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    ‘I feel the weather and you just know’. Narrating the dynamics of commuter mobility choices
    (Elsevier B.V., 2022-07-18) Barr S; Lampkin S; Dawkins L; Williamson D
    Efforts to promote travel behaviour change have frequently deployed social marketing strategies that are based on characterising populations into discrete target groups through quantitative segmentation techniques. Such techniques provide an important basis for understanding behavioural choices and motivations, frequently using psychological constructs that can be used for planning interventions. However, there are limitations to what a solely quantitative approach can offer practitioners in terms of understanding the dynamics of travel behaviour and the meanings associated with personal mobility that can be used to design appropriate interventions. In this paper we provide evidence to argue for a mixed-methods approach, where insights from quantitative segmentation and qualitative data can be used to reveal the experiential nature of factors that influence travel decision making. To pursue this argument we present findings from research with commuters in the city of Exeter, South West England. Using data from five workshops, we illustrate the ways in which participants articulated and gave meaning to a series of travel mode influences identified using quantitative segmentation techniques for specific commuter groups (private car, public transport, walking, cycling and a combination of modes). We demonstrate how both understanding the dynamism of travel behaviour and revealing its meanings can present opportunities for designing interventions, offering pathways to promote shifts away from carbon intensive transport.
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    mHealth, Health, and Mobility: A Culture-Centered Interrogation
    (Springer Science+Business Media B.V, 2018-01-04) Dutta MJ; Kaur-Gill S; Tan N; Lam C; Baulch E; Watkins J; Tariq A
    In this chapter, we examine the interplays of the symbolic and the material in the constructions of mHealth. By attending to the key themes that play out in discourses of mHealth, we examine critically the ways in which power plays out in the structuring of mHealth solutions. The articulation of mHealth as instrumental to generating positive health outcomes in communities across Asia erases the contexts within which mobile technologies are constituted. mHealth interventions reproduce the logics of the state and the market, reproducing communities as homogeneous and monolithic sites of top-down interventions.
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    Role of motility and chemotaxis in solvent production by Clostridium acetobutylicum : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Biotechnology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1989) Gutierrez, Noemi A.
    The motility of Clostridium acetobutylicum P262 and its relationship to solventogenesis were investigated. Motility was monitored in a typical batch fermentation process using sulphuric acid casein whey permeate as substrate. The motile behaviour of C. acetobutylicum was characterized by "runs" wherein the cells were observed to swim in a long, smooth line, then the cells "tumbled" by thrashing around for a few seconds before running again. The "runs" were particularly associated with the early phase of sugar utilization and acid production, while "tumbles" were associated with the onset of solventogenesis. During solvent production, the cells tumbled more frequently and the runs progressively became shorter and slower. The proportion of cells in the culture which exhibited motility increased to almost 100% up to 13h after inoculation, but decreased considerably after this time. Assays for positive chemotaxis (chemoattraction) and negative chemotaxis (chemorepulsion) were performed to identify the chemoeffectors of C. acetobutylicum. Motile cells of C. acetobutylicum were observed to migrate towards glucose, galactose, and lactose. These sugars were identified as attractants. Acetate and butyrate elicited a dual response. Cells were repelled from the dissociated form and attracted towards the undissociated form above a minimum threshold concentration. Chemoattraction to butyric acid was observed at a threshold concentration of 9 x 10-2 M which is similar to the concentration of undissociated butyric acid inside the cell (1.3 x 10-2 M) at which solventogenesis is reported to be initiated, suggesting that the intracellular butyric acid concentration is the likely switch for solventogenesis to commence. The solvents acetone, butanol and ethanol were identified as repellents. The behavioural response of C. acetobutylicum towards the sugars, acids and solvents demonstrates that the motility observed during fermentation is a chemotactic response. Chemotaxis appears to provide survival advantage to C. acetobutylicum. A non-motile mutant was isolated by mutagenesis using ethyl methane sulfonate. This mutant was morphologically indistinguishable from the motile parent strain, such that it possesses flagella in typical number and shape as those of the parent, and is capable of producing clostridial forms and endospores. This type of mutant is a paralyzed mutant and the mutation may be a defect in any of the genes that code for flagellar rotation. The non-motile mutant was capable of solvent production suggesting that motility is not a regulatory mechanism for the switch to solvent production, but merely a behavioural chemotactic response. However, the maximum butanol concentration achieved, the initial rate of butanol production, the yield, and the sugar utilization observed with the mutant were poorer than those of the parent strain. These confirm the positive relationship between motile, chemotactic cultures and solvent production. The low butanol production by the non-motile mutant suggests that the mutant has a lower butanol tolerance than does the parent. Inhibition studies have shown that both growth and solvent production of C. acetobutylicum are subject to end-product toxicity. Growth inhibition studies confirmed that the non-motile mutant was less tolerant to solvents than was the parent. A deficiency in membrane-bound ATPase activity was observed with the non-motile mutant but not in the parent strain. This deficiency in ATPase activity, lack of motility, and lower butanol tolerance may explain the low butanol production by the mutant. On a percentage basis, greater inhibition of solvent production was observed in the parent than in the mutant suggesting that butanol toxicity during the solvent production phase is more profound in the presence of another target site (i.e. ATPase) in addition to the cell membrane. It was further suggested that during growth, butanol inhibition due to membrane disruption was more important than inhibition of ATPase. Thus, chemotaxis prevents C. acetobutylicum from being confined in a toxic situation. Motile cells are more solventogenic because they can chemotactically respond to changes in their environment, and are less susceptible to product inhibition.
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    Flight of the kiwi : an exploration of motives and behaviours of self-initiated mobility : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2008) Thorn, Kaye Jennifer
    The primary aim of this study was to identify the motives for self-initiated mobility of highly educated New Zealanders across national boundaries. It further seeks to identify the relative importance of these motives and to explore relationships between motivation and mobility behaviour. This study on self-initiated mobility is opportune as an increasingly globalised market place and a demand for the skills of the highly educated result in competition for workers. Most literature concerning mobility focuses on expatriate assignment. By comparison, self-initiated movers remain an under-researched group. Moreover, of the limited research on self-initiated mobility, most have used interviewing and narrative methods, so that the available information is detailed but restricted to individual experiences. This study used a self-report survey via the internet to collect both quantitative and qualitative data and yielded 2,608 useable responses from New Zalanders living and working throughout the world. It was highly exploratory, using the analytical marketing tool CHAID to show linkages between subjective attitudinal motives and objective measures of moility behaviours. The desire for cultural and travel opportunities was the dominant subjective motive, being the best predictor for the objective mobility behaviours of establishment, current spatiality and return propensity and being a secondary predictor for restlessness. Other associations were evident between the quality of life motive and the behaviour of restlessness, the career motive and cultural globalism and the relationships motive and the behaviour of latent transience. Economics and the political environment motives were not found to be significant predictors of any behaviour. The subjective data reinforced the importance of the cultural and travel opportunities and career motives, ranking these the most important motives in a decision to be mobile. Within these motives, opportunities for travel and adventure and for career development were central. Economics was ranked as the third most important motive, contrary to extant literature, followed by relationships, quality of life and the political environment. The priority accorded to each of these six motives varies according to gender, location and life stage, creating different equations of motivation.