title: A statistical portrait of the New Zealand precariat

authors: Cochrane, William

abstract: Social inequalities have been increasing in New Zealand since the 1980s, widely understood to be a consequence of labour and welfare reforms that increased flexibility in employment, reduced protection for workers, and introduced stricter criteria for unemployment and other benefits. Perhaps the most alarming outcome of these changes has been the growth of low-paid temporary jobs. This has resulted in an increase in households struggling to meet basic food, health and housing needs.

text: A statistical portrait of the New Zealand precariat Social inequalities have been increasing in New Zealand since the 1980s, widely understood to be a consequence of labour and welfare reforms that increased flexibility in employment, reduced protection for workers, and introduced stricter criteria for unemployment and other benefits. Perhaps the most alarming outcome of these changes has been the growth of low-paid temporary jobs. This has resulted in an increase in households struggling to meet basic food, health and housing needs.

year: 2017

title: White-noise susceptibility and critical slowing in neurons near spiking threshold

authors: Steyn-Ross, D. Alistair

subjects: neuron

abstract: We present mathematical and simulation analyses of the below-threshold noisy response of two biophysically motivated models for excitable membrane due to H. R. Wilson: a squid axon (“resonator”) and a human cortical neuron (“integrator”). When stimulated with a low-intensity white noise superimposed on a dc control current, both membrane types generate voltage fluctuations that exhibit critical slowing down—that is, the voltage responsiveness to noisy input currents grows in amplitude while slowing in frequency—as the membrane approaches spiking threshold from below. We define threshold unambiguously as that dc current that renders a zero real eigenvalue for the Jacobian matrix for the integrator neuron, and, for the resonator neuron, as the dc current that gives a complex eigenvalue pair whose real part is zero. Using a linear Ornstein-Uhlenbeck analysis, we give exact small-noise expressions for the variance, power spectrum, and correlation function of the voltage fluctuations, and we derive the scaling laws for the divergence of susceptibility and correlation times for approach to threshold. We compare these predictions with numerical simulations of the nonlinear stochastic equations, and demonstrate that, provided the white-noise perturbations are kept sufficiently small, the linearized theory works well. These predictions should be testable in the laboratory using a current-clamped cell configuration. If confirmed, then the proximity of a neuron to its spike-transition point can be judged by measuring its subthreshold susceptibility to white-noise stimulation. We postulate that such temporally correlated fluctuations could provide a means of subthreshold signaling via gap-junction connections with neighboring neurons.

text: White-noise susceptibility and critical slowing in neurons near spiking threshold We present mathematical and simulation analyses of the below-threshold noisy response of two biophysically motivated models for excitable membrane due to H. R. Wilson: a squid axon (“resonator”) and a human cortical neuron (“integrator”). When stimulated with a low-intensity white noise superimposed on a dc control current, both membrane types generate voltage fluctuations that exhibit critical slowing down—that is, the voltage responsiveness to noisy input currents grows in amplitude while slowing in frequency—as the membrane approaches spiking threshold from below. We define threshold unambiguously as that dc current that renders a zero real eigenvalue for the Jacobian matrix for the integrator neuron, and, for the resonator neuron, as the dc current that gives a complex eigenvalue pair whose real part is zero. Using a linear Ornstein-Uhlenbeck analysis, we give exact small-noise expressions for the variance, power spectrum, and correlation function of the voltage fluctuations, and we derive the scaling laws for the divergence of susceptibility and correlation times for approach to threshold. We compare these predictions with numerical simulations of the nonlinear stochastic equations, and demonstrate that, provided the white-noise perturbations are kept sufficiently small, the linearized theory works well. These predictions should be testable in the laboratory using a current-clamped cell configuration. If confirmed, then the proximity of a neuron to its spike-transition point can be judged by measuring its subthreshold susceptibility to white-noise stimulation. We postulate that such temporally correlated fluctuations could provide a means of subthreshold signaling via gap-junction connections with neighboring neurons.

year: 2006

title: Integrating kaupapa Māori in a pākeha philosophy programme

authors: Weijers, Dan M.

abstract: Presented at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand on 15 September 2022

text: Integrating kaupapa Māori in a pākeha philosophy programme Presented at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand on 15 September 2022

year: 2022-09-15