Indigenous communities, disasters, and disaster research: surviving disaster research on, with and by Maori

This paper presents insights into the impact on Maori of the Christchurch earthquakes, including the role of Indigenous Knowledge (Matauranga Maori) in disasters, and the role of Indigenous culture in the response phases of disasters. Drawing on experiences of two previous and one current project the author discusses some of the ethical, practical, and logistical challenges of working with Indigenous individuals and collectives, and challenge the assumption that ‘to be Indigenous is to be resilient’. Abstract This paper presents insights into the impacts on Māori of the Christchurch earthquakes, and draws on personal research experiences to discuss disaster research with impacted minority communities. Three topics are discussed. The first is the role of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) in disasters. If IK such as Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) is to be ‘integrated’ with science to somehow build societal resilience, which systems are these integration processes building the resilience of, for whom? The second issue is the role of Indigenous culture in the response phases of disasters. The concern is that our culture is in danger of reification, posited as a necessary and sufficient condition for our resilience, and as researchers we are poorly equipped to deal with culture as a pedestal adornment. Drawing on the experiences of two previous and one current project, there is a discussion of some of the ethical, practical, and logistical challenges of working with Indigenous individuals and collectives and challenge the assumption, often codified by Indigenous researchers ourselves, that ‘to be indigenous is to be resilient

Reshaping the field: building restorative capital

Restorative justice is best known as an alternative approach for dealing with crime and wrongdoing. Yet as the restorative movement has grown it is increasingly being deployed in different arenas. Based on a two-year study funded by the UK National Lottery, this article provides an early glimpse into how people experience the introduction of restorativeness as cultural change within an organisational context. Using a combination of observation, in-depth interviews and focus groups, this research explores how different staff groups react to, adapt to and resist the introduction of a new ethos and language within their organisation. Drawing on the ideas of Bourdieu (1986), it appears that a new form of restorative cultural capital is emerging that threatens the very integrity of the values restorative justice claims to uphold

Spatial memory shapes density dependence in population dynamics

Most population dynamics studies assume that individuals use space uniformly, and thus mix well spatially. In numerous species, however, individuals do not move randomly, but use spatial memory to visit renewable resource patches repeatedly. To understand the extent to which memorybased foraging movement may affect density-dependent population dynamics through its impact on competition, we developed a spatially explicit, individual-based movement model where reproduction and death are functions of foraging efficiency. We compared the dynamics of populations of with- and without-memory individuals. We showed that memory-based movement leads to a higher population size at equilibrium, to a higher depletion of the environment, to a marked discrepancy between the global (i.e. measured at the population level) and local (i.e. measured at the individual level) intensities of competition, and to a nonlinear density dependence. These results call for a deeper investigation of the impact of individual movement strategies and cognitive abilities on population dynamics

Liberty, Equality, Democracy? The supposed relationship between democratic institutions and income inequality

The democratic process was always praised for it supposedly reduces inequalities. Indeed, the voice given to citizens in the democratic decision-making process, enables the less favoured part of the population to have the political system addressing their demands. Among them, reducing inequalities inherent to any given system is often to be found in politicians’ electoral pledges. The democratisation of an unprecedented number of countries in recent history however, failed to produce expected results in terms of inequality reduction. Indeed, the United Nations find that that globally, income inequality rose steadily in the last two decades, whereas democracy has never been so widespread. This paper thus questions the pre- supposed existence of the role of democratic institutions on income inequalities reduction. A simple panel regression alone, does not seem to detect such an effect, however. The paper thus turns to possible causes of this insignificance, such as the endogeneity of democracy, and the reverse effect in the extreme cases. The resulting evidences do not provide for a consistent pattern either, it is argued. Hence, as a final specification, the sample is divided into regions with common or close history; regional patterns are uncovered, which suggests that although there is no systematic effect, when in specific conditions, the relationship may exist.

Voltage equalisation techniques for high capacitance device modules

Phd ThesisTraditionally, the electrochemical battery has been the prime medium by which electrical energy is stored for future use. Increasingly, the demands of modern systems such as electric vehicles, renewable energy, distributed generation, smart grid and others has stretched the development of new chemistries, materials and assembly techniques for electrochemical batteries. Additionally, some load profiles in these applications demand extremely high dynamic behaviour which is either undeliverable by conventional electrochemical batteries or is undesirably damaging to these technologies. As such, a family of electrochemical storage, known generally as supercapacitors or ultracapacitors, have been developed and implemented for such applications. In recent years advancements in electrochemical technology has led to hybridisation of high capacitance devices. Lithium-ion capacitors that are used in this work are, with their higher cell voltage and modern packaging, expected to be among the next emerging families of state-of-the-art electrical energy storage devices. The relatively low cell voltage of high capacitance cells requires them to be connected in series to attain a system level voltage. During charging and discharging, manufacturing tolerances between the cells results in voltage mismatch across the stack. Mismatched voltages are an inefficient use of the energy storage medium and can lead to dangerous failures in the cells. Several techniques exist to limit the variance in cell voltages of supercapacitors across a series connected stack. These range from simple systems which discharge the cells at higher voltages through resistors to more complex active converter systems which equalise the cell voltages through charge redistribution via a power electronic converter. Whilst the simpler schemes are effective they are very inefficient and as such are not suitable for use in many applications. A number of active converter voltage equalisation schemes have been proposed in literature, however, each of these equalisation schemes exhibit flaws which either makes them less desirable or less effective for a broad range of applications. Therefore, a new equalisation converter topology is proposed which is designed for greater equalisation effectiveness, modularity and size. The proposed equalisation converter differs from previously published equalisation schemes by allowing energy transfer between any pair of cells without the cumbersome multi-winding transformers employed in existing equalisation converters. The new equalisation scheme uses a bi-directional arrangement of MOSFET switches for galvanostatic isolation allowing the converter to be multiplexed to the stack. This arrangement allows the total size of the equalisation scheme to be reduced whilst maintaining performance.EPSRC

Post-disaster indigenous mental health support: Tangata whaiora networks after the 2010-2012 Ōtautahi/Christchurch earthquakes

This paper identifies and analyses the networks of support for tangata whaiora (mental health clients) utilising a kaupapa Mäori health service following the Ötautahi/Christchurch earthquakes in Aotearoa New Zealand from 2010 to 2012. Semi- structured interviews were undertaken with 39 participants, comprising clients (Mäori and Päkehä), staff, managers and board members of a kaupapa Mäori provider in the city. Selected quotes are presented alongside a social network analysis of the support accessed by all participants. Results show the signifi cant isolation of both Mäori and Päkehä mental health clients post- disaster and the complexity of individuals and collectives dealing with temporally and spatially overlapping hazards and disasters at personal, whänau and community level

Stolen City: Racial Capitalism and the Making of Winnipeg

Book review by Simon J. Lambert of Stolen City: Racial Capitalism and the Making of Winnipeg, author Owen Toews

On the binary helium star DY Centauri: Chemical composition and evolutionary state

DY Cen has shown a steady fading of its visual light by about 1 magnitude in the last 40 years suggesting a secular increase in its effective temperature. We have conducted non-LTE and LTE abundance analyses to determine the star's effective temperature, surface gravity, and chemical composition using high-resolution spectra obtained over two decades. The derived stellar parameters for three epochs suggest that DY Cen has evolved at a constant luminosity and has become hotter by about 5000 K in 23 years. We show that the derived abundances remain unchanged for the three epochs. The derived abundances of the key elements, including F and Ne, are as observed for the extreme helium stars resulting from a merger of an He white dwarf with a C-O white dwarf. Thus, DY Cen by chemical composition appears to be also a product of a merger of two white dwarfs. This appearance seems to be at odds with the recent suggestion that DY Cen is a single-lined spectroscopic binary.Comment: Accepted to ApJ with 8 Figures and 5 Table

A ripple reduction method for a two stages battery charger with multi-winding transformer using notch filter

This paper presents a two-stage battery charger consisting of a bridgeless Totem-pole power factor correction (TP-PFC) circuit and a full bridge converter with a multi-winding transformer. By using this transformer the cell equalizing operation can be achieved with no additional circuitry. In addition, a double-line frequency ripple reduction method is proposed to address the low frequency current ripples issues existing in both primary and secondary winding of the transformer which is caused by the voltage ripples across the intermediate DC link bus. Control and analysis of the converter at different operation modes is illustrated in detail and simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed converter and control algorithm