title: Gardens, transitions and identity reconstruction among older Chinese immigrants to New Zealand

authors: Li, Wendy Wen

subjects: garden

abstract: Psychologists have foregrounded the importance of links between places and daily practices in the construction of subjectivities and well-being. This article explores domestic gardening practices among older Chinese immigrants. Initial and follow-up interviews were conducted with 32 Chinese adults ranging in age from 62 to 77 years. Participants recount activities such as gardening as a means of forging a new sense of self and place in their adoptive country. Gardening provides a strategy for self-reconstruction through spatiotemporally establishing biographical continuity between participants’ old lives in China and their new lives in New Zealand.

text: Gardens, transitions and identity reconstruction among older Chinese immigrants to New Zealand Psychologists have foregrounded the importance of links between places and daily practices in the construction of subjectivities and well-being. This article explores domestic gardening practices among older Chinese immigrants. Initial and follow-up interviews were conducted with 32 Chinese adults ranging in age from 62 to 77 years. Participants recount activities such as gardening as a means of forging a new sense of self and place in their adoptive country. Gardening provides a strategy for self-reconstruction through spatiotemporally establishing biographical continuity between participants’ old lives in China and their new lives in New Zealand.

year: 2010-07

title: Biochemical Characterisation of Reconstructed Ancestral CM-DAH7PS Enzymes

authors: McMillan, Joel Patrick

subjects: DAH7PS

abstract: Thermophily has been proposed to be a primitive trait (Stetter, 2006, Pace, 1991, Woese, 1987) which has led to suggestions that all contemporary thermophilic species are the direct descendants of ancient thermophilic organisms. Ancestral sequence reconstruction (ASR) is a modern molecular technique which has been used to study the evolution of thermophily, however these studies have produced conflicting results. Studies utilising ASR to investigate the evolution of thermophily with two different proteins, elongation factor Tu and thioredoxin, have suggested a primitive origin for thermophily. However a recent study by Hobbs et al. (2012), in which ancestral IPMDH enzymes were reconstructed and biochemically characterised in order to investigate the evolution of thermophily in the Bacillus genus, suggested that thermophily may have evolved at least twice within the Bacillus genus, indicating that thermophily may not be strictly a primitive trait. This finding needs to be supported by data from other reconstructed enzymes.

Four ancestral Bacillus 3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate synthase enzymes with chorismate mutase fused to their N-termini (CM-DAH7PS) were reconstructed to investigate whether a similar trend would be observed with a different enzyme. The ages of these ancestral Precambrian enzymes were estimated to be between 570 and 1,079 million years old. The three most recent ancestral enzymes were characterised and deemed biologically feasible as evidenced by the kinetic properties they display, which are similar to those displayed by two extant CM-DAH7PS enzymes from Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus stearothermophilus. The X-ray crystal structure of the most recent CM-DAH7PS ancestor has been solved and found to be very similar to previously solved DAH7PS structures. The optimal temperatures for activity of the ancestral DAH7PS enzymes were used to infer how thermophily may have evolved in the Bacillus genus. Interestingly, the results conflict with the findings of Hobbs et al. (2012). This suggests that the biochemical characteristics of ancestral enzymes may be highly susceptible to the biochemical properties of the contemporary species used in the inference or that different enzymes may result in different inferences being drawn regarding the evolution of thermophily.

text: Biochemical Characterisation of Reconstructed Ancestral CM-DAH7PS Enzymes Thermophily has been proposed to be a primitive trait (Stetter, 2006, Pace, 1991, Woese, 1987) which has led to suggestions that all contemporary thermophilic species are the direct descendants of ancient thermophilic organisms. Ancestral sequence reconstruction (ASR) is a modern molecular technique which has been used to study the evolution of thermophily, however these studies have produced conflicting results. Studies utilising ASR to investigate the evolution of thermophily with two different proteins, elongation factor Tu and thioredoxin, have suggested a primitive origin for thermophily. However a recent study by Hobbs et al. (2012), in which ancestral IPMDH enzymes were reconstructed and biochemically characterised in order to investigate the evolution of thermophily in the Bacillus genus, suggested that thermophily may have evolved at least twice within the Bacillus genus, indicating that thermophily may not be strictly a primitive trait. This finding needs to be supported by data from other reconstructed enzymes.

Four ancestral Bacillus 3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate synthase enzymes with chorismate mutase fused to their N-termini (CM-DAH7PS) were reconstructed to investigate whether a similar trend would be observed with a different enzyme. The ages of these ancestral Precambrian enzymes were estimated to be between 570 and 1,079 million years old. The three most recent ancestral enzymes were characterised and deemed biologically feasible as evidenced by the kinetic properties they display, which are similar to those displayed by two extant CM-DAH7PS enzymes from Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus stearothermophilus. The X-ray crystal structure of the most recent CM-DAH7PS ancestor has been solved and found to be very similar to previously solved DAH7PS structures. The optimal temperatures for activity of the ancestral DAH7PS enzymes were used to infer how thermophily may have evolved in the Bacillus genus. Interestingly, the results conflict with the findings of Hobbs et al. (2012). This suggests that the biochemical characteristics of ancestral enzymes may be highly susceptible to the biochemical properties of the contemporary species used in the inference or that different enzymes may result in different inferences being drawn regarding the evolution of thermophily.

year: 2012

title: Maori land in Hauraki

authors: Hart, Philip

abstract: Imagining the Hauraki Peninsula to contain payable goldfields and knowing that land to the south of Thames had great agricultural potential, Pakeha were determined to acquire it, and were frustrated by what was considered to be ‘Maori intransigence’. For their part, Maori landowners were justifiably concerned about losing their land, and hindered and delayed opening it to settlement for as long as possible. A major difficulty for officials seeking to acquire land was how to determine boundaries between different blocks and how to identify the true owners when there were rival claims put forward by hapu and individuals. Land purchase agents used a variety of means to get blocks through the land court and then to individualize the title, notably the controversial ‘raihana’ policy, which benefited some landowners at the expense of others. The expensive legal process involved often forced those who had proved their ownership to sell land to pay for their success, a success which resulted in grantees treating the land as their personal property rather than tribal property. Some Pakeha as well as many Maori protested at the unfair process; even James Mackay, the most effective practitioner of raihana, came to lament his success and its consequences for the younger generation of Maori (he blamed the system, not himself). When far too late, it was urged that land should have been leased rather than sold and that proceeds from sales should not have been squandered.
Instead of having commissions of enquiry, as some suggested, the land court system meant that judges determined ownership on the evidence presented to them, even though some owners were not present nor had their interests represented. Sometimes the evidence was false, as was admitted by some witnesses when their perjury was exposed. And in the case of the Ohinemuri district, for which the records survive, when the land was sold to the Crown some Maori received too much money, some too little, and some missed out altogether. The struggles to open Ohinemuri to miners and settlers is examined in detail, revealing that some rangatira expected economic gain and that Te Hira’s party, who opposed the opening, were undermined by some of Te Hira’s followers: being ‘Hauhau’, they refused to take money from the Crown but instead took raihana, meaning goods which were charged against their land in a way they did not understand. Nor did anyone fully understand the system apart from Mackay, whose policy was eventually repudiated by the politicians who had encouraged it previously. Not all land was lost, but because the government did not assist landowners with advice and finance until well into the twentieth century what land that was retained could not be developed adequately.

text: Maori land in Hauraki Imagining the Hauraki Peninsula to contain payable goldfields and knowing that land to the south of Thames had great agricultural potential, Pakeha were determined to acquire it, and were frustrated by what was considered to be ‘Maori intransigence’. For their part, Maori landowners were justifiably concerned about losing their land, and hindered and delayed opening it to settlement for as long as possible. A major difficulty for officials seeking to acquire land was how to determine boundaries between different blocks and how to identify the true owners when there were rival claims put forward by hapu and individuals. Land purchase agents used a variety of means to get blocks through the land court and then to individualize the title, notably the controversial ‘raihana’ policy, which benefited some landowners at the expense of others. The expensive legal process involved often forced those who had proved their ownership to sell land to pay for their success, a success which resulted in grantees treating the land as their personal property rather than tribal property. Some Pakeha as well as many Maori protested at the unfair process; even James Mackay, the most effective practitioner of raihana, came to lament his success and its consequences for the younger generation of Maori (he blamed the system, not himself). When far too late, it was urged that land should have been leased rather than sold and that proceeds from sales should not have been squandered.
Instead of having commissions of enquiry, as some suggested, the land court system meant that judges determined ownership on the evidence presented to them, even though some owners were not present nor had their interests represented. Sometimes the evidence was false, as was admitted by some witnesses when their perjury was exposed. And in the case of the Ohinemuri district, for which the records survive, when the land was sold to the Crown some Maori received too much money, some too little, and some missed out altogether. The struggles to open Ohinemuri to miners and settlers is examined in detail, revealing that some rangatira expected economic gain and that Te Hira’s party, who opposed the opening, were undermined by some of Te Hira’s followers: being ‘Hauhau’, they refused to take money from the Crown but instead took raihana, meaning goods which were charged against their land in a way they did not understand. Nor did anyone fully understand the system apart from Mackay, whose policy was eventually repudiated by the politicians who had encouraged it previously. Not all land was lost, but because the government did not assist landowners with advice and finance until well into the twentieth century what land that was retained could not be developed adequately.

year: 2016