title: An investigation of low diastase activity in mānuka honey

authors: Bell, Amber

subjects: Mānuka honey

abstract: Mānuka honey with high non-peroxide antibacterial (NPA) activity is a valuable export product in the multi-million-dollar New Zealand honey export industry, with monofloral mānuka honey accounting for 68% (NZ$290 million) of the total export value (NZ$425 million) for the 2019/20 season. Exported honey must meet strict export regulations. Diastase enzyme (alpha amylase) activity is a quality control indicator of detrimental storage conditions (excessive heat treatment or prolonged storage), decreasing over time. International export requires honey to have high diastase activity (Diastase Number, DN > 8). Medium to high NPA mānuka honeys often fail the diastase test, despite careful storage. It is important to determine the cause of low diastase activity in mānuka honey to prevent revenue loss for New Zealand honey exports. Bioactive compounds in the honey were hypothesised to inhibit alpha-amylase, therefore reducing diastase activity.
A database of fresh mānuka and non-mānuka honeys were analysed for various chemical parameters (including moisture content, mānuka chemical marker compounds, dihydroxyacetone (DHA), methylglyoxal (MGO), 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and diastase activity) to determine if any correlations were present with diastase activity. Parameters between and within floral honey types varied largely, however no correlations were observed to diastase activity. 
Storage experiments (20 °C, 161 days; 27 °C, 198 days) of selected database honeys showed the mānuka marker compounds were stable. However, the rates of change observed for DHA, MGO, HMF and diastase activity were reliant on intrinsic honey characteristics (not identified). While time and temperature had significant impact on loss of diastase activity in honey, correlation was observed between changes in diastase activity and DHA, MGO and mānuka marker 3-phenyllactic acid (3-PLA) concentrations.
Additionally, a clover honey matrix was perturbed with single bioactive compounds (DHA (MGO-precursor), MGO, mānuka markers compounds, methyl syringate and tannic acid) to observe the effect on diastase activity over time (185 days) and at 20, 27 and 34 °C. MGO and 3 PLA caused diastase activity to decrease at a significantly faster rate than other compounds. The half-life of diastase at 27 °C for the control sample was 590 days compared to the much shorter half-life of diastase in the MGO (440 days) and 3 PLA (380 days) perturbed samples. The mechanism by which these two compounds decrease diastase activity is unknown, however MGO is a highly reactive molecule and has been reported to inhibit other enzymes. Time and temperature were also significant drivers of diastase activity loss; diastase half-life at 20 °C was more than eight times greater than it was at 34 °C (1340 vs. 160 days). 
The experiments indicate that diastase activity is highly variable between fresh honeys and the rate at which it decreases may be dependent not only on temperature and time honey is stored at, but on intrinsic honey compounds and physico-chemical parameters suggesting that diastase activity regulations may not be suitable for mānuka honey.

text: An investigation of low diastase activity in mānuka honey Mānuka honey with high non-peroxide antibacterial (NPA) activity is a valuable export product in the multi-million-dollar New Zealand honey export industry, with monofloral mānuka honey accounting for 68% (NZ$290 million) of the total export value (NZ$425 million) for the 2019/20 season. Exported honey must meet strict export regulations. Diastase enzyme (alpha amylase) activity is a quality control indicator of detrimental storage conditions (excessive heat treatment or prolonged storage), decreasing over time. International export requires honey to have high diastase activity (Diastase Number, DN > 8). Medium to high NPA mānuka honeys often fail the diastase test, despite careful storage. It is important to determine the cause of low diastase activity in mānuka honey to prevent revenue loss for New Zealand honey exports. Bioactive compounds in the honey were hypothesised to inhibit alpha-amylase, therefore reducing diastase activity.
A database of fresh mānuka and non-mānuka honeys were analysed for various chemical parameters (including moisture content, mānuka chemical marker compounds, dihydroxyacetone (DHA), methylglyoxal (MGO), 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and diastase activity) to determine if any correlations were present with diastase activity. Parameters between and within floral honey types varied largely, however no correlations were observed to diastase activity. 
Storage experiments (20 °C, 161 days; 27 °C, 198 days) of selected database honeys showed the mānuka marker compounds were stable. However, the rates of change observed for DHA, MGO, HMF and diastase activity were reliant on intrinsic honey characteristics (not identified). While time and temperature had significant impact on loss of diastase activity in honey, correlation was observed between changes in diastase activity and DHA, MGO and mānuka marker 3-phenyllactic acid (3-PLA) concentrations.
Additionally, a clover honey matrix was perturbed with single bioactive compounds (DHA (MGO-precursor), MGO, mānuka markers compounds, methyl syringate and tannic acid) to observe the effect on diastase activity over time (185 days) and at 20, 27 and 34 °C. MGO and 3 PLA caused diastase activity to decrease at a significantly faster rate than other compounds. The half-life of diastase at 27 °C for the control sample was 590 days compared to the much shorter half-life of diastase in the MGO (440 days) and 3 PLA (380 days) perturbed samples. The mechanism by which these two compounds decrease diastase activity is unknown, however MGO is a highly reactive molecule and has been reported to inhibit other enzymes. Time and temperature were also significant drivers of diastase activity loss; diastase half-life at 20 °C was more than eight times greater than it was at 34 °C (1340 vs. 160 days). 
The experiments indicate that diastase activity is highly variable between fresh honeys and the rate at which it decreases may be dependent not only on temperature and time honey is stored at, but on intrinsic honey compounds and physico-chemical parameters suggesting that diastase activity regulations may not be suitable for mānuka honey.

year: 2022

title: Embedded numeracy teaching practices at an Institute of Technology: Vocational tutors' characterisations of embedding numeracy and related professional development

authors: Winter, Lynette

abstract: As part of a multi-pronged strategy to improve levels of adult numeracy, embedded numeracy provision is a required element of foundation-level vocational education in New Zealand. Embedded numeracy, as it is interpreted in New Zealand, means learners develop numeracy skills within vocational courses and programmes rather than as a separate programme of study. This approach means that vocational educators, rather than numeracy specialist educators, are largely responsible for teaching numeracy. While it is acknowledged that the crux of embedding is good teaching practice, little is known about the embedded numeracy teaching practices of these vocational educators.
The purpose of this study was two-fold. Firstly, I set out to explore how vocational tutors characterise embedding numeracy as part of their teaching practice with respect to evidence-based knowledge of effective practice. Secondly, I wanted to consider how professional learning and development has impacted their practice, and what further professional development approaches might prove useful.
To that end, I undertook a case study research approach using qualitative analysis of data collected through semi-structured interviews. I conducted interviews with six foundation-level vocational tutors employed in the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITP) sector. Additionally, participants provided examples of teaching and learning resources, and I consulted official programme documentation for each sample case. 
Approaches to embedding numeracy can be situated on a continuum from numeracy-saturated, practice-based embedding to opportunistic embedding. In all cases, tutors use authentic contexts that are meaningful to the learners, a key element of an embedded approach. Learners’ anxieties towards mathematics are acknowledged and assuaged as tutors model numeracy practices in the vocational role that learners aspire to rather than as a teacher of a subject that many learners loathe and fear. Collectively, tutors’ characterisations of their practice align with evidence-based effective practices, but mathematical expertise and confidence varies between tutors and so, therefore, does the depth and quality of the mathematical tuition. Tutors gauge learners’ numeracy development through their engagement in context-related numeracy practices; this development may not be captured by numeracy proficiency measures. Benefits of an embedded approach to numeracy development are compromised by a lack of resourced collaboration time between vocational tutors and numeracy specialists.
Given that good teaching is at the heart of embedded numeracy, further research that includes observations in teaching spaces and the voices of tutors and students is warranted. Tutors desire more collaborative opportunities to learn from each other and from numeracy experts. Professional learning going forward should include opportunities to create professional knowledge and skills through interaction with information and other people.

text: Embedded numeracy teaching practices at an Institute of Technology: Vocational tutors' characterisations of embedding numeracy and related professional development As part of a multi-pronged strategy to improve levels of adult numeracy, embedded numeracy provision is a required element of foundation-level vocational education in New Zealand. Embedded numeracy, as it is interpreted in New Zealand, means learners develop numeracy skills within vocational courses and programmes rather than as a separate programme of study. This approach means that vocational educators, rather than numeracy specialist educators, are largely responsible for teaching numeracy. While it is acknowledged that the crux of embedding is good teaching practice, little is known about the embedded numeracy teaching practices of these vocational educators.
The purpose of this study was two-fold. Firstly, I set out to explore how vocational tutors characterise embedding numeracy as part of their teaching practice with respect to evidence-based knowledge of effective practice. Secondly, I wanted to consider how professional learning and development has impacted their practice, and what further professional development approaches might prove useful.
To that end, I undertook a case study research approach using qualitative analysis of data collected through semi-structured interviews. I conducted interviews with six foundation-level vocational tutors employed in the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITP) sector. Additionally, participants provided examples of teaching and learning resources, and I consulted official programme documentation for each sample case. 
Approaches to embedding numeracy can be situated on a continuum from numeracy-saturated, practice-based embedding to opportunistic embedding. In all cases, tutors use authentic contexts that are meaningful to the learners, a key element of an embedded approach. Learners’ anxieties towards mathematics are acknowledged and assuaged as tutors model numeracy practices in the vocational role that learners aspire to rather than as a teacher of a subject that many learners loathe and fear. Collectively, tutors’ characterisations of their practice align with evidence-based effective practices, but mathematical expertise and confidence varies between tutors and so, therefore, does the depth and quality of the mathematical tuition. Tutors gauge learners’ numeracy development through their engagement in context-related numeracy practices; this development may not be captured by numeracy proficiency measures. Benefits of an embedded approach to numeracy development are compromised by a lack of resourced collaboration time between vocational tutors and numeracy specialists.
Given that good teaching is at the heart of embedded numeracy, further research that includes observations in teaching spaces and the voices of tutors and students is warranted. Tutors desire more collaborative opportunities to learn from each other and from numeracy experts. Professional learning going forward should include opportunities to create professional knowledge and skills through interaction with information and other people.

year: 2019

title: Listening at dawn: Trans* storywork for all my relations

authors: Luna-Pizano, Rafaela

subjects: Transgender

abstract: This is a love letter to trans* people: a reminder of our place and legacy of trans*formation. In the form of collaborative and ceremonial research, this PhD with creative practice component is an affirmation of embodied, elemental storytelling as a necessary practice for unearthing and grounding the traditional knowledge that Indigenous-Trans* (Indigi-Trans*) people carry within our body-spirits. This creative practice (co)research uplifts liminal states of being, as given to us by our elemental ancestors, in the decolonial project of Indigenous (encompassing Black and Trans*) body-land reclamation and restoration. By recognizing and nourishing the power of the between, this thesis remembers practices of place that are rooted in the body, often our last piece of ancestral land as displaced and diasporic Indigi-Trans* people. Spanning the coasts of Aotearoa-NZ to the west coast of Ixtlán (Turtle Island-US), this creative project listened to the somatic presence of Indigi-Trans* creators (co-researchers) who are in varying states of connection to their ancestral lands and traditions. To account for sudden and extreme shifts in safety and access due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I created online and on-site rituals to sustain connection and retrace our ancestors’ techniques of time and space travel. By engaging with body-awareness practices or ritual performances offered in this project, co-researchers and storytellers were able to experiment with ‘knew’ ways of engaging the ancestral power of place. As a member of the communities contributing to this project, I witnessed an important transformation within co-researchers from a sense of landlessness to a sense of infinite place. This transformation gave co-researchers and storytellers a new source of power, strengthening their spiritual-mental capacity to receive and grow (especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic). In a political climate of increasing backlash to trans* and Indigenous sovereignty, this creative project is a unique contribution to the kete, or basket of knowledge that we offer to the coming generations of trans*formational practitioners and scholars.
Situated within the realms of Indigenous, Queer, Xicana and Critical Black Trans* Feminist theories, this creative project also draws upon performance, sound, and poetic practice to hatch another creative methodology that centers place-based ritual. As I created this thesis in a liminal waterscape, crossing back and forth between Aotearoa and Ixtlán, colliding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I opened myself to theories generated by the lands that nourished me. Thus, a Kaupapa Māori and Mana Wahine informed approach emerges as the prow of this banka, or canoe that carries other Black, Indigenous and Trans* lineages of scholarship. From this fluid place of theory, my practice as an Indigi-
Trans* ritualist, poet, and sound artist grounds these theories in my body and the body-lands of my co-researchers. Together, we create a Kappi (Ilocano crab motif referencing Maui’s fishing up of our islands) methodology, or the underwater reflections of celestial movement as mapped by Indigi-Trans* freedom strategies. As the co-researchers and storytellers of this project demonstrate, many Indigi-Trans* people are (re)birthing and (re)creating life and possibility just by existing. Our power of place, in body and land, can link and strengthen all Indigenous sovereignty movements when our communities take up the call to foster each person’s fluid potential.
Although this entire project is creative, as a PhD with creative practice component, this project is an ebb and flow of written and other media components. Most of the ‘creative component’ occurred during the co-research stage of this thesis and has been documented via photographs, video, participant testimony, soundscapes, and poetry on a separate, companion website (https://transjoy.cargo.site/). These artifacts of ritual research are also discussed within the harvest (data) section of the written portion, but reader/listeners are encouraged to view the website in tandem. Poetry, narrative, and soundscapes (hyperlinks or bone icons) weave throughout the written portion to create a multi-sensory experience that privileges my roots in aural tradition. Together, the performances, website, poetry, and soundscapes constitute roughly thirty percent of the final thesis, weighing more heavily on a written portion of seventy percent. Listener/readers are encouraged to experience the written and multi-media portions in tandem, cycling back and forth in a playful spirit as the next step of creative practice: listener participation. Please enter this project with the care and excitement invited of all listeners when the storyteller asks, “are you ready to hear a story?”

text: Listening at dawn: Trans* storywork for all my relations This is a love letter to trans* people: a reminder of our place and legacy of trans*formation. In the form of collaborative and ceremonial research, this PhD with creative practice component is an affirmation of embodied, elemental storytelling as a necessary practice for unearthing and grounding the traditional knowledge that Indigenous-Trans* (Indigi-Trans*) people carry within our body-spirits. This creative practice (co)research uplifts liminal states of being, as given to us by our elemental ancestors, in the decolonial project of Indigenous (encompassing Black and Trans*) body-land reclamation and restoration. By recognizing and nourishing the power of the between, this thesis remembers practices of place that are rooted in the body, often our last piece of ancestral land as displaced and diasporic Indigi-Trans* people. Spanning the coasts of Aotearoa-NZ to the west coast of Ixtlán (Turtle Island-US), this creative project listened to the somatic presence of Indigi-Trans* creators (co-researchers) who are in varying states of connection to their ancestral lands and traditions. To account for sudden and extreme shifts in safety and access due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I created online and on-site rituals to sustain connection and retrace our ancestors’ techniques of time and space travel. By engaging with body-awareness practices or ritual performances offered in this project, co-researchers and storytellers were able to experiment with ‘knew’ ways of engaging the ancestral power of place. As a member of the communities contributing to this project, I witnessed an important transformation within co-researchers from a sense of landlessness to a sense of infinite place. This transformation gave co-researchers and storytellers a new source of power, strengthening their spiritual-mental capacity to receive and grow (especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic). In a political climate of increasing backlash to trans* and Indigenous sovereignty, this creative project is a unique contribution to the kete, or basket of knowledge that we offer to the coming generations of trans*formational practitioners and scholars.
Situated within the realms of Indigenous, Queer, Xicana and Critical Black Trans* Feminist theories, this creative project also draws upon performance, sound, and poetic practice to hatch another creative methodology that centers place-based ritual. As I created this thesis in a liminal waterscape, crossing back and forth between Aotearoa and Ixtlán, colliding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I opened myself to theories generated by the lands that nourished me. Thus, a Kaupapa Māori and Mana Wahine informed approach emerges as the prow of this banka, or canoe that carries other Black, Indigenous and Trans* lineages of scholarship. From this fluid place of theory, my practice as an Indigi-
Trans* ritualist, poet, and sound artist grounds these theories in my body and the body-lands of my co-researchers. Together, we create a Kappi (Ilocano crab motif referencing Maui’s fishing up of our islands) methodology, or the underwater reflections of celestial movement as mapped by Indigi-Trans* freedom strategies. As the co-researchers and storytellers of this project demonstrate, many Indigi-Trans* people are (re)birthing and (re)creating life and possibility just by existing. Our power of place, in body and land, can link and strengthen all Indigenous sovereignty movements when our communities take up the call to foster each person’s fluid potential.
Although this entire project is creative, as a PhD with creative practice component, this project is an ebb and flow of written and other media components. Most of the ‘creative component’ occurred during the co-research stage of this thesis and has been documented via photographs, video, participant testimony, soundscapes, and poetry on a separate, companion website (https://transjoy.cargo.site/). These artifacts of ritual research are also discussed within the harvest (data) section of the written portion, but reader/listeners are encouraged to view the website in tandem. Poetry, narrative, and soundscapes (hyperlinks or bone icons) weave throughout the written portion to create a multi-sensory experience that privileges my roots in aural tradition. Together, the performances, website, poetry, and soundscapes constitute roughly thirty percent of the final thesis, weighing more heavily on a written portion of seventy percent. Listener/readers are encouraged to experience the written and multi-media portions in tandem, cycling back and forth in a playful spirit as the next step of creative practice: listener participation. Please enter this project with the care and excitement invited of all listeners when the storyteller asks, “are you ready to hear a story?”

year: 2023