Tensions on the Korean Peninsula: implications for New Zealand

Introduction: New Zealand’s bilateral relationship with South Korea is founded on strong political, economic and security links that date back to the Korean War. New Zealand responded to the United Nations Security Council’s call for members of the United Nations to assist South Korea in 1950 with a substantial commitment of Defence personnel that on a per capita basis exceeded that, for example, of Australia.Not only did this response signal New Zealand’s support for the United Nations, it was also to realise the objective of securing a security commitment from the United States in the event of further aggression from Japan. That commitment was embodied in the ANZUS Treaty signed in June 1951.How times have changed. New Zealand has a wide-ranging relationship with Japan that, whaling apart, is close and friendly. New Zealand did not recognise the People’s Republic of China at the time of the Korean War, but our relationship has rapidly developed to the point where China is now vital to our economic prosperity. We are no longer a full alliance partner of the United States, although the signature in June 2012 of the Washington Declaration on Defence Cooperation between the United States and New Zealand will undoubtedly have created expectations in Washington, and in some other capitals, of support from New Zealand, particularly in respect of Asia/Pacific security challenges.This paper examines recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, including the responses of China and the United States, and considers the implications for New Zealand. It then proposes a way ahead. But before doing so it provides some background comment on the Armistice, the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission known as UNCMAC, and the Six Party Talks

Australia’s boat people problem: is the Pacific solution really a solution?

Providing a brief history of boat arriving asylum seekers in Australia, as well as the various government solutions to cope with an increase in numbers, this paper asks whether New Zealand would be better placed, before PNG, to accommodate a greater number of people

India-New Zealand track two dialogue: geopolitical trends in the Asia Pacific including maritime security

Geo-political trends point to the decline of the Post - Cold War order in the Asia Pacific region. Introduction For several decades Asia Pacific geopolitics has been dominated by the strategic primacy of the United States. That is changing. New economic and strategic power centres are emerging. China is well on the way to major power status which it feels justifies a major say in the shape of a new geopolitical order in the Asia Pacific. India is emerging as a major economic centre and military power intent on growing its relations in East Asia. China is not yet able to claim superpower status for itself. It is making a significant investment in its military, but American military power still far exceeds that of any other country and US defence expenditure is more than the combined total defence expenditures of the next dozen or so countries with significant defence budgets. And China is yet to demonstrate the ability to form international coalitions to respond to security threats. Nevertheless, China’s rising military and economic power and assertive political leadership have injected a complex dynamic into the region’s geopolitics. According to the latest IMF figures China’s economy when measured by purchasing power parity has surpassed that of the United States unseating the latter as the world’s largest economy, a position it had held for 142 years. India has moved into third place

A physical approach to statistical modelling with implications for extreme values

Imperial Users onl

Sex variation in patellar tendon kinetics during running

Purpose. The aim of the current investigation was to determine whether female recreational runners exhibit distinct patellar tendon loading patterns in relation to their male counterparts. Methods. Twelve male (age 26.55 ± 4.11 years, height 1.78 ± 0.11 m, mass 77.11 ± 5.06 kg) and twelve female (age 26.67 ± 5.34 years, height 1.67 ± 0.12 m, mass 63.28 ± 9.75 kg) runners ran over a force platform at 4.0 m · s –1. Lower limb kinematics were collected using an eight-camera optoelectric motion capture system which operated at 250 Hz. Patellar tendon loads were examined using a predictive algorithm. Sex differences in limb, knee and ankle joint stiffness were examined statistically using independent samples t tests. Results. The results indicate that patellar tendon force (male = 6.49 ± 2.28, female = 7.03 ± 1.35) and patelllar tendon loading rate (male = 92.41 ± 32.51, female = 111.05 ± 48.58) were significantly higher in female runners. Conclusions. Excessive tendon loading in female runners indicates that female runners may be at increased risk of patellar tendon pathologies

Effects of shoes on kinetics and kinematics of the squash forward lunge in male players

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.Squash is associated with a high incidence of chronic injuries. Currently there is a trend in many sports for players to select minimalist footwear. The aim of the current investigation was to examine the effects of squashspecific, running shoes and minimalist footwear on the kinetics and 3-D kinematics of the lunge movement in squash players. Twelve male squash players performed lunge movements whilst wearing minimalist, running shoe and squash-specific footwear. 3-D kinematics of the lower extremities were measured using an eightcamera motion analysis system alongside kinetic and tibial acceleration information which were obtained using a force platform and an accelerometer. Differences between footwear were examined using one-way repeated measures ANOVA. The results show firstly that loading rate parameters were significantly greater in the minimalist (average = 85.36B.W/s and instantaneous = 179.09B.W/s) footwear in relation to the squashspecific (average = 38.66 B.W/s and instantaneous = 50.73B.W/s) and running footwear (average = 37.62B.W/s and instantaneous = 48.14B.W/s). In addition, tibial acceleration parameters were also significantly greater in the minimalist (peak tibial acceleration = 8.45 g and tibial acceleration slope = 422.28g/s) footwear in relation to the squash-specific (peak tibial acceleration = 4.33 g and tibial acceleration slope = 182.57g/s) and running footwear (peak tibial acceleration = 4.81 g and tibial acceleration slope = 226.72g/s). The significant increase in impact loading in the minimalist footwear therefore suggests this type of shoe may place squash players at an increased risk of developing impact-related chronic injuries.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Multi-segment foot kinematics and plantar fascia strain during treadmill and overground running

Although physiologically beneficial, running is known to be associated with a high incidence of chronic injuries. Excessive coronal and transverse plane motions of the foot segments and strain experienced by the plantar fascia are linked to the development of a number of chronic injuries. This study examined differences in multi-segment foot kinematics and plantar fascia strain during treadmill and overground running. Twelve male recreational runners ran at 4.0 m.s-1 in both treadmill and overground conditions. Multi-segment foot kinematics and plantar fascia strain were measured using an eight-camera motion analysis system and contrasted using paired samples t-tests. The results showed that plantar fascia strain was significantly greater in the overground condition (8.23 ± 2.77) compared to the treadmill (5.53 ± 2.25). Given the proposed relationship between excessive plantar fascia strain and the etiology of injury, overground running may be associated with a higher incidence of injury although further work is necessary before causation can be confirmed

Giving order to image queries

Users of image retrieval systems often find it frustrating that the image they are looking for is not ranked near the top of the results they are presented. This paper presents a computational approach for ranking keyworded images in order of relevance to a given keyword. Our approach uses machine learning to attempt to learn what visual features within an image are most related to the keywords, and then provide ranking based on similarity to a visual aggregate. To evaluate the technique, a Web 2.0 application has been developed to obtain a corpus of user-generated ranking information for a given image collection that can be used to evaluate the performance of the ranking algorithm