A biodiversity jigsaw: A review of current New Zealand legislation and initiatives

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the current legislation and initiatives surrounding biodiversity management, protection and sustainable use related to the New Zealand local government sector. Design/methodology/approach: This paper takes the form of an archival review of the academic databases, legislation and biodiversity related websites to ascertain the current legislation and initiatives in place in New Zealand surrounding biodiversity. Findings: The paper found biodiversity to be managed through a combination of legislation, national policies, strategies, trusts and contestable funds. The majority of biodiversity protection on private land is the responsibility of the 78 local authorities that comprise the local government sector through their administration of the Resource Management Act 1991. Despite the legislative requirement to protect and manage biodiversity the paper confirmed that no statutory framework currently exists to guide biodiversity reporting. Research limitations/implications: This study is limited to New Zealand biodiversity related legislation and initiatives. As such it may not necessarily be applicable to any other jurisdictions. Practical implications:This review illustrates the difficulty that exists in navigating the disjointed legislation and other initiatives relating to biodiversity. This currently hinders the development of framework for reporting on biodiversity by local government. However the development of such a framework is crucial to the conservation and sustainable use of New Zealand’s unique biodiversity for the benefit of current and future generations. Originality/value: This paper adds to the limited literature in the field of biodiversity reporting and extends it to the local government sector in New Zealand

Incorporating indigenous values in corporate social responsibility reports

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to show how a major state-owned enterprise in New Zealand uses its annual report to promote the image of an organisation concerned with the local community including Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, Māori values and their relationship with the environment. Design/methodology/approach – This longitudinal single case study of Mighty River Power Limited spans the period 2000 to 2009. It involves detailed examination of the narrative disclosures contained in the annual reports, including photographs, over the period of the study to determine whether Mighty River Power used the annual report to present a favourable image to the organisation’s stakeholders. Indigenous partnerships between the organisation and Māori trusts were also investigated to determine how these contributed to the corporate identity promoted in the annual reports. Findings – The analysis found that annual report was used to promote the image of an organisation upholding the Māori value of kaitiakitanga as part of its social responsibility to the local community and environment. Māori partnerships and community environmental group sponsorship were featured extensively in the images and narratives, with specific reference to indigenous values. Originality/value – This paper builds upon previous literature in the field of corporate social responsibility in annual reports and extends it to the state-owned enterprise sector in New Zealand, focusing specifically on the relationship between the entity and the indigenous community in which it operates

Kinematic and kinetic characteristics of writer´s cramp

In detail this thesis emphasizes on the following questions: 1.) Effects of different handwriting tasks und differences in clinical subtypes (1st study). For the first study the spectrum consisted of repetitive writing of simple symbols and letters to copying a given text. Procedures were kinematic and kinetic handwriting analyses. 2.) Analysis of the new parameter pen grip force and the correlation to other kinetic and kinematic parameters (2nd study). In this study the test sentence was used. 3.) Analysis of grip forces in three different fine motor tasks: handwriting, lifting and vertical arm movement (3rd study)

„Palliative Care? Ich will noch nicht sterben!“ : Wie Palliative Care von Betroffenen mit einer onkologischen Erkrankung wahrgenommen wird

Einleitung: Palliative Care befasst sich mit Menschen, die eine unheilbare Erkrankung haben und verhilft zur bestmöglichen Lebensqualität, ohne dabei die Ursache zu behandeln. Unter Palliative Care verstehen Patienten und Patientinnen mit einer onkologischen Erkrankung oftmals dasselbe wie End-of-Life Care oder der eigene Tod in absehbarer Zeit. Ziel: Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht, wie erwachsene Patienten und Patientinnen mit einer onkologischen Erkrankung Palliative Care wahrnehmen. Anhand der Ergebnisse soll ein Patientenflyer erstellt werden, der Pflegefachpersonen im Praxisalltag unterstützt. Methode: Zwischen Juli 2017 und Februar 2018 wurde in den pflegerelevanten Datenbanken Medline, Cochrane Library, AMED und CINAHL eine systematisierte Literaturrecherche durchgeführt. Dadurch konnten sechs Studien sowie ein Review identifiziert werden, welche sich mit der Wahrnehmung Betroffener von Palliative Care auseinandersetzen. Ergebnisse: Die Ergebnisse wurden in zwei Oberkategorien gegliedert. Negative Wahrnehmungen, welche Palliative Care bei den Betroffenen auslösen, sind die Assoziation von Palliative Care mit dem Tod, dass Palliative Care angsteinflössend ist, nicht interveniert, keine Perspektiven mehr bietet und autonomieeinschränkend ist. Als positiv nahmen die Betroffenen die Steigerung der Lebensqualität wahr. Schlussfolgerung: Patientenedukation ist eine evidenzbasierte und wirksame Intervention, die Betroffenen zum verbesserten Verständnis verhilft. Die Ängste, welche durch Wahrnehmungen entstehen, können mithilfe von Patientenedukation angegangen werde

Intellectual Capital Reporting by the New Zealand Local Government Sector

Sweeping financial management reforms occurred in New Zealand during the late 1980s and early 1990s which radically changed the face of the New Zealand public sector. These reforms sought to significantly restructure and reorganise local government thereby improving their effectiveness and efficiency and improving their accountability to their stakeholders. The principal vehicle for the discharge of this accountability is the annual report, which must be prepared according to Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP) and commercial principles. Organisations in the private sector are beginning to recognise the value of accounting for intellectual capital (IC) (see for example Quinn, 1992; Brooking, 1996; Sveiby, 1997; Edvinsson Malone, 1997; Bontis, Dragonetti, Jacobsen Roos, 1999; Guthrie, Petty Johanson, 2001; Bounfour, 2003). Studies on the measurement, management and reporting of IC have been undertaken internationally in Asia (Abeysekera Guthrie, 2005; Goh Lim, 2004; Ordenez de Pablos, 2002), Australia (Guthrie Petty, 2000), Europe (Bozzolan, Favotto and Ricceri, 2003; Olsson, 2001; Ordenez de Pablos, 2004), United Kingdom (Collier, 2001; Williams, 2001) and Ireland (Brennan, 2001). Despite the significant research interest in the field of intellectual capital internationally, scant attention has been paid to intellectual capital reporting by commercial organisations in New Zealand. An extensive review of the IC literature yielded only two New Zealand based studies (Miller Whiting, 2005; Wong Gardner, 2005). Further, no studies to date have addressed intellectual capital reporting by local governments in either New Zealand or internationally. This study aims to fill this gap through the development of an intellectual capital disclosure model that could be applied to local authorities. The research describes and explains the development of a disclosure index used to measure the extent and quality of current intellectual capital disclosure by local authorities in New Zealand. The index was developed through a consultative process with a panel of local government stakeholders which was used to establish the weightings for each item. The final index comprised 26 items divided into three categories: internal capital, external capital and human capital. The 2004/2005 annual reports of 82 New Zealand local authorities were scored for extent and quality of disclosure against the index. The results indicate that intellectual capital reporting by local authorities is varied. Manukau City Council scored the achieved the highest overall score (76%) out of the 82 reports analysed while Whakatane District Council scored the lowest with 33%. The most reported items were joint ventures/business collaborations and management processes. The least reported items were intellectual property and licensing agreements. The most reported category of intellectual capital was internal capital, followed by external capital. The least reported category was human capital. The findings indicate a number of areas of reporting that could be improved in order to meet with stakeholder disclosure expectations. In the internal capital category, intellectual property disclosures could be improved. In the external capital category disclosure concerning ratepayer demographics and licensing agreements could be improved. In the human capital category, disclosure of most items could be improved, in particular, entrepreneurial innovativeness and vocational qualifications. The study provided an insight into the current level and quality of intellectual capital disclosure by the NZ local government sector. The results indicated that local authorities are disclosing some aspects of intellectual capital in their annual report, however there is no consistent reporting framework, and many areas of IC disclosures are not meeting stakeholder expectations. More research is needed in the area of intellectual capital reporting in the public sector. This study provides a preliminary framework which can be used by local authorities to enhance intellectual capital disclosures in their annual reports

Spherical harmonics coeffcients for ligand-based virtual screening of cyclooxygenase inhibitors

Background: Molecular descriptors are essential for many applications in computational chemistry, such as ligand-based similarity searching. Spherical harmonics have previously been suggested as comprehensive descriptors of molecular structure and properties. We investigate a spherical harmonics descriptor for shape-based virtual screening. Methodology/Principal Findings: We introduce and validate a partially rotation-invariant three-dimensional molecular shape descriptor based on the norm of spherical harmonics expansion coefficients. Using this molecular representation, we parameterize molecular surfaces, i.e., isosurfaces of spatial molecular property distributions. We validate the shape descriptor in a comprehensive retrospective virtual screening experiment. In a prospective study, we virtually screen a large compound library for cyclooxygenase inhibitors, using a self-organizing map as a pre-filter and the shape descriptor for candidate prioritization. Conclusions/Significance: 12 compounds were tested in vitro for direct enzyme inhibition and in a whole blood assay. Active compounds containing a triazole scaffold were identified as direct cyclooxygenase-1 inhibitors. This outcome corroborates the usefulness of spherical harmonics for representation of molecular shape in virtual screening of large compound collections. The combination of pharmacophore and shape-based filtering of screening candidates proved to be a straightforward approach to finding novel bioactive chemotypes with minimal experimental effort

Detection of somaclonal variation in grapevine regenerants from protoplasts by RAPD-PCR

Research Not

Targeting focal adhesions:Helicobacter pylori-host communication in cell migration

Highly dynamic integrin-based focal adhesions provide an important structural basis for anchoring the cellular actin cytoskeleton to the surrounding extracellular matrix. The human pathogen Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) directly targets integrins with drastic consequences on the epithelial cell morphology and migration, which might contribute to the disruption of the gastric epithelium in vivo. In this review, we summarize the recent findings concerning the complex mechanism through which H. pylori interferes with host integrin signaling thereby deregulating focal adhesions and the actin cytoskeleton of motile epithelial cells

Überlieferungsbildung mit Geodaten : Überlegungen zur Bewertung von digitalen und analogen Unterlagen der Raumordnung und Landesplanung der SGD Nord in Koblenz : Transferarbeit des 55. wissenschaftlichen Lehrgangs an der Archivschule Marburg

Seit fast zwanzig Jahren diskutieren Archivare die Bewertung und Archivierung von Geodaten, also Daten mit Raumbezug, die vermehrt in digitaler Form vorliegen. Während die rechtlich relevanten Katasterunterlagen und Geobasisdaten der Vermessungsverwaltungen anfangs im Mittelpunkt standen, wendet sich die Aufmerksamkeit nun auch den Geofachdaten zu. Dabei handelt es sich um Geodaten, die im Rahmen der Verwaltungsarbeit entstehen und in Geoinformationssystemen (GIS) – datenbankbasierten Fachverfahren zur kartographischen Darstellung und Auswertung der Geodaten – gespeichert werden. Im Gegensatz zu analogen Karten können Geodaten mithilfe von Methoden der Digital Humanities, die unter Geisteswissenschaftlern immer häufiger zum Einsatz kommen, auf vielfältigere Art und Weise ausgewertet werden und auch bei komplexen statistischen Fragen der Sozial-, Wirtschafts- oder Umweltgeschichte relevant sein. Ein GIS soll auch im Zentrum dieser Arbeit stehen: ROK 25 ist ein Rauminformationssystem, das im Referat 41 für Raumordnung und Landesplanung der Struktur- und Genehmigungsdirektion Nord (SGD Nord) in Koblenz geführt wird, dessen Nutzung aber über das Internet allen Landesbehörden offensteht. Kreise und kreisfreie Städte sind als untere Planungsbehörden zudem editierberechtigt und können Daten über die von ihnen durchgeführten Verfahren selbstständig aktualisieren. ROK 25 wäre das bislang komplexeste Fachverfahren, das vom Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz (LHA) übernommen werden könnte. Die vorliegende Arbeit soll die Grundlagen dafür legen und den Einstieg in die zunächst komplex erscheinende Archivierung von Geodaten erleichtern. Im Mittelpunkt stehen einerseits das Fachverfahren selbst mit seinen Geodaten sowie konzeptionelle archivfachliche Überlegungen zur Überlieferungsbildung und Bewertung der Geodaten wie auch der Komplementärüberlieferung. Bei fünf Behördenbesuchen im Januar 2022 wurden Informationen über die Arbeit und Aktenführung des Referats 41, die Durchführung von Raumordnungsverfahren (Raumordnungsverfahren) im Allgemeinen, die Zusammensetzung der Geodaten und die Funktionsweise von ROK 25 gesammelt, worauf das zu erstellende Bewertungskonzept aufbauen kann. Dementsprechend ist die Transferarbeit in drei Hauptkapitel untergliedert: Die einführenden Grundlagenabschnitte sollen einen knappen technischen Überblick über Geodaten liefern sowie die Verwaltungspraxis in der Raumordnung und Landesplanung skizzieren. Im zweiten Teil steht die Anwendung von ROK 25 in der Verwaltungsarbeit im Mittelpunkt, während im dritten Kapitel der Umgang mit Geodaten aus archivischer Sicht thematisiert und konkrete Bewertungsvorschläge entwickelt werden sollen. Auch die rechtlichen Aspekte der Übernahme eines Fachverfahrens mit durchmischten Provenienzen sollen am Beispiel ROK 25 angesprochen werden, da in der Datenbank sowohl Daten von Kommunen als auch der SGD Nord als staatlicher Stelle enthalten sind. Aufgrund des vorgegebenen eingeschränkten Umfangs einer Transferarbeit wird auf technische Fragen der digitalen Langzeitarchivierung und Nutzung elektronischer Unterlagen weitgehend verzichtet