title: A newly-available resource for historians of early New Zealand: The Marist Missionary Letters (1838-54)

authors: Jennings, William

abstract: The 7000 pages of primary documents of the Lettres reçues d’Océanie constitute a vast new source for the study of the Pacific during the period 1838-54. Published in 2009 after sixteen years of transcription, the Lettres are the collected correspondence of the first French Marist missionaries to New Zealand and other Pacific islands. In the words of Pacific historian Hugh Laracy, they are ‘the single most important foundational contribution to Pacific history in its fullest extent since J. C. Beaglehole’s magisterial editions of James Cook’s Journals. About 2000 of those pages are transcripts of letters written in New Zealand that open up a fresh perspective of life before the wars of the 1860’s. This paper will locate the early French Marist Māori mission within the context of New Zealand public history before exploring how the Lettres reçues d’Océanie can complement existing views of early colonial New Zealand. To better contextualise the correspondence, it would be useful to begin with a brief background of the Marists’ presence in New Zealand.

text: A newly-available resource for historians of early New Zealand: The Marist Missionary Letters (1838-54) The 7000 pages of primary documents of the Lettres reçues d’Océanie constitute a vast new source for the study of the Pacific during the period 1838-54. Published in 2009 after sixteen years of transcription, the Lettres are the collected correspondence of the first French Marist missionaries to New Zealand and other Pacific islands. In the words of Pacific historian Hugh Laracy, they are ‘the single most important foundational contribution to Pacific history in its fullest extent since J. C. Beaglehole’s magisterial editions of James Cook’s Journals. About 2000 of those pages are transcripts of letters written in New Zealand that open up a fresh perspective of life before the wars of the 1860’s. This paper will locate the early French Marist Māori mission within the context of New Zealand public history before exploring how the Lettres reçues d’Océanie can complement existing views of early colonial New Zealand. To better contextualise the correspondence, it would be useful to begin with a brief background of the Marists’ presence in New Zealand.

year: 2012

title: Young Māori mothers and bed-sharing with their pēpi/baby: A case study focusing on the relevance and influence of three varying health promotion resources

authors: Haereroa, Nikki M.

subjects: Māori

abstract: Māori Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) rates are significantly higher than non-Māori. Bed-sharing is considered to be one of the major modifiable risk factors associated with SUDI rates (Mitchell et al., 1992), although there is strong opposition that suggests bed-sharing can act as a preventative measure against SUDI (McKenna & McDade, 2005). As a result of quantitative research and statistical data, many health promotion messages now focus on discouraging the practice of bed-sharing, whether it be through policy implementation throughout hospitals or through to health promotion guidelines. Although there is a high incidence of Māori SUDI rates, there has been little emphasis on Māori perspectives and insights into the practice. Of the few qualitative studies that focus on infant sleep practices, a significant finding is the high prevalence of Māori who bed-share regularly (Tipene-Leach et al., 2010). This paper will investigate the motivations and rationale of bed-sharing amongst young urban Māori mothers to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation into the lived realities of this group. The lack of consultation with a group that has been classed by New Zealand Government bodies, the Health Quality and Safety Commission and Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee Group, as ‘most at risk’ of experiencing a SUDI, maybe a contributing factor to the high Māori SUDI rates. This has brought about the question of whether current health resources are relevant and/or influence young Māori mothers. Using a Te Whare Tapa Wha framework within a Kaupapa Māori Research methodology, this paper provides a unique and much-needed perspective into the lives of young Māori mothers. The purpose of this research overall is: if health resources and messages are not relevant to a community and they have little or no influence over infant care practices, then do health professionals and researchers need to rethink current strategies and working models to ensure we focus on the real, lived needs of our community?

text: Young Māori mothers and bed-sharing with their pēpi/baby: A case study focusing on the relevance and influence of three varying health promotion resources Māori Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) rates are significantly higher than non-Māori. Bed-sharing is considered to be one of the major modifiable risk factors associated with SUDI rates (Mitchell et al., 1992), although there is strong opposition that suggests bed-sharing can act as a preventative measure against SUDI (McKenna & McDade, 2005). As a result of quantitative research and statistical data, many health promotion messages now focus on discouraging the practice of bed-sharing, whether it be through policy implementation throughout hospitals or through to health promotion guidelines. Although there is a high incidence of Māori SUDI rates, there has been little emphasis on Māori perspectives and insights into the practice. Of the few qualitative studies that focus on infant sleep practices, a significant finding is the high prevalence of Māori who bed-share regularly (Tipene-Leach et al., 2010). This paper will investigate the motivations and rationale of bed-sharing amongst young urban Māori mothers to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation into the lived realities of this group. The lack of consultation with a group that has been classed by New Zealand Government bodies, the Health Quality and Safety Commission and Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee Group, as ‘most at risk’ of experiencing a SUDI, maybe a contributing factor to the high Māori SUDI rates. This has brought about the question of whether current health resources are relevant and/or influence young Māori mothers. Using a Te Whare Tapa Wha framework within a Kaupapa Māori Research methodology, this paper provides a unique and much-needed perspective into the lives of young Māori mothers. The purpose of this research overall is: if health resources and messages are not relevant to a community and they have little or no influence over infant care practices, then do health professionals and researchers need to rethink current strategies and working models to ensure we focus on the real, lived needs of our community?

year: 2015

title: Clustering Relational Data Based on Randomized Propositionalization

authors: Anderson, Grant

subjects: computer science

abstract: Clustering of relational data has so far received a lot less attention than classification of such data. In this paper we investigate a simple approach based on randomized propositionalization, which allows for applying standard clustering algorithms like KMeans to multi-relational data. We describe how random rules are generated and then turned into Boolean-valued features. Clustering generally is not straightforward to evaluate, but preliminary experimental results on a number of standard ILP datasets show promising results. Clusters generated without class information usually agree well with the true class labels of cluster members, i.e. class distributions inside clusters generally differ significantly from the global class distributions. The two-tiered algorithm described shows good scalability due to the randomized nature of the first step and the availability of efficient propositional clustering algorithms for the second step.

text: Clustering Relational Data Based on Randomized Propositionalization Clustering of relational data has so far received a lot less attention than classification of such data. In this paper we investigate a simple approach based on randomized propositionalization, which allows for applying standard clustering algorithms like KMeans to multi-relational data. We describe how random rules are generated and then turned into Boolean-valued features. Clustering generally is not straightforward to evaluate, but preliminary experimental results on a number of standard ILP datasets show promising results. Clusters generated without class information usually agree well with the true class labels of cluster members, i.e. class distributions inside clusters generally differ significantly from the global class distributions. The two-tiered algorithm described shows good scalability due to the randomized nature of the first step and the availability of efficient propositional clustering algorithms for the second step.

year: 2008