The 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes and organisational learning at the University of Canterbury: does practice make perfect?

In September 2010 and again in February 2011, the city of Christchurch was rocked by earthquakes of magnitude 7.1 and 6.3 respectively. The second earthquake was shallow and caused extensive damage and loss of life, destroying most of the Central Business District. This paper focuses on recovery management at the University of Canterbury, exploring the extent to which the senior management team learned lessons from the September event which informed the way that the recovery was managed after the February earthquake. It examines the counter-intuitive possibility that successfully dealing with a prior, lesser event, may not necessarily better equip managers to deal with a subsequent, more extreme event

Ferns of Utah

journal articleThe distribution of many species of our ferns is not well known in Utah. Collectors have centered their work around certain localities and many blank spots appear on the distributional map. One might presume certain species to be present in some of these unexplored areas but specimens are still to be collected. Distributional data beyond Utah were taken mainly from Broun's Index to North American Ferns. In citing the collections for each species the name of the collector or herbarium is given followed by the catalog numbers and localities. B. Y. designates the herbarium of Brigham Young University at Provo, and I. H. indicates the Intermountain Herbarium at the Utah State Agricultural College at Logan, Utah. Specimens collected by W. P. Cottam, A. M. Woodbury and S. Flowers are deposited in the University of Utah Herbarium. I wish to acknowledge the use of the specimens collected by Professors A. 0 . Garrett, Bertram Harrison and Bassett Maguire and their associates. Many of the specimens examined were identified by Dr s. William R. Maxon, R. T. Clausen, F. K. Butters, K. M. Weigand and J. H. Schaffner

Reinforcing the Seams: Guaranteeing the Promise of California’s Landmark Anti-Sweatshop Law - An Evaluation of Assembly Bill 633 Six Years Later

Today, AB 633 stands as a landmark law with great potential — much of it yet to be realized — to fight against the proliferation of sweatshops and corporate abuse in the garment industry, and to serve as model legislation for other low-wage industries across California and around the nation in which workers are denied their most basic workplace rights. In documenting the successes of AB 633, as well as presenting the challenges garment workers still face in recovering their wages under the law, this report seeks to provide an answer to the pivotal question: Has AB 633 fulfilled its promise? To answer this question, we analyzed a statistically random sample of over 200 AB 633 claims docketed by the state labor agency between March 31, 2001 and February 18, 2004. Our Key Findings illustrate that AB 633 is a powerful tool that has been ineffectively utilized by DLSE and hence ignored by many companies that continue to profit from sweatshop labor. This report concludes with a series of recommendations which the authors hope to pursue with key stakeholders as part of our collective responsibility to realize the promise of AB 633 —and to make sweatshops in garment and other low-wage industries a part of our past, not our future

A SINGLE PARTICLE VIEW OF FLUIDIZATION

Radiation-based single particle tracking approaches have distinct advantages in investigating opaque particle systems such as fluidized beds. The principles of one of these – positron emission particle tracking (PEPT) – are summarised here, together with recent developments in the use of the technique. Applications in bubbling beds, circulating beds, in heat transfer and in coating are illustrated. PEPT is beginning to be used in validation of computational methods for simulating fluidized beds, such as discrete element methods

Study of tetracycline resistance determinants and their genetic supports in the oral and faecal metagenomes of six European countries.

Investigations of the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes and their genetic supports are essential for our understanding of the mechanisms of resistance, and their transfer. This study investigated the prevalence of tetracycline and erythromycin resistance in the Gram positive aerobic cultivable portion, and the total oral and faecal microbiota of six European countries. Only Gram positive isolates were investigated as they represent a distinct phylogenetic group. Furthermore, this project was part of a larger European-wide study on the biology of Gram positive organisms. A collection of 123 tetracycline and/or erythromycin resistant isolates was made, and through macroarray analysis the most common tet genes were found to be tet(W), let(O) and /<.'/(W) in the aerobic oral flora, and tet(M). tet(O) and tet(Q) in the aerobic faecal flora. Three isolates did not hybridise to any probes on the array. In order to investigate the contribution of the whole metagenome to antibiotic resistance, total extracted DNA was analysed on the macroarray and 12 BAG libraries were constructed. The most common let genes in the oral microbiota were tet( ), tet(Q) and /i7(30) and were /(//(W). tet(O). tet(Q) and /tV(32) in the faecal metagenome. The BAC libraries were evaluated for efficiency of cloning microbial DNA, and to ensure they were representative of each microbiota, by end-sequence analysis. The libraries were screened on tetracycline. 32 resistant clones were found, only four of these were stable. One. NFtetCl. contained tet(O). The entire insert was sequenced to determine its support, it was shown to contain orfs with similarity to tnpY from n445L and to or/6 from n916 and cppJ from the /e/(0)-harbouring Campylobacter coli plasmid pCC31. Clone SFtetCIO harboured tet( ) PCR analysis illustrated it was flanked by sequences with homology to those flanking tet(M) in Tn9/6 however, int from Jn9J6 did not amplify with specific primers. Clones IStetCl and FRStetCll did not hybridise to any probes on the array. These harbour either novel or rare tet genes. Clone IStetCl was subcloned and found to harbour a putatitive natural chimera of two tetracycline resistance plasmids: pRSB107 and pR64. This study thus provides further evidence of the prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the human Gastrointestinal (GI) tract, and the difference in prevalence of tetrcycline resistance determinants in the aerobic cultivable flora and total microbiota. Furthermore, it illustrates how antibiotic resistance genes are contained on mobile genetic elements which are mosaic in structure having undergone evolutionary changes in which functional modules are exchanged

Chinese Soup, Good Horses, and Other Narratives: Practicing Cross-Cultural Competence before We Preach

Before we undertake teaching our students about cross-cultural competence, we need to examine carefully our own practices, and those of our colleagues and institutions, to ensure that we are not complicit in the very practices of cross-cultural “incompetence” that we hope to train our students to avoid. While there is a substantial body of scholarship on teaching this competence to our students, there is less written about practicing it ourselves as teachers and members of academic institutions. This essay will examine the latter subject and will hopefully provide some productive suggestions on ways to expand cross-cultural competence for our law schools and ourselves

The geographical Jeux de l'Oie of Europe

The Jeu de L'Oie (Game of Goose), a unicursal race game played with tokens and dice, is named from the goose symbols on the favourable spaces. Many variants have been developed of the original 16th century Italian game. An important genre, originating in France as an educational aid, is that of geographical games, many being based on maps. The paper discusses the history of cartographical games that have an international dimension within Europe.Six such games are illustrated, originally published in 17thC France, 18thC England, 19th C Netherlands, 19thC England (a non-unicursal variant), 20thC Italy and 20thC Germany. The rules of each are contrasted with those of the parent game of Goose. Techniques of printing and cartography are compared.Each game goes beyond simple cartographic representation to convey, through its rules or iconography, a deliberate “message”, whether political, commercial or cultural. The games give insights into international relationships, perceptions and misconceptions at various points in the history of Europe.Le nom “Jeu de l’Oie” (jeu de parcours où l'on déplace des pions en fonction des résultats des dés) provient de la représentation d’une oie dans certaines cases bénéfiques. De nombreuses variantes de ce jeu, qui trouve son origine dans l’Italie du XVIe siècle, ont été développées. Parmi celles-ci, les jeux géographiques, souvent basés sur des cartes, représentent un genre important, apparu en France en tant que support éducatif. Cet article examine l’histoire des jeux cartographiques ayant pris une dimension internationale à travers l’Europe.Nous illustrerons ici six de ces jeux, apparus en France au XVIIe siècle, en Angleterre au XVIIIe, aux Pays-Bas et en Angleterre au XIXe (dans ce dernier cas il s’agit d’une variante non unicursale), en Italie et en Allemagne au XXe siècle. Les règles de ces jeux sont mises en contraste avec celles de leur ancêtre. Nous comparerons également les techniques d’impression et les cartographies.Chacun des jeux dépasse la simple représentation cartographique pour apporter, par ses propres règles ou son iconographie, un “message” délibéré: politique, commercial ou encore culturel. Ils donnent également un aperçu des relations internationales, perceptions ou idées erronées à différents moments de l’histoire européenne

Reinforcing the Seams: Guaranteeing the Promise of California’s Landmark Anti-Sweatshop Law - An Evaluation of Assembly Bill 633 Six Years Later

Today, AB 633 stands as a landmark law with great potential — much of it yet to be realized — to fight against the proliferation of sweatshops and corporate abuse in the garment industry, and to serve as model legislation for other low-wage industries across California and around the nation in which workers are denied their most basic workplace rights. In documenting the successes of AB 633, as well as presenting the challenges garment workers still face in recovering their wages under the law, this report seeks to provide an answer to the pivotal question: Has AB 633 fulfilled its promise? To answer this question, we analyzed a statistically random sample of over 200 AB 633 claims docketed by the state labor agency between March 31, 2001 and February 18, 2004. Our Key Findings illustrate that AB 633 is a powerful tool that has been ineffectively utilized by DLSE and hence ignored by many companies that continue to profit from sweatshop labor. This report concludes with a series of recommendations which the authors hope to pursue with key stakeholders as part of our collective responsibility to realize the promise of AB 633 —and to make sweatshops in garment and other low-wage industries a part of our past, not our future