Aspects of the impacts of mouse (Mus musculus) control on skinks in Auckland, New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Conservation Biology at Massey University

Conservation in New Zealand has a strong focus on pest control and eradication. However,a growing number of eradication attempts have failed to extirpate, or prevent reinvasions of house mice (Mus musculus). This thesis experimentally examined aspects of lizard ecology in relation to mice and the use of brodifacoum for mouse control. Shore skinks (Oligosoma smithi) were surveyed in three grids under different levels of mouse control (long term. LT, short term, ST and uncontrolled. UC). Skink capture rates, demographics and body condition were recorded on a monthly basis (November 2006 to June 2007). Skink capture rates were highest in the LT and lowest in the UC grid. Twice as many juveniles were caught in the LT than ST and UC sites: however proportions of neonates were not significantly different. Proportions of recaptured skinks within LT and UC grids peaked in February, whereas the ST grid showed peaks corresponding with troughs in mouse abundance. Mice were snap-trapped and gut contents were analysed from 50 per month (February to May). Skink remains were identified from 14 mice. Impacts of brodifacoum on shore skinks in situ as well as rainbow skinks (Lampropholis delicata) in captivity were investigated. Skink visitation rates to brodifacoum bait stations were quantified using tracking cards. Skinks were assessed for signs of ill health. Shore skink tracking rates reached 81% One skink was observed consuming bait directly. Rainbow skinks showed higher tracking rates inside stations without bait than baited. Neither species indicated any sign of ill health. Captive rainbow skinks were supplied with brodifacoum cereal blocks or brodifacoum-loaded mealworms. Rainbow skinks were not observed to directly ingest brodifacoum and showed no affects on weight gain or behaviour. Results suggest that mice are predators of skinks. particularly during and shortly after skink birthing period. This has important implications for mainland conservation efforts where mice are more difficult to control, and particularly for rare and cryptic lizard species. Native lizards may be significant vectors of brodifacoum. where they are abundant. Although mouse eradications should be attempted when possible, further research into acute toxicity and sub-lethal effects of brodifacoum is urgently required

For Better, or For Worse: Photographing in a Digitally Cluttered Crowd

In recent years, smartphones have been utilized to photograph treasured moments. However, some are unaware they are distracting others in events such as weddings. The distracting smartphone user could potentially obstruct professional wedding photographers and hinder them from capturing priceless shots. The purpose of this thesis is to research the motive behind the addictive nature of smartphones and potentially decrease the number of smartphone pictures taken during the wedding ceremonies. The goal of this study is to bring awareness to the problem and to create a mobile application, which could then reduce the intrusiveness of smartphones during weddings. The researcher will observe wedding ceremonies in the United States, interview several wedding planners and other photographers to see if they have any suggestions for correcting “guest photographers,” and survey the general public to note their experience with cellphones at weddings

"Look What the Bride Has Got On!": A Visual Discourse Analysis of Uganda's Wedding Industry

Uganda's leading newspaper, New Vision, showcases images of men and women dressed in crisp tuxedos and white wedding dresses proclaiming their "eternal love" for one another alongside advice columns on how to create the perfect wedding. Exploring images of the wedding industry in Uganda has important political implications through which one can analyze the ways that conceptions of femininity and gender are constructed and perpetuated within the space of the newspaper. Due to Uganda's neoliberal reforms of the past thirty years, a growing middle class has emerged along with an increase in the consumption of luxury goods and services. The white wedding has been and is increasingly a space for middle class Ugandans to highlight their wealth through luxurious venues, extravagant cakes, and designer dresses and tuxedos. As such, it is intimately tied to neoliberal shifts and a state-sponsored quest for capitalist growth. My research focuses on images of the Ugandan wedding industry, including advertisements and advice columns in New Vision, storefronts, fashion shows, and the Bride & Groom Expo in Kampala. Drawing on Rose (2001), I conduct a visual discourse analysis on these images to analyze what and who appears in these images, how the subjects of the images are positioned/represented, and what is absent from the images. Furthermore, I ask what the form and nature of this growing industry is and what ideals of race, class, gender and sexuality are embodied in the bodies of featured brides.Geography and the Environmen

Tibetan Wedding

This project was implemented to preserve Tibetan folk culture activities that are rapidly vanishing. We thank individuals and organizations who supported us. We also extend sincere appreciation to the United States Embassy in Beijing for sponsoring the project (the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation Program). Finally, we hope more people will join in the important task of preserving a record of traditional culture. Introduction. Friend of Rural Community Development is a local NGO registered in China, whose work focuses on improvement of rural education, culture, and environment. All the staff are locals dedicated to achieveing sustainable development for local people. Mr. Lugyal (Li Jia) is a native of Muhong Village, Daowei Tibetan Township, Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Qinghai Province, China. These cultural materials were collected from Xunhua Tibetan communities from 2008-2010. Disc Number 6: Tibetan Wedding. Three different weddings were filmed in Karang and Wendu townships to produce the video. Though some traditions have been lost in these communities, what traditions remain are better preserved than in other Tibetan communities in Xunhua, which explains the filming locations

Transformation of Javanese Marriage Ceremony Text in Bedaya Manten Dance

The symbol influenced by a changing form as a process of transformation. In “bedaya Wiwa Sangaskara”, dancing or “manten” (the bride and the grow) present the source symbol takes from the Javanese wedding ceremony as its inspiration. The Bedaya Manten dance performance represent some important element of the Javanese wedding ceremony, Hopefully the formed symbol in “Bedaya Manten” can be well comprehended by the audience. In “Bedaya Manten”, this transformation is pictured though the dancing style, the stage type, the numbers of dancers, their roles, make up and costumes. As well as the “gamelan music”. During the transformation, the inspiration of Javanese wedding ceremony is diffused and it pictures though the whole ceremony

LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN THE WEDDING CEREMONY OF BATAK TOBA

In this article, my attempt is to reveal language and identity in the wedding ceremony of Batak Toba based on the consideration that language is an important part of any society, because it enables people to communicate and express themselves. Language is an important source of continuity and identity in a culture. Batak Toba is one of the ethnic groups of Batak society. Identity is very important in Batak Toba wedding ceremony. The social identity can be directly identified through the family name which is attached to every person from birth. In a wedding ceremony, the specifics of identity can be identified through the roles, action and language used. The identities of those people involved in the ceremony are really very unique and is interesting to investigate. The language expressed, the role and action done will always be related to one’s own identity. The uniqueness of identity is always related to family name of the groom and the bride giver sides. This event shows the significance of language in preserving culture and on the other way round this wedding tradition is hoped to maintain the existence of Batak Toba language

Boston University Symphony Orchestra, April 14, 1994

This is the concert program of the Boston University Symphony Orchestra performance on Thursday, April 14, 1994 at 8:00 p.m., at the Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Avenue. Works performed were An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise by Peter Maxwell Davies, A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, Op. 21 from the incidental music, Op. 61: Scherzo, Nocturne, and Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and RiverRun by Stephen Albert. Digitization for Boston University Concert Programs was supported by the Boston University Humanities Library Endowed Fund

Playing God: Inquiry into a Slogan

Roll 64. Flo & Don Guese Wedding (Castiglione). Image 10 of 39. (18 July, 1953) [PHO 1.64.16

The non-invasive assessment of avocado maturity and quality

Horticultural products in today's modern market must have high quality standards. Consumer demand for consistent quality agricultural produce remains strong and continues to increase, this will lead to the development and subsequent increased availability of sophisticated techniques, sensors, and user-friendly non-invasive systems for measuring product quality indices. The inability to consistently guarantee internal fruit quality is a major factor not only for the Australian avocado industry but also the entire horticulture sector. Poor fruit quality is seen as a key factor affecting consumer confidence and impacts on supply chain efficiency and profitability. Removing fruit quality inconsistencies while providing the consumer with a consistent quality product is a vital commercial consideration of the Australian avocado industry for both domestic and export markets. Many fruit quality attributes affecting consumer acceptance are assessed using traditional methods that are generally subjective, labour intensive and costly. Commercially, avocado maturity is measured destructively by the determination of dry matter (DM) content, moisture content (MC) or oil content, all of which are highly correlated. Maturity is an important component in avocado fruit quality and a prime factor in palatability. A rapid, non-destructive measurement system that can accurately and simultaneously monitor external and internal attributes of every avocado fruit either in the field or in an in-line setting, is highly desirable for ensuring consistent product quality over an extended season, increasing industry marketability and profitability. The utility of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was investigated as a non-invasive assessment tool for estimating avocado maturity and thereby eating quality based on dry matter content of whole intact fruit primarily for the avocado variety 'Hass'. The technique was also assessed for detecting bruises and for predicting rot susceptibility as an indication of shelf-life for possible implementation in a commercial in-line application. The project also investigated the importance of the calibration model development process to incorporate seasonal and geographical variability to ensure model robustness. NIR spectroscopy has an obvious place in agriculture and environmental applications with its core strength in the analysis of biological materials, plus low cost of analysis, simplicity in sample preparation, no chemical reagent requirements, simultaneous analysis of multiple constituents, good repeatability and high throughput capability. The commercially available NIR spectroscopy systems assessed in this project highlighted the potential of NIR spectroscopy and its suitability for application in a commercial in-line setting for predicting avocado maturity and palatability of whole intact avocados, based on DM content. With horticultural products, the major challenge of implementing NIR spectroscopy is to ensure that the calibration model is robust, that is, that the calibration model holds across growing seasons and potentially across growing districts. The present project represents the first study to investigate the effect of seasonal variation on model robustness to be applied to avocado fruit. It found that seasonal variability has a significant effect on model predictive performance for DM in avocados. The robustness of the calibration model, which in general limits the commercial application for the technique, was found to increase across seasons when more seasonal variability was included in the calibration set. Across the seasons it achieved predictive performances in this case in the range of: validation coefficient of determination (Rᵥ²) of 0.76 – 0.89, root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 1.43 - 1.97%, and standard deviation ratio's (SDR) of 2.0 to 3.1. Similarly, there are spectral differences between geographical regions and that specific regional models may have significantly reduced predictive performance when applied to samples containing biological variability from a different growing region. As with seasonal variability, this can be addressed by incorporating multiple geographical growing regions into the calibration model to account for the biological variability to improve model robustness as demonstrated in this study (i.e., Rᵥ² of 0.89, RMSEP of 1.51%, and SDR of 3.6). Furthermore, when models are constructed to include both season and geographical variability, model performance can be more robust when dealing with a broader range of future sample variability. This was demonstrated with calibration models constructed to incorporate 3 years of seasonal variability and encompassing 3 geographical regions, obtaining predictive performances ranging from Rᵥ ² 0.87 - 0.89; RMSEP of 1.42 - 1.64% and SDR of 2.7 - 3.1 across the various geographical regions. NIR spectroscopy shows great promise for the application in a commercial, in-line setting for the non-destructive evaluation of impact damage (bruising) and rot susceptibility of whole avocado fruit, although optimisation of the technology is required to address speed of throughput and environmental issues. The adoption of a rapid, non-invasive method to identify fruit that are less prone to rots and internal disorders would allow selection of fruit that could be sent to more distant markets with greater confidence that it will arrive in acceptable quality, thus ensuring maximum yield and higher returns for the producer and marketer. The ability of the NIR classification models to accurately predict rot development of hard green avocado fruit (stage 0 ripeness) into two classes, ≤10% and >10% of flesh affected, ranged from 65-84% over the three growing seasons. When the rot classes were defined as ≤30% and >30% the accuracy ranged from 69%-77%. In relation to impact damage (bruising), trials conducted over three growing seasons using an NIR spot assessment technique found hard green fruit at stage 2 ripeness, that were deliberately bruised could be correctly detected with 70-79% accuracy after 2-5 hours of impacting and with 83-89% accuracy after 24 hours. For eating ripe (stage 4) fruit, the accuracy was 60-100% after 2-5 hours of impacting and 66-100% after 24 hours across the three growing seasons. This indicates that in a commercial situation it would be an advantage to hold the fruit for 24 hours before undertaking NIR scanning