title: Multi-Level process integration of heat pumps in a non-continuous processing site

authors: Klinac, Elsa

subjects: Industrial

abstract: Industrial process heat demands contribute significantly to New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. With a global push towards decarbonization, including New Zealand’s Climate Change Response Amendment Act 2019, there is a need for methods and technologies that can be applied to replace industrial fossil fuel boiler use. With an increasing range of renewable energy sources, electrification provides a promising alternative to fossil fuel use; however, it is also critical to reduce process heat demands where possible. This can be done through the reuse of industrial waste heat via direct heat exchange, thermal storage, or heat pump installations. Existing Heat Integration methods provide a means of identifying waste heat recovery opportunities; however, these methods are typically aimed at steady state industries. In New Zealand, many industries operate in a non-continuous manner, creating challenges in the accurate application of these existing Heat Integration methods. 
This thesis presents a multi-level process integration method for heat pump and thermal storage retrofit on non-continuous industrial processing sites. This method aims to address several gaps in current Heat Integration methodology through the novel amalgamation of several tools discussed in four main chapters: (1) A multi-level heat pump integration tool is developed that sequentially identifies heat pump opportunities to both upgrade waste heat for reuse, and  shift remaining waste process heat towards more favorable temperature ranges, (2) A multi steady state time slice investigation develops a tool for selecting appropriate time slice sizes to accurately represent variable, non-continuous industrial sites, (3) a multi steady state thermal storage identification tool is developed by applying the previously identified time slices to existing heat integration methods with an aim to further buffer fluctuations in heat demand, and optimize the thermal loads on the previously identified heat pump opportunities.
The tools are combined into a final method and applied to a meat processing case study site that is representative of the variable, non-continuous industries that dominate the food sector in New Zealand. In this case study, hourly time slices were used to identify multiple successive heat pump opportunities including a 1.9 MW MVR that recompresses waste steam from the rendering dryers with a COP of 10, and a central 1.5 MW heat pump that supplies heat at 70°C to the site ring main with a COP of 3.4. In addition, it was found that the 90°C heat pump, already installed on the case study site, would have the potential to increase utilization on the case study site if the two other heat pump opportunities identified were implemented. Thermal storage opportunities were also identified that can be used to buffer heat demands on the 70°C heat pump opportunity, thereby allowing the heat pump to be resized to 1.04 MW in comparison to the initially hypothesized 1.5 MW, reducing both capital and operational costs of the heat pump.
This amalgamated method provides novel Total Site Heat Integration additions, which when compared to conventional heat integration methods, provide more accurate and more useful heat pump decarbonization strategies for non-continuous industrial sites, ultimately aiding in industrial decarbonization.

text: Multi-Level process integration of heat pumps in a non-continuous processing site Industrial process heat demands contribute significantly to New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. With a global push towards decarbonization, including New Zealand’s Climate Change Response Amendment Act 2019, there is a need for methods and technologies that can be applied to replace industrial fossil fuel boiler use. With an increasing range of renewable energy sources, electrification provides a promising alternative to fossil fuel use; however, it is also critical to reduce process heat demands where possible. This can be done through the reuse of industrial waste heat via direct heat exchange, thermal storage, or heat pump installations. Existing Heat Integration methods provide a means of identifying waste heat recovery opportunities; however, these methods are typically aimed at steady state industries. In New Zealand, many industries operate in a non-continuous manner, creating challenges in the accurate application of these existing Heat Integration methods. 
This thesis presents a multi-level process integration method for heat pump and thermal storage retrofit on non-continuous industrial processing sites. This method aims to address several gaps in current Heat Integration methodology through the novel amalgamation of several tools discussed in four main chapters: (1) A multi-level heat pump integration tool is developed that sequentially identifies heat pump opportunities to both upgrade waste heat for reuse, and  shift remaining waste process heat towards more favorable temperature ranges, (2) A multi steady state time slice investigation develops a tool for selecting appropriate time slice sizes to accurately represent variable, non-continuous industrial sites, (3) a multi steady state thermal storage identification tool is developed by applying the previously identified time slices to existing heat integration methods with an aim to further buffer fluctuations in heat demand, and optimize the thermal loads on the previously identified heat pump opportunities.
The tools are combined into a final method and applied to a meat processing case study site that is representative of the variable, non-continuous industries that dominate the food sector in New Zealand. In this case study, hourly time slices were used to identify multiple successive heat pump opportunities including a 1.9 MW MVR that recompresses waste steam from the rendering dryers with a COP of 10, and a central 1.5 MW heat pump that supplies heat at 70°C to the site ring main with a COP of 3.4. In addition, it was found that the 90°C heat pump, already installed on the case study site, would have the potential to increase utilization on the case study site if the two other heat pump opportunities identified were implemented. Thermal storage opportunities were also identified that can be used to buffer heat demands on the 70°C heat pump opportunity, thereby allowing the heat pump to be resized to 1.04 MW in comparison to the initially hypothesized 1.5 MW, reducing both capital and operational costs of the heat pump.
This amalgamated method provides novel Total Site Heat Integration additions, which when compared to conventional heat integration methods, provide more accurate and more useful heat pump decarbonization strategies for non-continuous industrial sites, ultimately aiding in industrial decarbonization.

year: 2024

title: Enhancing child development services for neurodivergent children in Waikato: A qualitative study

authors: Nobilo, Ashlie

subjects: Child Development Services

abstract: Background: Children with neurodevelopmental disorders often face unmet needs, placing their well-being at risk. Effective healthcare delivery is important to enhance outcomes for these individuals. In New Zealand, limitations in funding and resources, compounded by escalating demand, have led to deficiencies in the provision of Child Development Services (CDS). This has resulted in prolonged waiting lists and children missing out on essential support.
Objective: This project aimed to develop a proposed service delivery model for the Child Development Centre (CDC) in the Waikato district by considering stakeholders' perspectives regarding support for neurodivergent children and ways to adapt service delivery to ensure improved health and social outcomes.

Participants: Stakeholders from health and education sectors, including CDC service users, clinicians, healthcare managers, education professionals, and policy representatives, were recruited using purposive sampling.

Methods: This qualitative project had two phases: The first involved 41 semi-structured interviews inspired by grounded theory principles to uncover current perspectives and improvement ideas. The second phase, guided by co-design principles, featured two focus groups to formulate a service delivery model grounded in participant insights and literature.

Findings: Findings revealed concerns about inadequate support, delayed CDC services, pathway navigation challenges, and inadequate infrastructure. Participants emphasised the need for improved collaboration, increased therapeutic support, age-spanning support, and a community-focused CDC integrated with schools. Findings are visually summarised in a proposed service delivery model.

Conclusion: Enhancing experiences and outcomes for neurodivergent children requires collaborative, integrated efforts across sectors. The proposed service delivery model serves as a tool for guiding systemic changes and policy development.

text: Enhancing child development services for neurodivergent children in Waikato: A qualitative study Background: Children with neurodevelopmental disorders often face unmet needs, placing their well-being at risk. Effective healthcare delivery is important to enhance outcomes for these individuals. In New Zealand, limitations in funding and resources, compounded by escalating demand, have led to deficiencies in the provision of Child Development Services (CDS). This has resulted in prolonged waiting lists and children missing out on essential support.
Objective: This project aimed to develop a proposed service delivery model for the Child Development Centre (CDC) in the Waikato district by considering stakeholders' perspectives regarding support for neurodivergent children and ways to adapt service delivery to ensure improved health and social outcomes.

Participants: Stakeholders from health and education sectors, including CDC service users, clinicians, healthcare managers, education professionals, and policy representatives, were recruited using purposive sampling.

Methods: This qualitative project had two phases: The first involved 41 semi-structured interviews inspired by grounded theory principles to uncover current perspectives and improvement ideas. The second phase, guided by co-design principles, featured two focus groups to formulate a service delivery model grounded in participant insights and literature.

Findings: Findings revealed concerns about inadequate support, delayed CDC services, pathway navigation challenges, and inadequate infrastructure. Participants emphasised the need for improved collaboration, increased therapeutic support, age-spanning support, and a community-focused CDC integrated with schools. Findings are visually summarised in a proposed service delivery model.

Conclusion: Enhancing experiences and outcomes for neurodivergent children requires collaborative, integrated efforts across sectors. The proposed service delivery model serves as a tool for guiding systemic changes and policy development.

year: 2024

title: Aro mai aro atu: Raising Māori-medium students' academic oral language proficiency

authors: Shandley, Rosina Mary

subjects: Māori-medium

abstract: From the early 1860s, colonial governments worked systematically to eradicate the language and culture of the indigenous people of Aotearoa / New Zealand, and, by the late 1960s, the death of the Māori language was being predicted by leading linguists. Māori leaders responded in the 1980s with language regeneration initiatives that included the birth of Māori-medium education. Today, this uniquely indigenous education system is a significant site of language learning for new generations of Māori children. In Māori-medium education, children are nurtured, educated, and loved as Māori, and they are more likely to attain educational qualifications than their Māori peers who attend English-medium schools. 

The success of Māori-medium education is achieved in the face of a raft of ongoing challenges that teachers and students confront on a daily basis. Years of language marginalisation, including the disruption to intergenerational transfer, mean Māori-medium students are required to learn the curriculum through their second and less-developed language. They have limited opportunities to hear or use the Māori language outside of the school, and this places huge pressure on teachers who are often their most significant language models. The challenge is compounded by the limited education that has been made available to teachers in relation to second-language pedagogies specifically designed for Māori-medium classrooms. The resulting situation is that Māori-medium teachers are often left struggling to find ways that they can develop students’ Māori language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement so that one is not sacrificed for the other. 

This study designed and trialled pedagogies to support Māori-medium students to develop their academic oral language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement. It was a mixed methods study grounded in a kaupapa Māori approach, and involved three teachers and 24 students across three separate Māori-medium schools. An Anga Putanga Ako (Curriculum Outcomes Matrix) was developed to support the students to understand what they needed to learn to progress through the writing curriculum. Teachers then learnt to share explicit learning outcomes from the Anga Putanga Ako with students before lessons and to allow them time to discuss their achievement of those outcomes in pairs at the conclusion of those lessons. Linguistic scaffolds were developed to support students’ learning conversations, including the self and peer assessment of the learning outcomes, and decisions about their curriculum achievement levels and next learning steps.

The quantitative and qualitative results of the study revealed that the confluence of the self and peer assessment practices, supported by the Anga Putanga Ako and linguistic scaffolds, improved the students’ academic oral language and accelerated their reading and writing achievement significantly beyond what is usually expected in a Māori-medium classroom in 14 weeks. The study also found that, through implementing the self and peer assessment pedagogies, teachers were able to identify ways they could develop their students’ academic language and curriculum achievement simultaneously and how these approaches could be applied across the curriculum.

It was clear from the research results that pedagogies that support second-language development and curriculum learning, such as the self and peer assessment pedagogies demonstrated in this study, need to be explicitly taught with consistency across initial and in-service teacher education programmes. This development is necessary to help ensure Māori-medium students are supported with the thinking and linguistic skills needed to contribute to the creation of new knowledge, to support or challenge the current social order as they see fit, and to continue to transfer the Māori language to new generations of mokopuna.

text: Aro mai aro atu: Raising Māori-medium students' academic oral language proficiency From the early 1860s, colonial governments worked systematically to eradicate the language and culture of the indigenous people of Aotearoa / New Zealand, and, by the late 1960s, the death of the Māori language was being predicted by leading linguists. Māori leaders responded in the 1980s with language regeneration initiatives that included the birth of Māori-medium education. Today, this uniquely indigenous education system is a significant site of language learning for new generations of Māori children. In Māori-medium education, children are nurtured, educated, and loved as Māori, and they are more likely to attain educational qualifications than their Māori peers who attend English-medium schools. 

The success of Māori-medium education is achieved in the face of a raft of ongoing challenges that teachers and students confront on a daily basis. Years of language marginalisation, including the disruption to intergenerational transfer, mean Māori-medium students are required to learn the curriculum through their second and less-developed language. They have limited opportunities to hear or use the Māori language outside of the school, and this places huge pressure on teachers who are often their most significant language models. The challenge is compounded by the limited education that has been made available to teachers in relation to second-language pedagogies specifically designed for Māori-medium classrooms. The resulting situation is that Māori-medium teachers are often left struggling to find ways that they can develop students’ Māori language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement so that one is not sacrificed for the other. 

This study designed and trialled pedagogies to support Māori-medium students to develop their academic oral language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement. It was a mixed methods study grounded in a kaupapa Māori approach, and involved three teachers and 24 students across three separate Māori-medium schools. An Anga Putanga Ako (Curriculum Outcomes Matrix) was developed to support the students to understand what they needed to learn to progress through the writing curriculum. Teachers then learnt to share explicit learning outcomes from the Anga Putanga Ako with students before lessons and to allow them time to discuss their achievement of those outcomes in pairs at the conclusion of those lessons. Linguistic scaffolds were developed to support students’ learning conversations, including the self and peer assessment of the learning outcomes, and decisions about their curriculum achievement levels and next learning steps.

The quantitative and qualitative results of the study revealed that the confluence of the self and peer assessment practices, supported by the Anga Putanga Ako and linguistic scaffolds, improved the students’ academic oral language and accelerated their reading and writing achievement significantly beyond what is usually expected in a Māori-medium classroom in 14 weeks. The study also found that, through implementing the self and peer assessment pedagogies, teachers were able to identify ways they could develop their students’ academic language and curriculum achievement simultaneously and how these approaches could be applied across the curriculum.

It was clear from the research results that pedagogies that support second-language development and curriculum learning, such as the self and peer assessment pedagogies demonstrated in this study, need to be explicitly taught with consistency across initial and in-service teacher education programmes. This development is necessary to help ensure Māori-medium students are supported with the thinking and linguistic skills needed to contribute to the creation of new knowledge, to support or challenge the current social order as they see fit, and to continue to transfer the Māori language to new generations of mokopuna.

year: 2022