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Reweaving the Spaces of Inter-Cultural Dialogue in Post-Treaty New Zealand/Aotearoa
No full textThis study explores cross-cultural dialogue between Māori and settler colonials through the lens of Emily Karaka’s paintings. Karaka’s paintings are used to probe and reveal the colonial roots of spatial organization at the site where they are displayed. Building on parallels between the life of Karaka’s paintings and Treaty of Waitangi documents, this study finds that post-Treaty dialogue between Māori and settler colonials takes place in spaces built on and informed by the spatial biases of settler colonialism. The study concludes that recognizing these biases is crucial for meaningful dialogue and suggests that the Treaty of Waitangi invites a spatial response.fals
What is news? : an exploration of news consumption in Aotearoa New Zealand comparing older and younger audiences using a uses and gratifications lens : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy in Communication at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
Get PDFTechnological and societal developments, including digital news, use of mobile devices, and the shared connections of social media, have impacted how and why audiences consume news. This study examined news consumption in Aotearoa New Zealand using a uses and gratifications lens, with a focus on the habits of those aged under 26 years of age and those over 26 years of age. The study produced three articles based on insights from focus groups to examine what audiences use for news, what they think is news, and what they do as a result of news. The articles indicated differences in habits between the two age cohorts, particularly in the use of social media and new media forms.
Together, the articles offer three findings towards the overall research question of understanding the factors affecting news consumption and the divergence in news consumption habits between older and younger audiences. Uses and gratifications theory is still relevant for understanding news choices, as needs drive media behaviours and desired gratifications. Although news values are a useful categorisation of the characteristics of news that resonate with audiences, they need to be re-examined in the current media environment. Finally, veracity is proposed as an emerging news value as audiences have more news choice, and it is a key factor determining what news audiences consume and why. This study proposes a new theoretical model for news consumption that includes uses and gratifications theory and news values framework to understand the factors involved in news consumption. This model is explored as a case study using audiences’ responses to the media coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022
Dynamic economic valuation of coastal wetland restoration: A nature-based solution for climate and biodiversity
No full textThis paper explores the dynamic linkage between coastal wetland restoration and the resulting economic benefits, with a focus on nonmarket values such as climate regulation and biodiversity conservation. Coastal wetlands are recognised as highly effective natural carbon sinks, offering significant ecosystem services that contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. By utilising a modelling framework that integrates ecological recovery processes and economic valuations over a 100-year period, we provide insights into optimising long-term returns from wetland restoration. This study emphasises the importance of accounting for the temporal dynamics of ecosystem recovery, highlighting the lag between restoration activities and full ecosystem functionality. Our findings highlight the importance of nature-based solutions in global climate finance strategies and emphasise the need for more accurate, targeted investment in wetland restoration. This approach ensures that resources are allocated efficiently over time, maximising the benefits of enhancing coastal resilience and achieving long-term climate goals.fals
Implications of gender metastereotypes for addressing sexist behavior
Get PDFWomen often experience competence questioning communication (CQC), in which their contributions are overlooked or credit is misdirected to a male colleague. We examine whether gender metastereotypes—the stereotypes that women believe men hold of women, and the stereotypes men believe women hold of men—predict responses to sexism in the workplace. Specifically, through vignette-based experiments, we examine whether women’s and men’s willingness to directly confront male perpetrators of CQC, and men’s willingness to amplify the voice of female colleagues is affected by the activation of gender metastereotypes. For both women and men, positive metastereotypes directly predicted willingness to confront sexism, but, as theorized, only when individuals believed that the stereotypes held of their ingroup were held of them personally. We also found significant indirect effects of metastereotype activation on willingness to address sexism via felt responsibility for addressing sexism (for women) and concern for the group image (for men).fals
Three forms of dimension reduction for border-collision bifurcations
Get PDFFor dynamical systems that switch between different modes of operation, parameter variation can cause periodic solutions to lose or acquire new switching events. When this causes the eigenvalues (stability multipliers) associated with the solution to change discontinuously, we show that if one eigenvalue remains continuous then all local invariant sets of the leading-order approximation to the system occur on a lower dimensional manifold. This allows us to analyse the dynamics with fewer variables, which is particularly helpful when the dynamics is chaotic. We compare this to two other codimension-two scenarios for which dimension reduction can be achieved.fals
Potent inhibition of human monoamine oxidase A and B by phenolic compounds and polyunsaturated fatty acids in tobacco smoke
Get PDFSmoking is a main cause of premature death and preventable disease in the world. Interestingly, animal studies indicate that inhibition of monoamine oxidase (MAO), key enzymes for the degradation of neurotransmitters, increased self-administration of nicotine. The purpose of this study was to identify and characterize the potential MAO inhibitors in tobacco smoke responsible for MAO inhibition in smokers. A bioassay-guided isolation from an extract of tobacco smoke showed that catechol, 4-methylcatechol, hydroquinone, α-linolenic acid, and linoleic acid all displayed potent human MAO inhibitory activity. Additionally, the tobacco catechols 4-ethylcatechol and 4-vinylcatechol were included to test their inhibitory potencies. Catechol, 4-methylcatechol, 4-ethylcatechol, and hydroquinone are potent and irreversible MAO inhibitors. Among the phenolic compounds tested, 4-methylcatechol and 4-ethylcatechol inhibited MAO A with IC50 values of 10.0 and 12.6 μM, respectively, reducing to 0.27 and 0.43 μM after 1 h preincubation. In addition, α-linolenic acid and linoleic acid competitively inhibited MAO A with Ki values of 10.50 and 6.95 μM, respectively. These results suggest that MAO inhibition by phenolics and polyunsaturated fatty acids in tobacco smoke may be important contributors to the MAO inhibition experienced by smokers and to the enhancement of nicotine dependence this MAO inhibition is believed to cause.fals
Comprehensive analysis of molecular characteristics between primary and breast-derived metastatic ovarian cancer
Get PDFBackground: The molecular basis for the disparities between primary ovarian cancer (POC) and ovarian cancer secondary to breast cancer (OCSTBC) remains poorly understood. This study aimed to explore the different characteristics between them through genomic analysis.
Methods: We performed differentially expressed genes (DEGs) analysis between POC (n=96) and OCSTBC (n=44) groups with transcriptome data and revealed the enriched biological pathways with Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Hallmark gene sets between these two groups. Then, the Microenvironment Cell Populations (MCP)-counter and Cell-type Identification by Estimating Relative Subsets of RNA Transcript (CIBERSORT) algorithms were applied to evaluate the immune infiltration in tumor microenvironment (TME) between them. Finally, we performed the association analysis within single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data and obtained some meaningful SNPs and candidate genes for further transcriptomic analysis.
Results: We identified a total of 13 cancer-related genes including GATA3, FOXA1, CCND1, and TTK between POC (n=96) and OCSTBC (n=44) groups with DEGs analysis. Integrated analysis revealed more significant immune-enriched pathways in the POC than in the OCSTBC group. Most immune cells had higher infiltration abundance in POC, except M2 macrophages, which was higher in OCSTBC. In SNP analysis, four SNP regions (8q12.1, 11q21, 11q24.3, and 17q25.3) were found to be significantly correlated with phenotypes (POC/OCSTBC), and importantly, some new susceptibility genes such as ETS1, CWC15, and XKR4 were revealed to potentially be associated with distinction between POC and OCSTBC.
Conclusions: Our study provides a systematic molecular characteristic between POC and OCSTBC and suggests a pressing need to develop some specific therapeutic strategies in certain types of ovarian cancer.fals
A Jordan–Chevalley decomposition beyond algebraic groups
Get PDFWe prove a decomposition of definable groups in o-minimal structures generalizing the Jordan–Chevalley decomposition of linear algebraic groups. It follows that any definable linear group is a semidirect product of its maximal normal definable torsion-free sub-group N(G) and a definable subgroup , unique up to conjugacy, definably isomorphic to a semialgebraic group. Along the way, we establish two other fundamental decompositions of classical groups in arbitrary o-minimal structures: (1) a Levi decomposition and (2) a key decomposition of disconnected groups, relying on a generalization of Frattini’s argument to the o-minimal setting. In o-minimal structures, together with -groups,0-groups play a crucial role. We give a characterization of both classes and show that definable -groups are solvable, like finite -groups, but they are not necessarily nilpotent. Furthermore, we prove that definable -groups ( = 0 or prime) are definably generated by torsion elements and, in definably connected groups, 0-Sylow subgroups coincide with -Sylow subgroups foreach primefals
Natural genetic adaptation allows flexible reproductive behaviour: the case of wild carrot (Daucus carota L. subsp. carota) vs cultivated carrot (Daucus carota L. subsp. sativus)
No full textfals
The Host Adaptation of Staphylococcus aureus to Farmed Ruminants in New Zealand, With Special Reference to Clonal Complex 1
Get PDFGenetic features of host adaptation of S. aureus to ruminants have been extensively studied, but the extent to which this adaptation occurs in nature remains unknown. In New Zealand, clonal complex 1 (CC1) is among the most common lineages in humans and the dominant lineage in cattle, enabling between-, and within-CC genomic comparisons of epidemiologically cohesive samples of isolates. We assessed the following genomic benchmarks of host adaptation to ruminants in 277 S. aureus from cattle, small ruminants, humans, and pets: 1, phylogenetic clustering of ruminant strains; 2, abundance of homo-specific ruminant-adaptive factors, and 3, scarcity of heterospecific factors. The genomic comparisons were complemented by comparative analyses of the metabolism of carbon sources that abound in ruminant milk. We identified features fulfilling the three benchmarks in virtually all ruminant isolates, including CC1. Data suggest the virulomes adapt to the ruminant niche sensu lato accross CCs. CC1 forms a ruminant-adapted clade that appears better equipped to utilise milk carbon sources than human CC1. Strain flow across the human–ruminant interface appears to only occur occasionally. Taken together, the results suggest a specialisation, rather than mere adaptation, clarifying why zoonotic and zoo-anthroponotic S. aureus transmission between ruminants and humans has hardly ever been reported.fals