Marsden Fund Research Articles

The Victorian Colonial Romance with the Antipodes

Does New Zealand matter to the rest of the world? For various reasons the question has always seemed important here, a kind of hollow echo bouncing around national politics, economics and culture, and reflecting back most strongly from concrete measures of overseas recognition: a seat on the United Nations Security Council; an Oscar or a Booker Prize; a World Cup; a global milk auction. For scholars working on New Zealand studies, a version of this question is prompted by the rise of institutional incentives such as the Marsden Fund and the PBRF, which frame “research excellence” in large part in terms of global visibility. It’s a challenge, perhaps, of speaking to two audiences at the same time: a local readership familiar with a narrow but deep national archive, and an international readership who must be persuaded of its relevance to their more “mainstream” concerns. Yet the question can also be asked another way: Does the study of New Zealand have to be framed solely in national terms? Shaped for so long by the ethos and aesthetics of mid-twentieth century cultural nationalism, humanistic inquiry in New Zealand still tends to use the nation as its unquestioned unit of measurement.

The Effect of Public Funding on Research Output: The New Zealand Marsden Fund

We estimate the impact of participating in the NZ Marsden Fund on research output trajectories, by comparing the subsequent performance of funded researchers to those who submitted proposals but were not funded. We control for selection bias using the evaluations of the proposals generated by the grant selection process. We carry out the analysis in two data frames. First we consider the researcher teams behind 1263 second-round proposals submitted 2003-2008, and look at the post-proposal publication and citation performance of the team as a whole, as a function of pre-proposal performance, the ranking of the proposal by the panel, and the funding. This estimation does not deal with individual researchers’ multiple proposals and funding over time. To disentangle these effects, we consider the 1500 New Zealand researchers who appeared on any of these proposals, and estimate a model predicting annual individual performance as a function of previous performance, recent proposal activity, ranking of any recent proposals, and funding received through recent proposals. Overall, we find that funding is associated with a 6-15% increase in publications and a 22-26% increase in citation-weighted papers for research teams. For individuals, funding is associated with a 3-5% increase in annual publications, and a 5-8% increase in citation-weighted papers for 5 years after grant; however, the lag structure and persistence of this effect post-grant is difficult to pin down. Surprisingly, we find no systematic evidence that the evaluation of proposals by the Marsden system is predictive of subsequent success. We conclude that the Marsden Fund is modestly successful in increasing scientific performance, but that the selection process does not appear to be effective in discriminating among second-round proposals in terms of their likely success.

The Ore conjecture

The Ore conjecture, posed in 1951, states that every element of every finite non-abelian simple group is a commutator. Despite considerable effort, it remains open for various infinite families of simple groups. In this paper we develop new strategies, combining character theoretic methods with other ingredients, and use them to establish the conjecture. Liebeck acknowledges the support of a Maclaurin Fellowship from the New Zealand Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. O’Brien acknowledges the support of an LMS Visitor Grant, the Marsden Fund of New Zealand (grant UOA 0721), and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (Berkeley). Shalev acknowledges the support of an EPSRC Visiting Fellowship, an Israel Science Foundation Grant, and a Bi-National Science Foundation grant United States-Israel 2004-052. Tiep acknowledges the support of the NSF (grant DMS-0600967), and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (Berkeley).

‘Drink a 12 box before you go’: pre-loading among young people in Aotearoa New Zealand

The practice of pre-loading—drinking large amounts of alcohol rapidly in private spaces prior to socialising in the night-time economy—has come to notice recently in the study of alcohol-related harm, but no studies have explored these phenomena in Aotearoa New Zealand. We used a theoretical framework developed with public health alcohol studies for understanding drinking cultures that conceptualises patterns of behaviours as arising within a dynamic interaction between forces of hedonism, function and control. We report findings from 34 focus groups conducted with 18–25 year olds as part of a project supported by the Marsden Fund, between 2011 and 2012, to investigate drinking cultures among young people. Our thematic analyses of participants’ accounts of pre-loading show that the term is in common use, applying to a range of practices motivated by price of alcohol but influenced by the pleasures of intoxication, the importance of peer processes and certain aspects of the regulatory system. We conclude with a discussion of the usefulness of the framework and the implications of the findings for public health policy that aims to reduce alcohol consumption and the harm that arises from it.

Investigator-led science: predict the unpredictable and be ready to capture transformational change

The Marsden Fund celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2014 and we took the opportunity to find out what difference the projects we have funded have made to New Zealand. We were not surprised to find surprises: often, the benefits of the research were not predicted at the outset. What does this tell us about the way science works, and how we might predict what future benefits it may confer? Investigator-led science will undoubtedly shape New Zealand society in the future, but accepting the impossibility of prediction is part of the journey to realising the biggest benefits.

Systematic review documents emerging empirical support for certain applications of iPods® and iPads® in intervention programs for individuals with developmental disabilities, but these are not a “one-size-fits-all” solution

This review provides a summary and appraisal commentary on the treatment review by Kagohara, D. M., van der Meer, L., Ramdoss, S., O’Reilly, M. F., Lancioni, G. E., Davis, T. N., . Sigafoos, J. (2013). Using iPods® and iPads® in teaching programs for individuals with developmental disabilities: A systematic review. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 34, 147–156.Source of funding and disclosure of interest: This study was supported by the New Zealand Government, Marsden Fund Council administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand; Victoria University of Wellington; The University of Canterbury; The New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain & Behaviour; the original authors of this research do not report any conflicts of interest.

A zebrafish model of conditional targeted podocyte ablation and regeneration

Podocytes are specialized cells that contribute critically to the normal structure and function of the glomerular filtration barrier. Their depletion plays an important role in the pathogenesis of glomerulosclerosis. Here, we report generation of a genetic model of conditional podocyte ablation and regeneration in zebrafish using a bacterial nitroreductase strategy to convert a prodrug, Metronidazole, into a cytotoxic metabolite. A transgenic zebrafish line was generated that expresses a green fluorescence protein (GFP) and the nitroreductase fusion protein under the control of the podocin promoter Tg(podocin:nitroreductase-GFP). Treatment of these transgenic zebrafish with Metronidazole results in podocyte apoptosis, a loss of nephrin and podocin expression, foot process effacement, and a leaky glomerular filtration barrier. Following Metronidazole washout, proliferating cells were detected in the glomeruli of recovering transgenic fish with a restoration of nitroreductase-GFP fluorescence, nephrin and podocin expression, a reestablishment of normal foot process architecture and glomerular barrier function. Thus, our studies show that zebrafish podocytes are capable of regenerating following depletion and establish the Tg(podocin:NTR-GFP) fish as a new model to study podocyte injury and repair.

Focus on Authors

Focus on Authors

On Inferences of Full First-Order Hierarchical Decompositions

Database design aims to find a database schema that permits the efficient processing of common types of queries and updates on future database instances. Full first-order hierarchical decompositions constitute a large class of database constraints that can provide assistance to the database designer in identifying a suitable database schema. We establish finite axiomatisations of full first-order hierarchical decompositions that mimic best database design practice. That is, an inference engine derives all the independent collections of the universal schema during database normalization, and the designer determines during database denormalization which re-combinations of these independent collections manifest the final database schema. We also show that well-known correspondences between multivalued dependencies, degenerated multivalued dependencies, and a fragment of Boolean propositional logic do not extend beyond binary full first-order hierarchical decompositions. This research is supported by the Marsden fund council from Government funding, administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand

Insulin stimulation of the epithelial sodium channel is inhibited by COMMD1

The epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) transports Na+ into epithelial cells located in the distal nephron, lung, and colon. Active channel number at the cell surface is regulated by ubiquitin modification and endocytosis. Insulin, aldosterone and vasopressin enhance Na+ transport via the serum and glucocorticoid regulated kinase (SGK1) that inactivates the ubiquitin ligase Nedd4‐2 that downregulates ENaC. Previously we reported that COMMD1 (copper metabolism Murr1 domain containing protein 1) inhibits ENaC amiloride‐sensitive current. Here the objective was to determine if COMMD1 and ENaC are coexpressed in kidney, and to study the mechanism by which COMMD1 inhibits ENaC amiloride‐sensitive current. Using immunohistochemistry COMMD1 was found to be widely expressed in the kidney, and to co‐localise with ENaC. Biochemical and electrophysiological assays showed that COMMD1 increased ubiquitin modification of ENaC and decreased its cell surface expression. COMMD1 abolished insulin‐stimulated amiloride‐sensitive current. COMMD1 co‐immunoprecipitated with SGK1 and Akt1, but not Nedd4‐2. Knock‐down of COMMD1 enhanced the effect of SGK1 and Akt1 on amiloride‐sensitive current, but did not change the effect of Nedd4‐2. In conclusion, COMMD1 regulates ENaC cell surface expression via Nedd4‐2.Support from the Marsden Fund Council from Government funding administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand

Development of sediment-landform associations at cold glacier margins, Dry Valleys, Antarctica

Hambrey, M.J., Fitzsimons, S.J. (2010). Development of sediment-landform associations at cold glacier margins, Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Sedimentology, 57(3), 857-882. Michael Hambrey is corresponding author Sponsorship: Marsden Fund of New Zealand/ University of Otago Research Committee/NERC(grant no. NER/A/S/2000/01256)

Role of SPRASA in Sperm-Zona and Sperm-Oolemmal Binding.

SPRASA (SPACA-3, SLLP-1) is a highly conserved protein located in the inner acrosome membrane of sperm. It was discovered based on its' reactivity with antisperm antibodies from some infertile men. SPRASA expression appears to be limited to the testis/sperm and others have shown that SPRASA-reactive antibodies inhibit human sperm binding to zona-free hamster oocytes. We have previously found that exposing gametes to SPRASA-reactive antibodies inhibits subsequent embryo development and have recently demonstrated that there are SPRASA binding sites on the oolemmal membrane of bovine oocytes. Using a bovine model, we investigated the effects of a SPRASA-reactive antiserum on sperm binding to oocytes at the zona pellucida and oolemmal membrane level in a bovine in vitro fertilisation model system. Bovine oocytes were obtained from Auckland Meat Processors and matured in vitro. To examine the effects of binding of sperm at the zona pellucida level, capacitated sperm and zona-intact oocytes were co-incubated with SPRASA-reactive antiserum, an irrelevant antiserum or in the absence of antiserum for 2 hours, followed by repeated pipetting with a Gilson pipette to remove loosely-bound sperm. Sperm and oocyte complexes were then stained with Hoechst and visualised on a fluorescent microscope. To examine the effects of binding of sperm and oocytes at the oolemmal membrane level sperm were capacitated then acrosome reacted using calcium ionophore then incubated with oocytes, from which the zona had been stripped using pronase, in the presence or absence of a SPRASA-reactive antiserum or an irrelevant rabbit antiserum for 2 hours. Following extensive washing, sperm/oocyte complexes were then stained with Hoechst and visualised on a fluorescent microscope. In both assays the number of sperm bound to each oocyte was counted. The significance of the difference between SPRASA-reactive antiserum and control groups was determined by the Student T-test. Analysis of sperm-zona binding showed that the number of sperm bound per zona-intact oocyte was not significantly different between the SPRASA-reactive antiserum treated group and the controls (P = 0.26). Similarly, SPRASA-reactive antiserum did not significantly alter the number of sperm binding to zona-free oocytes in comparison to the no antiserum control (P = 0.49). However, control rabbit antiserum appears to interfere with the binding assay, significantly increasing the number of sperm bound to the oolemmal membrane. In conclusion, this study shows that SPRASA-reactive antiserum had no effect on the binding of bovine sperm to bovine oocytes at either the level of the zona pellucida or the oolemmal membrane, and that the inhibitory effect of SPRASA-reactive antiserum on embryonic development that we have reported previously appears therefore to be downstream of sperm-oocyte binding. This study was supported by funding from the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand and the University of Auckland Staff Research Fund.

Learning Dispositions and the Role of Mutual Engagement: Factors for Consideration in Educational Settings

This article describes an emerging theoretical framework for examining relationships between learning dispositions and learning architecture. Three domains of learning dispositions — resilience, reciprocity and imagination — are discussed in relation to the structures and processes of early childhood education settings and new entrant classrooms. This framework was developed during the analysis of the data collected for the Dispositions in Social Context project, funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund and headed by Anne B. Smith and Margaret Carr. This article includes examples from this research project, which explored the relationship between learning architecture and the dispositions of children within these education contexts.

21 Relationship between standard EGG electrode configurations and the stomach location

Aim: To determine the appropriateness of EGG electrode configurations and where the EGG electrodes are located relative to the stomach musculature.Background: It has become common practice to place EGG electrodes at specific locations relative to external landmarks (e.g. xiphoid and umbilicus) instead of locating the stomach via ultrasound or other imaging modalities. Electric fields decay rapidly with distance from the source so placing EGG electrodes close to the stomach is critical for obtaining reliable signals. If regional variability is of interest it is also important to place electrodes along the axis of the stomach.Methods: Informed consent was obtained from four normal male subjects (average age 34 yrs). Subjects ingested 16 oz of oral contrast (containing 10 g hypaque sodium powder, Amersham Health) over 90 min prior to an abdominal spiral CT scan (3 mm slices). Stomach and skin surfaces were manually segmented and these data used to create virtual computer models. EGG electrodes were positioned according [1–3]. The distance between each electrode and the closest point to the stomach surface was calculated. A fourth configuration was defined where four electrodes were placed along the known stomach axis.Results: The average distances between the electrodes and the stomach was (42.4 ± 15.0; 60.7 ± 24.2; and 33.4 ± 12.2) mm for [1–3] respectively. When electrodes were placed manually given prior knowledge of the stomach location this distance was reduced to 29.5 ± 5.4 mm.Conclusion: The umbilicus was used as an external landmark by [1] and [3]. Although [2] did not use the umbilicus, it gave the largest distance and standard error between electrodes and the stomach, primarily due to the positioning of two electrodes on the right side of the abdomen. We propose that either structural imaging be used to locate the stomach, or that an improved set of external landmarks be developed that better reflect the stomach location to provide improved EGG signal quality.Acknowledgements: This study was supported by an NIH grant (R01 DK64775) and the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.

IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK AND THE ACQUISITION OF L2 GRAMMAR

This article reviews previous studies of the effects of implicit and explicit corrective feedback on SLA, pointing out a number of methodological problems. It then reports on a new study of the effects of these two types of corrective feedback on the acquisition of past tense -ed. In an experimental design (two experimental groups and a control group), low-intermediate learners of second language English completed two communicative tasks during which they received either recasts (implicit feedback) or metalinguistic explanation (explicit feedback) in response to any utterance that contained an error in the target structure. Acquisition was measured by means of an oral imitation test (designed to measure implicit knowledge) and both an untimed grammaticality judgment test and a metalinguistic knowledge test (both designed to measure explicit knowledge). The tests were administered prior to the instruction, 1 day after the instruction, and again 2 weeks later. Statistical comparisons of the learners' performance on the posttests showed a clear advantage for explicit feedback over implicit feedback for both the delayed imitation and grammaticality judgment posttests. Thus, the results indicate that metalinguistic explanation benefited implicit as well as explicit knowledge and point to the importance of including measures of both types of knowledge in experimental studies.This research was funded by a Marsden Fund grant awarded by the Royal Society of Arts of New Zealand. Researchers other than the authors who contributed to the research were Jenefer Philip, Satomi Mizutami, Keiko Sakui, and Thomas Delaney. Thanks go to the editors of this special issue and to two anonymous SSLA reviewers of a draft of the article for their constructive comments.

Pucci's conjecture and the Alexandrov inequality for elliptic PDEs in the plane

The inequality of Alexandrov, Bakel’man and Pucci is a basic tool in the theory of linear elliptic partial differential equations (PDEs) which are not in divergence form as well as in the more general theory of nonlinear elliptic PDEs. Here, in two dimensions, we prove the sharp form of the maximum principle as conjectured by Pucci in 1966, give sharp forms of removable singularity results and prove a number of results for the degenerate elliptic setting. These results make use of the substantial recent advances in the planar theory of quasiconformal mappings. ∗Astala was supported in part by the Academy of Finland, projects 34082 and 41933, Iwaniec by the National Science Foundation grants DMS-0301582 and DMS-0244297, Martin by the N.Z. Marsden Fund and the N.Z. Royal Society (James Cook Fellowship) AMS (1991) Classification. Primary 30C60, 35J15, 35J70

MEASURING IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE OF A SECOND LANGUAGE: A Psychometric Study

A problem facing investigations of implicit and explicit learning is the lack of valid measures of second language implicit and explicit knowledge. This paper attempts to establish operational definitions of these two constructs and reports a psychometric study of a battery of tests designed to provide relatively independent measures of them. These tests were (a) an oral imitation test involving grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, (b) an oral narration test, (c) a timed grammaticality judgment test (GJT), (d) an untimed GJT with the same content, and (e) a metalinguistic knowledge test. Tests (a), (b), and (c) were designed as measures of implicit knowledge, and tests (d) and (e) were designed as measures of explicit knowledge. All of the tests examined 17 English grammatical structures. A principal component factor analysis produced two clear factors. This analysis showed that the scores from tests (a), (b), and (c) loaded on Factor 1, whereas the scores from ungrammatical sentences in test (d) and total scores from test (e) loaded on Factor 2. These two factors are interpreted as corresponding to implicit and explicit knowledge, respectively. A number of secondary analyses to support this interpretation of the construct validity of the tests are also reported.This research was funded by a Marsden Fund grant awarded by the Royal Society of Arts of New Zealand to Rod Ellis and Cathie Elder. Other researchers who contributed to the research are Shawn Loewen, Rosemary Erlam, Satomi Mizutani, and Shuhei Hidaka.The author wishes to thank Nick Ellis, Jim Lantolf, and two anonymous SSLA reviewers. Their constructive comments have helped me to present the theoretical background of the study more convincingly and to remove errors from the results and refine my interpretations of them.

252. Morphometric and histological analysis of ovaries from sheep heterozygous for the prolific woodlands allele

Woodlands are a line of Coopworth sheep with a novel, imprinted X-linked fecundity allele resulting in ovulation rates about 0.40 higher than wild-type animals. Daughters of progeny tested sires with and without the gene were studied. Previously, lambs heterozygous for the Woodlands allele were found to have larger ovaries and more antral (i.e. type 5) but not preantral (i.e. types 1–4) follicles than in wild-type contemporaries. The large ovary phenotype was found to be transient and was absent after puberty. However, based on follow-up studies it was evident that the large ovary phenotype was not strongly associated with the Woodlands fecundity allele. Thus, it was uncertain whether animals carrying the Woodlands gene had different follicular populations compared to wild-type controls. To address this question, follicular populations were compared in adult ewes heterozygous for the Woodlands allele with age-matched controls. Using standard morphometric methods and histological analysis, no differences were observed in the mean numbers of types 1, 1a, 2, 3 and 4 preantral follicles between the genotypes. Furthermore, no differences were observed between genotypes in follicular or oocyte diameters for any follicular type. The adult Woodlands carrier ewes had twice as many small type 5 follicles (< 1mm) when compared to wild-type contemporaries although no difference was seen in the numbers of antral follicles > 1mm in diameter. In addition, antrum formation occurred at a smaller follicular diameter in the heterozygous Woodlands animals. Therefore, the increased number of antral follicles observed in both lambs and adult ewes suggests that this difference in pattern of follicular development is associated with the X-linked fecundity allele. This novel phenotype of early antrum formation and larger number of small preantral follicles differs from that observed in sheep with the Inverdale or Booroola mutations, suggesting that a different mechanistic pathway is involved. Acknowledgements: The Marsden Fund, FRST and Ovita.

Photoinhibition, acclimation and New Zealand's divarication plants: a reply to Lusk

Photoinhibition, acclimation and New Zealand's divarication plants: a reply to Lusk

Isolation and the high/low hierarchy

Say that a d.c.e. degree d is isolated by a c.e. degree b, if b<d and any c.e. degree c below d is also below b, namely, b is the largest c.e. degree below d. Wu proved that there is a high d.c.e. degree d isolated by a low2 c.e. degree b. In this paper, we improve this result by making b low, not merely low2. RID=""ID="" Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 03D25, 03D30, 03D35 RID=""ID="" Key words or phrases: Computably enumerable set – d.c.e. degree – Isolation – High/low hierarchy RID=""ID="" Ishmukhametov's research is supported by RFBR grant 01-01-00733, and Wu's research is supported by the Marsden Fund of New Zealand. Wu would like to thank his supervisor, Prof. Rod Downey, for his many helpful suggestions and comments.