bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
How healthcare professionals in acute care environments describe patient safety: A case study
Authors:   , Wailling Joanna 
Published: November 2021

<p>Patient safety has become an international healthcare priority over the past two decades. The prevailing approach to prevent harm in healthcare environments is the implementation of systems and structures that have made significant safety gains in high reliability organisations, such as aviation and nuclear power. However, similar safety improvements have not been realised in the healthcare environment. Studies suggest occupational culture is of importance, though our understanding of the relevance of safety subcultures is limited. This study explores how patient safety is described from the perspective of clinicians and organisational managers in an acute care hospital, using embedded case study design. The case for this study was a New Zealand tertiary hospital. The emergency department and intensive care unit provided the settings for the embedded units. Three interviews with health care managers and six focus groups with nineteen doctors and nineteen nurses were undertaken. An interview guide, informed by the literature was used in data collection. Thematic data analysis was conducted within and across the case and embedded units. The theoretical concept of safety capability was developed from the data. Safety capability was defined as the ability to provide safe patient care and underpinned by the themes of resilient culture, and anticipation and vigilance. A key finding of this research was that acute care environments have unique patient safety challenges, and these are influenced by complex factors. Patient safety was not assessed as being safe or unsafe, but rather perceived to exist across different levels of safety. Given this, healthcare professionals accept that some harm is inevitable in the healthcare setting. Doctors, nurses and managers understand and manage patient safety differently, and this affects how patient safety is addressed. This study identified anticipatory and vigilant systems are used to proactively manage risk by doctors and nurses, whereas incident reporting systems are used more by managers.   Given the need to keep patients safe and avoid harm, more proactive patient safety systems are needed to manage patient safety in hospitals; this will require a paradigm shift away from current reactive safety systems. Proactive systems must be underpinned by a resilient patient safety culture that focuses on the right building blocks to produce balance of resources and targets and develop collaboration in organisations. This will bring about flexibility and stability to meet the complex conditions presented by acute care environments.</p>
The land shaping the people: A cultural look into a new land management scheme for South Wairarapa
Authors:   , Smart Megan 
Published: November 2021

<p>With this thesis bringing attention to the region of Wairarapa, it will show awareness to the significant cultural and biodiversity that this district holds that makes it such a rich place within Aotearoa, New Zealand. With two natural features sitting at their doorsteps, Lake Wairarapa and the Remutaka hillside, this region holds much to preserve and want to save. Maori culture holds countless values of the landscape that can be used to heal the land surrounding the lake, which in turn will heal the people living amongst it. These values are held with great appreciation in the culture, many believe all should live with these values for the land. This thesis will help in bringing the Te Aranga Maori design principles to the surface so more can live with the land naturally and not just on it. This research will explore how these design principles can be used in bringing the landscape back to its prior state, and working with natural interventions to bring wahi tapu into the land and its people. In dealing with the current challenges and goals that present generation live with to make Wairarapa one to grow in and with. These ideas can generate discussion to how people might live more sustainably with the use of natural systems in the landscape, to the production of natural products. It will also allow for more research topics to be produced from the older ways people used to live with the land. To show the diverse cultures present today, in how others could benefit from the ways and means they used to be. With dealing with present challenges and needs from today’s generation as we cannot ‘restore’ what once was, we have to ‘regenerate’ a new way of living, that is beneficial for all.</p>
Gender-based violence in Bougainville: Stories of change
Authors:   , Degerman Viktoria 
Published: November 2021

<p>Gender-based violence throughout Papua New Guinea is a well documented concern across disciplines. Within the field of development, gender-based violence is not only seen as a human rights breach, but it is widely accepted that violence exacerbates poverty, and that poverty exacerbates violence. Women are particularly affected by this cyclic nature of violence. Despite numerous initiatives from development actors, the Papua New Guinean government and local agencies, the rate of violence has not shifted in the past two decades (Ganster-Breidler, 2010). Similarly, in Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea, reports state that the rate of violence against women is extremely high. A United Nations study from 2013 showed that over 60 per cent of Bougainville men surveyed had committed rape at some point in their lives, and that physical violence was equally prevalent (Fulu et al., 2013). In response to these worrisome reports, I began to wonder what can be done to address gender-based violence. What has been successful in the past and what can we learn from those who have firsthand experience of intimate partner violence? The research addressed these types of problems through the use of 18 interviews conducted with men and women; including former perpetrators of intimate partner violence and survivors. The study was further strengthened by my observations from working at Buka Family Support Centre, a service in Bougainville that cares for survivors of gender-based violence. I frame this research within feminist and poststructural ways of knowing. It is influenced by a four-tiered conceptual model that considers external and internal influences on individual actions. The analysis was inspired by Foucault’s discourse analysis (Foucault, 1979, 1984) and I pay special attention to dominant and discriminatory discourses and the resistance to these. In summary, this study offers intimate and detailed stories of change. It reveals that the participants primarily referred to positive change as an absence of physical violence and not necessarily other forms of gender-based violence. The study also shows that the survivors’ resisted violence throughout the abusive period, and those who eventually chose to divorce only did so because of concerns over safety. The stories are anchored to lived experiences, and the conclusion and recommendations that flow from this qualitative study contribute to knowledge of what works when trying to end violence within an intimate partnership in Bougainville.</p>
Exploring Year 10 Samoan Students’ Experiences of Teaching and Learning in the Mainstream English Classroom
Authors:   , Lautusi Kalia 
Published: November 2021

<p>This research examined the ways in which twelve Year 10 Samoan students experienced teaching and learning in the mainstream English classroom. The study was guided by two questions: What perceptions do a group of Samoan students have of the strengths and skills they bring to the English classroom? And: How do these students see themselves as navigating teaching and learning in the English classroom drawing on these strengths? The aim of the research was to further understand how skills Samoan students develop outside the English classroom are being used by the participants to create positive learning outcomes. As a way to prioritise Pacific student voices, the Pacific research methodology of talanoa was used to gather stories from the participants alongside observations of the English classroom. Three major themes emerged from the findings – describing the need for interdependence, self-organisation, and fa’atua (or the value or reciprocal and mutually respectful relationships). Karlo Mila-Schaaf’s (2010) concept of polycultural capital was used as a theoretical paradigm to interpret the findings. If educators can understand how a group is functioning well, and the conditions that allow this to happen, this knowledge can lead to benefits for other Pacific students. The study concludes with a consideration of what might happen if teachers consciously provide space for existing skills and strategies.</p>
The Implementation of Action Observation Therapy in Virtual Worlds
Authors:   , Wellwood Nicholas 
Published: November 2021

<p>Upper limb rehabilitation after stroke is vital to the recovery of a patient’s range of motion, dexterity and strength (Jauch et al, 2010, p. 824). Rehabilitative practises are diverse and met with varying levels of success (Brewer et al, 2012, p. 11). This research is concerned with action observation therapy and its potential for neural reorganization through consistent repetition of prescribed physiotherapy exercises. Action observation utilizes mirror neurons to stimulate neural strengthening and recovery (Ertelt et al, 2007, p. 172). The observation of an expert completion of an action by either the patient, a representation of the patient or someone else fires the corresponding mirror neuron (Fogassi et al, 2005, p. 662). Mirror neurons’ ability to be fired under multiple conditions allow a patient who is unable to complete an action, in this case a physiotherapy exercise, to still receive the neural benefit just by observing the action (Ertelt et al, 2007, p. 165). In collaboration with sensory devices in a virtual medium, action observation will be used to create a dynamic and engaging simulation with the intent of providing a physiotherapy experience that progresses in difficulty. Incremental difficulty will ensure patients are being pushed to their limits in a controlled and monitored environment (IJsselsteijn, 2007, p. 27). Neural reorganization requires a large number of repetitions of exercises over extended periods of time creating rehabilitative experiences that have traditionally been tedious and mundane (Merians et al, 2002, p. 898; O’Dell, Lin & Harrison, 2009, p. 55). Gamification of traditional methods can engage the patient over an extended period of time By masking the repetitive nature of the exercises with a fun experience, patients can receive the full benefit of the treatment while performing enjoyable tasks (Muzzaffa et al, 2013, p. 69).</p>
The Impact of Dynamic Convergence on the Human Visual System in Head Mounted Displays
Authors:   , Sumner Ryan 
Published: November 2021

<p>The Accommodation-Vergence Conflict (AVC) is a phenomenon in the area of Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) and one of the key issues hindering the popularity of HMDs largely due to it causing a large number of users to suffer from simulator sickness. There have been several proposed solutions developed by previous researchers, including the introduction of 'Dynamic Convergence' (DC) which, addresses the AVC problem in terms of the vergence depth cue. DC also helps in the performance of binocular fusion when viewing at a close vergence depth. As of yet however, DC has not undergone detailed testing for a number of important cases, which limits the amount of data that has been collected on DC's interaction with the human visual system. In addition, no DC research as of yet has dealt with the effect of a change in vergence depth, and how that change in the vergence angle of the focal plane would effect a user. Thus, this thesis adds to the growing body of research and knowledge in this field by implementing DC with the addition of some transitions between a change in vergence depth. This is done within the Unity3D game engine in order to further investigate the impact of DC with regard to viewing close virtual objects on HMDs through a number of cases. The added transitions are also tested to see if they have any beneficial effects for users when the vergence angle changes. The investigation is centered around a perception based performance/appreciation-oriented visual study whereby participants were asked about their ability to perform binocular fusion on close virtual objects that were either stationary or moving and varying distances and speeds. Participants were also asked to report any symptoms of discomfort. The research has adopted a mixed methodology experimental approach by conducting user experiments and surveys, before analysing the results through both in-depth quantitative statistical analysis and a variety of qualitative statistical techniques in order to measure and investigate the scale of the problem associated with the impact of DC on the human visual system in HMDs when viewing close virtual objects. From the investigation it was confirmed that the approximate effective vergence depth range for DC was 0.3m or less, with statistical significance confirmed at the 0.15m distance. Participants reported having an easier time performing binocular fusion at these closer distances while DC was enabled. As a result of this, the majority of cases and scenarios did not report any significant negative responses in terms of discomfort symptoms. However attempts at improving DC with a transition between vergence depths were met with a mixed response from participants. While the need of a transition way be dependent on the user, there still exists some demand for one, thus it should still be available as an option.</p>
Facilitating informed land-use decisions through the modelling of ecosystem service trade-offs
Authors:   , Scott Nicola 
Published: November 2021

<p>Increasing global populations are placing increasing pressure on our natural systems, reducing their capacity to produce the ecosystem services that we rely upon for human wellbeing (World Bank, 2004). Clarifying the implications of land-use decisions across the range of ecosystem services is fundamental to understanding the trade-offs inherent in land-use options. LUCI (the Land Utilization and Capability Indicator) is an emergent Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based framework developed to enable the mapping of several ecosystem services in a spatially explicit manner. This process enables a clearer understanding of the inter-dependencies between ecosystems and potential implications and trade-offs of management interventions across a range of services. There is however, limited understanding of the impact, utility and credibility of such tools for land-use decision-makers, or of how they perceive the information conveyed. This Thesis considered the impact that presenting information on land-use trade-offs through LUCI had on land-owners at the farm scale. This research supports previous findings that information alone does not drive behaviour (or decision-making) (Kollmuss, 2002, Fisk, 2011; Kennedy, 2010; Mackenzie-Mohr, 2000; Stern, 2000). Similarly, perceived credibility was not the main driver of decision-making nor is it necessarily rationally based. However without it, voluntary adoption of a new technology or tool is unlikely. Therefore, in seeking to diffuse tools, such as LUCI within a community, process design should take into account the social structures and the characteristics of targeted individuals within that community. The influence of temporal and context specific factors on decision-making provides both barriers and opportunities for technology diffusion. The research findings propose that when integrating new tools and technologies within communities, consideration is given to using a suite of tools, mechanisms and theories in concert such as Community-Based Social Marketing (Mackenzie-Mohr, 2011) and Diffusion Theory (Rogers, 2003) to facilitate improved diffusion and uptake by communities.</p>
Social accountability - Its position and potential in the development of Vietnam
Authors:   , Ta Ha 
Published: November 2021

<p>Civil society organizations in Vietnam are experiencing some critical transitions. As the nation is no longer on the list of low income countries, an increasing number of such organizations are changing their missions from alleviating poverty to promoting more democratic governance. ‘Social accountability’, as one of their most common employed approaches, is often the combination of civic engagement, evidence-based monitoring, and advocacy. Carrying with it the expectation of improving accountability in Vietnam, the approach is still a new, foreign-imported concept which will challenge and be challenged by particular contextual factors in the country. This study examines the practices of social accountability in Vietnam to find out its position and potential in terms of development of the country. Promoting social accountability in Vietnam is often based on the assumption that the approach will improve government’s accountability, strengthening the state – citizen relationship. It is envisaged that the country will be eventually more open as a result. It is as yet an optimistic vision and will take time for practitioners to put in place. This study aims to analyse how early adoption of social accountability is affected by Vietnam’s contextual factors, to what extent it is affecting governance and increasing people’s participation, and what organizations can actually expect of social accountability. The research aims to fill a gap in the literature regarding social accountability in Vietnam. As a new concept, social accountability is often introduced via materials provided by international organizations like World Bank and UNICEF. Most of the documents present successful cases of applying social accountability in other countries like India and Bangladesh, and countries in Latin America. Thus, a critical analysis of adopting social accountability in the Vietnam context is necessary to provide more insights for both practitioners and scholars on the topic. Employing interviews as the key method, the study seeks input from key informants who are involved in the adoption of social accountability in Vietnam. From perspectives of government officials, development practitioners, and community members, the reality of practicing social accountability and how it is interacting and negotiating with other factors in society should be more clearly revealed. Practical expectations and recommendations to conceive of and practice social accountability in Vietnam are also suggested.</p>
Clustering repeated ordinal data: Model based approaches using finite mixtures
Authors:   , Costilla Monteagudo Roy Ken 
Published: November 2021

<p>Model based approaches to cluster continuous and cross-sectional data are abundant and well established. In contrast to that, equivalent approaches for repeated ordinal data are less common and an active area of research. In this dissertation, we propose several models to cluster repeated ordinal data using finite mixtures. In doing so, we explore several ways of incorporating the correlation due to the repeated measurements while taking into account the ordinal nature of the data.	In particular, we extend the Proportional Odds model to incorporate latent random effects and latent transitional terms. These two ways of incorporating the correlation are also known as parameter and data dependent models in the time-series literature. In contrast to most of the existing literature, our aim is classification and not parameter estimation. This is, to provide flexible and parsimonious ways to estimate latent populations and classification probabilities for repeated ordinal data.	We estimate the models using Frequentist (Expectation-Maximization algorithm) and Bayesian (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) inference methods and compare advantages and disadvantages of both approaches with simulated and real datasets. In order to compare models, we use several information criteria: AIC, BIC, DIC and WAIC, as well as a Bayesian Non-Parametric approach (Dirichlet Process Mixtures). With regards to the applications, we illustrate the models using self-reported health status in Australia (poor to excellent), life satisfaction in New Zealand (completely agree to completely disagree) and agreement with a reference genome of infant gut bacteria (equal, segregating and variant) from baby stool samples.</p>
Digital Indigenous Craft: Expressing Māori Culture through Computational tools in Architecture
Authors:   , Durcan James 
Published: November 2021

<p>Within present architectural discourse, there is universal concern that contemporary architectural processes efface the culture of indigenous communities, resulting in the homogenisation of architecture globally. The imminent question therefore is; how can the assimilation of digital tools and indigenous culture be a catalyst to empower culturally embodied architecture that responds to our indigenous Māori identity and spirit, without falling into architectural homogeneity? Working in direct conjunction with Ngai Tāmanuhi-ri Iwi (tribal group), on the poignant site, Te Kurī-a-Pāoa (Young Nicks Head), this thesis initiates dialogue to investigate the amalgamation of progressive digital fabrication techniques and the rich cultural identity and Mātauranga Māori (cultural knowledge) of Ngai Tāmanuhiri. Subsequently, a pavilion, incorporatinga locally inspired ‘whai’ (stingray) motif has been designed providing an architectural framework to facilitate design-led research. One-uku (clay), has been identified early as an indigenous material with enormous potential and led to the development of custom-built additive fabrication tools that can elevate this abundant local material for use within the architectural sphere. A secondary focus of this research is the development of computational (parametric) and analogue workflows to enable the production of architectural scale ceramic modules. Ultimately, this thesis argues that when computational design skills are ulilised alongside indigenous knowledge, digitally produced artefacts are capable of becoming meaningful for all.</p>