Lincoln Hub data and information architecture project: DATA²: Data architecture transforming access & analysis

The vision for the DATA² project is to enable the intellectual capital produced by researchers and scientists in the Lincoln Hub to be better managed, curated and shared for reuse. This will facilitate the production of new knowledge and innovation of direct benefit to New Zealand’s economic, environmental, social and cultural aspirations over time

Lincoln Hub DATA² project: Data architecture transforming access & analysis

The Lincoln Hub is a collaboration between five research organisations with offices on the Lincoln Research campus: AgResearch, Landcare Research, Plant & Food Research (all Crown Research Institutes), DairyNZ, and Lincoln University. It is envisaged that the Hub will evolve to include a broad range of industry and research organisations with a commitment to land-based productivity and sustainability. The vision for the DATA² project is for research data produced by researchers and scientists in Hub organisations to be better managed, curated and shared for reuse. This will facilitate the production of new knowledge and innovation of direct benefit to New Zealand’s economic, environmental, social and cultural aspirations. Representatives from the five founding organisations formed a Working Group to assess the state of each organisation’s data management maturity and identify common research data management needs. Four workshops were held in Palmerston North, Auckland and Lincoln (2) to gather input from researchers and other staff to inform our vision for an ideal state, identify issues and best practice, and generate ideas for the way forward. In addition a review of the International and national contexts identified common themes and best practice and in the New Zealand situation. This was backed up to visits to a range of national agencies and government departments that might potentially offer useful components of a solution. The CARDIO assessment tool¹ was used by four of the partners to assess data maturity. It is important to note that there are differences between organisations in the complexity and type of data they generate. When DairyNZ, an industry-funded research organisation, is added in to the evaluation we expect that there will be further differences. The assessments paint a picture of relatively low overall data maturity with pockets of good practice within the Hub partners which can be shared and leveraged². More in-depth analysis to understand the relative strengths and best opportunities for collaboration is recommended

Toxicological Assessment of Pure Lolitrem B and Ryegrass Seed Infected with the AR37 Endophyte Using Mice

Fungal endophytes in perennial ryegrass are essential to New Zealand’s pastoral system due to anti-insect effects. However, endophytes also produce compounds which can be detrimental to animals. Furthermore, as these toxins have been detected in the milk and fat of animals grazing common-toxic (containing lolitrem B) or AR37 endophyte-infected herbage they could enter the human food chain. To assess the risk to human health mice were fed for 90 days with three dose rates of lolitrem B and of AR37. Parameters indicative of animal health were measured as well as chemical, hematological and histological analysis of samples collected on day 90. Since endophyte toxin residues have been detected in milk, they could be transferred from mother to offspring via breast milk. To evaluate possible effects on reproduction two complete generations of mice were fed lolitrem B or AR37. At the dose rates given no adverse effects were observed in either study. The 100-fold safety factor to allow the use of animal data in human health assessments was applied and by considering the concentrations of lolitrem B or AR37 metabolites which could be ingested by a consumer it is highly unlikely that they pose any risk to human health

Automobility in Manchester Fiction

This article contributes to recent debates concerning automobility and ‘mobile, embodied practices’ (Cresswell & Merriman, 2011) by considering how various ‘driving events’ entail modes of perception that are of interest from an ontological perspective; that is, how drivers and passengers see the world through the windows of a moving car and how the driving ‘sensorium’ (Gilroy, 2001; Sheller, 2004) may be associated with emotional states (such as ‘escape’, ‘frustration’, ‘nostalgia’) that arguably characterize the everyday life of late modernity. In addition, the discussion speculates on what this altered perception means for how we see and conceptualize the contemporary urban landscape, concurring with Doel (1996) that such space has effectively become a ‘scrumpled geography’ that can no longer be accounted for in traditional cartographical terms. These reflections are explored through close readings of a selection of literary texts (principally, crime fiction novels) emanating from Greater Manchester (England) and thus the article also contributes to recent work (both cultural and sociological) on the re-imagining of this particular urban landscape in recent times (Haslam, 2000; Pearce et al., forthcoming)