title: Needed: a tertiary institute of water and atmospheric research

authors: Bardsley, W. Earl

abstract: The intimate physical linkage between the atmosphere and fresh water is recognized in the invariably enjoyable joint meetings we have from time to time with the Meteorological Society of New Zealand. As expected, the 2013 call for abstracts incorporates a wide range of suggested themes extending from weather forecasting to catchment management.

text: Needed: a tertiary institute of water and atmospheric research The intimate physical linkage between the atmosphere and fresh water is recognized in the invariably enjoyable joint meetings we have from time to time with the Meteorological Society of New Zealand. As expected, the 2013 call for abstracts incorporates a wide range of suggested themes extending from weather forecasting to catchment management.

year: 2013

title: Virtue Ethics and Corporate Governance

authors: Grant, Patricia Louise

subjects: virtue ethics

abstract: The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological study was to explore directors’ lived experience of ethics in their task of corporate governance so as to capture some of the multiple facets of this phenomenon: specifically how directors understand the role of ethics in their task of corporate governance and how they understand and practise ethics. The focus of the investigation was the role and relative importance of directors’ personal ethics as opposed to corporate governance rules or regulations and to what extent their understanding and practise of ethics as such, resembled Kantian ethics, utilitarianism and Aristotelian virtue theory (AVT). Such issues have implications primarily for the influence of leaders’ personal ethics in the context of corporate governance failure and whether AVT in particular can contribute to the achievement of best-practice governance. AVT differs from the other two ethical theories because it focuses on the importance of a good character for the making and carrying out of sound ethical judgments. It assumes that human nature contains the seeds of ethics and that a good character can develop over time with the help of role models and experience. The study also discusses the subjective aspects of the ethical experience and the debate about the relationship between descriptive and philosophical branches of business ethics. The researcher chose to take an interpretive phenomenological approach using an AVT conceptual framework. The focus of the inquiry was what the individual’s narratives imply about what he or she experiences every day. This allowed the researcher to go further by interpreting the meanings for the purposes of practice and research. The use of the AVT conceptual framework facilitated the examination of the relevance of philosophical ethics for business practice in general and in particular to investigate the relevance of AVT as opposed to the two other ethical theories. 

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty-four directors, eight of which were interviewed a second time. The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) technique was used to interpret the data. The findings revealed that directors understand ethics to be integral to their task and that they rely on their personal ethics in carrying out their corporate governance activities. Moreover their experience of ethics resonated with the key features of AVT, aspects which on the whole were not addressed by Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. What is more, directors’ understandings seem to point to an innate objective element underpinning their personal code developed over time through learning and experience. This finding highlights the need to accommodate the subjective-objective complexity of the lived experience of ethics. The findings also indicate that philosophical ethics is needed to adequately account for the lived experience of ethics; directors’ descriptions of their experience contained and were inseparable from ethical standards, the realm of philosophical ethics. In light of the resemblance between AVT and directors’ lived experience of ethics, corporate governance reformers and educators should place just as much emphasis on the development of good character as on learning about ethical duties and how to balance outcomes.

text: Virtue Ethics and Corporate Governance The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological study was to explore directors’ lived experience of ethics in their task of corporate governance so as to capture some of the multiple facets of this phenomenon: specifically how directors understand the role of ethics in their task of corporate governance and how they understand and practise ethics. The focus of the investigation was the role and relative importance of directors’ personal ethics as opposed to corporate governance rules or regulations and to what extent their understanding and practise of ethics as such, resembled Kantian ethics, utilitarianism and Aristotelian virtue theory (AVT). Such issues have implications primarily for the influence of leaders’ personal ethics in the context of corporate governance failure and whether AVT in particular can contribute to the achievement of best-practice governance. AVT differs from the other two ethical theories because it focuses on the importance of a good character for the making and carrying out of sound ethical judgments. It assumes that human nature contains the seeds of ethics and that a good character can develop over time with the help of role models and experience. The study also discusses the subjective aspects of the ethical experience and the debate about the relationship between descriptive and philosophical branches of business ethics. The researcher chose to take an interpretive phenomenological approach using an AVT conceptual framework. The focus of the inquiry was what the individual’s narratives imply about what he or she experiences every day. This allowed the researcher to go further by interpreting the meanings for the purposes of practice and research. The use of the AVT conceptual framework facilitated the examination of the relevance of philosophical ethics for business practice in general and in particular to investigate the relevance of AVT as opposed to the two other ethical theories. 

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty-four directors, eight of which were interviewed a second time. The Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) technique was used to interpret the data. The findings revealed that directors understand ethics to be integral to their task and that they rely on their personal ethics in carrying out their corporate governance activities. Moreover their experience of ethics resonated with the key features of AVT, aspects which on the whole were not addressed by Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. What is more, directors’ understandings seem to point to an innate objective element underpinning their personal code developed over time through learning and experience. This finding highlights the need to accommodate the subjective-objective complexity of the lived experience of ethics. The findings also indicate that philosophical ethics is needed to adequately account for the lived experience of ethics; directors’ descriptions of their experience contained and were inseparable from ethical standards, the realm of philosophical ethics. In light of the resemblance between AVT and directors’ lived experience of ethics, corporate governance reformers and educators should place just as much emphasis on the development of good character as on learning about ethical duties and how to balance outcomes.

year: 2013

title: Contrasting microbial communities across anthropogenic pollution gradients: MV Rena shipwreck versus urban pressures

authors: Reihana, Kiri

subjects: microbial

abstract: With the catastrophic environmental event that was the MV Rena ship wreck and oil spill in the Bay of Plenty area in 2011, a serendipitous opportunity to laterally explore a variety of impacts in the marine biosphere emerged. One of those opportunities is studied here; how microbial communities respond to stress in context of existing ambient local anthropogenic influences. The locational backdrop to this study is also relevant and provides an additional element of complexity as the Bay of Plenty region is located in the middle of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, hence microbial communities are likely to reflect the regional geology. Therefore a research project was possible where a pollutant gradient was selected based on a range of locations reflecting different elements of natural versus human long term and acute impact stresses. The concept was to establish a platform of preliminary study from which more detailed could follow. In addition this study aimed at providing a link between microbial environmental responses to stress in a context that could permit uptake of scientific evidence for cultural impact assessments given the strong cultural focus on MV Rena impacts by government and the public.
A significant element of the exploratory process was to identify methodologies which may be of use in ascribing microbial community composition with the microenvironment in a manner that allows comparison with research reported in the literature.
Review of all results showed that sites from widely varying geologies and environmental/stress condition were more similar than was initially predicted. This is in sharp contrast to expectations generated from the literature. 
At the sites of Astrolabe Reef (Otaiti) (impacted by the ship wreck, major oil spill and heavy metal pollution event) and Maketu (impacted by a eutrophic estuary), similar consortia transpired, despite strongly different sources of stress, substantiating the microbial biogeography theory: ‘Everything is everywhere’ and ‘the environment selects’. However at Tauranga Harbour long term human activity appears to have had a significant ‘additional’ effect on microbial communities. Our challenge has hence become one to separate out natural versus a range of anthropogenic stressors. 
Underlying the general overall trends, subtle community effects such as at Astrolabe Reef, which supported significantly different dominant communities to the other two sites. It was expected that Tauranga Harbour and Maketu Estuary (adjacent coastally), would be more similar. Of all the sites one at the impacted Maketu, site 1 (M1) and the impacted Tauranga site 2 (T2), were highly similar at 96% from statistical analysis suggesting, the original assumption of visually similar site characteristics (impacted sites with low residence time and thick algal matts) do support similar microbial communities. Substantiating the theory that ‘everything is everywhere’ at these two sites, even though the variables and elemental composition were dissimilar. 
Rare and abundant species were separated out and analysed to elucidate patterns or trends in the communities. Overall the abundant species clustered, into impacted versus non impacted sites, for the rare species Tauranga and Maketu clustered clearly following the same trend; while the Astrolabe reef sites clustered together. The clear differentiation in the rare species from the Astrolabe reef sites, suggests that those species may make up the endemic bacterial communities at Astrolabe Reef with additional effects of Rena pollution suggested at some of the sites close to the wreck.
A general discussion of the cultural and economic impacts of the Rena oil spill, gave context to the holistic human impacts sustained by the local Māori, specifically the disconnect of their precious livelihoods and unique relationship with the environment. These holistic concepts could compromise a thesis in themselves so in this report their definitions are by no means finite.     
This study attempted to interrelate both cultural, ecological biology and microbiology science components for the purpose of a more comprehensive investigation of microbial responses to the Rena oil spill and contrast these to local anthropogenic pressures. However being the first attempt to catalogue the previously unknown microbial communities in the Bay of Plenty area, meant that sample regimes, techniques, processing and analysis were all experimental. Despite this, effects attributable to the Rena were identified that lay beyond the large scale variability identified for Bay of Plenty microbial community assemblages. 
These research results provide an important primary contribution to microbial understandings in the New Zealand context, and as a baseline mapping exercise for the Bay of Plenty region.

text: Contrasting microbial communities across anthropogenic pollution gradients: MV Rena shipwreck versus urban pressures With the catastrophic environmental event that was the MV Rena ship wreck and oil spill in the Bay of Plenty area in 2011, a serendipitous opportunity to laterally explore a variety of impacts in the marine biosphere emerged. One of those opportunities is studied here; how microbial communities respond to stress in context of existing ambient local anthropogenic influences. The locational backdrop to this study is also relevant and provides an additional element of complexity as the Bay of Plenty region is located in the middle of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, hence microbial communities are likely to reflect the regional geology. Therefore a research project was possible where a pollutant gradient was selected based on a range of locations reflecting different elements of natural versus human long term and acute impact stresses. The concept was to establish a platform of preliminary study from which more detailed could follow. In addition this study aimed at providing a link between microbial environmental responses to stress in a context that could permit uptake of scientific evidence for cultural impact assessments given the strong cultural focus on MV Rena impacts by government and the public.
A significant element of the exploratory process was to identify methodologies which may be of use in ascribing microbial community composition with the microenvironment in a manner that allows comparison with research reported in the literature.
Review of all results showed that sites from widely varying geologies and environmental/stress condition were more similar than was initially predicted. This is in sharp contrast to expectations generated from the literature. 
At the sites of Astrolabe Reef (Otaiti) (impacted by the ship wreck, major oil spill and heavy metal pollution event) and Maketu (impacted by a eutrophic estuary), similar consortia transpired, despite strongly different sources of stress, substantiating the microbial biogeography theory: ‘Everything is everywhere’ and ‘the environment selects’. However at Tauranga Harbour long term human activity appears to have had a significant ‘additional’ effect on microbial communities. Our challenge has hence become one to separate out natural versus a range of anthropogenic stressors. 
Underlying the general overall trends, subtle community effects such as at Astrolabe Reef, which supported significantly different dominant communities to the other two sites. It was expected that Tauranga Harbour and Maketu Estuary (adjacent coastally), would be more similar. Of all the sites one at the impacted Maketu, site 1 (M1) and the impacted Tauranga site 2 (T2), were highly similar at 96% from statistical analysis suggesting, the original assumption of visually similar site characteristics (impacted sites with low residence time and thick algal matts) do support similar microbial communities. Substantiating the theory that ‘everything is everywhere’ at these two sites, even though the variables and elemental composition were dissimilar. 
Rare and abundant species were separated out and analysed to elucidate patterns or trends in the communities. Overall the abundant species clustered, into impacted versus non impacted sites, for the rare species Tauranga and Maketu clustered clearly following the same trend; while the Astrolabe reef sites clustered together. The clear differentiation in the rare species from the Astrolabe reef sites, suggests that those species may make up the endemic bacterial communities at Astrolabe Reef with additional effects of Rena pollution suggested at some of the sites close to the wreck.
A general discussion of the cultural and economic impacts of the Rena oil spill, gave context to the holistic human impacts sustained by the local Māori, specifically the disconnect of their precious livelihoods and unique relationship with the environment. These holistic concepts could compromise a thesis in themselves so in this report their definitions are by no means finite.     
This study attempted to interrelate both cultural, ecological biology and microbiology science components for the purpose of a more comprehensive investigation of microbial responses to the Rena oil spill and contrast these to local anthropogenic pressures. However being the first attempt to catalogue the previously unknown microbial communities in the Bay of Plenty area, meant that sample regimes, techniques, processing and analysis were all experimental. Despite this, effects attributable to the Rena were identified that lay beyond the large scale variability identified for Bay of Plenty microbial community assemblages. 
These research results provide an important primary contribution to microbial understandings in the New Zealand context, and as a baseline mapping exercise for the Bay of Plenty region.

year: 2016