bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Crippling the Will of a People: Morphostatic Structures of Violence and the Crawl-Space of Agency in the Lives of Eritrean Refugees
Authors:   , Commerer Jared 
Published: November 2021

<p>In conjunction with an exposition of the larger historical and political context of the nation of Eritrea, this thesis examines the life narratives of five refugees hailing from the Horn of Africa. In doing so, certain institutional, relational, and embodied forms of violence are identified as permeating Eritrea’s socio-political fabric and thus also the inter- and intra-personal lives of the participants. Where morphostatic structures are deemed as those that constrain an individual’s capacity to pursue their ultimate concerns, it is maintained that violence in the form of extreme nationalism, routinised fear, and varying subjective affects partially accounts for the fact that an estimated 5,000 people are fleeing this small, modernising African nation every month. Following this, I argue that, by examining the life-narratives of Eritrean refugees, violence can be understood as transpiring at the interstices of an ongoing – albeit skewed – dialectic between, on one hand, morphostatic structures of violence appearing in institutional, relational, and embodied forms, and, on the other, a degree of mimetic agency that, when harnessed, acts as a crawl-space through which individuals – if they are to realise their ultimate concerns – must absent themselves relative to such structures of violence.</p>
The Impact of the Official Information Act 1982 on the Policy Development Process
Authors:   , Poot Edward H. 
Published: November 2021

<p>The Official Information Act was passed into statute in 1982. Among the purposes of the Act is the enhancement and respect for the law and the promotion of good government. The aim of this paper is to detennine, from a participation perspective, the impact of the Official Information Act 1982 on the core public sector policy process. The paper starts with a background to the Act before reviewing the expected and actual impact of the Act, as outlined in the literature. The policy making process in New Zealand' s core public sector is considered, highlighting opportunities for participation. Participation theory is discussed. The research involves a survey across the core public sector to gain general views of the impact of the Act on the policy development process. The results are used as the basis for three in-depth case studies of core public sector agencies. The conclusions are that while the Act is an important instrument of accountability, the success of the Act in enabling more effective participation is not so clear. While information is more readily obtainable, technocratic officials and Ministers keen to control information impact on the ability of citizens to participate. It is concluded that for the Act to be of maximum benefit education of officials and a loosening on the control of information will be needed.</p>
Brain Gain in Fiji? How do past emigrants’ experiences shape the education decisions and emigration plans of tertiary students in Fiji?
Authors:   , Mudaliar Lakshmin Aashnum 
Published: November 2021

<p>This thesis examines the case of Fijian youths’ increasing demand for higher education in order to explore the brain gain theorem. Its primary aim is to understand how past emigrants’ experiences shape the education decisions and emigration intentions of tertiary students in Fiji. This is achieved through semi-structured interviews with Fijian youths as well as an examination of policy and media reports. The research questions through which these aims are achieved are: Why do Fijian students enter higher education? Do Fijian students intend to migrate, and if so, why or why not? And what are the constraints and obstacles to Fijian students’ emigration intentions? The central conclusion of this thesis is that the brain gain effect is present in Fiji because half of the student-participants responded to the incentive effect, defined as the prospect of migration raising the expected returns to higher education, which is created by two distinct cultures of migration and three of the Fijian governments’ initiatives. The strength of their social ties determined whether they had perfect or imperfect information about the constraints and obstacles to their emigration intentions which in turn, determined the type of brain gain effect Fijian communities may be experiencing. In this thesis, the relationship between emigration and human capital formation is understood through the notion of the brain gain effect, defined as prospect of migration leads to a higher average level of education per individual in origin countries. Existing empirical studies have employed quantitative methods to establish the correlation between past emigration rates and current enrolment rates. The significance and novelty of this thesis lies in its adoption of qualitative case study methods in which real people were asked what they are doing and why, thus bringing us closer to a causal understanding of the relationship between higher education and emigration. In addition, by including ethnic and skill-level variables in the research design, this thesis shows that those remaining behind after upskilling may be some of Fiji’s ‘best and brightest.’</p>
Design foundations: Towards a model of style grammar in creative drawing
Authors:   , Sweo Jennie 
Published: November 2021

<p>A style grammar is a principled rule set that governs the organization of very complex ideas. It allows for the examination of underlying structures which are often times obscured. Style grammars have been developed for many fields such as writing, fashion and architecture but to date there is no style grammar for creative drawing. The research identifies the necessary visual features and core traits associated with each feature towards developing such a model for creative drawings. Then operational measures are defined using the computer to extract and measure the core traits of those features towards developing a model of style grammar in drawing. These visual features include line, tone, and depth. Core traits include line length, line width, line expressiveness, local tone, global tone, texture, pattern, outline, shape, and position. A multidimensional scaling (MDS) using input from 27 subjects, 10 art experts and 17 novices, supported the overall list of visual features and added the dimension of smudge to the list. A second MDS sort discusses issues with images and large art categorical sorts from the standpoint of both human perception and machine measures that were obtained using feature extraction. It was concluded from the results of the second MDS that large art categories were too broad to be useful in evaluating measures to develop the model. Further analysis was run using only drawings from three artists, two impressionists to compare similarity and one expressionist for dissimilarity to determine if the machine measures of the core traits of the visual features were able to differentiate smaller groupings of consistent drawing styles. Using the computer allowed for systematic and objective procedures to be used to obtain measures. The multinomial logistic regression showed high significance for all the traits except marginal significance for line length and no significance for depth. Binomial logistic regressions run on each pair of artists showed high significance for all the traits except depth. The combined positive results of the first MDS card sort and the binomial and multinomial regression analysis provide proof of concept and offer strong support towards the development of a model of style grammar for creative drawings. Implications for teaching drawing using the identified visual features and core traits are offered. The outcomes and analysis provided in this research currently support a general practice rule in design reuse and intelligent borrowing that suggests first smudge, then depth, then tone, and then line quality are the most significant elements to use for style comparison. Discussions for future research including improved measures and other types of perception testing are provided towards further development of the model.</p>
Young People’s Experience of Post-Separation Fathering Where the Father has been Violent to the Mother
Authors:   , Nelson Pamela 
Published: November 2021

<p>My intention in undertaking this research was to examine young people’s experiences of living with their father following parental separation where their father has been violent to their mother. To date there is little knowledge of children’s post-separation experiences of fathering or of the parenting abilities of partner abusive men. This study takes a feminist approach and is informed by scholarship on family issues, childhood studies and the sociology of the child. The study was guided by hermeneutic phenomenology and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Twenty young people aged 18 to 26 took part in the study and face to face interviews were carried out over a one year period. The findings revealed that some fathers were overly punitive in their parenting style with a number of fathers continuing to be physically and/or emotionally abusive to their children. Authoritarian or permissive parenting practices were also identified and a number of fathers were shown to be neglectful, making little effort to bond with their children or provide quality care. In cases where fathers were unable to accept the break-up and move on this was also shown to have an adverse effect on their ability to parent effectively including an inability to co-operate with children’s mothers. In contrast, the majority of mothers were shown to be central to children’s lives undertaking most of the caring responsibilities. Mothers also recognised children’s changing needs as they grew older, encouraged autonomy, and contributed to children’s social development and maturity by trusting their judgement. However, this was not necessarily a protective factor against difficulties that participants have experienced as young adults. A time-share or full-time arrangement was revealed as being the most problematic for children although weekend contact could also pose a risk where pre-separation violence towards children had been severe. The study concluded that a safe outcome for children will require a shift away from a father’s right to contact, emphasising instead children’s right to a life free from abuse.</p>
The effect of political risk on emerging and developed markets
Authors:   , Suleman Muhammad Tahir 
Published: November 2021

<p>This thesis consists of three substantive chapters (3, 4, 5) on the impact of political risk on equity and exchange rate returns and their volatilities. Chapter 3 proposes a framework for predicting market returns and volatility using changes in the country’s political risk. We identify the appropriate lag to to calculate changes over, and how the changes should be included in mean and volatility equations. The level of aggregation of political risk variable is also examined. Analysing 47 emerging and 21 developed markets, we find predictive power primarily for volatility of emerging markets, and recommended use of three political risk components which suitably capture important dimensions of political environment. In the Chapter 4 we empirically examines the impact of political risk on returns and volatility of individual firms and industry portfolios from New Zealand and Pakistan. The data used in the study consist of 184 firms from New Zealand and 202 firms from Pakistan along with country-level political risk data from the ICRG. As in the , we find in Chapter 3 that the impact of political risk is more on volatility than the returns of firms in both markets. As we expect, the impact of political risk is more on Pakistani firms compared to those in New Zealand. Overall, results from the industry portfolios are according to the hypothesis that political risk impact is different across industries (volatility increase for some industries and decrease for few). Chapter 5 examine the relationship between political risk variables on the nominal exchange rate return and its volatility. We again investigate developed versus developed markets, and also consider three different exchange rate regimes i.e. floating, managed floating and fixed. This is important to examine the link between political risk and exchange rate because there are two sources of political risk one on either side of the exchange rate. In our analysis, we use the political risk spread between the country of interest and the USA. Overall results reveal that emerging markets are more exposed to political risk compared to developed. Further, the impact of political risk variables is more on the floating exchange rate compared to managed floating and fixed exchange rate as might be expected, since intervention in the market will generally reduce to eliminate the influence of alternative factors. We also find strong evidence that volatility increases more during a period of high political risk and poor economic conditions for emerging markets.</p>
Prisoners’ Rights and Media Wrongs: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Media Representation of Private Prisons in New Zealand
Authors:   , Boyle Otis 
Published: November 2021

<p>In 2009, the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill was passed, implementing the New Zealand (NZ) Government’s policy of prison privatisation. Subsequently, ‘Mt Eden’, a public prison previously managed by the state, was contracted to British conglomerate Serco and a second private prison, ‘Wiri’, was built under contract to the same company. However, in July 2015, a cell-phone video capturing Mt Eden prisoners engaged in fights, in full view of prison officers and CCTV, was uploaded to YouTube. It captured the attention of the media, politicians and the public. An unprecedented stream of media revelations about prisoner mistreatment, corruption and various human rights violations followed, prompting the Department of Corrections to seize control of the prison. In the wake of this ‘crisis’, this thesis explores the changing nature of legitimacy for private prisons in NZ. Where previously, legitimacy of the penal system was largely staked on security and maintaining sufficiently austere prison conditions, the revelations of serious rights violations at Mt Eden prison highlights one of the ‘moments’ in which the legitimacy of the prison system was fractured for being too severe. To examine the changing nature of legitimacy, the study investigates the treatment of private prisons by three media sources - the New Zealand Herald, Stuff and Radio New Zealand. It uses framing, critical discourse and source analysis, with the aim of exploring how dominant penological discourses operate to protect and sustain the prison system in the face of a human rights scandal. The thesis separates analysis into two critical periods: after the introduction of private prisons in 2009; and after the release of the YouTube videos. A managerial frame is consistently found across the news outlets alongside a source bias towards mainstream politics and corporate interests. Before the human rights scandals, the focus on how to deliver punishment, rather than the state’s obligations to those it incarcerates or wider social goals, established the legitimacy of private prisons under the banal everyday discourses of managerialism. While humanitarian framing increased substantially after the human rights scandals, these were subsumed under the frames of managerialism, security and less eligibility. These frames acted to depict the prison crisis as an unfortunate individual aberration of security that could be managed through a government response. In short, the legitimacy of the prison remained intact and was, ultimately, strengthened.</p>
Effects of Corporate Governance Guidelines on Investors: An Experimental Examination of Bangladeshi Investors’ Decisions
Authors:   , Tariquzzaman ATM 
Published: November 2021

<p>The main purpose of the study is to examine whether investors assign importance to corporate governance in making investment decisions. The study involves a 2x2x2 between-participant experiment on real investors that examines the effects of corporate governance structure, financial condition and insider trading on individual investor decisions. The findings of this study extend the literature on corporate board practices and investor perceptions by providing evidence from this emerging economy that strong corporate governance has a positive impact on investor decisions. The study also confirms the findings of prior literature that financial condition of a company positively influences investor decisions. Hence, the results provide insights into the effects of strengthening corporate governance guidelines and of variation in financial condition on investor decisions. The study provides evidence that the common occurrence of illegal insider trading in the emerging market of Bangladesh does not appear to impact on investor decision making, unlike in developed countries. The results of this study also contribute to understanding of how the quality of corporate governance impacts on decision making. It appears that governance directly impacts the perceived reliability of financial reports and trust in the board and management and that these factors fully mediate the impact on investor decision making. The theoretical model and instrument developed for this study will be useful for further studies to explore the impact of other corporate governance factors on investor decisions. Furthermore, the theoretical model and instrument will also be useful for further studies in other developed and developing countries, particularly where insider trading is regarded by investors as being a concern and to investigate the impact of other corporate governance factors on investors and financial analysts.</p>
Innovative and nontraditional revenue generation in New Zealand museums
Authors:   , Abernethy Anna 
Published: November 2021

<p>Improving income in museums around the world is vitally important and New Zealand museums are no exception. There is little literature in Museum Studies offering practical strategies for fundraising, with much research focusing on the morality of revenue sources rather than best practice. Research in other disciplines on museum revenue has been problematic as the theories it has attempted to apply are not always applicable. There has also been little research on the local dynamics of revenue generation, and there is therefore an urgent need for practice based research on this topic, such as data for comparative analysis of revenue sources.	Responding to gaps in the current literature this thesis analysed innovative and nontraditional revenue generation in three Wellington museums. Innovative and nontraditional revenue encompasses programs, partnering, fundraising, museum-operated businesses, venue hire, museum and third-party websites, phone applications for smartphones, crowdsourcing and e-commerce. Pragmatism provides the research paradigm for this empirical study into current professional practice. The paradigm was enhanced by several concepts including Hansen and Birkinshaw’s, Innovation Value Chain. To examine the local museum situation, data was gathered from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; the New Zealand Cricket Museum; and Pātaka Art + Museum. Semi-structured interviews with key staff and revenue records were analysed following qualitative and quantitative methods. There were several key findings which highlighted the direct and indirect benefits of innovative and nontraditional revenue. External partnerships, museum staff and volunteers were highlighted as crucial for revenue viability. Ethics and perceptions of revenue also affected revenue generation. Overall the research enhances our knowledge of museum economics in the New Zealand context. I argue that commercial operations need to be integrated into museum practice and that the benefits of this approach should be demonstrated to all staff. Finally, several recommendations are made which I believe will enhance the future practice of revenue generation in New Zealand museums.</p>
Infrastructure asset diagnostics: Enabling smarter asset management decisions within the electricity distribution industry
Authors:   , Bryson Richard Vernon 
Published: November 2021

<p>This thesis examines the opportunities for better asset management within the electricity distribution industry. The project partner, a supplier of distribution products, observed their customers are often purchasing incorrect equipment for maintenance operations. This observation led the project partner to believe a lack of accurate asset knowledge exists within these electricity distribution businesses (EDBs). Coupled with the information that much of the installed asset base of these EDBs is approaching end of life, it was proposed to investigate the suspected lack of asset condition and type knowledge with the intention of developing the Infrastructure Asset Diagnostic Tool (IADT). A literature review was conducted to determine the current state of asset diagnostics within the electricity distribution industry. The principles of lean start-up business development have been used to isolate the most needed technology within the New Zealand marketplace through interviews with industry personnel. These interviews helped identify a possible Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for the IADT, and also indicated that providing the IADT as a professional service would be the most appropriate model for the MVP variant. Condition and type knowledge of wooden poles, conductors and line hardware was found to be the most lacking. It was recommended to focus product development on the assessment of these assets. The project partner has contracted two smart tool suppliers for the analysis of poles and conductor clearances. These products were then integrated to enable accurate assessments of wooden poles. An additional product identified as an aside during the interviews, was for a simple pole designing application which could be used in the field. An existing product from one of the smart tool suppliers contracted can fulfil this requirement. Possible benefits from IADT use were calculated for a sample EDB. These calculations indicated accurate condition assessment of wooden poles could lead to a saving of up to $5.4 million per year. This saving would equate to a possible reduction in time for securing pole integrity on this network from 30.8 years to just 5.9 years through more effective use of available funding. This reduction would lead to enhanced network reliability and improved public safety in a much shorter time frame than present, therefore this study recommends implementing the MVP form of the IADT at an initial EDB.</p>