bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An Architectural Dialogue with the Eleatic Stranger
Authors:   , Squire Christian Jacob 
Published: November 2021

<p>Reports throughout New Zealand have highlighted a chronic and growing problem in our urban centres – the effects of alcohol abuse and binge drinking leave our youth vulnerable and unprotected. The results can sometimes be catastrophic. Makeshift paramedic tents have recently been erected in Wellington to provide aid and retreat, but these are temporary structures and only available two nights per week. The vulnerability of New Zealand’s youth occurs not only on nights with too much alcohol, but also in response to the daily stresses brought on by contemporary urban life. New Zealand youth suicide rates are the highest out of 30 OECD nations and more than twice the OECD average (Chapman). Likewise the secularization of contemporary urban society has resulted in the loss of spiritual retreats previously found within churches and religious centres. This thesis examines the need for a permanent urban retreat for all those who are temporarily vulnerable. The thesis investigates how architectural form can provide a new approach to urban retreat by critically engaging analogous theories found in the writings of Plato and Louis Kahn. Both Plato’s theory of Forms (discussed in Plato’s “Dialogues”) and Louis Kahn’s 1961 essay “Form and Design” are centred on the idea of achieving an enlightened state of mind, freeing the mind from the physical realm. Plato’s theory of Forms posits that the universe is separated into two realms: an intelligible realm and a sensible realm. All objects that exist in the sensible realm – perceivable to us by our senses – are merely imperfect shadows of their essences or Forms. By understanding this, we can free our minds from the distractions of life which so often lead to stress and despair. Plato’s theory of Forms has many parallels with the architectural theory of Louis Kahn, as evidenced in Kahn’s “Form and Design”. Kahn describes the ‘measurable’ and ‘immeasurable’ realms, which are analogous to Plato’s sensible and intelligible realms. This thesis critically engages these analogous theories of Plato and Kahn – achieving an enlightened state of mind, freeing the mind from the physical realm – to establish how architectural form can provide urban retreat for those who are temporarily vulnerable. The site for the design research investigation is the nameless alleyway in the Courtenay Place precinct which separates Wellington’s historic St James Theatre from The Mermaid bar and brothel – a site which symbolizes the conflicting stimuli to which our urban residents are now continually exposed.</p>
Multilateral Resource Negotiations Between Weak and Powerful States: The Case of the 1987 United States-Pacific Island Fisheries Treaty
Authors:   , Havea Sōsefo Fietangata 
Published: November 2021

<p>On April 2, 1987, the Treaty on Fisheries Between Governments of Certain Pacific Island States and the Government of the United States of America was signed. The signatories to the Fisheries were the 16 members of the South Pacific Forum and the United States of America. After six difficult years of negotiations, the Treaty permitted American fishing vessels to fish in Pacific Islands’ waters in exchange for a substantial access fee. This thesis identifies key aspects of that treaty and examines what it meant from both a theoretical and practical standpoint. How did a collection of small, comparatively weak Pacific states strike a satisfactory deal with the most powerful state on the planet? What did the agreement mean in terms of its political, legal and environmental consequences? As well as looking at the events and negotiations that led to the treaty, this thesis also attempts to discern the key political lessons that flow from this case that might be relevant for the future development of the Pacific island States in the key area of fisheries regulation. The thesis argues that disputes between Pacific nations and the United States over tuna resources and the presence of the Soviet Union in the Pacific region were the two critical factors that led to the adoption of the Treaty. From the United States’ perspective, the Treaty was seen (at the time) as the only viable option if it were to reconsolidate its long and prosperous position in the Pacific region. The US did not want the Soviet Union to capitalize on American fishing disputes with the Pacific islands, and it could not afford for the Soviet Union to establish a strong association with the Pacific islands. The Treaty therefore served three purposes for Washington: (i) it maintained its long friendship with the Pacific islands, (ii) it maintained its fisheries interests in the region, (iii) and it kept the Pacific communist-free. This fusion of US economic and strategic interests gave Pacific Island States a stronger hand in the negotiations than their size and power would have otherwise offered.</p>
Pasifika Tertiary Students' Use of Information and Communication Technologies
Authors:   , Manueli Kerese Tuifaktoga 
Published: November 2021

<p>Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are pervasive in our daily lives. In New Zealand tertiary education institutions, the adoption of ICT is widespread. Meanwhile, Pasifika students’ participation in tertiary education has been increasing. Yet, for this group of students, academic success has been a concern to successive governments, tertiary institutions, and Pasifika peoples. ICT may offer an opportunity to improve Pasifika students’ academic achievement. The study is premised on the belief that positive learning experiences will lead to improved academic outcomes. Consequently, the study explored ways of using ICT to enhance Pasifika students’ learning experiences. Adopting an interpretivist approach, the case study investigated the ICT skills and the use of ICT for learning enhancements of a group of Pasifika students at a New Zealand institute of technology. Over a period of eighteen months, data was gathered through talanoa, participant observation, and the researcher’s reflective journal. The three method approach enabled data triangulation. Data analysis adhered to the theoretical propositions of the study. Among the key findings, is the disturbing realization that Pasifika students’ ICT skill levels were not at the level assumed by the institution. The main uses of ICT by the Pasifika students in this study were for personal communication and entertainment. The students’ use of ICT for educational purposes was limited due to the mismatch of their ICT skills and those required by the institution. Inadvertently, this has further disadvantaged the students’ learning experiences. The study concludes by offering an ICT skills development framework for use with Pasifika students. Moreover, the study proposes a number of recommendations for practice, policy, and further research.</p>
Power, Media and Development: A Study of the Solomon Islands
Authors:   , Broadbent Adele 
Published: November 2021

<p>Development donors spend millions of dollars a year on Media Development. Supporting the growth of a free and pluralistic media is being heralded as an integral part of working towards good governance and democracy in developing countries. It is seen as a technology transfer, apolitical and worthy. This research seeks to explore development donors’ use of Media Development as part of an overall stateVbuilding strategy. It has investigated this by looking at the history and contemporary experience of the growing Media Development sector. It has uncovered growing unease around the priorities of the programmes used in this area. There are charges that its religious adherence to the commercialised neoliberal model of media threatens to marginalise the poor. There are concerns that Media Development is seen by donors as a way of training the ‘watchdog’ to oversee the funds that they no longer have control over in the new aid modality. This research is grounded in the Solomon Islands where a relatively new local media is the subject of a Media Development programme. This is a country that wears the labels of a ‘least developed nation’ and, in the recent past, a ‘postVconflict country’ and a ‘failed state’. The thesis is an attempt to get a snapshot of the Solomon Islands’ media and its relationship with aid donors by exploring these ideas with journalists, civil society, the main media assistance programme, commentators, and villagers living outside of the capital of Honiara. While the majority of the contributors see a Western model of media as inevitable with globalisation, there would appear to be an appetite for conversations around a more indigenised media that engages more fully with the local reality. There is an identifiable gap in research in this area of Media Development as a donor tool.</p>
Who Knows Best? Participatory Design with Tenants in Wellington City Council's Housing Upgrade Programme
Authors:   , Leckie Nick 
Published: November 2021

<p>Public participation is the cornerstone of a democratic society and it presents very specific challenges in relation to development projects. This thesis explores participatory design - the important interface between the design of a physical project and the people who are affected by it - in reference to Wellington City Council’s (WCC’s) upgrading of social housing. It asks ‘is there scope for widening tenant participation in the Housing Upgrade Programme?’ A literature review establishes a loose definition of participation based on seven principles: approaches to participation are diverse; often ‘under-done’; cannot be neatly packaged or predicted and therefore cut across professional boundaries; engage power relations; and they tend to cultivate choice in outcomes and bring into being a collective intelligence. From here the study engages action research techniques and case study analysis to further understanding of participatory processes. A comparative analysis of WCC’s current participatory approach and that of an Architecture Sans Frontieres participatory design workshop on slum upgrading in Nairobi, Kenya is conducted which reveals room for extension in WCC’s current approach and finds the Kenya workshop process exemplary. ‘A design experiment’ is then carried out which conducts some participatory exercises at a WCC housing site - Te Ara Hou apartments in Newtown, Wellington. These exercises contribute to a modest design proposal of additional housing units and a retrofitted community space for Te Ara Hou. All preceding steps then inform what is the ultimate outcome of the study; a set of eight generic principles to inform best-practice participatory process. These principles are then used to evaluate three cases which demonstrates how they might be applied in practice. These three cases evaluated are WCC’s existing approach, the ASF workshop approach and a proposed approach for WCC. The third case makes suggestions around how WCC could develop their participatory approach. Ultimately, the thesis finds that there is scope for widening tenant participation in the Housing Upgrade Programme, and the eight principles offer suggestions around how that might be done.</p>
Measuring Shear Wave Splitting Using the Silver and Chan Method
Authors:   , Walsh Ernestynne 
Published: November 2021

<p>Seismic shear waves emitted by earthquakes can be modelled as plane (transverse) waves. When entering an anisotropic medium they can be split into two orthogonal components moving at different speeds. This splitting occurs along an axis, the fast direction, that is determined by the ambient tectonic stress. Shear wave splitting is thus a commonly used tool for examining tectonic stress in the Earth’s interior. A common technique used to measure shear wave splitting is the Silver and Chan (1991) method. However, there is little literature assessing the robustness of this method, particularly for its use with local earthquakes, and the quality of results can vary. We present here a comprehensive analysis of the Silver and Chan method comprising theoretical derivations and statistical tests of the assumptions behind this method. We then produce an automated grading system calibrated against an expert manual grader using multiple linear regression. We find that there are errors in the derivation of certain equations in the Silver and Chan method and that it produces biased estimates of the errors. Further, the assumptions used to generate the errors do not hold. However, for high quality results (earthquake events where the signal is strong and the earthquake geometry is optimal), the standard errors are representative of the spread in the parameter estimates. Also, we find that our automated grading method produces grades that match the manual grades, and is able to identify mistakes in the manual grades by detecting substantial inconsistencies with the automated grades.</p>
Sorting It out: Food Waste Separation in Large New Zealand Hotels: Barriers and Incentives
Authors:   , Singleton Richard L 
Published: November 2021

<p>Food waste presents a resource management challenge for New Zealand communities, businesses and governance institutions. The energy, labour, soil, water and myriad other inputs used to grow, manufacture, distribute and prepare food are lost with each kilogram that is thrown away. Numerous technologies enable the energy and nutrient potential within food waste to be recovered. Systems of this type are most efficacious when food is separated from other waste streams at source. This research demonstrates that New Zealand‟s existing waste related legislation has the potential to foster market conditions favourable to food waste recovery initiatives and technologies. However, the suite of policy instruments currently actuated provides weak stimulus for the adoption, innovation or expansion of food waste diversion ventures amongst stakeholders. Current legislation does little to incentivise food waste separation within hotels. Many hotel operators are reliant upon third party provision of waste collection, recovery and or disposal services. Exceptions include operators for whom onsite food waste processing systems or arrangements with individual farmers (who collect waste at low cost) are viable. Within this thesis, food waste, the New Zealand tourism product and the environment‟s capacity to assimilate waste are conceptualised as common pool resources requiring interconnected management regimes.</p>
The Influence of Complexity in Determining New Product Development Strategies
Authors:   , Spill Holger 
Published: November 2021

<p>How does complexity influence new product development (NPD) strategies? There are many ways of managing the challenge of new product development. This is especially true for new software products where a huge variety of approaches is possible. This study examines how successful New Zealand tech companies manage their NPD and how innovation complexity influences this. The new products are all software-intensive and have the additional pressure of being built for commercialisation. The study found that while there is considerable variation within NPD, the level of innovation complexity determined the approach companies were taking. Companies with complex innovation challenges had more iterative software development; flexible internal processes; nimbleness in decision-making and re-prioritisation. Lower levels of complexity in innovation were linked to more formal and sequential approaches to NPD; less reviewing of process or product experimentation. Overall there were also lower levels of strain. The Cyclic Innovation Model (A. J. Berkhout, Hartmann, & Trott, 2011) provides a useful description of how complexity in innovation is situated within a network of markets, customers, products and science and how innovation is not a linear, sequential process. The study additionally suggests that strong entrepreneurial skills are essential to managing high complexity.</p>
Personal Knowledge Management: An Analysis of Benefits and Challenges of Using Web 2.0 Technologies at the Individual Level
Authors:   , Fathizargaran Rouhollah 
Published: November 2021

<p>This research investigates the benefits and challenges of using Web 2.0 technologies (Wikis, Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for personal knowledge management (PKM). It focuses on the challenges and benefits of using these technologies at the individual level to find out how realization of the key benefits and mitigation of challenges can improve personal performance in software engineering companies. This research also investigates the influence of PKM skills proposed by Dorsey (2000) in realising benefits and minimising challenges. Methods of data collection involved semi-structured interviews with three middle level managers and three software developers from four multinational software engineering companies. Qualitative research methods were used for analysing data. To explore benefits and challenges of using Web 2.0 technologies for PKM, a general inductive analysis strategy (Thomas, 2006) was used. This approach helped the researcher to derive concepts and themes which emerged from the raw data. Analysis also drew on and extended Dorsey‟s PKM skill model (2000) to identify which benefits and challenges of using Web 2.0 technologies can be addressed by PKM skills. Results from this study highlighted three important benefits of using Web 2.0 technologies for PKM: improved time saving, improved collaboration, and improved communication across hierarchical barriers. Ease of use of technologies and ease of organising information were found to be enablers of the technologies for effective management of personal knowledge. Results also showed four important challenges of using Web 2.0 tools for PKM: inaccurate and inappropriate information, lack of participation, lack of knowledge about the nature of technologies, and security sensitive. Findings of this study highlighted the importance of PKM skills to realise benefits of Web 2.0 technologies and minimise their challenges. The benefits and challenges of using Web 2.0 technologies have direct impact on individual performances. If employees are aware of these challenges, and have appropriate PKM skills, they will be able to improve their individual performances. The researcher suggests an extension of the Dorsey‟s PKM skill model (2000). Furthermore, in order to enable better understanding about the impact of PKM skills on individual performances using Web 2.0 tools a tentative model is proposed at the end of the study, which needs to be further explored in future studies.</p>
The Disrupted and Realigned Self: Exploring the Narratives of New Zealanders with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
Authors:   , Bell Lara Joyce Milka 
Published: November 2021

<p>Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) causes pronounced, debilitating fatigue that is not alleviated by rest, along with muscle and joint weakness, pain, cognitive difficulties and can be worsened through mental and physical exertion. However, it is also without an aetiology, and there is little consensus amongst both medical and patient spheres as to what CFS/ME actually is. In this thesis I draw on interviews with people with CFS/ME and participant observation in a patient-led support group in order to explore the way in which CFS/ME shaped participants’ identities and narratives of the self. I argue that participants moved through two stages that I call ‘The Disrupted Self’ and ‘The Realigned Self’. Falling ill with CFS/ME rapidly disrupted participants’ understandings of the bodies, their position within their family and the community, interactions with doctors, and all the usual markers on which they had previously formed their self-identities. In this state, I argue that participants and those with whom they engaged viewed both CFS/ME and my participants as liminal, ‘betwixt and between’ (Turner 1969) social roles and contemporary New Zealand ideals of illness, the individual, and the ‘sick person’. As the initial disruption and confusion of falling ill subsided, however, my participants worked to develop a new secure self-identity, the ‘Realigned Self’. They move into a normalised long-term liminal state by prioritising their health, adjusting their expectations of their body, developing their own conception of the aetiology of CFS/ME and forming a positive narrative of their new lives. This identity work utilised wider cultural ideals about the active, responsibilised and authentic self; common to late modern contemporary life (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2001, Desjarlais 1994, Giddens 1991, Rose 1996). Yet this realignment was often not reflected in the views of my participants’ friends, families and doctors. This illustrates the diverse perspectives and different degrees of liminality that exist within experiences and narratives of CFS/ME and contested illnesses.</p>
Towards Justice for Victims: A New Role for Victim Impact Statements in Sexual Violence Cases
Authors:   , McGovern Danica Caitlyn Yvette 
Published: November 2021

<p>This dissertation argues that the current approach to victim impact statements in New Zealand serves victims poorly. The primary purpose of victim impact statements is to provide information about harm, in order to assist the sentencing judge to assess the seriousness of the offending. This limits the extent to which victim impact statements can meet victims’ needs and protect their interests. This dissertation proposes a new role for victim impact statements (with a focus on their use in sexual violence cases). It argues that the purpose of victim impact statements should be to meet victims’ needs for recognition, acknowledgement and assistance with recovery, and to protect victims’ interests in reparation and prevention of further harm from the offender and from the sentence imposed on the offender. Meeting these needs and protecting these interests is necessary to provide justice for victims. Finally, this dissertation argues that victim impact statements should not be used to assess the seriousness of the offending.</p>
Characterisation of the Genes Encoding Mannuronan-C5-Epimerase in the Brown Alga Lessonia Variegata
Authors:   , Ghosh Sayani 
Published: November 2021

<p>Alginate is known to be a commercially valuable polysaccharide, of great importance in industries such as food, cosmetics, medicine and pharmaceuticals. It is obtained commercially by harvesting brown algae. The final step in the alginate biochemical pathway involves the epimerization of D-mannuronic residues into L-guluronic residues, catalyzed by the enzyme mannuronan-C5-epimerase. This final step has been found to be responsible for controlling the physicochemical properties of the produced alginate. This study is the first to characterize the genes encoding for the enzyme mannuronan-C5- epimerase in the Northern, Southern and Wellington lineages of the brown alga Lessonia variegata (Phaeophyceae). The gene of interest was amplified by standard PCR and cloning. Cloning PCR results revealed the presence of two distinct copies of the gene in Lessonia variegata. The coding region of the copies was found to be very conserved with very little sequence variation. The Lessonia variegata sequences were compared with those of Laminaria digitata and Saccharina japonica, which indicated that at least one gene duplication event has occurred in Lessonia variegata, leading to the formation of two gene duplicates. The possible mechanisms by which the gene paralogs may control the structure and function of the produced alginate have been discussed.</p>