Making Asian students,making students Asian: The racialisation of export education in Auckland,New Zealand

Abstract: In recent years, international education has become a source of considerable political, academic and media debate in New Zealand. This is nowhere more the case than with regards to Auckland, the New Zealand city that has hosted the greatest number of international students. This paper focuses on the media debates around international students in Auckland with particular emphasis on the representations of the largest group of international students, those who originate from countries within the North‐East Asian region. The media representations of these students have fixed a diverse group of individuals within a singular racial identity that is known by stereotypical economic, cultural and social characteristics. As a result, these representations have further problematised the interaction between international students and the host population in Auckland while simultaneously implicating a cohort of young New Zealand citizens and permanent residents who are of similar descent within the same discourses. This process of othering the Asian student, regardless of citizenship, has consequences not simply for the practice of exporting education in this city but also for the future of a multicultural Auckland and New Zealand.     

Loss of IGF2 imprinting: a potential marker of colorectal cancer risk

Loss of imprinting (LOI), an epigenetic alteration affecting the insulin-like growth factor II gene (IGF2), is found in normal colonic mucosa of about 30% of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, but it is found in only 10% of healthy individuals. In a pilot study to investigate the utility of LOI as a marker of CRC risk, we evaluated 172 patients at a colonoscopy clinic. The adjusted odds ratio for LOI in lymphocytes was 5.15 for patients with a positive family history [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.70 to 16.96; probability P = 0.002], 3.46 for patients with adenomas (95% CI, 1.14 to 11.37; P = 0.026), and 21.7 for patients with CRC (95% CI, 3.48 to 153.6; P = 0.0005). LOI can be assayed with a DNA-based blood test, and it may be a valuable predictive marker of an individual's risk for CRC.     

Target and non-target site mechanisms of fungicide resistance and their implications for the management of crop pathogens

Fungicides are indispensable for high-quality crops, but the rapid emergence and evolution of fungicide resistance have become the most important issues in modern agriculture. Hence, the sustainability and profitability of agricultural production have been challenged due to the limited number of fungicide chemical classes. Resistance to site-specific fungicides has principally been linked to target and non-target site mechanisms. These mechanisms change the structure or expression level, affecting fungicide efficacy and resulting in different and varying resistance levels. This review provides background information about fungicide resistance mechanisms and their implications for developing anti-resistance strategies in plant pathogens. Here, our purpose was to review changes at the target and non-target sites of quinone outside inhibitor (QoI) fungicides, methyl-benzimidazole carbamate (MBC) fungicides, demethylation inhibitor (DMI) fungicides, and succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI) fungicides and to evaluate if they may also be associated with a fitness cost on crop pathogen populations. The current knowledge suggests that understanding fungicide resistance mechanisms can facilitate resistance monitoring and assist in developing anti-resistance strategies and new fungicide molecules to help solve this issue. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.     

Impacts of chronic marine oil pollution and the murre hunt in Newfoundland on thick-billed murre Uria lomvia populations in the eastern Canadian Arctic

We developed a deterministic and stochastic age-based matrix projection population model to assess and quantify the impact of mortality caused by chronic oil pollution and legal hunting on thick-billed murre Uria lomvia populations breeding and wintering in eastern Canada. We calculate the potential population growth rate in the absence of anthropogenic mortality sources using a modeling technique that translates absolute number of birds killed from anthropogenic mortality to potential survival rates in the absence of these anthropogenic impacts. The intrinsic growth rate of the deterministic matrix based on vital rates from Coats Island (λ_d=1.0102), as well as the stochastic growth rate (λ_s=1.0098, 95% C.I. 0.9969-1.0226), matched observed population trends. Hunting mortality reduced population growth rate by 0.020 (0.012-0.039), oiling mortality reduced population growth rate by 0.025 (0.012-0.039). Combined these sources reduced the population growth rate by 0.047 (0.033-0.610). Although thick-billed murre populations are stable or slowly growing in eastern Canada, anthropogenic sources of mortality are reducing the ability of the population to grow, and increase vulnerability in these populations to changes in their environment and other pulse perturbations. Our modeling technique could be used to assess specific anthropogenic impacts on populations where a vital rates and numbers killed are known, but no long-term trend information is available.     

Morphological and hydraulic properties of a silt loam soil in New Zealand as affected by cropping history

Abstract. A rotation trial of four years' pasture followed by two years' arable was used to study the effect of cropping on the morphological and hydraulic properties of soil. An adjacent paddock in grass for the past 35 years was included as a permanent pasture reference. Initial infiltration and field saturated hydraulic conductivity ( K _fs) were least for cultivated soil and increased with increasing time under pasture. This could be explained by the contrasting porosities of resin-impregnated blocks of undisturbed soil which had been infiltrated with methylene blue dye. Small K _fs values for cultivated soil resulted mainly from a thin surface crust, although pore discontinuity at the depth of the cultivation pan (130 mm) could also have contributed. Greater K _fs values under short-term pasture resulted primarily from water flowing through biogenic pores connected to the surface. The greatest K _fs values were in soil that had been under pasture for 35 years (P35). This was attributed to flow through biogenic pores and fissures associated with the strongly-developed subangular blocky structure. The amount of water that infiltrated the two- and four-year pasture soils (P2 and P4) under ponding was 2.5 and 5 times greater, respectively, than the soil that had been cultivated for two years (C2).
As irrigation duration cannot be varied under the border-dyking system used on the Canterbury Plains, the interval between irrigations must be varied if the same total amount of water is to be applied to each of these soils through the season. The interval should be less for the cultivated soil than for those under pasture, and should increase with increasing time under pasture (i.e. P35 > P4 > P2 > C2).     

Impact of successive drought and re-watering cycles on growth and specific leaf area of two Populus x canadensis (Moench) clones, 'Dorskamp' and 'Luisa_Avanzo'

Responses to successive drought and re-watering cycles (1-3 cycles) were compared in greenhouse-grown cuttings of Populus x canadensis (Moench) clones, 'Luisa_ Avanzo' and 'Dorskamp.' Total leaf number increment rate, duration of leaf expansion, total and individual leaf area expansion rates and stomatal conductance were recorded periodically during the experiment. Soil water content (SWC) and predawn leaf water potential (Psi(WP)) were measured four times during each drought cycle. In parallel, relative leaf water content (RWC) and specific leaf area (SLA) were estimated on leaves collected from the top to bottom of each cutting. Under well-watered conditions, 'Luisa_Avanzo' and 'Dorskamp' differed in their patterns of leaf area expansion. Although duration of leaf expansion was similar between clones, 'Luisa_ Avanzo' exhibited higher total leaf number increment rates and individual leaf area increases than 'Dorskamp.' As a result, 'Luisa_Avanzo' cuttings reached larger individual and total leaf areas than 'Dorskamp.' 'Dorskamp' leaves had lower SLA than 'Luisa_Avanzo' leaves. In response to successive drought cycles, both clones underwent decreases in total leaf number increment rates and in total leaf area expansion rates, but both whole-plant and individual leaf areas were drastically reduced only in 'Luisa_Avanzo.' 'Dorskamp' maintained a constant leaf area as a result of an increase in the duration of leaf expansion during drought and a significant stimulation of individual leaf area expansion rate and total leaf number increment rate in response to re-watering. Drought caused a greater decrease in SLA in 'Luisa_Avanzo' than in 'Dorskamp.' Expanded leaves of 'Dorskamp' were constitutively dense or thick, or both, whereas leaves of 'Luisa_Avanzo' became dense or thick, or both, only in response to drought. In both clones, re-watering caused partial recovery of SLA to control values. Our data confirm previous field and greenhouse observations that 'Dorskamp' is more tolerant to successive drought and re-watering cycles than 'Luisa_Avanzo.' We conclude that this difference is mainly attributable to the plasticity of 'Dorskamp' after re-watering, rather than to clonal differences in drought responses.     

Differential responses of Bolivian timber species to prescribed fire and other gap treatments

We followed the establishment and growth response of 13 commercial tree species to canopy opening, above-ground biomass removal, and experimental burns of low and high intensities in a lowland dry forest in Bolivia. Three patterns of response to treatments were observed among the most abundant commercial tree species. (1) Shade-intolerant species regenerated mostly from seed and had the highest survival and growth rates following high-intensity burns. (2) Shade-tolerant species were abundant in gap control and plant removal treatments. Treatments had little effect on the height growth of these species. (3) Individuals of root sprouting species were most abundant following plant removal and low-intensity burn treatments. Treatments had little effect on the height growth of these species. The wide variation in species responses to gap treatments found in this study not only reinforces the concept that species are distributed along a continuum of shade-tolerance levels, but that other aspects of species biology, such as seed dispersal type or sprouting behavior, further differentiate regeneration strategies. The variety of regeneration strategies found among the species at this forest site will require a flexible management scheme that mixes more intensive silvicultural treatments such as prescribed burning with less intensive treatments.     

Cost minimization through the use of taungya system in pulpwood plantation establishment

The costs and benefits of the use of three labour alternatives: direct permanent, direct casual and taungya labour in Gmelina arborea pulpwood plantation establishment in Nigeria were investigated. Results show that cost per hectare is lowest with taungya labour and highest with permanent labour with savings in cost of as much as 30% and 47% by taungya labour over casual and permanent labour respectively. The net present value per hectare of investment is highest when taungya labour is used and lowest and negative with permanent labour. Also, the internal rate of return of investment is highest with taungya labour and lowest with permanent labour. The net present values and internal rates of return for Gmelina plantations calculated for the three pulp and paper mills in Nigeria show the same trend in favour of taungya labour.     

Loss of genetic diversity due to fishing pressure

Loss of genetic diversity in the orange roughy, Hoplostethus atlanticus, caught off New Zealand, was measured by gel electrophoresis of nine polymorphic enzyme loci. There has been a significant reduction in genetic diversity on three spawning sites over the past 6 years, during which time the virgin biomass has been reduced by 70%. It is suggested that fishing activities which concentrate on spawning populations differentially remove the older and more heterozygous individuals from the virgin stock. Commercial fishing activities may have had significant genetic effects on fish stocks without reducing them to near-extinction levels.