforms. This debate prompts questions whether and, if so, how and why a financial management system, ostensibly implemented to improve the performance and accountability of the public sector, could be linked to such effects, and whether parliamentary scrutiny is indeed avoided. This thesis examines the secondary regulation and explains the development of the financial management system with the intention of answering those questions. The analysis undertaken in this thesis suggests that New Zealand's public sector financial management system fabricates the conditions under which privatisation initiatives might be accepted for pragmatic reasons. The erosion of departments financial resources is an essential mechanism in that fabrication process. As this system has developed, the time available for parliamentary scrutiny has reduced and the Controller and Auditor-General s controller function has been eroded, while the control and discretion exercised within the Treasury has increased. Arguably, these developments have helped to conceal the system s privatising intent. The thesis identifies features of the financial management system used to rationalise the financial resource-eroding processes. It also notes that if New Zealand's financial management system is no longer unique, then other NPFM systems may contain a similar combination of features

Instructional Writing Practices in Grade Five

Nationally and locally, a paucity of students are effective writers. The purpose of this exploratory, sequential mixed methods study was to explore effective research-based writing strategies and influences on writing skills of 5th grade students. Guided by Vygotsky\u27s zone of proximal development theory, the research questions investigated teachers\u27 perceptions of the best instructional writing practices, the effect of writing practices on students\u27 state writing scores, the relationship between student attendance and performance on the state writing test, and the amount of instructional planning dedicated to best writing practices. Data were collected from interviews with 5th grade teachers (N = 5), student scores on the state writing assessment (N = 247), student attendance records, and teacher lesson plans. Interview data were open coded and thematically analyzed, quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t tests, and lessons plans were content analyzed for time spent on best writing practices, as identified in the review of literature. The overarching themes from the teacher interviews included (a) importance of teacher guided instruction, (b) confusion about the best practice in writing instruction, and (c) additional supports for students to be effective writers. Current writing instructional practices did not improve state writing assessment scores. There were significant differences in the state writing scores between students who passed and those who did not pass the state writing test. Attendance data were not related to student writing scores. Teacher planning did not reflect the use of best practices in the classroom. These findings informed a 21-hour professional development program to increase awareness of best practices in writing instruction. This study contributes to social change by potentially affecting students\u27 proficiency in writing for 21st century college and career expectations

Fully automated high-throughput chromatin immunoprecipitation for ChIP-seq: Identifying ChIP-quality p300 monoclonal antibodies

Chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with DNA sequencing (ChIP-seq) is the major contemporary method for mapping in vivo protein-DNA interactions in the genome. It identifies sites of transcription factor, cofactor and RNA polymerase occupancy, as well as the distribution of histone marks. Consortia such as the ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements (ENCODE) have produced large datasets using manual protocols. However, future measurements of hundreds of additional factors in many cell types and physiological states call for higher throughput and consistency afforded by automation. Such automation advances, when provided by multiuser facilities, could also improve the quality and efficiency of individual small-scale projects. The immunoprecipitation process has become rate-limiting, and is a source of substantial variability when performed manually. Here we report a fully automated robotic ChIP (R-ChIP) pipeline that allows up to 96 reactions. A second bottleneck is the dearth of renewable ChIP-validated immune reagents, which do not yet exist for most mammalian transcription factors. We used R-ChIP to screen new mouse monoclonal antibodies raised against p300, a histone acetylase, well-known as a marker of active enhancers, for which ChIP-competent monoclonal reagents have been lacking. We identified, validated for ChIP-seq, and made publicly available a monoclonal reagent called ENCITp300-1