We include the course syllabus used to teach quantitative research design and analysis methods to graduate Linguistics students using a blended teaching and learning approach. The blended course took place over two weeks and builds on a face to face course presented over two days in 2019. Students worked through the topics in preparation for a live interactive video session each Friday to go through the activities. Additional communication took place on Slack for two hours each week. A survey was conducted at the start and end of the course to ascertain participants' perceptions of the usefulness of the course. The links to online elements and the evaluations have been removed from the uploaded course guide.Participants who complete this workshop will be able to:- outline the steps and decisions involved in quantitative data analysis of linguistic data- explain common statistical terminology (sample, mean, standard deviation, correlation, nominal, ordinal and scale data)- perform common statistical tests using jamovi (e.g. t-test, correlation, anova, regression)- interpret and report common statistical tests- describe and choose from the various graphing options used to display data- use jamovi to perform common statistical tests and graph resultsEvaluationParticipants who complete the course will use these skills and knowledge to complete the following activities for evaluation:- analyse the data for a project and/or assignment (in part or in whole)- plan the results section of an Honours research project (where applicable)Feedback and suggestions can be directed to M Schaefer schaemn@unisa.ac.za

Real interest rates describe the growth in the real value of the interest on a loan or deposit, adjusted for inflation. Nominal interest rates on the other hand show us the raw interest rate, which is unadjusted for inflation. If the inflation rate in a certain country were zero percent, the real and nominal interest rates would be the same number. As inflation reduces the real value of a loan, however, a positive inflation rate will mean that the nominal interest rate is more likely to be greater than the real interest rate. We can see this in the recent inflationary episode which has taken place in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, with nominal interest rates rising over the course of 2022, but still lagging far behind the rate of inflation, meaning these rate rises register as smaller increases in the real interest rate.

The food dollar series measures annual expenditures by U.S. consumers on domestically produced food. This data series is composed of three primary series—the marketing bill series, the industry group series, and the primary factor series—that shed light on different aspects of the food supply chain. The three series show three different ways to split up the same food dollar. Nominal DataThe FoodDollarDataNominal.xls file and the NominalData.csv file include statistics reported in current year dollars. In the data rows, each row statistic covers a unique combination of year, unit of measurement, table number, and category number. These are defined as follows:YEAR: 1993 to 2015UNITS: reported in both cents per domestic food dollar and total domestic food dollars ($ millions)Real Data The FoodDollarDataReal.xls file and the FoodDollarDataReal.csv file include statistics reported in constant year 2009 dollars. Since the March 30, 2016 update, 2006 data in cents per domestic real food dollar units have been added to the real food dollar series.In the data rows, each row statistic covers a unique combination of year, unit of measurement, table number, and category number. These are defined as follows:YEAR: 1993 to 2014UNITS: reported in both cents per domestic food dollar and total domestic food dollars ($ millions)

Refer to the current geographies boundaries table for a list of all current geographies and recent updates.

This dataset is the definitive version of the annually released statistical area 2 (SA2) boundaries as at 1 January 2025 as defined by Stats NZ. This version contains 2,395 SA2s (2,379 digitised and 16 with empty or null geometries (non-digitised)).

SA2 is an output geography that provides higher aggregations of population data than can be provided at the statistical area 1 (SA1) level. The SA2 geography aims to reflect communities that interact together socially and economically. In populated areas, SA2s generally contain similar sized populations.

The SA2 should:

form a contiguous cluster of one or more SA1s,

excluding exceptions below, allow the release of multivariate statistics with minimal data suppression,

capture a similar type of area, such as a high-density urban area, farmland, wilderness area, and water area,

be socially homogeneous and capture a community of interest. It may have, for example:

• a shared road network,
• shared community facilities,
• shared historical or social links, or
• socio-economic similarity,

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form a nested hierarchy with statistical output geographies and administrative boundaries. It must:

• be built from SA1s,
• either define or aggregate to define SA3s, urban areas, territorial authorities, and regional councils.

SA2s in city council areas generally have a population of 2,000–4,000 residents while SA2s in district council areas generally have a population of 1,000–3,000 residents.

In major urban areas, an SA2 or a group of SA2s often approximates a single suburb. In rural areas, rural settlements are included in their respective SA2 with the surrounding rural area.

SA2s in urban areas where there is significant business and industrial activity, for example ports, airports, industrial, commercial, and retail areas, often have fewer than 1,000 residents. These SA2s are useful for analysing business demographics, labour markets, and commuting patterns.

In rural areas, some SA2s have fewer than 1,000 residents because they are in conservation areas or contain sparse populations that cover a large area.

To minimise suppression of population data, small islands with zero or low populations close to the mainland, and marinas are generally included in their adjacent land-based SA2.

Zero or nominal population SA2s

To ensure that the SA2 geography covers all of New Zealand and aligns with New Zealand’s topography and local government boundaries, some SA2s have zero or nominal populations. These include:

• SA2s where territorial authority boundaries straddle regional council boundaries. These SA2s each have fewer than 200 residents and are: Arahiwi, Tiroa, Rangataiki, Kaimanawa, Taharua, Te More, Ngamatea, Whangamomona, and Mara.
• SA2s created for single islands or groups of islands that are some distance from the mainland or to separate large unpopulated islands from urban areas
• SA2s that represent inland water, inlets or oceanic areas including: inland lakes larger than 50 square kilometres, harbours larger than 40 square kilometres, major ports, other non-contiguous inlets and harbours defined by territorial authority, and contiguous oceanic areas defined by regional council.
• SA2s for non-digitised oceanic areas, offshore oil rigs, islands, and the Ross Dependency. Each SA2 is represented by a single meshblock. The following 16 SA2s are held in non-digitised form (SA2 code; SA2 name):

400001; New Zealand Economic Zone, 400002; Oceanic Kermadec Islands, 400003; Kermadec Islands, 400004; Oceanic Oil Rig Taranaki, 400005; Oceanic Campbell Island, 400006; Campbell Island, 400007; Oceanic Oil Rig Southland, 400008; Oceanic Auckland Islands, 400009; Auckland Islands, 400010 ; Oceanic Bounty Islands, 400011; Bounty Islands, 400012; Oceanic Snares Islands, 400013; Snares Islands, 400014; Oceanic Antipodes Islands, 400015; Antipodes Islands, 400016; Ross Dependency.

SA2 numbering and naming

Each SA2 is a single geographic entity with a name and a numeric code. The name refers to a geographic feature or a recognised place name or suburb. In some instances where place names are the same or very similar, the SA2s are differentiated by their territorial authority name, for example, Gladstone (Carterton District) and Gladstone (Invercargill City).

SA2 codes have six digits. North Island SA2 codes start with a 1 or 2, South Island SA2 codes start with a 3 and non-digitised SA2 codes start with a 4. They are numbered approximately north to south within their respective territorial authorities. To ensure the north–south code pattern is maintained, the SA2 codes were given 00 for the last two digits when the geography was created in 2018. When SA2 names or boundaries change only the last two digits of the code will change.

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High-definition version

This high definition (HD) version is the most detailed geometry, suitable for use in GIS for geometric analysis operations and for the computation of areas, centroids and other metrics. The HD version is aligned to the LINZ cadastre.

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Macrons

Names are provided with and without tohutō/macrons. The column name for those without macrons is suffixed ‘ascii’.

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Digital data

Digital boundary data became freely available on 1 July 2007.

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Further information

To download geographic classifications in table formats such as CSV please use Ariā

For more information please refer to the Statistical standard for geographic areas 2023.

Contact: geography@stats.govt.nz

1 Introduction

The Peatland Decomposition Database (PDD) stores data from published litterbag experiments related to peatlands. Currently, the database focuses on northern peatlands and Sphagnum litter and peat, but it also contains data from some vascular plant litterbag experiments. Currently, the database contains entries from 34 studies, 2,160 litterbag experiments, and 7,297 individual samples with 117,841 measurements for various attributes (e.g. relative mass remaining, N content, holocellulose content, mesh size). The aim is to provide a harmonized data source that can be useful to re-analyse existing data and to plan future litterbag experiments.

The Peatland Productivity and Decomposition Parameter Database (PPDPD) (Bona et al. 2018) is similar to the Peatland Decomposition Database (PDD) in that both contain data from peatland litterbag experiments. The differences are that both databases partly contain different data, that PPDPD additionally contains information on vegetation productivity, which PDD does not, and that PDD provides more information and metadata on litterbag experiments, and also measurement errors.

2 Updates

Compared to version 1.0.0, this version has a new structure for table experimental_design_format, contains additional metadata on the experimental design (these were omitted in version 1.0.0), and contains the scripts that were used to import the data into the database.

3 Methods

3.1 Data collection

Data for the database was collected from published litterbag studies, by extracting published data from figures, tables, or other data sources, and by contacting the authors of the studies to obtain raw data. All data processing was done with R (R version 4.2.0 (2022-04-22)) (R Core Team 2022).

Studies were identified via a Scopus search with search string (TITLE-ABS-KEY ( peat* AND ( "litter bag" OR "decomposition rate" OR "decay rate" OR "mass loss")) AND NOT ("tropic*")) (2022-12-17). These studies were further screened to exclude those which do not contain litterbag data or which recycle data from other studies that have already been considered. Additional studies with litterbag experiments in northern peatlands we were aware of, but which were not identified in the literature search were added to the list of publications. For studies not older than 10 years, authors were contacted to obtain raw data, however this was successful only in few cases. To date, the database focuses on Sphagnum litterbag experiments and not from all studies that were identified by the literature search data have been included yet in the database.

Data from figures were extracted using the package ‘metaDigitise’ (1.0.1) (Pick, Nakagawa, and Noble 2018). Data from tables were extracted manually.

Data from the following studies are currently included: Farrish and Grigal (1985), Bartsch and Moore (1985), Farrish and Grigal (1988), Vitt (1990), Hogg, Lieffers, and Wein (1992), Sanger, Billett, and Cresser (1994), Hiroki and Watanabe (1996), Szumigalski and Bayley (1996), Prevost, Belleau, and Plamondon (1997), Arp, Cooper, and Stednick (1999), Robbert A. Scheffer and Aerts (2000), R. A. Scheffer, Van Logtestijn, and Verhoeven (2001), Limpens and Berendse (2003), Waddington, Rochefort, and Campeau (2003), Asada, Warner, and Banner (2004), Thormann, Bayley, and Currah (2001), Trinder, Johnson, and Artz (2008), Breeuwer et al. (2008), Trinder, Johnson, and Artz (2009), Bragazza and Iacumin (2009), Hoorens, Stroetenga, and Aerts (2010), Straková et al. (2010), Straková et al. (2012), Orwin and Ostle (2012), Lieffers (1988), Manninen et al. (2016), Johnson and Damman (1991), Bengtsson, Rydin, and Hájek (2018a), Bengtsson, Rydin, and Hájek (2018b), Asada and Warner (2005), Bengtsson, Granath, and Rydin (2017), Bengtsson, Granath, and Rydin (2016), Hagemann and Moroni (2015), Hagemann and Moroni (2016), B. Piatkowski et al. (2021), B. T. Piatkowski et al. (2021), Mäkilä et al. (2018), Golovatskaya and Nikonova (2017), Golovatskaya and Nikonova (2017).

4 Database records

The database is a ‘MariaDB’ database and the database schema was designed to store data and metadata following the Ecological Metadata Language (EML) (Jones et al. 2019). Descriptions of the tables are shown in Tab. 1.

The database contains general metadata relevant for litterbag experiments (e.g., geographical, temporal, and taxonomic coverage, mesh sizes, experimental design). However, it does not contain a detailed description of sample handling, sample preprocessing methods, site descriptions, because there currently are no discipline-specific metadata and reporting standards. Table 1: Description of the individual tables in the database.

Name Description

attributes Defines the attributes of the database and the values in column attribute_name in table data.

citations Stores bibtex entries for references and data sources.

citations_to_datasets Links entries in table citations with entries in table datasets.

custom_units Stores custom units.

data Stores measured values for samples, for example remaining masses.

datasets Lists the individual datasets.

experimental_design_format Stores information on the experimental design of litterbag experiments.

measurement_scales, measurement_scales_date_time, measurement_scales_interval, measurement_scales_nominal, measurement_scales_ordinal, measurement_scales_ratio Defines data value types.

missing_value_codes Defines how missing values are encoded.

samples Stores information on individual samples.

samples_to_samples Links samples to other samples, for example litter samples collected in the field to litter samples collected during the incubation of the litterbags.

units, unit_types Stores information on measurement units.

5 Attributes Table 2: Definition of attributes in the Peatland Decomposition Database and entries in the column attribute_name in table data.

Name Definition Example value Unit Measurement scale Number type Minimum value Maximum value String format

4_hydroxyacetophenone_mass_absolute A numeric value representing the content of 4-hydroxyacetophenone, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g ratio real 0 Inf NA

4_hydroxyacetophenone_mass_relative_mass A numeric value representing the content of 4-hydroxyacetophenone, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g/g ratio real 0 1 NA

4_hydroxybenzaldehyde_mass_absolute A numeric value representing the content of 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g ratio real 0 Inf NA

4_hydroxybenzaldehyde_mass_relative_mass A numeric value representing the content of 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g/g ratio real 0 1 NA

4_hydroxybenzoic_acid_mass_absolute A numeric value representing the content of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g ratio real 0 Inf NA

4_hydroxybenzoic_acid_mass_relative_mass A numeric value representing the content of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g/g ratio real 0 1 NA

abbreviation In table custom_units: A string representing an abbreviation for the custom unit. gC NA nominal NA NA NA NA

acetone_extractives_mass_absolute A numeric value representing the content of acetone extractives, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g ratio real 0 Inf NA

acetone_extractives_mass_relative_mass A numeric value representing the content of acetone extractives, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g/g ratio real 0 1 NA

acetosyringone_mass_absolute A numeric value representing the content of acetosyringone, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g ratio real 0 Inf NA

acetosyringone_mass_relative_mass A numeric value representing the content of acetosyringone, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g/g ratio real 0 1 NA

acetovanillone_mass_absolute A numeric value representing the content of acetovanillone, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g ratio real 0 Inf NA

acetovanillone_mass_relative_mass A numeric value representing the content of acetovanillone, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g/g ratio real 0 1 NA

arabinose_mass_absolute A numeric value representing the content of arabinose, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g ratio real 0 Inf NA

arabinose_mass_relative_mass A numeric value representing the content of arabinose, as described in Straková et al. (2010). 0.26 g/g ratio real 0 1 NA

ash_mass_absolute A numeric value representing the content of ash (after burning at 550°C). 4 g ratio real 0 Inf NA

ash_mass_relative_mass A numeric value representing the content of ash (after burning at 550°C). 0.05 g/g ratio real 0 Inf NA

attribute_definition A free text field with a textual description of the meaning of attributes in the dpeatdecomposition database. NA NA nominal NA NA NA NA

attribute_name A string describing the names of the attributes in all tables of the dpeatdecomposition database. attribute_name NA nominal NA NA NA NA

bibtex A string representing the bibtex code used for a literature reference throughout the dpeatdecomposition database. Galka.2021 NA nominal NA NA NA NA

bounds_maximum A numeric value representing the minimum possible value for a numeric attribute. 0 NA interval real Inf Inf NA

bounds_minimum A numeric value representing the maximum possible value for a numeric attribute. INF NA interval real Inf Inf NA

bulk_density A numeric value representing the bulk density of the sample [g cm-3]. 0,2 g/cm^3 ratio real 0 Inf NA

C_absolute The absolute mass of C in the sample. 1 g ratio real 0 Inf NA

C_relative_mass The absolute mass of C in the sample. 1 g/g ratio real 0 Inf NA

C_to_N A numeric value representing the C to N ratio of the sample. 35 g/g ratio real 0 Inf NA

C_to_P A numeric value representing the C to P ratio of the sample. 35 g/g ratio real 0 Inf NA

Ca_absolute The