Speculations from 1850: being some thoughts on Rangiātea and the House of Tāmihana Te Rauparaha

In March, 1852, the Wellington Independent reported its satisfaction at the sight of a drawing of the interior of Otaki Church, by Mr. C. D. Barraud. It declared the drawing a faithful representation of the church and its congregation that had been executed with "that taste and excellence we are led to expect from the pencil of so able an artist" ('[Untitled]" p 3). It concluded that the print would soon to be published - "in colours" – as it would make a beautiful, interesting and "novel" picture. This claim was added to a few days later in the New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian. Without irony they described the theologically themed depiction as being "spirited" as well as graphic. They go on to claim the "Native Church at Otaki" as one of the "lions" of the "settlement". Yet, for all that initial eagerness, Rangiātea would not go on to become a popular destination, and it has remained largely a picture of architecture. Indeed, even scholarly interest in it as an object of architecture does not appear in depth until the doctoral research of Sarah Treadwell, in the 1990s, who located the architectural significance of Rangiātea in a dialogue with the spatial and cultural patterns of the traditional Māori meeting house. In 2008 Treadwell reflected upon her PhD work with the admission that, in hindsight, her argument suffered the same kind of representational stability we can find in Barraud's rendition. The significance of Rangiātea as the singularly outstanding example of Māori building of the 1850s is uncontested, but Treadwell suggests that what we know and mean by historic "significance" – in his case history's preference for clear lines of origin and influence – are not to be depended upon as a stable discourse. I take that as an invitation to speculate on aspects of Rangiātea's influence and significance with a particular focus on a near neighbour in Ōtaki, the house of Tāmihana Te Rauparaha.

Ending Seoul’s missile cap has regional implications

Significance Seoul now has full ‘missile sovereignty’. Impacts North Korea is yet to react, but may do so with a missile launch. Seoul already has all of North Korea within range and no limits on missile payload; longer-range missiles would be for targets elsewhere. Seoul’s plans to build an aircraft carrier also indicate 'middle-power' ambitions to be able to project force well beyond the peninsula. After the end of the US-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles, Moscow will be unhappy if a near neighbour and US ally develops them. Greater capabilities will make Seoul a more useful ally for Washington against Beijing, which may come to see Seoul as an increasing threat.

Vortex phase matching as a strategy for schooling in robots and in fish

It has long been proposed that flying and swimming animals could exploit neighbour-induced flows. Despite this it is still not clear whether, and if so how, schooling fish coordinate their movement to benefit from the vortices shed by others. To address this we developed bio-mimetic fish-like robots which allow us to measure directly the energy consumption associated with swimming together in pairs (the most common natural configuration in schooling fish). We find that followers, in any relative position to a near-neighbour, could obtain hydrodynamic benefits if they exhibit a tailbeat phase difference that varies linearly with front-back distance, a strategy we term ‘vortex phase matching’. Experiments with pairs of freely-swimming fish reveal that followers exhibit this strategy, and that doing so requires neither a functioning visual nor lateral line system. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that fish typically, but not exclusively, use vortex phase matching to save energy.

Drug susceptibility profiling of Australian Burkholderia species as models for developing melioidosis therapeutics

SynopsisBackgroundMelioidosis is a neglected tropical disease caused by the Gram-negative soil bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei. Current treatment regimens are prolonged and costly, and acquired antimicrobial resistance has been reported for all currently used antibiotics.ObjectivesEfforts to develop new treatments for melioidosis are hampered by the risks associated with handling pathogenic B. pseudomallei, which restricts research to facilities with Biosafety Level (BSL) 3 containment. Closely related Burkholderia species that are less pathogenic can be investigated under less stringent BSL 2 containment. We hypothesized that near-neighbour Burkholderia species could be used as model organisms for developing therapies that would also be effective against B. pseudomallei.MethodsWe used microbroth dilution assays to compare the susceptibility of three Australian B. pseudomallei isolates and five near-neighbour Burkholderia species – B. humptydooensis, B. thailandensis, B. oklahomensis, B territorii and B. stagnalis – to antibiotics currently used to treat melioidosis, and general-use antibacterial agents. We also established the susceptibility profiles of B. humptydooensis and B. territorii to 400 compounds from the Medicines for Malaria Venture Pathogen Box.ResultsFrom these comparisons, we observed a high degree of similarity in the susceptibility profiles of B. pseudomallei and near-neighbour species B. humptydooensis, B. thailandensis, B. oklahomensis and B. territorii.ConclusionsLess pathogenic Australian Burkholderia species B. humptydooensis, B. thailandensis, B. oklahomensis and B. territorii are excellent model organisms for developing potential new therapies for melioidosis.

Near-neighbour optimal outcrossing in the bird-pollinated Anigozanthos manglesii

Background and Aims In plants, the spatial and genetic distance between mates can influence reproductive success and offspring fitness. Negative fitness consequences associated with the extremes of inbreeding and outbreeding suggest that there will be an intermediate optimal outcrossing distance (OOD), the scale and drivers of which remain poorly understood. In the bird-pollinated Anigozanthos manglesii (Haemodoraceae) we tested (1) for the presence of within-population OOD, (2) over what scale it occurs, and (3) for OOD under biologically realistic scenarios of multi-donor deposition associated with pollination by nectar-feeding birds. Methods We measured the impact of mate distance (spatial and genetic) on seed set, fruit size, seed mass, seed viability and germination success following hand pollination from (1) single donors across 0 m (self), <1 m, 1–3 m, 7–15 m and 50 m, and (2) a mix of eight donors. Microsatellite loci were used to quantify spatial genetic structure and test for the presence of an OOD by paternity assignment after multi-donor deposition. Key results Inter-mate distance had a significant impact on single-donor reproductive success, with selfed and nearest-neighbour (<1 m) pollination resulting in only ~50 seeds per fruit, lower overall germination success and slower germination. Seed set was greatest for inter-mate distance of 1–3 m (148 seeds per fruit), thereafter plateauing at ~100 seeds per fruit. Lower seed set following nearest-neighbour mating was associated with significant spatial genetic autocorrelation at this scale. Paternal success following pollination with multiple sires showed a significantly negative association with increasing distance between mates. Conclusions Collectively, single- and multi-donor pollinations indicated evidence for a near-neighbour OOD within A. manglesii. A survey of the literature suggests that within-population OOD may be more characteristic of plants pollinated by birds than those pollinated by insects.

Propertius, Greek Myth, and Virgil

This book develops a new interpretation of Propertius’ use of Greek myth and of his relationship to Virgil, working out the implications of a revised relative dating of the two poets’ early works. It begins by examining from an intertextual perspective all of the mythological references in the first book of Propertius. Mythological allegory emerges as the vehicle for a polemic against Virgil over the question of which of them would be the standard-bearer for Alexandrian poetry at Rome. Virgil began the debate with elegy by creating a quasi-mythological figure out of Cornelius Gallus, and Propertius responded in kind: his Milanion, Hylas and several of his own Galluses respond primarily to Virgil’s Gallus. In the Georgics, Virgil’s Aristaeus and Orpheus are, in part, a response to Propertius; Propertius then responds in his second book via his own conception of Orpheus and Adonis. The polemic then took a different direction, in the light of Virgil’s announcement of his intention to write an epic for Octavian. Virgilian pastoral was no longer the antithesis of elegy, but its near neighbour. Propertius critiqued Virgil’s turn to epic in mythological terms throughout his second book, while also developing a new line of attack. Beginning in his second book and intensifying in his third, Propertius insinuated that Virgil’s epic in progress would turn out to be a tedious neo-Ennian annalistic epic on the military exploits of Augustus. In his fourth book, Propertius finally acknowledged the published Aeneid as a masterpiece; but by then Virgil’s death had brought an end to the fierce rivalry that had shaped Propertius’ career as a poet.

THE PERFORMANCE OF LEVERAGE BASED NEAR NEIGHBOUR-ROBUST WEIGHT LEAST SQUARES IN MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION IN THE PRESENCE OF HETEROSCEDASTIC ERRORS AND OUTLIER

In this study, Leverage Based Near Neighbour–Robust Weighted Least Squares (LBNN-RWLS) method is proposed in order to estimate the standard error accurately in the presence of heteroscedastic errors and outliers in multiple linear regression. The data sets used in this study are simulated through monte carlo simulation. The data sets contain heteroscedastic errors and different percentages of outliers with different sample sizes. The study discovered that LBNN-RWLS is able to produce smaller standard errors compared to Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Least Trimmed of Squares (LTS) and Weighted Least Squares (WLS). This shows that LBNN-RWLS can estimate the standard error accurately even when heteroscedastic errors and outliers are present in the data sets.

Chapter XII

In her occasional visits to her near neighbour Mrs Pettifer, too old a friend to be shunned because she was a Tryanite, Janet was obliged sometimes to hear allusions to Mr Tryan, and even to listen to his praises, which she usually met with...