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Phenotypic plasticity of invasive hawkweeds under drought conditions in New Zealand grasslands
No full textVariation in plant functional traits in response to local environments can be explained either by evolution (adaptation and natural selection) or non-genetic processes, such as phenotypic plasticity, which is where an individual alters its phenotypic expression of a genotype. Plasticity may occur in response to changes in environmental conditions over time or differences in environmental conditions in space. Untangling the role of phenotypic plasticity in the successful establishment of invasive species can assist in understanding how species may colonise and spread in the future under climatic change. Invasion by hawkweeds (Asteraceae), particularly Pilosella officinarum and Hieracium lepidulum, has been a concern in New Zealand’s grasslands since c.1950s. I aimed to assess if phenotypic plasticity plays a role in hawkweed invasion in New Zealand. I collected and measured functional traits of 255 individuals of P. officinarum at 17 populations and 234 individuals of H. lepidulum at 16 populations to see if the time of invasion of the population and historical variation in climatic conditions was related to functional trait values for above ground biomass, plant height, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, and leaf shape index. I then experimentally tested for plasticity in functional traits using two watering treatments, watered and drought, in a common garden experiment. Seeds were collected from field populations, and functional traits were measured for 89 seedlings from 11 parents across five populations of P. officinarum and 69 seedlings from 11 parents across six populations of H. lepidulum. This was to determine how functional traits vary under common growing conditions and how drought influences the proportion of roots to total biomass, plant height, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, leaf shape index, number of leaves, and specific root length. I employed 24 separate Bayesian hierarchical generalized linear models and used the posterior estimates to determine important 2 predictors of functional trait values. I showed that the time of invasion and historical climatic conditions did not affect functional trait values for P. officinarum and H. lepidulum. This indicated that historical climatic conditions were not important in affecting variation in trait values. However, shading of individual plants in both species was related to higher specific leaf area and leaf shape index, and lower leaf dry matter content, while plant height was higher only in H. lepidulum. I showed convergence of functional traits sourced from different populations and parents when grown under common conditions. Compared to plants in the watered treatment, those in drought conditions had a higher proportion of roots to total biomass, lower plant height, lower number of leaves, lower leaf shape index, and higher leaf dry matter content. I showed that, while some functional traits in hawkweeds may have genetic influences, such as the proportion of roots to total biomass and leaf shape index for both species, and specific root length for P. officinarum, phenotypic plasticity plays a crucial role in determining trait values. This plasticity likely results in resilience of hawkweed populations under climatic change, such as drought.</p
Design and Analysis of a Self-Propelled Nanosatellite for a Mission Beyond Low Earth Orbit
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The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the democratic government ecosystem in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textThis article looks at the response to the Covid-19 pandemic in Aotearoa New Zealand, especially the way the sixth Labour-led government protected the health of the community and health of democratic government. The path of the pandemic is explained along with the main public health measures and key legal mechanisms used to combat it. The various ways democratic institutions contributed to the response and adapted to the threat of the pandemic are catalogued. Particular steps taken to ensure the continuation of democratic and accountability processes are highlighted. The article concludes by reflecting on the culture of democratic government in New Zealand and distinctive features of the Labour-led government’s response
Health prediction for king salmon via evolutionary machine learning with genetic programming
No full textKing (Chinook) salmon is the only salmon species farmed in Aotearoa New Zealand and accounts for over half of the world's production of king salmon. Determining the health status of king salmon effectively is important for farming. However, it is a challenging task due to the complex biotic and abiotic factors that influence health. Evolutionary machine learning algorithms have shown their superiority in learning models for challenging tasks. However, they have not been investigated for health prediction in king salmon farming. This paper focuses on data processing and machine learning algorithm design to develop king salmon health prediction models in Aotearoa New Zealand. Particularly, this paper proposes a king salmon health prediction method based on genetic programming which is an evolutionary machine learning algorithm. The results show that genetic programming achieves the best overall performance among all examined typical machine learning algorithms for most trials. Further analyses show that genetic programming can automatically detect important features for learning classifiers for king salmon health classification tasks effectively, and can also learn potentially interpretable models. Our results are an important step forward in developing health prediction tools to automatically assess health status of farmed king salmon in Aotearoa New Zealand
Vertical knowledge: hill stations as localities of science, health and aesthetics in British India, c. 1760–1920
No full textThis thesis examines the scientific significance of British mountain settlements in the Indian subcontinent, commonly known as hill stations, sanitaria, or convalescent depots, from 1760 to 1920. Employing an expanded definition of “hill station,” my thesis analyses not only elite resorts but also satellite stations and military cantonments that drew people, instruments, and objects to the mountains. It advances recent scholarship that identifies verticality as a three-dimensional conceptual paradigm, postulating mountain environments as eminently suited for scientific knowledge-production. In doing so, this thesis argues that hill stations, their surrounding hinterlands, and the higher elevations made accessible through these settlements were both the subjects and sites for scientific research in cartography, medical topography, meteorology, biogeography, bacteriology, astronomy, and cognate disciplines. This analytical framework, which deploys verticality and foregrounds scientific knowledge-production at hill stations, addresses a gap in a historiography that has overwhelmingly focused on these sites through the lenses of colonial control, class, race, and gender. The thesis charts the development of a vertical consciousness that characterised European engagement with mountains through four interconnected stages. Tracing the intellectual currents that preceded the establishment of hill stations, Chapter One situates the roots of verticality in the medicalisation and aestheticization of mountains in eighteenth-century tropical medicine and Alpine health tourism in Europe. It argues that the exigencies of empire-building spawned sophisticated genres of naval and tropical medicine, resulting in the medicalisation of high-altitude environments, while a blend of science and tourism in the Alps encouraged a specialised lexicon pertaining to mountain science and aesthetic consumption of these environments. Spanning the period before and after Humboldt’s pivotal Andean expedition (1799–1804), Chapter Two examines the verticalization of the Indian subcontinent’s mountain environments in early geographic narratives from 1760 to 1820. It analyses how composite modes of writing drew together medical, scientific, and aesthetic observations to create a vertical imaginary that distinguished miasmic lowlands and hostile summits from the picturesque and habitable ‘Goldilocks zone’ likened to temperate Europe. Following the assimilation of mountain territories in the 1820s, the dissertation examines hill stations as localities of scientific knowledge-production. The standardisation of medico-topographical literature, Chapter Three argues, mirrored and reified preceding vertical imaginaries using empirical data. Through strict thermometric and altitudinal measurements, medical practitioners identified the healthiest mountain zones sandwiched between belts of tropical diseases and barren summits beyond the tree line, leveraging their findings to advocate for the programmatic colonisation of these tracts. Parallel to medical developments, Chapter Four outlines the intellectual topography of hill stations vis-à-vis the zealous scientific communities established in these localities. In the early 1800s, cartographic expeditions used hill stations for supplies, recuperation, and as “centres of calculation.” In the following decades scientific assemblages in hill stations advanced biogeography and cognate disciplines, accentuating the contours of mountain verticality. This chapter foregrounds innovations in meteorology, astronomy, and bacteriology from 1870 to 1920 that demonstrate the centrality of hill stations as laboratories of modern science.</p
Collective Mode: How Could Psychology Respond to Increases in Common Mental Health Concerns Among Secondary School Students in 2020s Aotearoa New Zealand? A Critical Realist Exploration
No full textBackground: Since around 2010, significant increases in common mental health concerns, such as anxiety and depression, have been reported among adolescents in various countries, placing considerable strain on mental health services. While anecdotal evidence suggests a similar trend in Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa), comprehensive data has been lacking. In this rapidly changing environment, it is crucial to develop timely responses that consider the unique Aotearoa context, including upholding commitments made in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Psychologists, as key players within a broader ecosystem, must explore new approaches to address these challenges effectively.Aims: I aimed to consider how psychology could respond to apparent increases in common mental health concerns among secondary school students in 2020s Aotearoa. This involved empirically investigating the nature, extent, and consequences of the purported increases; identifying patterns of need from a population perspective; describing adolescents’ use of mental health and wellbeing supports; and exploring adolescents’ and service providers’ priorities in addressing the need.Methods: As part of the Youth19 Rangatahi Smart Survey team (the most recent wave of the Youth2000 survey series), I shaped key survey questions and contributed to ethics and survey implementation. We surveyed 7721 Aotearoa secondary school students (13–18 years) in 2019, providing data for four of the five studies presented here. I adopted a critical realist theoretical framework and mixed-methods approach. Studies 1–4 used Youth19 data to: describe need in 2019, and changes between the 2012 and 2019 Youth2000 surveys (Study 1); derive clusters of students based on their responses to mental health and wellbeing variables and identify predictors of cluster membership (Study 2); describe students’ use of supports for mental health according to derived cluster (Study 3); and analyse responses from students in the most severe clusters to an open-ended question regarding what could make things better (Study 4). I conducted Study 5 outside the Youth19 umbrella. I present thematic analysis of interviews with eight experienced psychologists and other service providers regarding the effects of perceived levels of need on services and potential future directions. I then integrated results across studies in a concluding discussion.Results: I found that symptoms of common mental health concerns were high among Aotearoa secondary school students in 2019 and had increased markedly between 2012 and 2019, overall and especially among females, rangatahi Māori, Pacific students, and those living with higher socioeconomic deprivation, increasing inequity. For example, clinically significant depressive symptoms assessed using the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (Short Form) increased from 17% among females in 2012 to 29% in 2019 (Study 1). Mental health need clustered into distinct profiles, with 40% of Youth19 participants reporting minimal symptoms and good wellbeing, 28% reporting signs of elevated anxiety, 9% reporting elevated but subclinical depressive and anxiety symptoms, 16% reporting above cut-off depressive and anxiety symptoms and high suicide ideation, and 6% reporting high symptoms across indicators and 100% prevalence of suicide attempt (Study 2). Fewer than a third (29%) of students with high need reported that they had accessed formal supports such as counsellors or health professionals in the past year, although many (82%) had talked with peers or family members (Study 3). In response to an open-ended question about what would help young people who were having a hard time or feeling bad, distressed students emphasised the need for young people to feel loved, accepted, and connected, as a foundation for talking and sharing the load with others and developing their own coping skills. They asked for more nurturing, less harmful environments and systems, including updated mental health services, and noted the importance of thinking and talking about mental health in helpful ways (Study 4). Psychologists and other service providers in the youth mental health sector reported that they have been hugely affected by increased demand, with services overloaded and clinicians facing burn out, further compounding service overwhelm. They highlighted the need for collaboration, new approaches and, crucially, a substantial workforce boost (Study 5).Implications: This thesis provides converging findings from population survey and clinical perspectives that there are major increases in demand for addressing mental health and wellbeing concerns among adolescents, and suggests that current responses are inadequate, to the detriment of young people, whānau (extended family), and providers. I propose that multi-factor solutions are needed, by which psychology, along with other disciplines: -Contributes to understanding needs and opportunities (e.g., via research and evaluation of needs and initiatives) -Considers ways to support and retain new and existing psychology staff in pressured services -Considers ways to meet increased demand while upholding competency and ethical practice (e.g., increased training and service provision focused on group therapy, brief interventions, utilising broader workforces, or other resources such as digital tools) -Contributes to, or at least does not block, the expansion of the talking therapy or mental health and wellbeing workforce (e.g., via training more people, training people more quickly, providing supervision, and support for new roles) -Contributes to, or at least does not block, community efforts to support adolescents (e.g., supporting whānau, school staff, and community to respond to adolescents’ needs) -Contributes to or supports prevention and health promotion efforts (e.g., via data and information sharing, advocacy, and contributing regarding helpful ways of communicating about mental health with adolescents and others).All actions should respond to the needs of taiohi Māori (young Māori), given commitments made in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The needs of Pacific students, and students living with greater economic deprivation, should also be prioritised, among those of other underserved groups. Developing clinicians and approaches that increase equity is essential.While none of these ideas are new to psychology and other disciplines, this research emphasises the urgency for psychology to be part of systems that contribute to population wellbeing as well as addressing individual needs. While I have listed a variety of actions, none are the responsibility of any one psychologist or group alone. Some are actions for psychology as an academic discipline, or groups such as researchers, the New Zealand Psychologists Board, training institutions, and others. I consider a range of theories and models to guide and structure collective thinking.Conclusions: Reports of common mental health concerns among Aotearoa adolescents appear to be high, increasing, and uneven, consistent with international trends. Current responses are a poor fit, and bravery and fresh thinking are required, while ensuring to uphold competent and ethical practice. We can learn from international approaches, and responses for Aotearoa must be grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, with youth, Māori, and underserved groups at the centre. Psychology has an important role to play as part of the complex system supporting mental health and wellbeing among adolescents in Aotearoa. There is a clear need for a substantial workforce boost, as well as attention to connection, integration, and working relationally across disciplines, communities, and government to achieve positive collective impact for young people and whānau.</p
Balancing with Antarctica
No full textBlogpost. A collaboration between Kristin Wilson (text) and Jean Donaldson (images). Edited by Jonathan Burgess.</p
Care In Context: Creating Ethical Board Leadership
No full textBoards and their directors have long been in the spotlight for enabling serious ethical collapses (Arjoon, 2005; Garratt, 2003) with personal moral values (Grant and McGhee, 2017) and leadership of directors proposed as solutions (Cikaliuk et al., 2022; Aubé et al., 2021). This research develops a model of contextual board leadership to accommodate the board setting and its particular ethical challenges.The first two phases of research conducted interviews with over 30 board professionals across a range of small to large public organisations. Phase 3 developed and validated the findings into guidelines. The findings identified the significance of: context, an adaptive process of leadership across directors, values, board ethical competence, extensive politics and power influences, extensive board unethical leadership and calls for different models of governance. Power and privilege were found to affect a director’s perception of the ethical implications of situations. The findings extend existing calls for new theoretical directions in governance, and suggest existing models are failing to incorporate diversity, complexity of perspective and expertise, and nuanced ethical decision-making, resulting in dysfunction. Ethical board leadership was found to operate across both the chair and board directors as a process of influence to achieve effective board decision-making. Leadership as a social and contextual process of influence emerged, with one or more formal and informal ‘adaptive’ leaders, advancing a processual understanding of leadership (Yukl et al, 2019). Care ethics (Gilligan, 1982) emerged as the most relevant ethical orientation for boards; yet, others were also relevant depending on the concrete situation, thus requiring nuanced situational leadership from directors. Further, ethical and unethical leadership in boards could not be separated: with one easily becoming the other unless ethical approaches are taken to group politics and power dynamics. Political behaviours in the form of organisational politics were found to occur extensively, leading to ineffective decision-making if not managed ethically. The research develops guidelines with 7 dimensions and 40 behavioural items to ensure effective decision-making, particularly in public governance and makes practical and theoretical contributions. These guidelines should be relevant for decades ahead of modernising governance as a sector and for other sectors in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world.</p
Cosmopolitan Musical Expressions Of Malay Indigeneity In Singapore
No full textOver the past ten years, the activities of Malay composers with backgrounds in traditional music has been steadily increasing within the Malay traditional music community of Singapore. These activities have included self-produced concerts of original music, recordings of original music, the composition of original material for various Malay traditional music ensembles in Singapore, and participation in residency and mentorship programs specifically set up for the development of Malay composers. This thesis explores how the activities of Singapore’s Malay traditional music community and its composers circulate Malay indigenous knowledge and create experiences of Malay indigeneity through performances of Malay music and discourses of Malay performance, including discourses of affective knowledge. Building on ethnographic fieldwork including participation in traditional music through the learning of traditional instruments, collaborative compositional projects, and performance with local Malay ensembles, the thesis weaves together ideas from scholarship on value, affect theory, and cosmopolitanism. In terms of value, it examines the activities of Singapore’s Malay traditional music community in the context of theories of value and circulation by Appadurai, Graeber, Taylor, and Tsing to demonstrate the Malay traditional music community’s awareness and negotiation of local structures of value in Singapore. It also discusses Malay concepts of affective awareness, knowledge and expertise such as lembut (gentleness) and jiwa (soul), situating lembut as a possible frame through which to understand Malay perspectives in contestations between the Singaporean state and its Malay-Muslim minority population. Building on notions of syncretism, naturalisation, and localisation within existing literature on Malay culture and particularly Malay music, it introduces the concept of “cosmopolitan indigenisation” as a mechanism through which new ideas may be incorporated into Malay cultural and creative expression as well as to reconstitute fragmented pathways to musical mastery through the adoption of epistemologies from various musical traditions. The thesis also provides an analysis of the political economy of arts funding in Singapore, an ethnographic snapshot of my participation in Orkestra Melayu Singapura (Singapore Malay Orchestra) as a double bassist, and observations of a number of traditional Malay music events including the 2018 and 2024 iterations of the Gemadah Traditional Malay Music Festival, as well as a 2023 concert titled Dendang Warisan, performed by the Malay traditional ensemble Gendang Akustika. Investigations of musical projects and specific compositions by Malay composers Azrin Abdullah, Riduan Zalani, and Syafiqah Adha Sallehin show how compositions by Malay composers circulate value and contribute to the continued refinement and transmission of Malay musical knowledge. Their cosmopolitan agency as creators of musical experiences skilfully construct new forms of Malay expression through the composers’ command of seniority, signification, and spectacle. Taken together, the work of Singapore’s Malay traditional music community and its composers result in a reclamation of affective space, a revitalisation of affective awareness, and, perhaps, the gradual reconstitution of indigenous ways of being for Malay communities in Singapore.</p
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