title: Latent Transition Analysis indicates four relatively stable profiles of loneliness in New Zealand

authors: Hammond, Matthew D.

subjects: Science & Technology

abstract: Objective: We investigated the characteristics of loneliness by identifying distinct ‘profiles’ of loneliness and investigating transitions between those loneliness profiles over two years. Method: We conducted Latent Transition Analyses on two years of data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (N=15,820) and modelled how people’s health and age were associated with changes in profile membership. Results: Four loneliness profiles emerged: ‘low-loneliness’ (58% of the sample), ‘high-loneliness’ (5%), ‘appreciated outsiders’ (28%; perceived acceptance from others but felt like social outsiders), and ‘superficially connected’ (9%; lacked acceptance from others but felt socially included). Profile membership was relatively stable over time and transitions were most likely from higher to lower loneliness. Younger people and people reporting poorer health were more likely to transition into profiles with greater loneliness indicators. Conclusions: Findings replicated a four-profile pattern of loneliness, supported the theorised ‘trait-like’ structure of loneliness and identified the possibility that moderate states of loneliness are transitional states into/from low and high loneliness. Implications for public health: The stability of loneliness across years reiterates the need for societal interventions, particularly interventions that are adaptive to whether people’s loneliness forms as a lack of acceptance/value or a lack of social inclusion.

text: Latent Transition Analysis indicates four relatively stable profiles of loneliness in New Zealand Objective: We investigated the characteristics of loneliness by identifying distinct ‘profiles’ of loneliness and investigating transitions between those loneliness profiles over two years. Method: We conducted Latent Transition Analyses on two years of data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (N=15,820) and modelled how people’s health and age were associated with changes in profile membership. Results: Four loneliness profiles emerged: ‘low-loneliness’ (58% of the sample), ‘high-loneliness’ (5%), ‘appreciated outsiders’ (28%; perceived acceptance from others but felt like social outsiders), and ‘superficially connected’ (9%; lacked acceptance from others but felt socially included). Profile membership was relatively stable over time and transitions were most likely from higher to lower loneliness. Younger people and people reporting poorer health were more likely to transition into profiles with greater loneliness indicators. Conclusions: Findings replicated a four-profile pattern of loneliness, supported the theorised ‘trait-like’ structure of loneliness and identified the possibility that moderate states of loneliness are transitional states into/from low and high loneliness. Implications for public health: The stability of loneliness across years reiterates the need for societal interventions, particularly interventions that are adaptive to whether people’s loneliness forms as a lack of acceptance/value or a lack of social inclusion.

year: 2022-05-26

title: The cellulase activity of an extreme thermophile

authors: Hudson, J. Andrew

subjects: biology

abstract: The carboxymethylcellulase activity concentrated from the extremely thermophilic anaerobe H173 was found to have a pH optimum of 6.5–7.0. The enzyme activity was stabilised by the addition of dithiothreitol and CaCl₂•2H₂O and was very stable at 80° C, retaining 77% of the initial activity after 120 min incubtation. At min and after 120 min only 3% of the initial activity remained. With the enzyme dissolved in buffer, glucose and cellobiose were formed from the hydrolosis of Avicel. In culture medium the Avicel-solubilising activity was insensitive to the presence of up tp 50 mm glucose and showed linear glucose accumulation over a period of days at 70° C. HPLC analysis established that glucose was the major end-product of hydrolysis in the culture broths.

text: The cellulase activity of an extreme thermophile The carboxymethylcellulase activity concentrated from the extremely thermophilic anaerobe H173 was found to have a pH optimum of 6.5–7.0. The enzyme activity was stabilised by the addition of dithiothreitol and CaCl₂•2H₂O and was very stable at 80° C, retaining 77% of the initial activity after 120 min incubtation. At min and after 120 min only 3% of the initial activity remained. With the enzyme dissolved in buffer, glucose and cellobiose were formed from the hydrolosis of Avicel. In culture medium the Avicel-solubilising activity was insensitive to the presence of up tp 50 mm glucose and showed linear glucose accumulation over a period of days at 70° C. HPLC analysis established that glucose was the major end-product of hydrolysis in the culture broths.

year: 1991

title: For staff at the Eastern Institute of Technology, is Ōtātara a placeless geography? Or a geography of significance?

authors: Passey, Emma

subjects: Ōtātara

abstract: This thesis explores the experience of place for a group of tertiary employees in a regional area of New Zealand. Staff based at EIT Hawke’s Bay in Taradale, Napier can see the Ōtātara Pā Reserve from several vantage points on campus, and often visit because of its immediate proximity. Originally, joined and now adjacent, the cultural significance of this land for Māori over some centuries prior to Pākehā settlement, is still being uncovered. Through a series of interviews, the historical significance of this place is joined with the experiences of staff in being in this space. A range of meanings including belonging, attachment and sense of location were described by participants, showing the development over time of threads of connection for themselves, family, community and also staff members.

Ideas in the literature of place were considered including attachment to meaningful locations and landscape. A particular interest in the thesis was bringing this more general literature into focus for a New Zealand place, which has substantial Māori history connections including for participants of both Māori and Pākehā backgrounds. Several methodological issues were discussed within a series of interviews including cultural appropriateness and representation. The researchers transition from an English cultural upbringing, to developing and extending indigenous landscape knowledge, illustrates the changing recognition and involvement in an increasingly bi-cultural New Zealand, and demonstrates the implications of this in understanding place attachment.

Findings from this research were organised in three main chapters. The first, recounted historical material about Ōtātara, Māori and Pākehā times, exploring ideas of place and belonging. It also provided a natural anchor for the second and third chapters, which reported the findings of EIT staff enjoying being within, and feeling the presence of that history. Several themes emerged and were summarised as embodied landscape experiences, and the intriguing dimensions of social relationships and place for these tertiary staff.
Place is important across the social sciences as it is for other disciplines. It evokes on the one hand aspirations and ideals of an aesthetic and spiritual nature but at the same time, reminds human beings of their literal and biological being in time and space. The present study has contributed to this wider narrative by looking at one example and in one national bi-cultural setting.

The question posed at the start of the thesis considered whether EIT staff view Ōtātara as a place of significance or a geography which does not matter. The historical connections and physical closeness between EIT and Ōtātara, mean that the Institution and the landscape are inextricably linked. People are equally bonded to this place through culture and lived experiences. Often unconscious or incidental associations are handed down through the generations, within the organisation and throughout the wider community.
How we now occupy this place in a modern world, how we share the (hi)stories and become authors of new ones, will have a profound influence on the ways that staff continue to connect and develop feelings of belonging. Related to this, an idea about an institutional-wide hīkoi around the boundaries of the campus and Ōtātara is offered as an addendum. Our responsibility as educators is to signal to future generations that this is a landscape of significance ensuring that Ōtātara continues to be acknowledged as a taonga for EIT employees, and that it is nurtured in the same way as it nurtures us.

text: For staff at the Eastern Institute of Technology, is Ōtātara a placeless geography? Or a geography of significance? This thesis explores the experience of place for a group of tertiary employees in a regional area of New Zealand. Staff based at EIT Hawke’s Bay in Taradale, Napier can see the Ōtātara Pā Reserve from several vantage points on campus, and often visit because of its immediate proximity. Originally, joined and now adjacent, the cultural significance of this land for Māori over some centuries prior to Pākehā settlement, is still being uncovered. Through a series of interviews, the historical significance of this place is joined with the experiences of staff in being in this space. A range of meanings including belonging, attachment and sense of location were described by participants, showing the development over time of threads of connection for themselves, family, community and also staff members.

Ideas in the literature of place were considered including attachment to meaningful locations and landscape. A particular interest in the thesis was bringing this more general literature into focus for a New Zealand place, which has substantial Māori history connections including for participants of both Māori and Pākehā backgrounds. Several methodological issues were discussed within a series of interviews including cultural appropriateness and representation. The researchers transition from an English cultural upbringing, to developing and extending indigenous landscape knowledge, illustrates the changing recognition and involvement in an increasingly bi-cultural New Zealand, and demonstrates the implications of this in understanding place attachment.

Findings from this research were organised in three main chapters. The first, recounted historical material about Ōtātara, Māori and Pākehā times, exploring ideas of place and belonging. It also provided a natural anchor for the second and third chapters, which reported the findings of EIT staff enjoying being within, and feeling the presence of that history. Several themes emerged and were summarised as embodied landscape experiences, and the intriguing dimensions of social relationships and place for these tertiary staff.
Place is important across the social sciences as it is for other disciplines. It evokes on the one hand aspirations and ideals of an aesthetic and spiritual nature but at the same time, reminds human beings of their literal and biological being in time and space. The present study has contributed to this wider narrative by looking at one example and in one national bi-cultural setting.

The question posed at the start of the thesis considered whether EIT staff view Ōtātara as a place of significance or a geography which does not matter. The historical connections and physical closeness between EIT and Ōtātara, mean that the Institution and the landscape are inextricably linked. People are equally bonded to this place through culture and lived experiences. Often unconscious or incidental associations are handed down through the generations, within the organisation and throughout the wider community.
How we now occupy this place in a modern world, how we share the (hi)stories and become authors of new ones, will have a profound influence on the ways that staff continue to connect and develop feelings of belonging. Related to this, an idea about an institutional-wide hīkoi around the boundaries of the campus and Ōtātara is offered as an addendum. Our responsibility as educators is to signal to future generations that this is a landscape of significance ensuring that Ōtātara continues to be acknowledged as a taonga for EIT employees, and that it is nurtured in the same way as it nurtures us.

year: 2021