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Global beta-diversity of angiosperm trees is shaped by Quaternary climate change
Get PDFAs Earth's climate has varied strongly through geological time, studying the impacts of past climate change on biodiversity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. However, it remains unclear how paleoclimate shapes spatial variation in biodiversity. Here, we assessed the influence of Quaternary climate change on spatial dissimilarity in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional composition among neighboring 200-kilometer cells (beta-diversity) for angiosperm trees worldwide. We found that larger glacial-interglacial temperature change was strongly associated with lower spatial turnover (species replacements) and higher nestedness (richness changes) components of beta-diversity across all three biodiversity facets. Moreover, phylogenetic and functional turnover was lower and nestedness higher than random expectations based on taxonomic beta-diversity in regions that experienced large temperature change, reflecting phylogenetically and functionally selective processes in species replacement, extinction, and colonization during glacial-interglacial oscillations. Our results suggest that future human-driven climate change could cause local homogenization and reduction in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity of angiosperm trees worldwide
How school culture affects teachers’ classroom implementation of learning from professional development
Get PDFA core element of almost all educational improvement efforts is an intention to improve teacher practice in order to enhance student- and system-level outcomes. To this end, a range of strategies are deployed to facilitate teacher professional learning and development, with great investments of time, financial, and human resources. However, the environments in which teachers learn and their impact on teachers’ implementation of new learning remain underexamined. By considering how the psychosocial learning environments present in schools affect the teacher development process, there is scope to enhance the impacts of professional development. This study explored how aspects of school climate and culture (that is, the learning environments that teachers experience) affect teachers’ classroom implementation of their professional learning. Qualitative data were gathered from 36 teachers in New Zealand through focus groups and analysed via reflexive thematic analysis following a latent inductive approach. Five areas of school climate and culture were identified that, according to the teachers, affected their implementation of new professional learning. These areas were: leadership engagement/actions; the change environment; relationships; beliefs and attitudes related to TPLD; and all being on the same page. Understanding the roles these five areas play provides insights into how school leaders and policymakers can seek to shape the learning environments that surround teachers’ daily classroom practice in order to facilitate learning and improvement for all
Deposit characteristics and dynamic processes of large volume pyroclastic density currents of the Taupo Volcanic Zone approaching and entering the sea
Get PDFPyroclastic density currents (PDCs) entering the sea are a rare but dynamic phenomenon that cause significant change to the topography and bathymetry of coastal and island arc settings. Very little is known about their complex behaviour and depositional processes, as observation of such an event is uncommon and conducting experiments that simulate PDCs is challenging. A better understanding of this phenomena can aid in future volcanic monitoring and hazard management around coastal and oceanic settings.
This study combines both field observations and laboratory experiments of PDCs entering the sea. Case studies around North Island, New Zealand of pre-historic pyroclastic deposits found near the coast focused on, the Rotoiti Ignimbrite that originated from the Okataina Volcanic Centre (Pacific Coast Highway between Matata and Maketu; Mimiha Road near Matata), and the Ongatiti Ignimbrite (Glenbrook Beach, Waiuku; Kihi Road, inland of Kawhia Harbour) from the Mangakino Volcanic Centre. At each location, field observations were recorded, and samples collected, followed by grainsize and texture analysis in the laboratory (scanning electron microscopy, laser diffraction particle size analysis, dry sieving). Laboratory experiments that simulated small-scale PDCs generated by a column collapse mechanism and a dam-break mechanism into a flume were conducted.
The Ongatiti Ignimbrite at Glenbrook Beach presented flow-water interaction features through soft sediment deformations such as dewatering structures, flame structures, and thin beds of convoluted laminae. The Rotoiti Ignimbrite at Mimiha Road showed distinctive crossbedding. Both examples highlighted PDC processes after entry into the water. The Rotoiti and Ongatiti ignimbrites along the Pacific Coast Highway and Kihi Road, respectively presented typical subaerial ignimbrites that had travelled long distance overland and were still undergoing significant deposition near the coastline. The flume experiment demonstrated that PDCs segregate into two parts when entering the water, (1) a dilute overflow cloud, and (2) a dense underwater current. The entrance of pyroclastic ash material into water also generated a wave. Underwater obstructions will affect a submergent current by significantly decreasing its height and runout distance
Vegetation studies in the Taranaki land district, New Zealand
Get PDFSampling of the indigenous vegetation of the Taranaki Land District was carried out to describe and explain significant features of vegetational change along environmental gradients. Five major locations were sampled; the three volcanic mountains of Egmont National Park (Egmont, Pouakai and Kaitake), the associated volcanic ring plain and the Taranaki Upland. The sampling which was mainly along altitudinal and moisture gradients involved the collection of both quantitative and semi-quantitative plot data.
Direct and indirect gradient analyses were then carried out on the data; the techniques employed included graphing, ordination and classification. Analysis enabled the definition of the main vegetation types at each of the sampling locations and of the important environmental factors associated with the vegetation pattern.
Comparison of the results obtained at each of the sampling locations revealed differences in the structure and composition of the vegetation and in the pattern of vegetational change along the gradients. The three volcanic mountains within Egmont National Park show differences in the vegetation consistent with the sequence of volcanic activity (the Taranaki Volcanic Succession). Sectors of Mt Egmont exhibit differences which relate closely to the pattern of recent eruptions particularly the Burrell eruption of 1655 A.D. The vegetation at equivalent altitudes on Pouakai, an older more eroded volcanic remnant, is at a more advanced stage of development. A complex pattern of species (woody species and tree ferns) distribution on the three mountains (Egmont, Pouakai and Kaitake) is outlined and attributed in some instances to the changing availability of habitats on each mountain. This is associated with the sequence of mountain building, erosion and dissection. The vegetation pattern of the Taranaki Upland by contrast more closely reflects the pattern of topography and substrate and the forests are richer in vascular species. Analysis of the distribution of species (woody species and tree ferns) shows that inland Taranaki was the probable source for almost all of the species found in the forests of Egmont National Park.
Comparisons of the pattern of vegetational change along altitudinal gradients of the mountains of Egmont National Park and some other southern hemisphere mountains reveal certain similarities. With respect to other North Island (New Zealand) volcanic mountains examined the similarities are marked. Like Mt Egmont, Pouakai and Kaitake these mountains all support podocarp-broadleaved forests from which the beech species (Nothofagus spp.) are absent. The forests of Egmont National Park are interpreted as illustrating stages of a landscape and vegetation succession apparent on volcanic mountains throughout the North Island. Features which characterise the present stage of development of the forests of Mt Egmont include the overwhelming dominance of kamahi (Weinmannia racemosa var. racemose), the absence of forest tree species such as quintinia (Quintinia serrata) and the relatively low altitude tree-line
Can we be friends with AI? What risks would arise from the proliferation of such friendships?
Get PDFThere is no good in-principle reason to oppose the development of human-AI friendships or to hold a moral responsibility to discourage such relationships
Towards a Theory of 'Appropriate Fandom'
Get PDFAs fandom and fan practices become more broadly recognized within popular culture, tensions and conflicts arise between different understandings of the 'appropriate' way to perform fandom. Different groups have different unspoken understandings of what constitutes the 'right' and the 'wrong' way to be a fan, to behave as a fan. These understandings may differ within a fandom, between different fandoms, between fans and the media industries, and between fans and the broader public.
This article sketches a framework for how we might understand differing conceptions of 'appropriate' and 'inappropriate' fandom, explores the drivers behind these understandings, and highlights how different participants and stakeholders work to bring fans within their own conceptions of 'appropriate' fandom. The article outlines four modes or directions of 'appropriate' fandom and provides a detailed analysis of how top-down 'appropriate' fandom is evidenced within the television industry, using a case study of the US competition reality television series Survivor
David Bowie and the Art of Music Video
Get PDFThe first in-depth study of David Bowie's music videos across a sustained period takes on interweaving storyworlds of an iconic career. Remarkable for their capacity to conjure elaborate imagery, Bowie's videos provide fascinating exemplars of the artistry and remediation of music video. When their construction is examined across several years, they appear as time-travelling vessels, transporting kooky characters and strange story-world components across time and space. By charting Bowie's creative and collaborative process across five distinct phases, David Bowie and the Art of Music Video shows how he played a vital role in establishing music video as an artform. Filling a gap in the existing literature, this book shines a light on the significant contributions of directors such as Mick Rock, Stanley Dorfman and David Mallet, each of whom taught Bowie much about how to use the form. By examining Bowie's collaborative process, his use of surrealist strategies and his integration of avant-garde art with popular music and media, the book provides a history of music video in relation to the broader fields of audiovisual media, visual music and art
Habitat of grace : biology, religion and the global environmental crisis
Get PDFThe Fifth Mission Statement urges the Anglican Church to be, or become, involved in the world-wide effort by all thinking people, of any faith or none, to find workable ways to alleviate the global environmental crisis. As it stands, however, the Statement is an incompatible mixture of contemporary scientific and religious environmental concern set against a Biblical background that had no such concern. Therefore, public exhortations based on the Fifth Mission Statement taken at face value are unlikely to succeed, especially if addressed to secular audiences.
The environmental crisis is a moral issue, because it concerns the process of reaching communal decisions about the allocation between competing groups of common resources in short supply, such as finance for conservation, access to forests, fisheries, clean water, clean air, etc. The relevant context for understanding the moral dimensions of environmental protection must include contemporary biological and philosophical knowledge, because we need to understand what decisions are required, and the origin and nature of the ethical context of those decisions, as well as the reasons why so many people ignore the interests of the environment on which we all depend.
In this thesis I have explored some ways in which the insights of secular science can be incorporated into the Fifth Mission Statement, which will help Christians make a constructive contribution to the secular debate. From economics we can learn why the current free-market model is so subversive and why management of environmental common goods is so difficult; from game theory, why the personal restraint for which green activists plead is often not rational, except within the context of stable community life; from primatology, what are the evolutionary and social bases of morality and intelligence; from anthropology, how the combination of intelligence and socially-mediated morality as a conditional strategy has coaxed our primate and tribal human ancestors over time from rampant xenophobia through cautious trading of goods and ideas through to the philosophical analysis of true human ethics. The biological account of the origin and general operation of morality is very different from the theological and philosophical one, but is backed by a large and growing body of empirical evidence. It must be considered by any moral exhortation intended, like the Fifth Mission Statement, to be credible to non-Christians. The Christian understanding of true altruism (charity) remains a matter that goes beyond biology and into the realms of grace.
An updated Christian theology of creation, and further development of the Fifth Mission Statement along these lines, will arm the Church to play a leading role in the environmental debate. Christian theologians should be among the very first to respond to E.O.Wilson's call for consilience between all branches of learning (Wilson 1998), since the unity of all knowledge is an ancient belief of the Church. Rational, passionate and updated Christianity could make a real contribution to developing some solution to the environmental crisis, to the extent that any solution is possible: otherwise, it will remain, as in the past, part of the problem
Exploring Māori and non-Māori mental health nurses' perceptions of Te Whare Tapa Whā: A mixed methods study looking at Māori and non-Māori mental health nurses' perceptions of Te Whare Tapa Whā within the Waikato region
Get PDFBackground: Te Whare Tapa Whā is a well-recognised Māori model of health and wellbeing which is embraced within the health system in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Although it can be applied in different specialties, the impacts generated from this model were first noticed in mental health, as this model was created by Mason Durie who is a psychiatrist. Research has shown this model provided an opportunity for Māori to have a voice in their health.
Objective: This study aims were to explore mental health nurses’ perceptions of the Māori Health model, Te Whare Tapa Whā, and how their beliefs and values may impact them implementing this model into their care.
Methods: A mixed methods approach was utilised for this study. Phase one was about gathering quantitative data, collecting statistical data through surveys. The first phase helped with the formulate interview schedule, which was the beginning of the next phase. Phase two was semi structured interviews which helped with the gathering of qualitative data. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis.
Participants: Mental health nurses within the Waikato region were the participants for this research study. A survey was distributed to mental health nurses in the Waikato area and 53 responded. After the survey, semi structured one on one interviews were conducted with the researcher. Total of 8 interviews; (n = 6) Māori mental health nurses and (n = 2) Non-Māori mental health nurses.
Results: The survey showed that more than half the nurses had a positive perspective on Te Whare Tapa Whā and felt it was good for nursing care. They were able to identify barriers to implementation. There were mixed responses on feeling supported to use Te Whare Tapa Whā in the workplace. Four over-arching themes were identified from the interviews . These were; Māori, clinical practice, organisation level and individual factors.
Conclusion: Overall, all mental health nurses had a positive perception of Te Whare Tapa Whā and the impacts it can have on nursing care. Most identified barriers which can impact whether they can actually use it in practice. Māori and non-Māori nurses had different depths of knowledge, cultural worldviews and clinical practice experiences, creating complexities with implementation. These beliefs, perceptions and experiences were highlighted in this study
Row-column factorial designs and mutually orthogonal frequency rectangles
Get PDFA (full) qᵏ factorial design with replication λ is the multi-set containing all possible q-ary sequences of length k, each occurring exactly λ times. An m × n row-column factorial design is any arrangement of λ replicates of the qᵏ factorial design in an m × n array. We say that the design has strength t if each row and column is an orthogonal array of strength t. We denote such a design by Iₖ (m,n,q,t).
A frequency rectangle of type FR(m,n;q) is an m × n array based on a symbol set S of size q, such that each element of S appears exactly n/q times in each row and m/q times in each column. Two frequency rectangles of the same type are said to be orthogonal if each possible pair of symbols appears the same number of times when the two arrays are superimposed. By k–MOFR(m,n;q) we mean a set of k frequency rectangles of type FR(m,n;q) in which every pair is orthogonal.
In Chapter 4, we give the necessary and sufficient conditions when a row-column factorial design of strength 1 exists. We show that an array of type Iₖ (m,n,q,1) exists if and only if (a) q|m, q|n and qᵏ|mn; (b) (k,q,m,n) ≠ (2,6,6,6) and (c) if (k,q,m) = (2,2,2) then 4 divides n. In Chapter 5, we discuss designs of strength 2 and above. We solve the case completely when t = 2 and q is a prime power: we show that there exists an array of type Iₖ(qᴹ,qᴺ,q,2) if and only if k ≤ M + N, k ≤ (qᴹ - 1)/(q - 1) and (k,M,q) ≠ (3,2,2). We also show that Iₖ+α(2αb,2ᵏ,2,2) exists whenever α ≥ 2 and 2α + α + 1 ≤ k < 2αb - α, assuming there exists a Hadamard matrix of order 4b. For strength 3 we restrict ourselves to the binary case, solving it completely when q is a power of 2.
In Chapter 6, our focus is on mutually orthogonal frequency rectangles (MOFR). We use orthogonal arrays and Hadamard matrices to construct sets of MOFR. We also describe a new form of orthogonality for a set of frequency rectangles. We say that a k–MOFR(m,n;q) is t–orthogonal if each subset of size t, when superimposed, forms a qᵗ factorial design with replication mn/qᵗ. A set of vectors over a finite field is said to be t-independent if each subset of size t is linearly independent. We describe a relationship between a set of t–orthogonal MOFR and a set of t-independent vectors. We use known results from coding theory and related literature to formulate a table for the size of a set of t-independent vectors of length N ≤ 16, over F₂. We also describe a method to construct a set of (p - 1)–MOFR(2p,2p;2) where p is an odd prime, improving known lower bounds for all p ≥ 19