The development of diagnostic tools for the grapevine pathogen Eutypa lata : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Genetics at Massey University

Eutypa lata is the causal agent of Eutypa dieback on grapevines. The fungus invades the vine and grows there unnoticed, possibly for several years, causing discolouration and deformation of the vine shoots and leaves. Most berries fail to establish on these shoots and the fungus eventually kills the vine. The damaging effects of this fungus have had a notable financial impact on the grape and wine industry world wide and E. lata is at present the primary constraint on vineyard longevity in many places including California and Australia. Little is known about the occurrence and distribution of Eutypa dieback within New Zealand. This is due mainly to difficulties associated with identification of the disease in grapevines. To develop a molecular probe for the identification of E. lata from grapevine wood the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplified the Internal Transcribed Spacers (ITS1 and ITS2) and the intervening 5.8S gene of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) from representative isolates. The sequences of the E. lata ITS regions were used to design two pairs of primers, each of which was subsequently shown to be specific for the amplification of predicted-size fragments from genomic DNA of E. lata. The primer pairs were further tested using template DNA extracted from healthy grapevines and from other fungi commonly isolated from dieback diseased grapevines but no PCR amplification was observed. Simple DNA extraction protocols, leading to the rapid release of DNA, were tested to enable identification of E. lata from pure culture and grapevine wood; however, a suitable DNA extraction method from these materials was not found. Currently the only known source of inoculum is ascospores, which are released from perithecia during and immediately after rainfall. However, few perithecia have been found in New Zealand vineyards. This has prompted the study of the mating habits of E. lata. As the sexual stage of E. lata cannot be obtained in culture at present, the analysis of its mating system must be performed in natural populations. Molecular characterisation of the mating type at the outset of a mating project allows significant savings in time and effort as it drastically reduces the number of crosses that must be set up. So far, cloning of mating type (MAT) genes from fungi has been hampered by low conservation among them. Most ascomycete fungi have one mating type gene with two alternative forms or idiomorphs (MAT1-1 and MAT1-2). One of the pair of MAT genes. MAT1-2, encodes a protein with a conserved DNA binding motif called the high mobility group (HMG) box. There is sufficient sequence conservation at the borders of the HMG box to allow PCR amplification. New Zealand isolates of E. lata, including sixteen single ascospore isolates from one perithecium, were tested for the presence of a MAT1-2 idiomorph using this PCR based approach. Five different sets of primers were used which were designed to anneal at different target sites with different specificities. PCR products of the expected size were obtained and sequenced, but despite exhaustive attempts to optimise PCR specificity, none of these had convincing homology to fungal mating type genes. Progress on the basic aspects of the genetics of E. lata will continue to be hampered until the organism is induced to complete its life cycle in culture. Molecular studies into the mating type genes which regulate sexual compatibility and sexual reproduction in the fungus should lead to a deeper understanding of the life-cycle of E. lata and the critical influence of sex on population genetics. In addition, it will provide a scientific basis for a management program urgently needed to minimise the impact of this disease

Age 5 cognitive development in England

Children’s development in the early years has been shown to be related to their success in later life in a range of areas including education, employment and crime. Determining why some children do better than others in the early years is a key issue for policy and is crucial in attempts to reduce inequalities. This research examines differences in early child development by examining the factors associated with the cognitive ability of children up to age 5 using cognitive assessments administered as part of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and teacher reports of child ability. The results show that younger children, those with low birth weight, lower parental education, lower income and living in social housing is related both to lower achievement, on average. and the probability of being at the bottom of the distribution of cognitive scores at age 5

Regional Trade Agreements and U.S. Agriculture

Please also see Regional Trade Agreements and U.S. Agriculture. This report summarizes the implications of regionalism for the United States, focusing on the effects of major RTA's on U.S. agriculture. Regional trade agreements (RTA's) have become a fixture in the global trade arena. Their advocates contend that RTA's can serve as building blocks for multilateral trade liberalization. Their opponents argue that these trade pacts will divert trade from more efficient nonmember producing countries. U.S. agriculture can benefit from participating in RTA's and may lose when it does not. Agriculture is the source of most potential U.S. gains from RTA's.International Relations/Trade,

Regional Trade Agreements and U.S. Agriculture

Regional trade agreements (RTA's) have become a fixture in the global trade arena. Their advocates contend that RTA's can serve as building blocks for multilateral trade liberalization. Their opponents argue that these trade pacts will divert trade from more efficient nonmember producing countries. U.S. agriculture can benefit from participating in RTA's and may lose when it does not. Agriculture is an important source of potential U.S. gains from RTA's. While the United States, as a global trader with diverse trade partners, can gain potentially more from global free trade than from RTA's, many recent RTA's have been more comprehensive in their liberalization of agricultural trade liberalization than the Uruguay Round. A strong multilateral process can help ensure that RTA's are trade creating, rather than protectionist.International Relations/Trade,

Family stressors and children's outcomes

The research reported here aimed to identify:1.which family stress factors and parental behaviours were associated with worse outcomes for children at age 7 andwhich factors helped children to succeed2.whether stressful life events experienced at different periods of childhood were associated with worse outcomes in adolescence.Differences in children’s outcomeshave been shown to emerge early in life, and to be linked to both family circumstances, such as social disadvantage, and parenting behaviours, such as parenting style and activities with the child. Both these aspects of a child’s environment are important for their early cognitive and emotional development. But it is not clear whether these early differences, and the factors associated with them, persist up to age 7. Previous research has also shown that stressful life events are associated with worse outcomesfor children. However, it has not previously been possible to explore whether particular life events are especially detrimental, whether they impact across different sorts of children’s outcomes(educational, social etc.), and whether the effects of early childhood events persist into adolescence. In order to target interventions, it is clearly important to understand which family circumstances are significant for child wellbeing at different ages, and how that varies across outcomes. A range of children’s outcomeswere examined using data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). At age 7, these were verbal cognitive skills, non-verbal skills, maths skills, Key Stage 1 (KS1) attainment and behavioural difficulties. For teenagers, the following outcomes were explored at age 13-14: Key Stage 3 (KS3) attainment; emotional, behavioural, social, and school wellbeing; and Key Stage 4 (KS4) results at age 16. Key findingsA wide range of family background factors and parental behaviours are associated with children’s outcomesat age 7. These tend to be the same factors that are important at earlier ages, and include parenting behaviours, family structure andsocio-economic position of the family.Family poverty, child disability and the child’s mother having higher qualifications are consistently associated with children faring respectively worse (poverty and disability) and better (higher maternal qualifications) across all five age 7 outcomes, holding other factors constant.No other factors are associated with all five outcomes.Different aspects of family background matter for different outcomes.Children can experience a range of stressful life events. Extreme stressful events, such as homelessness, victimisation or abuse, can have long-term effects on children’s outcomes

Maternal Interaction Style in Affective Disordered, Physically Ill, and Normal Women

Affective style (AS) and communication deviance (CD) have been suggested as markers of dysfunctional family environments that may be associated with psychiatric illness. Studies have focused mainly on parental responses during family interactions when an offspring is the identified patient. The present study is unique in examining AS and CD in mothers with unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, or chronic physical illness, and in normal controls. The sample consisted of 64 mothers with children ages 8 to 16. Unipolar mothers were more likely to show negative AS than were any other maternal group. There were no group differences for CD. Chronic stress, few positive life events, and single parenting were associated with AS. CD was associated solely with lower socioeconomic status. Results suggest that dysfunctional interactions are determined not only by maternal psychopathology, but also by an array of contextual factors that are related to the quality of the family environment

Healthy, wealthy and insured? The role of self-assessed health in the demand for private health insurance, CHERE Working Paper 2006/2

Both adverse selection and moral hazard models predict a positive relationship between risk and insurance; yet the most common finding in empirical studies of insurance is that of a negative correlation. In this paper we investigate the relationship between ex ante risk and private health insurance using data from the 2001 Australian National Health Survey (NHS). The Australian health system provides a setting where the relationship between risk and insurance is more transparent than many other institutional frameworks; private health insurance is not tied to employment; community rating limits the actions of insurers; and private coverage is high for a country providing free public hospital treatment. We find a strong positive association between self-assessed health and private health cover. We use the detailed information available in the NHS to investigate whether we can identify factors responsible for the negative correlation between risk (lower SAHS) and insurance cover. However this relationship persists despite the inclusion of a large set of controls for personal and socio-economic characteristics, risk-related behaviours, objective health measures and an index of mental health. The opposite effect of self-assessed health and long-term conditions on coverage suggests that SAHS is capturing factors such as personality or risk preferences.Private health insurance, self-assessed health, Australia

Communication Styles of Children of Mothers with Affective Disorders, Chronic Medical Illness, and Normal Controls: A Contextual Perspective

Research has demonstrated impaired parent-child relationships in families with affective disorders. The present study examines the association of children\u27s interactional style during a direct conflict-solving task to both the mother\u27s interactional style and the child\u27s diagnostic status. The sample includes 63 children, ages 8 to 16, of mothers with affective disorders, chronic medical illness, and normal controls. Children\u27s dominant coping style profile (CS) (autonomous, neutral, or critical) was related to their mother\u27s affective style (AS) (benign or negative). Affective disorder in the child at 6-month followup was associated with a critical CS profile at intake, while the child\u27s nonaffective symptomatology was unrelated to CS. Findings indicate that children\u27s affective disturbance is linked to interpersonal deficits in affectively charged situations. Results suggest that the child\u27s CS is more strongly predicted by maternal AS than by either the child\u27s or the mother\u27s diagnostic status

Out-of-pocket health expenditures in Australia: A semi-parametric analysis, CHERE Working Paper 2006/15

Out-of-pocket health expenditures in Australia are high in international comparisons and have been growing at a faster rate than most other health costs in recent years. This raises concerns about the extent to which out-of-pocket costs have constrained access to health services for low income households. Using data from the ABS Household Expenditure Survey 2003-04, we model the relationships between health expenditure shares and equivalised total expenditure for categories of out-of-pocket health expenditures and analyse the extent of protection given by concession cards. To allow for flexibility in the relationship we adopt a semi-parametric estimation technique following Yatchew (1997). We find mixed evidence for the protection health concession cards give against high out-of-pocket health expenditures. Despite higher levels of subsidy, households with concession cards have higher total health expenditure shares than other households. Surprisingly, the major drivers of the difference are not categories of expenditure where cards offer little or no protection, such as dental services and non-prescription medicines, but prescriptions costs, where concession cards guarantee a subsidy, and specialist consultations, where bulk billing rates would be expected to be higher for cardholders. This is the first detailed distributional analysis of household health expenditures in Australia.Out-of-pocket costs, international comparisons, Australia

Mashing up Visual Languages and Web Mash-ups

Research on web mashups and visual languages share an interest in human-centered computing. Both research communities are concerned with supporting programming by everyday, technically inexpert users. Visual programming environments have been a focus for both communities, and we believe that there is much to be gained by further discussion between these research communities. In this paper we explore some connections between web mashups and visual languages, and try to identify what each might be able to learn from the other. Our goal is to establish a framework for a dialog between the communities, and to promote the exchange of ideas and our respective understandings of humancentered computing.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe