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Running demands of provincial women's rugby union matches in New Zealand
No full textThere has been rapid growth in participation in women’s rugby but there is minimal research on the sport. The aim of this study was to increase our knowledge of the running demands of high-level female players in the New Zealand Provincial Rugby Competition. Players (n = 20) wore 10-Hz Global Positioning System units during 7 matches to measure total distance covered, all running distance (≥6.4 km·h¯¹), high-intensity (HI) running (≥16.1km.h¯¹), meters per minute (m·min¯¹), and maximum speed (km·h¯¹). Mean ± SD were calculated for forwards and backs. Forwards and backs covered a similar total distance (5,616 ± 809 m and 5,852 ± 1,022 m, respectively) and running distance(3,181 ± 583 m and 3,095 ± 805 m, respectively). However, when separated into specific playing positions, the half back recorded significantly higher running distances (4,292 ± 171 m), greater HI running distances (1,003 ± 58 m), and more distance overall (6,812 ± 277 m) than other positions (p ≤ 0.05). By contrast, outside backs did less running (2,456 ± 114 m) than other positions (p ≤ 0.05), and had the lowest distance for HI running (528 ± 39 m) in the backs. Running demands were similar for forwards and backs; however, within positions there was considerable variation, and the lower running measurements for outside backs maybe unique to women’s rugby. Due to these findings and possible different tactical approaches, the development of training and speed zone bands specific to female players is advised because male research findings may lack transferability to women’s rugby
Evaluation of organic, food-grade hydrophobic coatings for suppressing oviposition and increasing mortality of western cherry fruit fly (Diptera: Tephritidae)
No full textNewer organic options for protecting fruit from tephritid fruit fly attack are needed to reduce extensive insecticide use. Here, we evaluated organic, food-grade hydrophobic coatings that help protect sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) from water-induced cracking for suppressing attack on cherries by western cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis indifferens Curran (Diptera: Tephtitidae), as well as for their effects on fly mortality. Three formulations of coatings called HydroShield 13.20, 13.22, and 13.28 that form invisible elastic barriers on cherries and that consist of complex carbohydrates, fatty acids and occlusive agents, solvents, emulsifiers, emollients, surfactants, and other ingredients were tested. In the laboratory, fly visits on and oviposition in HydroShield-coated cherries were 66.1–92.8% and 59.1–99.5% lower, respectively, than in controls. The mean number of dead female flies exposed to HydroShield-coated cherries was 69.4–94.6% greater than of females exposed to control cherries. In the field, three sprays of HydroShield 13.22 and 13.20 on sweet cherry trees in 2020, when fly densities were high, reduced larval infestations in cherries by 32.1% and 31.8%, respectively. In the field in 2021, when fly densities were lower, three sprays of HydroShield 13.22 and 13.28 reduced infestations in cherries by 90.5% and 86.8%, respectively, but sprays also reduced cherry size and toughened cherries. HydroShield formulations show promise in protecting sweet cherry from attack by R. indifferens, but further testing is needed to improve formulations so that they suppress fly oviposition without affecting cherry quality
Tourist experience, satisfaction, and behavioural intention during COVID-19 outbreak a lesson from Indonesian creative tourist attractions
No full textThis study explores tourist experience, satisfaction, and behavioral intention in the COVID-19 outbreak with technology, innovation, and health risk as the antecedents within the creative tourism industry. This study used data from 455 respondents (tourists) from various tourism destinations in the greater Bandung, Indonesia. Employing Partial Least Square to analyze the data reveals that technology, innovation, and experience quality are essential to drive tourist satisfaction. This study notes that perceived health risks are an insignificant factor for experience quality and tourist satisfaction; however, it identifies satisfaction as an interceding factor on the effect of technology, innovation, and experience quality on behavioral intention
Tourist resilience to natural hazards in conservation areas of New Zealand
No full textNew Zealand’s public conservation lands and waters– including its 13 national parks and other protected natural resource areas – represent a complex social-ecological system, involving interplay between people and places. Many parks and protected areas are dynamic biophysical environments with multiple, naturally occurring hazards, but they are also highly valued as settings for outdoor recreation and tourism. This intersection between recreational use and natural hazard potential raises an important research question, as well as a management challenge: To what extent are visitors to these conservation areas aware of and appropriately prepared for the hazards they may encounter? This study adopts a resilience lens to interpret data collected via a nation-wide online survey of outdoor recreationists’ preparedness for, and responses to natural hazards in New Zealand’s conservation areas. Implications for increasing the resilience of tourists and the broader tourism social-ecological system are discussed
United Kingdom lamb consumer consumption behaviours and product preferences: A Latent Class Analysis (2020)
Get PDFThis study is part of a research programme entitled Unlocking Export Prosperity from the Agri-food Values of Aotearoa New Zealand. It is funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Endeavour Fund for science research programmes.
The research aims to provide new knowledge on how local enterprises can achieve higher returns by ensuring global consumers understand the distinctive qualities of the physical, credence and cultural attributes of agri-food products that are “Made in New Zealand”.
Agricultural exports are an important contributor to the New Zealand (NZ) economy and the United Kingdom (UK) is established as an important lamb product destination. It is critically important for NZ exporters to understand export markets and the different cultures and preferences of those consumers to safeguard market access, and for realising potential premiums.
This report describes the results of a survey of UK lamb leg consumers that was designed to assess consumption behaviour and consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for credence attributes. While search attributes such as price or colour can be observed directly, and experience attributes such as flavour or texture can be assessed when consumed, credence attributes such as environmental sustainability cannot be immediately seen or experienced at the point of sale. For products promoting credence attributes, the role of verification, including labelling is of significant importance.
Our approach is to apply a Choice Experiment economic valuation method, analysed using a statistical approach called Latent Class Modelling that describes profiles for different consumer segments identified in the data and provides estimates of attribute WTP across these segments
Carbon footprint of residential building construction in Christchurch
No full textConstruction projects ranging from small residential to commercial buildings produce significant proportion of carbon emissions in New Zealand. Christchurch is growing with an increasing rate with a large number of residential building construction projects currently in progress or being planned. In this research, the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy analysis of some typical residential houses built recently in Christchurch will be investigated. A life cycle assessment (LCA) will be carried out, taking into account the supply of construction materials as well as the construction activities. The life cycle GHG emissions and embodied energy of the case study buildings will be calculated. The project is currently in the early stages and this paper presents briefly the preliminary works undertaken so far and the anticipated results. It is expected the project will provide results on the GHG emissions and embodied energy associated with the construction of typical residential buildings in Christchurch where the critical stages in the construction process of the buildings that
cause the major GHG emissions are identified and discussed
VR as a picturing medium
No full textIn the previous chapter I framed the investigation of VR historically, in terms of previous attempts by artists to remediate the experience of space, particularly through the pictorial technique of linear perspective. VR has several technical advantages over the linear perspective associated with Alberti and Brunelleschi, including its animation of objects and spaces, the dynamism of the viewer’s perspective on those spaces, the binocularity of their visual perspective, and indeed different perceptual modalities—hearing, touch, proprioception—which all add to the realistic spatial impression we associate with VR. Via the visual techniques alone, VR media make what seems to be a novel contribution to experiential remediation: in VR, the user takes an apparent position within depictive space, in that the virtual perspective constitutes a spatial anchor or index, or a pictorial “here.” Thus, suddenly, the notion of something being pictorially to your left or to your right, or behind or before you makes sense. This differs profoundly from earlier cases of depiction, where the user’s placement and perceptual orientation are not embodied in the spatial configuration of the depictive surface. What results, I suggest, is a kind of egocentric picturing
Vineyard management to improve fruit quality
Get PDFPurpose/Aim
Understanding the influence of vineyard management on the developmental cycle of the grapevine is central to reaching a desired fruit quality. Too often than not, we focus on measuring harvest composition without a true in–depth understanding of how we get there. However, changes in composition over time are key to deepen our understanding of how management can improve fruit quality. We also have the added challenge of understanding how we can manipulate fruit quality through space and time. Seasonal differences and vineyard variability provide the foundations on which we can apply vineyard management strategies to improve fruit quality. This research explores how we can manipulate the source-sink balance of the grapevine via vineyard management to modify target berry composition in a cool climate environment.
Methodology
A range of different research trials are summarized which have considered the impact of source-sink manipulations on berry composition. These trials focus on relating these changes back to vine development and examining the consequences in the context of changing vineyard management, climate change and vineyard variability.
Results
Altering the source-sink ratio by different means, at different times and to different degrees via management techniques can result in a range of outcomes for quality. For example, removing leaves early in the season (bunch closure) has been shown to have a greater effect on delaying development than removing crop, although the interplay of these two techniques becomes confounded if they are applied at veraison. Furthermore, laterals which are considered sinks early in the season have an overall predominant contribution as sources, as they play an important role in driving berry composition during the ripening period. Through phenology modelling we can evaluate the delays and advances in development achieved by these canopy manipulations. Finally, we often investigate the impact of vineyard management to improve fruit quality in the context of average block values. When we consider individual vines in the vineyard, we can explore the variability in response to vineyard management, such as canopy manipulations or pruning.
Conclusions
Source-sink manipulations provide the viticulturist with a range of options to manipulate target berry composition and ultimately berry quality. However, the impact of site variability on the uniformity of composition also needs to be considered. Future work should consider the variation in response and its consequences on understanding the true impact of viticulture management practices to improve quality
Metagenomic insights to the functional potential of sediment microbial communities in freshwater lakes
No full textMolecular-based techniques offer considerable potential to provide new insights into the impact of anthropogenic stressors on lake ecosystems. Microbial communities are involved in many geochemical cycling processes in lakes and a greater understanding of their functions could assist in guiding more targeted remedial actions. Recent advances in metagenomics now make it possible to determine the functional potential of entire microbial communities. The present study investigated microbial communities and their functional potential in surface sediments collected from three lakes with differing trophic states and characteristics. Surface sediments were analysed for their nutrient and elemental contents and metagenomics and metabarcoding analysis undertaken. The nutrients content of the surface sediments did not show as distinct a gradient as water chemistry monitoring data, likely reflecting effects of other lake characteristics, in particular, depth. Metabarcoding and metagenomics revealed differing bacterial community composition and functional potential amongst lakes. Amongst the differentially abundant metabolic pathways, the most prominent were clusters in the energy and xenobiotics pathways. Differences in the energy metabolism paths of photosynthesis and oxidative phosphorylation were observed. These were most likely related to changes in the community composition and especially the presence of cyanobacteria in two of the three lakes. Xenobiotic pathways, such as those involving polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, were highest in the lakes with the greatest agricultural land-use in their catchment. These results highlight how microbial metagenomics can be used to gain insights into the causes of differences in trophic status amongst lakes
Ocular therapies for neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses: More than meets the eye
Get PDFThe neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCLs), also known as Batten disease, are a group of inherited, neurodegenerative, lysosomal storage diseases typically manifesting in childhood. There are currently 13 known forms of NCL resulting from various mutations in the CLN (ceroid lipofuscinoses neuronal) genes (CLN1-8 and CLN10-14). Although varying in onset and severity, the NCLs share several phenotypic features including seizures, motor dysfunction, cognitive decline, and progressive loss of vision (Mole et al., 2011). Current treatment strategies being investigated in pre-clinical studies and early stage clinical trials primarily target the brain and spinal cord. While these potential therapeutics show promise in attenuating neurological disease, protection against retinal dysfunction and degeneration is generally ineffective or not reported