title: Compressed air system best practice programmes: What needs to change to secure long-term energy savings for New Zealand?

authors: Neale, James R.

subjects: industrial energy efficiency

abstract: The establishment of a compressed air system (CAS) best practice programme is a key component of one of the initial industrial energy efficiency programmes being driven by New Zealand government ministries and agencies. In a global context this is not a new initiative in that existing programmes have been functioning in Europe and USA, yet in each of these cases the impact ten years-on has been patchy with limited long-term improvements in overall energy efficiency. The New Zealand CAS best practice programme currently under development is sponsored by the Electricity Commission (EC) and the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority (EECA). It takes a new approach in policy direction, with variations from those used in other international programmes. A significant level of electricity levy money is to be committed to this programme and it is timely to highlight its merits and potential weaknesses, and what is required to generate long-term energy savings beyond the levels achieved by more mature overseas programmes.

text: Compressed air system best practice programmes: What needs to change to secure long-term energy savings for New Zealand? The establishment of a compressed air system (CAS) best practice programme is a key component of one of the initial industrial energy efficiency programmes being driven by New Zealand government ministries and agencies. In a global context this is not a new initiative in that existing programmes have been functioning in Europe and USA, yet in each of these cases the impact ten years-on has been patchy with limited long-term improvements in overall energy efficiency. The New Zealand CAS best practice programme currently under development is sponsored by the Electricity Commission (EC) and the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority (EECA). It takes a new approach in policy direction, with variations from those used in other international programmes. A significant level of electricity levy money is to be committed to this programme and it is timely to highlight its merits and potential weaknesses, and what is required to generate long-term energy savings beyond the levels achieved by more mature overseas programmes.

year: 2009

title: Strangers, sojourners, selves: the intercultural communication experiences of ethnic Chinese students in western tertiary education

authors: Holmes, Prue

abstract: This study describes the intercultural communication experiences of Confucian heritage culture students in a western tertiary setting. Exploring the intercultural communication encounters enabled an understanding of how these ethnic Chinese students socially constructed their everyday lives. In addition, the study focused on their reconstruction and renegotiation of cultural identity and the extent to which they built a third culture. Thus, it is a study of intercultural communication, culture, and cultural identity.

Principles of ethnography and inductive inquiry provided the exploratory means to uncover these intercultural communication experiences. The context of this study was a university in New Zealand, and the 14 participants were from China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Some were newly arrived. Others were permanent residents. Prolonged investigation in the field enabled themes to emerge, providing a thick description of the participants’ lifeworlds and the basis for theory building.

The contribution of this thesis is in the following key areas: the enactment of intercultural communication in the negotiation of a new learning environment; the process of adaptation and accommodation of the cultural other; cultural identity change as participants negotiate the host environment; and the initiation of third culture building. Participants from China, who had or sought permanent residence, showed adaptation and renegotiation of social worlds and the desire to acculturate. By contrast, the undergraduate students from Malaysia, who saw their future in their first cultures, demonstrated a going back mentality and less desire to accommodate and understand the host society. Thus, the study contributes towards an understanding of cultural difference as it created, maintained, and reconstructed and renegotiated in intercultural communication.

text: Strangers, sojourners, selves: the intercultural communication experiences of ethnic Chinese students in western tertiary education This study describes the intercultural communication experiences of Confucian heritage culture students in a western tertiary setting. Exploring the intercultural communication encounters enabled an understanding of how these ethnic Chinese students socially constructed their everyday lives. In addition, the study focused on their reconstruction and renegotiation of cultural identity and the extent to which they built a third culture. Thus, it is a study of intercultural communication, culture, and cultural identity.

Principles of ethnography and inductive inquiry provided the exploratory means to uncover these intercultural communication experiences. The context of this study was a university in New Zealand, and the 14 participants were from China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Some were newly arrived. Others were permanent residents. Prolonged investigation in the field enabled themes to emerge, providing a thick description of the participants’ lifeworlds and the basis for theory building.

The contribution of this thesis is in the following key areas: the enactment of intercultural communication in the negotiation of a new learning environment; the process of adaptation and accommodation of the cultural other; cultural identity change as participants negotiate the host environment; and the initiation of third culture building. Participants from China, who had or sought permanent residence, showed adaptation and renegotiation of social worlds and the desire to acculturate. By contrast, the undergraduate students from Malaysia, who saw their future in their first cultures, demonstrated a going back mentality and less desire to accommodate and understand the host society. Thus, the study contributes towards an understanding of cultural difference as it created, maintained, and reconstructed and renegotiated in intercultural communication.

year: 2000

title: When loanwords are not lone words: Using networks and hypergraphs to explore Māori loanwords in New Zealand English

authors: Trye, David

abstract: Networks are being used to model an increasingly diverse range of realworld phenomena. This paper introduces an exploratory approach to studying loanwords in relation to one another, using networks of co-occurrence. While traditional studies treat individual loanwords as discrete items, we show that insights can be gained by focusing on the various loanwords that co-occur within each text in a corpus, especially when leveraging the notion of a hypergraph. Our research involves a case-study of New Zealand English (NZE), which borrows Indigenous Māori words on a large scale. We use a topic-constrained corpus to show that: (i) Māori loanword types tend not to occur by themselves in a text; (ii) infrequent loanwords are nearly always accompanied by frequent loanwords; and (iii) it is not uncommon for texts to contain a mixture of listed and unlisted loanwords, suggesting that NZE is still riding a wave of borrowing importation from Māori.

text: When loanwords are not lone words: Using networks and hypergraphs to explore Māori loanwords in New Zealand English Networks are being used to model an increasingly diverse range of realworld phenomena. This paper introduces an exploratory approach to studying loanwords in relation to one another, using networks of co-occurrence. While traditional studies treat individual loanwords as discrete items, we show that insights can be gained by focusing on the various loanwords that co-occur within each text in a corpus, especially when leveraging the notion of a hypergraph. Our research involves a case-study of New Zealand English (NZE), which borrows Indigenous Māori words on a large scale. We use a topic-constrained corpus to show that: (i) Māori loanword types tend not to occur by themselves in a text; (ii) infrequent loanwords are nearly always accompanied by frequent loanwords; and (iii) it is not uncommon for texts to contain a mixture of listed and unlisted loanwords, suggesting that NZE is still riding a wave of borrowing importation from Māori.

year: 2023