bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Releasing Anxiety
Authors:   , Snooks Benjamin
Published: December 2021

Being the most common mental disorder, anxiety is especially co-related with busy urban environments. The rise of urbanisation and modern technology has created a world that has significantly heightened our levels of stress and anxiety. In this context, our social responsibility and accountability as architects is increasing. How can we design with peoples’ health and wellbeing in mind? Through iterative design processes, I will create an emotional experience that connects the body with architecture, heightens the occupant’s self-awareness, and engages with site, creating a place of calm and belonging. Sensory design will be used to model the four levels of anxiety (mild, moderate, severe, panic level). The final design will create a narrative journey that stimulates a transition from anxiousness to calming.  The research proposition will be tested on a site located in a highly developed area on the corner of Elliott, Albert and Victoria Streets in Auckland’s business hub. This site was chosen not only for its central location but because it is the site of a new metro station (predicted to be the busiest station in the Auckland rail network) as well as a linear park connecting Victoria and Albert Parks. Together these infrastructural additions will increase pressure on an already over-stimulated environment. The station (Aotea station) will be incorporated into the design, creating an urban park that provides access from the concourse level to street level, drawing people up into a protected landscape area intended to relieve anxiety and provide a place of respite.
"First Among Shepherds": Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching Series from an Arthurian Perspective
Authors:   , Sacksen Freya
Published: December 2021

Throughout his career writing on the Discworld, Terry Pratchett employed what he referred to as ‘white knowledge’; a wide spectrum of intertextuality and allusiveness that pervaded the structure of his stories, the dialogue, the narration, and that was even discussed in scenes constructed to comment on the very absurdity of its existence. In my MA thesis, I examine closely the allusive qualities of the white knowledge present in Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series: The Wee Free Men (2003), A Hat Full of Sky (2004), Wintersmith (2006), I Shall Wear Midnight (2010) and The Shepherd’s Crown (2015). Specifically, I analyze Pratchett’s use of the Arthurian tradition and his references to our understanding of the Arthurian tradition, as constructed by Malory, Tennyson and T. H. White. My aim is to demonstrate how Pratchett constructs Tiffany Aching as an Arthurian palimpsest, alluding to what came before whilst subverting and challenging the very texts from which she is imagined. In my first chapter I analyze the third Tiffany Aching book, Wintersmith, as an example of the Arthurian story of the Fisher King. I also argue for Tiffany Aching herself, in the first two books, existing as a subversive, humanist, reversed Fisher King, who draws strength and power from the land rather than inflicting sterility upon it.  In the second chapter I examine the Arthurian tradition of love triangles, and examine from a feminist, genderqueer perspective Pratchett’s habit of placing characters in roles outside of their traditional gender binaries. In the third chapter I look at Letitia Keepsake, a character introduced in I Shall Wear Midnight, and examine her subversive relationship to the Tennyson poem “The Lady of Shalott”.
Reconnecting Children with Nature: Biophilic Junior Level Learning Environment Design
Authors:   , Woodward Emma
Published: December 2021

More than half of all humanity now live in urban centres. In westerns counties generally at least 80% of people’s time is spent indoors. This means that people are spending less time outside and in places that can be considered ‘nature’. This is problematic because quantitative and qualitative research shows that isolation from the natural world negatively affects human well-being, suggesting that it is essential that nature is a constant part of humans’ lives. This ‘nature deficit’ also impacts the development of personal bonds with nature which relates to learning to value and protect nature, and particularly affects young children. As children grow up in environments increasingly removed from nature, how will children form personal bonds with the living world if they spend their key developmental years removed from it? To address this issue, this design-led research asks: how can we reconnect children with nature using biophilic design in junior level learning environments? This question was explored through design-led research methodologies, primarily using an iterative design process, a ‘triangulation’ approach to research, and two sets of user-based interrogative research. This included a workshop with children aged 5-7 and a New Zealand primary school teachers’ survey. These were conducted to gain insight into user opinions and preferences. Observations, discussions and results were combined and compared with related literature and initial design testing, and then refined into a set of key design elements (see chapter 8.0). These elements were found to be critical in creating well-functioning learning environments that offer biophilic potentials to improve learning, and directly appeal to the users. These elements were tested, developed, and refined through the design of a block of junior level classrooms, in Wellington, New Zealand. Design explorations resulted in a proposed spatial solution that encourages children to interact with and experience nature on a regular basis, with the intention of stimulating the development of a personal bond with and value for the natural world.
Parasitic Architecture - Embodiment of Dystopia
Authors:   , Pomigalova Marina
Published: December 2021

This thesis advocates for unconventional solutions in architecture, arguing that traditional approaches may no longer be successful within contemporary realities. Through searching for answers and inspiration within precedents and fictional realms, this thesis opens a door to a hypothetical place where architecture takes new form - to the territory existing between abstract and physical, where speculative ideas become a way of understanding negotiation between present and future in search of new architectural solutions. The thesis advocates for the importance of the speculative method in architecture, as such an approach allows one to imagine fictional possibilities in order to create more responsive structures, which are always modern.  Through analysis of parasitic behaviours, this thesis speculates on how architecture will respond to environmental and social changes, and what types of structures can evolve and adapt over time. Through experimentation and speculation, the thesis examines parasitic behaviors as a way for organisms to evolve, in order to test if such strategies could be successfully used in architecture. Speculating on conditions in which people are forced to find living alternatives, the thesis proposes new ways for contemporary design to evolve through active participation of habitants in the ongoing developments and expansion of the buildable space around.
The Nature of Enticement
Authors:   , Williams Molly
Published: December 2021

As the world’s population rapidly becomes significantly more urban than rural, the structures that enable urban adapted living can also become a barrier between humans and the living ecosystems they are a part of and have evolved within. It is becoming increasingly apparent that urbanisation in its current form, which tends to entail a disconnection with nature is having negative impacts on the minds and bodies of residents (such as excessive stress, headaches and fatigue).   This thesis explores the theories of biophilia and how architects can respond to the adverse effects of urbanisation on humans by applying biophilic concepts to the built environment; this being biophilic design. The research investigates how to invite people into designed spaces that connect them with the immediate ecosystem, the outcomes that are felt on the mind and body. Specifically, biophilic principles and the articulation of the nature of a space is explored regarding their importance for reducing stress, encouraging relaxation and restoring cognitive functions, to potentially ignite a ripple effect that can change the way in which we live our daily lives in urban settings.   Wellington, New Zealand has been identified as a global ‘biophilic city’ and is the chosen site for this design-led thesis, which tests how an area largely devoid of nature can be redesigned and used in a positive way to entice and draw people through space. The intention is to further enhance the connections made between the existing biophilic interventions and ultimately improve the holistic health of those who experience the urban setting.   A set of biophilic criteria are developed and used in the design, with the outcome of this design exploration being a collaborative Ecologies Design Lab where professionals and students from different disciplines can come together for the collective goal of forwarding urban biophilic practice research. In addition to this, the intervention is designed to encourage the public to interact with the building, widening the scope of the building and targeted demographic. The investigation of aspects in biophilic design and how this can draw people through and beyond the immediate site to existing biophilically alive spots in other parts of the city is examined in correlation with other complementary theories such as narrative design, interior architecture principles, landscape architecture and founding architectural principles. The research aims to propose a journey throughout the city intent on initiating the healing process that occurs as people experience a connection with nature, either literally or metaphorically.
Haumanu Ipukarea reviving tūrangawaewae, identity and place
Authors:   , Hatton William
Published: December 2021

Landscapes are a fundamental component for the identity of people. This is evident through the eyes of the indigenous Māori people who express, like many indigenous cultures, that identity is formed from ones interconnected relationship to the land. For Māori, land is embodied as a part of their identity formed by the principle of whakapapa and importantly mātauranga. Mātauranga Māori is the comprehensive body of traditional indigenous knowledge built over centuries of both physical and metaphysical paradigms. Much of the knowledge obtained, originated from te taiao, where the importance of mountains, rivers, lakes, forests and place, established one’s sense of tūrangawaewae.  Since the first colonial migrations to Aotearoa/New Zealand, much of the traditional knowledge acquired and developed over generation’s are at great risk of western dominance. Western science and knowledge has altered the endemic Aotearoa/New Zealand landscape dramatically depleting many natural ecologies. Forests and waterways continue to be in jeopardy from commercialisation and urbanisation, where the current urban environment questions the way we appreciate and make sense of our endemic natural landscape. Alterations to the land has prompted changes in people’s beliefs and values, and sense of identity.  Mātauranga has slowly begun to be reintroduced into the urban environment as a progressive way forward. This research builds upon the concept to promote mātauranga, reconnecting people and place, and improving one’s sense of identity. With more than 88% of Māori now residing in urban areas, and many non-Māori unaware of indigenous cultural values and beliefs, the focus looks to provide a place of gathering, learning, engaging, reflecting, healing and belonging, preserving and appreciating Aotearoa/New Zealand’s cultural expression of the landscape. The research looks upon a regenerating valley system near the heart of Wellington City, reviving the Māori beliefsof ki uta ki tai and that of hīkoi. The research looks at opportunities to better express and understand bi-culturalism
Anthropology of the Working-class: Documentary Literature of 1930s Britain
Authors:   , Grgec Timothy
Published: December 2021

Bookmarked neatly by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the 1930s are often characterised as the decade in which writers felt compelled to engage in politics. According to one predominant critical narrative, modernist subjectivity and notions of aesthetic autonomy were eschewed in favour of a more direct involvement with the social and political realities of the time. This thesis explores, and follows in part, this interpretation of the decade’s literary direction by examining British documentary literature and its engagement with the social distress of the Depression.  Driven by an intense fascination with the domestic working-classes (from which each of my professional “authors” remained outsiders), documentary writers journeyed to Britain’s industrial centres to experience working conditions directly. Writers of documentary literature took 1930s realist preoccupations to their most extreme by assuming the role, intentionally or not, of the anthropologist. Paradoxically, this move towards the empirical functioned as a means of crossing what C. P. Snow would later describe as the divide between the “two cultures” of science and arts. I apply Snow’s notion analogously, with documentary literature representing a bridging (depending on each text) of the divides between social science and literature, realism and modernism, political commitment and aesthetic autonomy, North and South, and between the working and middle-classes.  My first chapter discusses Priestley’s English Journey (1934), which while crossing class and geographical divisions, stylistically remains the most conservative of my chosen texts and offers the most moderate example of a generic cultural crossing. The second chapter explores Grey Children (1937) by James Hanley, whose journalistic arrangement of verbatim working-class voices develops a modernist aesthetic. I then move to Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), which unusually for a text by a “literary” author includes extensive figures and statistics, but is more successful in documenting the gritty realities of working life through literary means. The final chapter centres on Mass-Observation’s The Pub and the People (1943) whose obsessive recording of even the most minute details of pub life develops into a bizarre, almost surrealist work of literature. The order of my four chosen texts does not imply a sense of literary value but rather traces a trajectory from the least to the most radical experiments in documentary literature.
Getting into the Schwing of Things: Hunter x Hunter’s Progressive Gender Depictions and Exploration of Non-Binary Possibilities
Authors:   , Bakker Michaela
Published: December 2021

This thesis investigates the depiction of gender in Madhouse’s 2011 television anime adaptation of Hunter x Hunter; a commercially successful ongoing manga (comic) series with a multitude of incarnations. The thesis examines three groups of characters across three chapters, respectively: androgynous men who embody conflicting attributes of hegemonic and homosexual masculinities; masculine women who defy traditional stereotypes via their association of domesticity with violence; and gender ambiguous characters who potentially challenge the established gender binary model by demonstrating loyalty to neither category. These characters are studied in relation to both Japanese and western gender norms to highlight cultural differences, however emphasis is placed on western interpretation through the application of western theories to the text and incorporation of western fan discourse into my own textual analysis. I assess the characters with an understanding that gender is not a biological prescription but a social construction and observe how characters are easily able to adopt masculine and feminine qualities regardless of their implied sex. I additionally aim to shed light on how Hunter x Hunter (2011) refreshingly tests the notion that mainstream shōnen (boys’) series are necessarily conservative in their alignment with normative gender ideals; on the contrary, Hunter x Hunter (2011) fearlessly challenges its viewers to question established gender norms and encourages discussion about the legitimacy of binary gender categories. Overall, I posit anime is an important area of study due to its growing popularity in the west, signalling a need to better understand the texts in relation to our own ideological perspective.
A Study Of Efficiency Management In New Zealand Public Hospital Services
Authors:   , Arulambalam Ajit Manorai
Published: December 2021

There is increasing policy interest in ensuring that resources are used efficiently within New Zealand public hospitals which are under increasing constraint. This thesis presents a narrative based on a qualitative analysis of the impact of the regular provision of efficiency management information on manager behaviour and achievements based on a single exploratory case study research of 11 senior service managers in New Zealand’s largest public hospital. How performance information is currently used by service managers is unknown. The research questions seek to understand to what extent managers’ use the information, what behaviours and actions result, if these managers know what they need to learn to improve performance, and what barriers impede their actions.  A qualitative research design was used to collect data from hospital service managers over a six month period. A model for a three stage information response was re-developed from existing processes and applied to the service managers who all received the hospital’s routine monthly performance information; while some participants also received specific efficiency related information. In each of the months, the participant’s perceptions of the performance information and the management of service improvement was obtained. The methodological approach is inductive using both observational and ethnographic approaches to collect qualitative data from regular surveys and interviews with participants. The findings appear to show enhanced collaboration in performance improvement discussions by managers who are provided with the specific performance information than is seen in those managers provided with the routine hospital management information. The enhanced collaboration appears to lead to greater improvements in service efficiency. The qualitative data provides a rich supplementary database of the participant managers’ experience of using performance management information, and from applying a formal Thematic Analysis (TA), management themes are identified to define the experience of the hospital service managers in using performance information. The TA provides a deeper understanding of the use of performance information by hospital service managers. The four themes were identified as: (1) direct leadership, (2) operational feedback; (3) performance signal; and (4) management development. These provide contextual meaning to purposeful management response and performance improvement.
Friends, Enemies and Bunkers
Authors:   , Tan Jason
Published: December 2021

A biosecurity centre on Kapiti Coast is required for checks on visitors venturing 5km out to the nationally significant nature reserve, Kapiti Island. The shorefront lacks a public building connecting to Kapiti Island. The proposal for a visitors centre is the vehicle for this design-led research. This thesis experiments with architectural form in a coastal setting exploring some specific approaches to form-making.  New Zealand architects often rely on metaphors as a method for making form. For example using mountain ranges or a waka as a referent. International theorists like Pier Vitorrio Aureli argue for a more self-referential logic. Architect Ron Witte explains that a good architectural ‘figure’ comprises architectural references like programme, technology and form. The removal of its representational obligation gives the figure its strength. How does a good figure work without the dependence of an external referent? Can the referent be removed allowing the figure to work internally?  Derivation from earlier sources is also commonly used in making form often resulting only in the abstraction of the image. Winy Maas and Adam Caruso both acknowledge that  ‘novelty is nonsense’. They argue that references from the past should be used as existing knowledge and built upon. How can past sources be used for their value in knowledge rather than their use of imagery?  This thesis is organised into a series of parts with experiments around figuration and form-making each looking at a particular use of a referent. Experiment one looks at form-making through the derivation of ‘heroes’. Experiment two focuses on abstracting and using the metaphor of a waka. Experiment three explores anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures through the architectural language developed by John Hejduk. Lastly, experiment four abandons these figures and buries the building in the site’s dunes. The form and façade of the building refer to the work of several Swiss architects including Valerio Olgiati and Christian Kerez for their use of ornamentation in heavy buildings.   The outcome and implications of this design-led research address a disciplinary exploration of the referent and its use  in making a form. The final design proposition extracts six formal principles used in common with works from Olgiati, Kerez and Caruso. The proposition is re-built on top of existing knowledge, offering a particular approach to form-making.
Reasonable Dispositions: A Response To The Situationist Critique Of Virtue Ethics
Authors:   , Vandenberg Tobias
Published: December 2021

In The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle presents a theory of ethics as the development of character, specifically the cultivation of particular character traits lying on the mean between two vices which he calls the virtues. Since the revival of virtue ethics in the mid-20th century, the virtues have often been interpreted as stable, broad-based dispositions to act in virtue appropriate fashion in response to eliciting conditions. In more recent years virtue ethics has come under a sustained attack known as the ‘situationist critique’, which argues that experiments in social psychology show no evidence of broad-based dispositions in the general population. If there are no broad-based dispositions, there are no virtues – virtue ethics is therefore empirically inadequate. My analysis of the evidence the situationists present in favour of their critique will show that it fails to unambiguously support the conclusion that virtue ethics is empirically inadequate. An investigation into the causes of the ethical failings identified in those experiments allowed me to propose remedies that are perfectly consonant with Aristotelian virtue ethics, requiring dedicated and disciplined reflection on past actions with an ongoing commitment to bringing our thoughts and emotions into harmony with our values. In the process I show that the situationists’ evidence supports the “cognitive-affective” theory of virtue over the broad-based dispositional theory, that this cognitive-affective theory is also supported by a careful reading of Aristotle, and therefore that the situationist critique simply helps to replace an inadequate virtue theory with a more robust one.
DEMOLITION AND RELOCATION OF HINDU TEMPLES IN MALAYSIA: PRAGMATIC RESPONSES OF INDIAN HINDU COMMUNITIES IN PENANG
Authors:   , Teo Sue
Published: December 2021

This thesis examines the pragmatic responses of Indian Hindus when their century-old Hindu community temples face threats of demolition by the Malaysian government. I argue that their compliance with the demolition is a subtle and pragmatic political act that manipulates their political standing as a minority community in order to safeguard their temples. I analyse the effectiveness of such pragmatic acts of compliance by the Indian Hindu communities, and the implications of their compliance for the political and social significance, as well as the sacredness of their demolished temples.  My ethnographic data is derived from in-depth interviews of the management committees and community members of three Hindu temples in Penang, and field observations of the rituals and ceremonies in these temples. During my fieldwork, these temples have either been demolished or are in the process of demolition. The management committees of these temples have relocated the statues of the deities into temporary buildings. My findings show that the Indian Hindu communities acquiesced to government demolition of their community Hindu temples to make way for development. In return for their compliance, the Hindu communities expected that the government is obligated to find new locations for them to rebuild their community temples. Their attempts to ensure the temples continuously exist in the area suggest that these temples, regardless of their shapes and sizes, have significance for the local Hindu communities. This significance it true both for members of the temple committee and the local Hindu community. Their compliance also suggests that the portability of these temples as sacred places.  The importance of the thesis is in its insistence that Malaysian Indian Hindus as minorities are not necessarily powerless in the face of dominance of the government. Instead, these Hindu communities are actively engaging with their political and social realities with pragmatic and subtle political actions such as demonstrating compliance. By complying with the demolition of their community temples, the Hindu communities are not only able to manoeuvre their ways through the dominance of the government, but they can also Hindu communities.
The Sensitivity of Wellbeing to Inequalities in Local Wellbeing
Authors:   , Dickinson Pascarn Ronald
Published: December 2021

Research points to a robust negative relationship between average levels of subjective wellbeing and the distribution of subjective wellbeing. The fact that our wellbeing falls as wellbeing distributions widen suggests we care about inequalities in the lives of others. Central to this relationship is the role of place and human geography. The literature relating wellbeing to inequality in wellbeing is confined almost exclusively to inter-country comparisons. Virtually no attention has been paid to the relationship between wellbeing and inequality within countries - at the level of regions and below. The aim of this thesis is to test the generality of the inter-country evidence in the sub-national context.  I present four hypotheses which I test on three separate cross-sectional surveys: the New Zealand Quality of Life Survey, The New Zealand General Social Survey and the survey of Māori wellbeing, Te Kupenga. I follow the literature in using the standard deviation of wellbeing as a measure of wellbeing inequality. In each case the negative relationship between individual wellbeing and wellbeing inequality is clearly identifiable. The wellbeing effect of living in a place one standard deviation higher than another is roughly equivalent to the difference between the wellbeing of someone who is fully employed and someone who is unemployed and looking for work. Clearly we are highly sensitive to disparities in the subjective wellbeing of those around us.  I conduct several tests of the psychological drivers that lie behind the wellbeing response to local inequality in wellbeing. The first tests fairness perceptions, and finds sensitivity to wellbeing inequality to be higher among those who do not believe society is intrinsically fair. My test of altruism, while not as convincing empirically, suggests altruistic people may also be less affected by local wellbeing inequality. Both conclusions are consistent with the implied causation running from inequality to wellbeing.  While an important addition to the wellbeing literature, the more important implication of my findings is political. As the New Zealand Local Government Act comes up for renewal, the evidence I have assembled strongly supports providing local government with a clear purpose and the necessary funding to address the underlying causes of local inequalities in wellbeing. On empirical grounds alone, reducing wellbeing inequality is likely to make us all much happier.
Histories and Mechanisms of Change in the Development of Shore Platforms at Kaikoura and Rodney New Zealand: Application of Cosmogenic Nuclides and Numerical Modelling on Exposed Coastal Surfaces
Authors:   , McLean Aidan Duart
Published: December 2021

Global sea level rise is contributing to the acceleration of cliff erosion rates in New Zealand, where it surpasses rates of uplift. A significant challenge facing scientists and managers is that we have no method for reliably extracting past rates of coastal erosion along harder rock cliffs over the time-scales that significant sea level change occurs (100s-1000s of years). This gap in knowledge is limiting efforts to model and understand the relationship between sea level rise and cliff erosion rates and what form of that relationship takes. Cosmogenic Beryllium-10 analysis has been applied on two low angle shore platforms in New Zealand to produce chronologies of sea cliff retreat during the late-Holocene. Surface exposure ages were attained on a tectonically active platform at Kaikoura, Canterbury and a tectonically quiescent platform at Cape Rodney, Auckland. This is the first application of cosmogenic nuclides to a shore platform study in New Zealand and adds two new data-sets to the very small group of global shore platform chronologies. Exposure ages show New Zealand platforms have developed in the late-Holocene. Long-term platform surface erosion rates at Kaikoura (0.4mm a-1), potentially due to uplift driven positive feedback such as altered sea level position, driving up weathering rates on the tidally inundated platform. Nuclide concentrations at Okakari Point, Rodney, reveal a significant role of recent sea level fall after ~4000yrs BP, driving surface denudation (0.1mm a-1). The long-term cliff back-wearing rate at Okakari point was found to be 24.66mm a-1. Patterns in cosmogenic nuclide concentrations in New Zealand’s shallow platforms differ from global examples recorded on steeper platforms. Exploratory numerical modelling was applied with the coupled Rocky Profile CRN model (RPM_CRN) to identify process relationships between key drivers within platform coastal systems and scenarios of sea level change and active tectonics. This combined geochemical and numerical modelling study has shown that shore platforms in New Zealand have complex histories, with different potential driving forces at Kaikoura and Okakari. This highlights the local variability in platform development and cliff retreat, suggesting that estimates of future shoreline erosion will need to take local contingencies into account.
An attempted transinfection of Wolbachia in the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera)
Authors:   , Russell Jessica Francis Elizabeth Jane
Published: December 2021

Wolbachia, an intracellular endosymbiont found in up to 60% of arthropods, has been celebrated for its highly varied host-phenotype interactions. These effects are diverse, ranging from reproductive manipulations to obligate mutualisms and facultative symbiosis. These facultative effects include increased resistance to, and reduction in the ability to vector, a number of RNA viruses in insects. Artificial transinfection to mediate human vector-borne diseases such as Dengue fever and Zika virus in Aedes mosquitoes has had considerable success globally. However, using Wolbachia to mediate zoonotic disease directly in threatened species has not been examined. The Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) has shown significant global population declines across the US and Europe, suffering from a diverse range of pathogens, including viral RNA and parasite vector networks. Wolbachia infection in honey bees has only been detected once and its effects have not been investigated. Here, I present the first attempted transinfection of Wolbachia in the Western honey bee using established transinfection protocols.  The natural, but rarely found, Wolbachia infection reported in A. mellifera was examined against a robust phylogeny of all existing Wolbachia supergroups, a feat that has not been updated in the literature since 2015. I discovered Wolbachia infection in Ancistrocerus gazella, the European tube wasp, where it has never been observed. I isolated the natural Wolbachia strain hosted by Drosophila melanogaster (wMel ) and more than 1200 individuals from a range of honey bee life stages (from eggs to adults) were used as potential Wolbachia recipients using sound microinjection protocols. Additionally, I present a novel transinfection avenue utilizing artificial insemination and honey bee breeding using Wolbachia-inoculated drone semen.  When no individuals were successfully infected with Wolbachia in F0 or F1, I investigated the expression of several antimicrobial peptides to characterize the immune response in young larvae to Wolbachia microinjection. There was a significant upregulation of apidaecin when injected with live Wolbachia, but not heat-treated bacteria, which has never been reported in host immune response to Wolbachia previously. The findings presented in this study highlight the importance of Wolbachia strain selection, immune response to Wolbachia, and the potential requirement for cell line culture in future transinfection attempts into A. mellifera. These findings will help inform future transinfection attempts, which are encouraged.
The Geological Present: A Critique of the Aesthetic Anthropocene
Authors:   , Taylor Lachlan Gregory
Published: December 2021

This thesis is a response to an emergent discourse on the relationship between the visual arts and the Anthropocene. The latter—the stratigraphic designation for a new geological epoch—has accrued a popularity within the contemporary art-world that is rarely afforded to a concept from the earth sciences. The uptake in Anthropocene-themed exhibitions, publications, and think-pieces reflects the concept’s promise of an art-making and art-critical methodology that may foster a revised relationship to nature in the age of climate change.   Despite the new-found fashionability of the term, this relationship between art and the Anthropocene has neither been comprehensively demonstrated, nor disproved. Consequently, the purpose of this thesis is to undertake this necessary interrogation.   Firstly, this is an engagement with the competing philosophies and intentions that have attached themselves to the Anthropocene label as it progressed from a straightforward geological statement, into a profound suite of assertions regarding the relationship of humanity to our planet. The influence of the posthumanist ecological philosopher, Timothy Morton, is a particular focus for understanding what the aesthetic theory of the Anthropocene consists of. Taken together, this theory is a promise of a new relationship with the natural world through the jettisoning of Romantic fantasies of nature in favour of an engagement with a sub-discursive, material world.   Secondly, this theory is read against ecologically conscious contemporary art works. The practices of Pierre Huyghe, Simon Starling, and Conor Clarke speak to the same concerns as the aesthetic Anthropocene. Reading these works through the lens offered by the stratigraphic concept investigates and tests the capability of the aesthetic Anthropocene for delivering its promises of an art without nature, and a new engagement with our environments.   Ultimately, the innovations of the aesthetic Anthropocene are novel, plentiful, but unconvincing. As a theory, it is beset by flaws and contradictions which undermine its applicability and critical potential. Consequently, ecologically conscious art does little to reflect the aims and aspirations of the aesthetic Anthropocene, rendering it an unhelpful tool for understanding the geological present.
Developing a scalable synthesis of Peloruside A
Authors:   , Brackovic Amira
Published: December 2021

Peloruside A (PelA, 1) is a marine natural product isolated from a sponge Mycale hentscheli found in Pelorus Sound, New Zealand. It is a microtubule-stabilising agent, active against various cancerous cell lines at nanomolar concentrations and offers several advantages over the current drugs on the market due to its unique mode of microtubule stabilisation, its potency and its activity in multidrug resistant cells. Since large-scale isolation of the compound from the sponge is unsustainable and an attempt to grow the sponge failed due to a sea-slug infestation, devising an efficient synthesis of peloruside A that will be able to deliver larger quantities of this compound is essential in order to conduct further studies and enable the eventual manufacture of the drug.   Peloruside A is also a very interesting synthetic target as a macrolide with ten stereogenic centres, an internal pyran ring and a trisubstituted Z-double bond. Our synthetic strategy combines elements from previous total and partial syntheses with novel elements with an aim to make the synthesis more efficient. The synthesis of the side-chain fragment (C12–C20) was based on Evans' methodology1 which was also utilised to couple this fragment with the C8–C11 fragments. It was envisioned to evaluate two different end-game strategies, and to this end it was necessary to synthesise two different versions of the C8–C11 fragment. However, the synthesis of the C1–C7 fragments proved to be quite challenging and required a lot of alterations to the synthetic plan and the protecting group strategy. Various routes based on previous syntheses by Ghosh, Jacobsen and Taylor were explored.2–4 Eventually, the key intermediate was synthesised using a modified Taylor methodology. Our future work will focus on optimising and establishing fragment coupling methodologies and evaluating the two end-game approaches: macrolactonisation and a ring-closing metathesis.
The role of formal and informal institutional pressures in local gatekeepers' responses to international product recalls.
Authors:   , Berry Ynyr Cadwaladr
Published: December 2021

Product recalls are omnipresent and unavoidable in the global marketplace. Despite the financial losses, brand equity damage, and the hazard to consumer health they impose there is little multidisciplinary international research on the phenomenon. A growing number of studies are investigating the impacts of product harm crises and the recalls and providing valuable implications, but little has been done to address the determinants of organisational behaviour and decision making during the product recall.  The purpose of this thesis is to conduct an investigation into the role of local New Zealand gatekeepers and their interaction with international brands during an international product recall. I also investigate the institutional environment in which these firms operate in, and the influence it subjects to their product recall strategies and processes. Because of the lack of empirical research on international product recalls in the extant literature, a qualitative interpretative methodology based on semi-structured interviews is employed.  Findings suggest that in the event of a potential product harm crisis leading to product recall in New Zealand, home country regulatory institutions take a collaborative approach with focal firms involved in the recall process. The gatekeeper orientation towards the customer, environmental institutional pressures (coercive and normative), and gatekeeper risk avoidance influence the gatekeeper to initiate preventative recalls. Furthermore, in face of a potential product harm crises, where the local gatekeeper is the dominant organisation, coercive institutional pressure to initiate a preventative recall is exerted towards the partnering international brand. In a severe international product harm crisis leading to product recall, normative institutional pressures encourage the local gatekeeper to initiate preventative product recalls and alongside the international brand, undertake proactive recall strategies. Whereas in ambiguous recall situations, mimetic institutional pressures encourage the local gatekeeper to initiate preventative product recalls and alongside the international brand undertake proactive recall strategies. I propose that in environments of weak formal institutions, informal institutional pressures play a greater role on gatekeeper and international brand recall strategies and processes. Traceability and supply chain knowledge are found to be vital in effective international product recalls.
Performativity 2.0
Authors:   , Zeller Phoebe
Published: December 2021

The practice of quantifying users’ performativity online by collecting personal data has become commonplace. This thesis explores performativity in a Web 2.0 climate relating to social media and online data with the intention to better understand this relationship. This exploration of internet culture is conducted through the perspective of a designer who is concerned with how people interact with social media, how this affects us, and the data footprint we leave behind. The theory of performativity is used to understand the ways in which users’ curate their online image. Social media can capture a user’s performance through the collection of data. This representational data must be considered in the context in which it was created. This thesis discusses how assumptions are made on users by analysis of their data and the ways in which this is misrepresentational. These themes are expanded upon by the creation and design of artifacts.
Challenging The Work Concept: Metaphor, Embodiment And Structure In Music Analysis
Authors:   , Jackson Fleur
Published: December 2021

Metaphorical depictions, embodied experiences, and by extension structures within the music, are distinct between performances of both the same works and across works of different styles.  Traditional forms of musical analysis focus on the score as a discrete, concrete “object”, replete with meaning and fully representative of the composer’s intentions. As a result, performance has been treated as inessential and not recognized for its significant role in the co-creation of music and its ability to generate meaning. This research examines performative differences through close listening in recent recordings of Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Minor BWV 1001, Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 7 in C Minor Op. 30 No. 2, and the Sibelius Violin Concerto Op. 47 in D Minor. With regard for the effects of metaphor, embodiment and structure, it shows how interpretive decisions within performance have profound implications on our emotional experience and perception of the music, well beyond what is notated in the score.
A New Way. Niue
Authors:   , Freddie Anthony Liuvaie
Published: December 2021

With the increase in climate change, small Pacific nations such as Niue face significant risks from rising sea levels and the increased intensity of natural disasters such as tropical cyclones. These extreme weather events have caused severe devastation therefore threatening the fragile economy, and social and cultural fabric that make up the identity of Niue, a Pacific nation. This is evident in the decline of the island’s population. A current issue faced by Pacific nations such as Niue is the lack of contemporary vernacular, sustainable and resilient architectural solutions to the environmental and economic issues these nations face. Further compelling this situation is the lack of research and study of Niue’s traditions and cultural practices, vernacular architecture and natural environment. This issue has negatively affected urban renewal and developmental projects, most of which have been formulated based on individual’s experiences, outdated attitudes and approaches or the findings of research conducted through pan-Pasifika or western lenses. The devastating outcomes of Cyclone Heta in 2004, which struck most of the coastal edge of Niue, particularly the South side of the Capital Alofi, Aliluki and destroyed the national hospital, the national museum, the Niue Hotel and Amanau apartments brought to light the seriousness of this issue. From then until now, Aliluki which once was the centre of Niue has been stigmatised by cyclone destruction, and deteriorated into a barren ruin overgrown by nature.  This thesis aims to document and preserve through this project, local knowledge associated with Niuean building traditions and cultural practices; develop a design method that leads to a contemporary architectural solution informed by the local culture, traditional practices and contextual situation; and develop a viable architectural solution that contributes to increasing the resilience and sustainability of Aliluki to future disasters and enhances the economic prosperity of the community through an increase in social, economic, and cultural opportunities.  The design thesis argues that understanding Niue’s traditional values, practices, and contextual situation will help identify resilient and sustainable vernacular architectural solutions for Niue’s cyclone-prone environment. This is done through two stages of the research: Theoretical grounding and a one-month field research and site studies in Niue. All the key literature, case studies and key findings were then explored, tested and developed through the urban re-development of Aliluki and a design of a cultural centre that will be used as an evacuation shelter in the event of a devastating tropical cyclone. In search for a better and safer future, this research will hopefully contribute towards the survival of the people and traditions of Niue, who has for several decades, struggled with the forces of modernisation.