title: Global beta-diversity of angiosperm trees is shaped by Quaternary climate change

authors: Xu, W-B

subjects: Humans

abstract: As 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.

text: Global beta-diversity of angiosperm trees is shaped by Quaternary climate change As 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.

year: 2023-04-05

title: Towards a Theory of Postmodern Humour: South Park as carnivalesque postmodern narrative impulse

authors: Franklyn, Blair Scott

subjects: South Park

abstract: The philosopher Martin Heidegger describes humour as a response to human 'thrownness' in the world.  This thesis argues that there is a form of humour which can be usefully described as postmodern humour and that postmodern humour reflects the experience of being 'thrown' into postmodernity.  Postmodern humour responds to and references the fears, fixations, frameworks and technologies which underpin our postmodern existence.  It is further contended that South Park is an example of postmodern humour in the way that it exhibits a carnivalesque postmodern narrative impulse which attacks the meta-narrative style explanations of contemporary events, trends and fashions offered in the popular media. South Park's carnivalesque humour is a complex critique on a society in which television is a primary instrument of communication, a centre-piece to many people's lives, and a barometer of contemporary culture, while at the same time drawing attention to the fact that the medium being satirised is also used to perform the critique.  

A large portion of this thesis is devoted to examining and interrogating the discursive properties of humour as compared to seriousness, an endeavour which also establishes some interesting links to postmodern philosophical discourse.  This can be succinctly summarized by the following: 
1.	Humour is a form of discourse which simultaneously refers to two frames of reference, or associative contexts.  Therefore humour is a bissociative form of discourse.
2.	Seriousness is a form of discourse which relies on a singular associative context.
3.	The legally and socially instituted rules which govern everyday life use serious discourse as a matter of practical necessity.  
4.	Ambiguity, transgression and deviancy are problematic to serious discourse (and therefore the official culture in which it circulates), but conventions of humorous discourse.
5.	Humorous discourse then, challenges the singularity and totality of the official discourses which govern everyday life.  Subsequently, humour has been subjected to a variety of controls, most notably the 'policing the body' documented in the writings of Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault.   
6.	Humour can therefore be understood to function in a manner similar to Jean-Fran ois Lyotard's concept of little-narrative's, which destabilize the totality of official meta-narratives. 

Furthermore, this thesis proposes strong links between the oppositional practices of the medieval carnival, as outlined by Mikhail Bakhtin, and the produced-for-mass-consumption humour of South Park.  However, it also demonstrates that although South Park embodies the oppositional spirit of the carnival, it lacks its fundamentally social nature, and therefore lacks its politically resistant potency.  More specifically it is argued that the development and prevalence of technologies such as television, video/DVD, and the internet, allows us to access humour at any time we wish. However, this temporal freedom is contrasted by the spatial constraints inherent in these communication/media technologies.  Rather than officially sanctioned times and places for carnivalesque social gatherings, today, individuals have the 'liberty' of free (private) access to carnivalesque media texts, which simultaneously help to restrict the freedom of social contact that the carnival used to afford.  Further to this, it is argued that the fact that South Park, with its explicit derision of authority, is allowed to circulate through mainstream media at all, implies asymmetric conservative action on the part of officialdom.  In this sense it is argued that postmodern humour such as South Park is allowed to circulate because the act of watching/consuming the programme also acts as a deterrent to actual radical activity.

text: Towards a Theory of Postmodern Humour: South Park as carnivalesque postmodern narrative impulse The philosopher Martin Heidegger describes humour as a response to human 'thrownness' in the world.  This thesis argues that there is a form of humour which can be usefully described as postmodern humour and that postmodern humour reflects the experience of being 'thrown' into postmodernity.  Postmodern humour responds to and references the fears, fixations, frameworks and technologies which underpin our postmodern existence.  It is further contended that South Park is an example of postmodern humour in the way that it exhibits a carnivalesque postmodern narrative impulse which attacks the meta-narrative style explanations of contemporary events, trends and fashions offered in the popular media. South Park's carnivalesque humour is a complex critique on a society in which television is a primary instrument of communication, a centre-piece to many people's lives, and a barometer of contemporary culture, while at the same time drawing attention to the fact that the medium being satirised is also used to perform the critique.  

A large portion of this thesis is devoted to examining and interrogating the discursive properties of humour as compared to seriousness, an endeavour which also establishes some interesting links to postmodern philosophical discourse.  This can be succinctly summarized by the following: 
1.	Humour is a form of discourse which simultaneously refers to two frames of reference, or associative contexts.  Therefore humour is a bissociative form of discourse.
2.	Seriousness is a form of discourse which relies on a singular associative context.
3.	The legally and socially instituted rules which govern everyday life use serious discourse as a matter of practical necessity.  
4.	Ambiguity, transgression and deviancy are problematic to serious discourse (and therefore the official culture in which it circulates), but conventions of humorous discourse.
5.	Humorous discourse then, challenges the singularity and totality of the official discourses which govern everyday life.  Subsequently, humour has been subjected to a variety of controls, most notably the 'policing the body' documented in the writings of Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault.   
6.	Humour can therefore be understood to function in a manner similar to Jean-Fran ois Lyotard's concept of little-narrative's, which destabilize the totality of official meta-narratives. 

Furthermore, this thesis proposes strong links between the oppositional practices of the medieval carnival, as outlined by Mikhail Bakhtin, and the produced-for-mass-consumption humour of South Park.  However, it also demonstrates that although South Park embodies the oppositional spirit of the carnival, it lacks its fundamentally social nature, and therefore lacks its politically resistant potency.  More specifically it is argued that the development and prevalence of technologies such as television, video/DVD, and the internet, allows us to access humour at any time we wish. However, this temporal freedom is contrasted by the spatial constraints inherent in these communication/media technologies.  Rather than officially sanctioned times and places for carnivalesque social gatherings, today, individuals have the 'liberty' of free (private) access to carnivalesque media texts, which simultaneously help to restrict the freedom of social contact that the carnival used to afford.  Further to this, it is argued that the fact that South Park, with its explicit derision of authority, is allowed to circulate through mainstream media at all, implies asymmetric conservative action on the part of officialdom.  In this sense it is argued that postmodern humour such as South Park is allowed to circulate because the act of watching/consuming the programme also acts as a deterrent to actual radical activity.

year: 2006

title: Monitoring first year Maori students enrolled in selected Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences courses: A report prepared for the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

authors: Levy, Michelle Patricia

subjects: maori students

abstract: Monitoring first year Maori Students Enrolled in Selected Faculty of Arts andSocial Sciences Courses. The total number of Maori students targeted by this project was 182, representing 93% of the total number of Maori students enrolled in Semester B level one courses. The majority of students participating in this initiative were first year students, although a small number of students taking 100 level courses were second, third or graduate year students. 11 Student views on the monitoring and support initiative Students were provided with the opportunity to comment on the monitoring and support initiative. All students contacted (49) recommended that this intervention continue for future first year Maori students enrolled in FASS.

text: Monitoring first year Maori students enrolled in selected Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences courses: A report prepared for the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Monitoring first year Maori Students Enrolled in Selected Faculty of Arts andSocial Sciences Courses. The total number of Maori students targeted by this project was 182, representing 93% of the total number of Maori students enrolled in Semester B level one courses. The majority of students participating in this initiative were first year students, although a small number of students taking 100 level courses were second, third or graduate year students. 11 Student views on the monitoring and support initiative Students were provided with the opportunity to comment on the monitoring and support initiative. All students contacted (49) recommended that this intervention continue for future first year Maori students enrolled in FASS.

year: 2003-03-01