bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Modelling of Planetary Gravitational Microlensing Events
Authors:   , Miller Michael L. J. 
Published: November 2021

<p>This thesis describes and develops procedures for the generation of theoretical lightcurves that can be used to model gravitational microlensing events that involve multiple lenses. Of particular interest are the cases involving a single lens star with one or more orbiting planets, as this has proven to be an effective way of detecting extrasolar planets. Although there is an analytical expression for microlensing lightcurves produced by single lensing body, the generation of model lightcurves for more than one lensing body requires the use of numerical techniques. The method developed here, known as the semi-analytic method, involves the analytical rearrangement of the relatively simple ‘lens equation’ to produce a high-order complex lens polynomial. Root-finding algorithms are then used to obtain the roots of this ‘lens polynomial’ in order to locate the positions of the images and calculate their magnifications. By running example microlensing events through the root-finding algorithms, both the speed and accuracy of the Laguerre and Jenkins-Traub algorithms were investigated. It was discovered that, in order to correctly identify the image positions, a method involving solutions of several ‘lens polynomials’ corresponding to different coordinate origins needed to be invoked. Multipole and polygon approximations were also developed to include finite source and limb darkening effects. The semi-analytical method and the appropriate numerical techniques were incorporated into a C++ modelling code at VUW (Victoria University of Wellington) known as mlens2. The effectiveness of the semi-analytic method was demonstrated using mlens2 to generate theoretical lightcurves for the microlensing events MOA-2009-BLG-319 and OGLE-2006-BLG-109. By comparing these theoretical lightcurves with the observed photometric data and the published models, it was demonstrated that the semi-analytic method described in this thesis is a robust and efficient method for discovering extrasolar planets.</p>
The Mythology of the Gap in the Work of James K. Baxter
Authors:   , Martin Gregory J 
Published: November 2021

<p>In 1967, New Zealand poet James K. Baxter reflected on his beginning as a poet with the statement that 'what happens is either meaningless to me, or else it is mythology' and that in his personal mythology 'first there was the gap, the void'. While the first of these comments has been frequently cited in connection to Baxter‘s work, few critics have taken its extreme implications seriously. This thesis also takes the second statement as crucial to understanding Baxter‘s creative process and the links his poetry makes between otherwise disparate experiences. These statements are a starting point for a study which maps out the consistencies and continuities underlying Baxter's vast literar output throughout his career as a poet. It considers Baxter's poetry alongside his published prose and unpublished papers in order to demonstrate the underlying patterns which characterise Baxter‘s output throughout his diverse career. The thesis first develops a framework for identifying the presence of gaps in Baxter‘s writing, tracing a network of symbolic and mythic relationships that comprise his evolving personal mythology of the gap. Having established this framework, I show how Baxter's engagement with 'the gap' evolves throughout his work. The thesis demonstrates the significance of gaps not only as central motifs in Baxter‘s work, but as a crucial part of the poet‘s creative process. Baxter‘s purposeful approach to poetic mythologising relies on notions of absence, division and descent: the 'gaps' out of which poems emerge. These gaps simultaneously create and are created by the temporary 'mythologising self' at the centre of the creative process. This is the poet as creator, shaping 'chaos' into 'cosmos' through the use of ordering tools. In Baxter's case these include the consistent use of three main mythic paradigms which address the imperatives of desire created by these gaps. As well as this parallel with the pattern of creation myth, Baxter's creative process is suggestive of the mythic 'journey to the centre' which is in turn recurrent throughout his poetry. In applying the 'chaos-ordering-cosmos' framework to Baxter's mythology, I reveal the consistent elements of his work on the underlying level of myth, symbol, origins and method, thus opening up new possibilities in the critical response to his work.</p>
Assessment Practices in a Cambodian University: Through the Lens of Lecturers and Students
Authors:   , Nguon Sophal 
Published: November 2021

<p>Assessment is a key factor in enhancing student learning when appropriate assessment tasks are conducted. Assessments are used to grade students’ achievement, check learning progress, reflect teaching performance, and support further learning. Perceptions and experiences that lecturers and students in Cambodian tertiary education have about assessment practices are an important aspect to understand the current assessment practices before considering possible changes and how to implement the changes. These perceptions and experiences are the focus of this study which uses a mixed-method design. Eighteen lecturers and ninety-three third and fourth year students completed a 35-item questionnaire on the conceptualisation of assessment practices. Six lecturers participated in semi-structured interviews and 11 students participated in focus group discussions. Seventeen course outlines were analysed for assessment criteria and modes. Results revealed three main perceived purposes of assessment: the provision of marks to students, measurement of students’ understanding, and satisfaction of university requirements. Furthermore, conventional assessment forms such as presentations, written assignments and examinations were found to be widely practiced in the faculty. Varying perceptions about explicit assessment criteria was also evident amongst lecturers and students. In addition the study identified that participants appear unfamiliar with the notion of innovative assessment practices, and that lecturers used a ‘transmission process’ type to provide feedback. These findings are used to recommend ways of enhancing assessment practices in Cambodian tertiary education. Recommendations include activities to develop assessment practices and ensure the improvement of student learning, especially self-regulated learning. Further recommendations are the inclusion of alternative assessment, more clarity in assessment criteria, and the introduction of supportive and constructive feedback. Academic professional development and university support are also needed for enhancing assessment practices. Two avenues of further research are recommended to examine the impact of assessment practices on student learning: firstly, an investigation into the practices of innovative assessment and approaches to learning, and secondly a comparative study about assessment systems and learning careers between a developing country and a developed country.</p>
Hatching Prosperity Together: A Dynamic Assessment of Relationships in Business Incubation in New Zealand
Authors:   , Starnes Brock 
Published: November 2021

<p>The concept of business incubators has attracted much attention in recent years, both as descriptive of an increasingly important phenomenon and as an effective public intervention in the economies of lagging cities, regions, and countries. However, little empirical research has explored this phenomenon. To better understand what type of relationships contribute to the performance of newly hatched business ideas, the following study applies a social capital and proximity lenses to explore relationships in business incubation and how they contribute to start-up performance. Through the use of open-ended questions this study carried out semi-structured interviews with 25 total participants of the New Zealand incubation system. These in-depth interviews allowed participants to express their perspectives on business incubation. This study revealed that there are tensions that exist in the incubator environment which are as much about the relationship between the two central participants - incubator personnel and entrepreneur - and other stakeholders, as between the two central participants themselves. These tensions, if not aligned, restrict incubating entrepreneurs from gaining advantage from business incubators. Additionally, the study reveals that the role of geographical proximity in business incubation is surprisingly of less importance than other forms of proximity.</p>
Host Community Perceptions of Volunteer Tourists in the Northern Tourist Circuit, Tanzania
Authors:   , Ezra Peter Marwa 
Published: November 2021

<p>The existing and growing body of volunteer tourism literature has broadly addressed a myriad of topics but with a major focus on volunteer tourists. Limited knowledge is available on how these volunteer tourists are perceived by the host communities. The current literature defines volunteer tourists based on the perspective from where the majority of volunteer sending organizations and volunteer tourists come from – the primarily Western, developed country perspective. This study argues that this Western-dominated and developed country conceptualization of volunteer tourism and volunteer tourists must be addressed. In response the study examines the perceptions and conceptualisations of ‘volunteer tourists’ from the perspective of a host community in a developing country, Tanzania. To capture a multitude of host community perspectives on volunteer tourists, a qualitative case study approach was adopted which focused on a village near Arusha on the Northern Tourist Circuit (NTC) of Tanzania. Forty five semi-structured interviews were conducted with different community stakeholders, including private sector and public sector employees, people working for the not-for-profit sector and local people without affiliation to any of these three sectors. Importantly, these interviews were conducted by a Tanzanian researcher in Swahili and/or English. This research reveals that various stakeholders within the host community have different meanings and understandings of volunteer tourists based on their expectations and experiences. For example, the local people and those working for the not-for-profit sector perceived volunteer tourists as donors and sponsors, while those working in the public sector perceive volunteer tourists as international workers and/or NGO employees; and the private sector respondents perceived volunteer tourists as niche tourists. The study also reveals that the host community attributes that influence their perceptions are based on economic, socio-cultural, environmental and legal and/or regulatory framework factors; this includes, for example, racial ethnicity and poverty. Moreover, this research found that the host community’s perceptions of volunteer tourists are shaped by the issues of trust and mistrust that transpire in the course of their interaction. The study highlights the need to consider the financial element of volunteer tourism as a positive aspect and stresses the involvement of host community in the operation and management of volunteer tourist organizations.</p>
A Scenario Analysis of the 2030 German Spa Tourist and Tourism
Authors:   , Wolf Natalie 
Published: November 2021

<p>Tourism is affected by growing transformations of social change, globalisation and wealth creation. Uncertainty surrounding the development of the factors makes it difficult to predict and provide contingency for the future. This is especially so for the spa tourism industry given its enormous figures in revenue growth over the past two decades. Given the growth of the spa industry and the key uncertainties that will shape its future, it is important to understand how the landscape of the spa industry might change in the next few decades. Although there has been research done on the future of spa tourism, for example by the Global Spa and Wellness Summit, their work requires more development and is not country-specific. In response, this study is of value as it explores the future of spa tourism in terms of creating multiple potential pathways. It does this from the perspective of the German spa industry, and addresses the interrelationships of these uncertainties. By following the specific methodology of scenario planning, this study develops a scenario analysis of the future of the German spa industry and answers the questions “What will the German spa tourist and spa tourism industry look like in 2030?” The study consisted of 22 semi-structured interviews with a diverse expert panel in Germany. Interview participants identified twelve key drivers which were discussed in light of existing literature. The two most significant key drivers identified in the interviews were then positioned along a two- key matrix with the demanding consumer on the horizontal axis and new distribution of wealth on the vertical axis. Based on these drivers the study presents four plausible yet challenging and completely different scenarios for the development of the German spa tourist and tourism in 2030. The scenarios include prosperous society, highlighting a positive future for German spas due to the growth of the middle class and thus increasing demands and a multifaceted spa clientele; the power elite, concentrating on the super rich spa consumer and their extravagant consumer behaviour; middle class on the brink, presenting a squeezed middle class and a gradient decline of the spa industry; and the welfare state, a gloomy scenario with almost no spa tourism left. Through examination of significant questions and strategic implications, the study concludes that the spa industry needs to challenge its current linear ways of thinking by adopting new insights and perspectives of the future. Furthermore, the industry needs to establish standardised criteria for accreditation and operation of spa facilities. This needs to include a focus on staff training in order to continue to attract the German spa tourist and thus remain profitable in the future.</p>
Imputation on the Food, Nutrition and Environment Surveys 2007 and 2009 data
Authors:   , Luo Maoxin 
Published: November 2021

<p>The Food Nutrition Environment Survey (FNES) is a survey of New Zealand early childhood centres and schools and the food and nutritional services that they provide for their pupils. The 2007 and 2009 FNES surveys were managed by the Ministry of Health. Like all the other social surveys, the FNES has the common problem of unit and item non-responses. In other words, the FNES has missing data. In this thesis, we have surveyed a wide variety of missing data handling techniques and applied most of them to the FNES datasets. This thesis can be roughly divided into two parts. In the first part, we have studied and investigated the different nature of missing data (i.e. missing data mechanisms), and all the common and popular imputation methods, using the Synthetic Unit Record File (SURF) which has been developed by the Statistics New Zealand for educational purposes. By comparing all those different imputation methods, Bayesian Multiple Imputation (MI) method is the preferred option to impute missing data in terms of reducing non-response bias and properly propagating imputation uncertainty. Due to the overlaps in the samples selected for the 2007 and 2009 FNES surveys, we have discovered that the Bayesian MI can be improved by incorporating the matched dataset. Hence, we have proposed a couple of new approaches to utilize the extra information from the matched dataset. We believe that adapting the Bayesian MI to use the extra information from the matched dataset is a preferable imputation strategy for imputing the FNES missing data. This is because the use of the matched dataset provides more prediction power to the imputation model.</p>
Masculinity, reading and the school library : smoothing the abrasive rub
Authors:   , McLean Anne Virginia 
Published: November 2021

<p>During the 1990s, governments and the education profession noticed that boys were lagging behind girls academically. Reading, or the lack or it was pinpointed as a major cause and it was observed in an Auckland high school library that significantly more books were issued to girls than boys over a six month period in 2004. The purpose of this study was to achieve a deeper understanding of how a purposefully selected sample of school librarians has successfully encouraged boys to read. A qualitative approach was employed using two methods of data collection: a questionnaire to gather largely statistical data and in-depth interviews to gather data about participants' experiences, knowledge and opinions. The study found that school librarians use a variety of strategies to promote reading to boys. A school library needs to be well stocked with a wide range of current, appealing, reading materials as boys are discerning, hybrid readers. Knowing the students and the library collection was central to matching boys with books and the library needs to be more than a book repository. It is concluded that Ranganathan's 'Five laws of library science' are still applicable today in the school library and school librarians need to be a professional, visible and approachable presence in the school.</p>
The use of pragmatic devices by German non-native speakers of English
Authors:   , Terraschke Agnes 
Published: November 2021

<p>Mastering the pragmatic norms of another language is one of the greatest challenges to non-native speakers. One particularly difficult aspect of pragmatic conventions is the appropriate use of pragmatic devices such as like, you know, I think, and or something like that which have been found to serve a number of important textual and interactive functions in discourse. This study investigates the use of such devices by non-native speakers in cross-cultural conversations in terms of frequency and function in order to establish to what extent L2 usage differs from native speaker norms. In particular, the study examines the use of the English pragmatic devices like, eh and General Extenders (and things like that, or something like that) by German non-native speakers of English (GNNSE) in interactions with native speakers of New Zealand English (NSNZE). The results are compared with the use of these forms in native-native conversations in New Zealand English and the use of close equivalent forms in German by the same GNNSE. The analysis is based on a corpus of approximately 18 1⁄2 hours of dyadic conversation or about 224,338 words of transcription.</p>
Visitor Satisfaction with Guided Package Tours in the Northern Tourist Circuit of Tanzania
Authors:   , Leguma Elisante Ombeni 
Published: November 2021

<p>The guided package tour is a special tourism product that is composed of many components that are organized and offered by a tour operator. The literature shows that many visitors prefer guided package tours because they are a convenient way of organising a holiday. Studies of visitor satisfaction with guided package tours are often conducted in developed economies, on coach tours in cities, and therefore less is known about guided package tours in developing economies where the principle attraction is wildlife and nature. This thesis investigates visitor satisfaction with guided package tours that feature safaris in the northern tourist circuit of Tanzania. The northern tourist circuit is the largest tourist destination in Tanzania that attracts more that 80% of international visitors in the country. Quantitative research method is used in this study together with importance-performance analysis. Importance-performance analysis provides a structure for data analysis and the interpretation of research findings. This thesis explores the relative importance of different components of guided package tours; visitor satisfaction with different components of the guided package tour; the relationship between importance and performance of different components of the guided package tour; and the relationship between visitor satisfaction with the tour guide and overall satisfaction with the tour experience. This research demonstrates that all components of the guided package tour are important to visitors, and visitors are very satisfied with the performance of the tour providers. Attractions, tour guides and transportation are considered very important and very satisfying components of the guided package tour in the northern tourist circuit. Visitor satisfaction with the tour guide makes the largest contribution to overall satisfaction with the tour experience. Similarly, visitor satisfaction with other components of the guided package tour contributes to overall satisfaction with the tour experience. The findings of this study provide a better understanding of visitor satisfaction with guided package tours that feature safaris, and the application of importance-performance analysis in the study of visitor satisfaction in a rural wildlife area. The study provides several practical suggestions for guided package tour providers in the northern tourist circuit.</p>
Vietnamese International Students' Experiences in a New Zealand University: A Narrative Study
Authors:   , Vu Ha Thuong 
Published: November 2021

<p>This narrative study explored the adjustment experiences of six Vietnamese international students at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Data for the study were based on two sources; in-depth interviewing and the researcher's field notes. Each of participants was interviewed twice on their adjustment experiences in New Zealand. Thematic analysis was applied to their stories and positioning theory provided a theoretical lens to further analyze and interpret the participants' stories. The findings of the study indicated that the participants experienced many new and different things. Most experienced a stressful academic environment during their first few weeks but they felt better as time passed. The most common challenges they faced related to language issues. Difficulties came from differences between cultures with a mismatch between the participants' previous learning experiences and teaching and learning in the new environment. The participants felt stressed by the amount of self-directed learning expected. These challenges brought benefits such as becoming independent and self- regulated learners. After one trimester one participant had happily adapted and thought of a future life in New Zealand. Three participants had gradually adapted and come to enjoy their new life Two of the six students were clear that they did not belong in New Zealand and wanted to finish their degree and then go back to Vietnam. The study concluded that the participants had diverse difficulties studying and living in New Zealand, mostly related to the different academic environment, language and culture. The participants used various coping strategies to deal with their challenges in the new environment and the main source of their support was from friends and families.</p>