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Disentangling the Measurement Structure of Psychological Flexibility (PF): A Latent Structure Analysis of Four PF Measures
No full textPsychological flexibility (PF) is a prominent construct in modern clinical psychological research, best known for its central role in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and its empirical associations with various health outcomes. However, the PF literature largely relies on the use of different self-report measures that appear to be based off varying definitions and conceptualisations of PF. To investigate this further, the current study jointly examined the latent construct of four prominent PF measures: CompACT, PPFI, Psy-flex and MPFI.The low-order and high-order measurement structure was evaluated through a series of exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factory analyses (CFA). EFA and CFA was conducted using item level data for each measure collected from a student and prolific sample (n = 1210). The hierarchical structure was examined using CFA to test whether the four PF measures examined a construct that aligns with existing conceptualisations of PF.Two theoretical structures were tested, where (1) low-order PF domains load onto a single superordinate global PF construct, and (2) low-order PF domains load onto one of two superordinate PF constructs (trait-level or state-level PF). Results did not support either theoretical model. Instead, both EFA and CFA revealed that the CompACT, PPFI, Psy-flex and MPFI are best explained by a measurement structure with nine low-order domains.These findings suggest that collectively these measures may assess a broader construct than original conceptualisations of PF. This supports a lack of coherence across common PF measurements, likely stemming from conceptual ambiguity. These findings echo concerns regarding PF and the credibility of the current research base. Further research is required to clarify what construct existing measures are assessing. In the meantime, researchers and clinicians are advised to exercise caution in their selection and interpretation of PF measures.</p
Phonetic Variation as a Function of Sexual Orientation by Rainbow Women
No full textThis thesis takes a holistic, community-informed approach to the study of the relationship between phonetic variation and sexual orientation identities. This thesis demonstrates the benefits of this approach through analysis of ethnographic fieldwork, phonetic variation across social and laboratory recording contexts, and perceptually salient markers of sexual orientation identities. The focus of this thesis is the speech of Rainbow women. This includes women and femme-aligned folks who identify as LGBTQIA+. The term Rainbow is commonly used as an umbrella term for the queer community in New Zealand and queer is frequently used as a self-applied label. The research is conducted in three parts. The first section described is ethnographic fieldwork, conducted with Rainbow communities to gain a deeper understanding of Rainbow identities and methods of Rainbow coding used within the communities. Rainbow coding encompasses the myriad, flexible tools that Rainbow women can use to make themselves visibly queer, including modifications to appearance, behaviour, and speech. The findings of the ethnography served to inform the construction and analysis of the following two sections. The second section of the research describes a production study conducted with laboratory recordings and participants’’ self-recordings collected in several contexts. The third section of the thesis describes a perception study, which assessed the relationship between phonetic variation and ratings on scales of queerness and femininity. The research aimed to answer three questions. To what extent do speakers style shift between contexts and what phonetic variables do they use to make these shifts, to what extent are differences in phonetic variation related to speakers’ gender and sexual orientation identities, and to what extent are listeners aware of these features as markers of Rainbow women’s speech. The first two questions are answered in the production study. The phonetic variables measured are average pitch and pitch range, use of uptalk, use of creaky voice, and vowel articulation including measures of dispersion and vowel height. The self-collected field recordings are analysed in a case study format (n=2), assessing how individual speakers construct Rainbow speech styles across their respective recording contexts. Findings indicate that speakers make use of multiple phonetic variables in constructing Rainbow speech styles including lower average pitch, less uptalk, and more open central and back vowels. However, the use of these variables varies between speakers, as they construct Rainbow speech styles for different interactional purposes. The more controlled laboratory recordings are conducted with a larger group of speakers (n=9), who read sentences, responded to open-ended questions, and participated in partnered map tasks. The lab recordings allowed for the assessment of patters across speakers and an analysis of the motivations of individual variation. Findings indicate that speakers vary in phonetic performance and that this variation can be traced to differences in gender and sexual orientation identities as well as orientation to the tasks and recording environment. The subsequent perception study was conducted using speech samples from each of the speakers extracted from the sentence reading task in the lab recordings. Queer and heterosexual listeners rated the speakers on 7 affective scales, including LGBTQIA+-heterosexual and feminine-masculine. Findings indicate that average pitch and use of creaky voice are significant predictors for both the LGBTQIA+-heterosexual scale and the feminine-masculine scale. As a cohesive whole, the thesis supports a novel methodology in the study of speech style variation used by queer women by assessing locally salient social variables, variation in speech styles constructed in interactional contexts, and the perceptions of queer speech by queer and heterosexual listeners. The findings of the field recordings indicated that speakers made use of multiple variables in the construction of Rainbow speech styles and the way these features bundle together varies by speaker and by context. The findings of the lab recordings suggest that, while speakers may vary their speech across contexts, individual motivations for this variation are influenced by gender, sexual orientation, and age. The findings also suggest that queer and heterosexual listeners are aware of these features in the perception of queer sounding speech.</p
Restorationist Christianity in New Zealand: Sectarianism and Peace in the Churches of Christ, 1844–1944
No full textThis thesis provides the first critical history of New Zealand’s Churches of Christ from 1844 to 1944, tracing their transformation from primitivist, pacifist sect to a nationalist, ecumenical denomination. Originating in the transatlantic Stone-Campbell Movement, the Churches of Christ arrived in New Zealand via British settlers, carrying a British variation of Alexander Campbell’s restorationist theology. This study reintroduces a ‘peace’ lens to Stone-Campbell historiography complementing the usual ‘purity’ and ‘unity’ frameworks, tracing how evolving definitions of peace—from primitivist nonviolence to ecumenical cooperation—illuminate the fellowship’s desectarianisation in New Zealand. British sectarianism, from which New Zealand’s Churches of Christ emerged, was two-pronged, both social and ecclesial. In New Zealand, Churches of Christ lurched and stalled through a sect-to-denomination transition amidst New Zealand’s social context and its transnational influences, which eroded their social, then ecclesial sectarianism. These sometimes subtle, sometimes drastic, changes are most clearly understood by examining changing definitions of peace.</p
Reconceptualising Restorative Justice For Abolitionist Purposes: Proposals For Abolitionist Restorative Justice In Aotearoa/New Zealand
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Probing the Limits of Memory: Can a Learned Response Persist Through Decapitation and Regeneration in Planaria?
No full textResearch stemming from the invertebrate literature is forcing us to question some of our assumptions about the nature of memory. Planaria, a flatworm with a centralised brain and incredible regenerative capabilities, have demonstrated retention of simple associative memories, such as associating a texture with a reward, in brainless tail fragments after decapitation. This suggests basic memories may be stored outside the brain but leaves open the question of whether complex goal-oriented memories share this capacity. To address this, we performed a series of experiments to determine whether planaria can acquire an operantly conditioned response that persists for at least two weeks, and whether this can be retained in the brainless tail halves of decapitated planaria. Using a Y-maze paradigm, we established baseline arm preferences and then rewarded treatment subjects with either cocaine or methamphetamine for entering their non-preferred arm during conditioning. Control subjects received vehicle only (distilled water). For the key experiments, subjects were then cut into head and tail fragments and allowed to regenerate for 14 days before we tested for memory retention. The next day, subjects were exposed to the rewarding compounds to identify whether the memory could be brought back or strengthened with a reinstatement procedure. Our results regarding whether planaria can learn and retain an operantly conditioned response were mixed. Experiments 3 and 4 provided preliminary evidence for learning, as treatment subjects entered the active arm more often at the end of conditioning. However, experiments 2 and 5 failed to show a significant change in behaviour compared to control subjects. We found no conclusive evidence that learned responses were retained in the brainless tail fragments, although the relatively weak learning may have limited the likelihood of successful retention. Future experiments will require more robust training methods to conclusively test the hypothesis of complex memory retention outside of the brain.</p
Crisis of Confidence? Business Confidence Reflects Partisan Heuristics more than Economic Conditions
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Ecological Effects Of Rhodopsin Phototrophy In Antarctic Sea Ice
No full textDespite its extreme cold temperatures and being in complete darkness for much of the year, Antarctic sea ice harbours a diverse and robust microbial community that is important for pelagic and benthic ecosystems in ice-dominated regions. Some of these bacteria employ rhodopsin-based phototrophy, a light-harvesting process that generates energy without fixing carbon, to survive in extreme conditions. First identified in 2000, the discovery of rhodopsin phototrophy disrupted the long-held view that most marine bacteria were obligate heterotrophs, and that 30-80% of the global marine bacterial community may exploit this hybrid photoheterotrophic pathway. Yet the ecosystem-level consequences of rhodopsin-driven energy flux, particularly in polar regions, remains poorly understood. This thesis investigates how rhodopsin-based photoheterotrophy and sea-ice variability influence microbial interactions, community composition, and broader ecological processes in the Southern Ocean.Chapter 1 introduces these knowledge gaps and presents background information necessary for understanding the research presented in this thesis. Antarctic sea ice serves as an ideal study system because its brine channels create a spatially and temporally stable gradient of irradiance, temperature, and salinity, within which rhodopsin expression could confer measurable ecological advantages. This chapter describes these physical aspects of sea ice, and reviews the sea-ice microbial community (SIMCO).Chapter 2 presents a comparative framework for sea-ice ecosystem models, evaluating the Community Ice CodE (CICE), the Louvain-la-Neuve Sea-Ice Model in one dimension (LIM1D), a Nutrient-Phytoplankton-Zooplankton-Detritus (NPZD) model, and Qualitative Network Modelling (QNM). Each tool varies in computational complexity, physical-biological coupling, and data requirements. This assessment is an initial step and guide for choosing modelling framework that accurately capture microbial processes, including rhodopsin phototrophy, and their physical environment within Antarctic sea ice.Chapter 3 uses QNM to investigate how rhodopsin-bearing (Rh+) and non-rhodopsin-bearing (Rh-) bacterial groups respond to changes in physical and ecological pressures. Press perturbations suggest that Rh+ bacteria capitalize on elevated light to outcompete Rh- bacteria, but viral outbreaks reduce overall system biomass. These findings suggest that rhodopsin-based phototrophy is a useful survival mechanism for a subset of sympagic bacteria, and that rhodopsin-driven energy-flux may be important in determining spatiotemporal patterns in bacterial community composition.Chapter 4 tests the qualitative results of Chapter 3 with a field campaign in the Ross Sea during the spring-to-summer transition. 16s rRNA sequencing and epifluorescence microscopy were applied to samples taken across five depth horizons during the study period. Rh+ bacteria initially constituted nearly 15% of the bacterial community, during a time of the season with relatively cold temperatures and moderate light. Their peak relative abundance shifted from the ice-water interface to the mid- and upper-ice column as the season progressed. Together, these findings demonstrate that rhodopsin-based phototrophy provides a short-term survival advantage under physical extremes, but does not ensure widespread proliferation.Chapter 5 links sea-ice microbial processes to the broader marine ecosystem through a case-study of Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) recruitment. Generalized Additive Models and QNM results demonstrate that broad climatological processes associated with the Southern Oscillation Index control recruitment. However, older juveniles that likely become more motile and began active feeding, sea-ice microbial productivity, was a better predictor of the observed patterns in juvenile survival. Methodologically, a novel Cohort Survival Index was developed in an attempt to illuminate any detectable patterns associated within year-classes.Chapter 6 synthesizes these findings, asserting that although rhodopsin-bearing bacteria are quantitatively modest in the sea-ice microbial community, rhodopsin phototrophy does represent a reliable survival mechanism in extreme polar conditions. This thesis integrated empirical research, statistical and qualitative modelling, to understand how rhodopsin-driven energy flux may modulate broader ecosystem processes. Thus, this research broadens our understanding of Antarctic marine and sea-ice ecology, and builds upon a growing body of foundational evidence for future research.</p
In the weeds: Deselection in libraries in Aotearoa
No full textDeselection, or weeding, is an essential aspect of collection management in libraries, ensuring that collection remain relevant, current, and aligned with community needs (Rowley & Willson, 2022). The systematic removal of outdated, damaged or underutilised materials makes space for new resources and allows librarians to reconsider the configuration of library space for other purposes (Johnson, 2013). As Broadbent et al. (2022) suggest, though, deselection is a complex process, “fraught with risk” (p. 1), including negative perceptions and community backlash at the removal of large quantities of books.
This paper is based on findings from a research project on library collection management. The paper aligns with the conference theme by reflecting how a conventional and long-standing library practice like deselection is changing to incorporate new technology-driven approaches in a drive to support future collection needs. The research was a qualitative, exploratory study that investigated collection management practices in diverse types of libraries across the country. We present findings relating specifically to deselection practices and considerations including:
●Deselection policies and factors influencing deselection decisions. We identified a move towards smaller print collections as libraries sought to use the space for other purposes. An increasing focus on electronic resources was another factor driving the weeding of print collections. On a more practical level, participants mentioned using evaluation approaches like MUSTIE (Misleading, Ugly, Superseded, Trivial, Irrelevant, and Elsewhere) and data analysis tools such as Collection HQ to guide deselection decisions.
●Bicultural and diversity considerations. Libraries in Aotearoa work within the context of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and must consider how weeding policies based on, for example, circulation statistics, negatively impact items of significance for Māori communities. Participants discussed the importance of collection diversity to ensure that Māori language and knowledge are well-represented in collections and also of providing materials that reflect a wide range of perspectives and promote equity and inclusion.
●Sustainability issues. Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important factor in weeding and collection management more generally (Chadwell, 2012). Participants spoke of how they tried to minimse the environmental impact of deselection through donations, book sales, minimising processing when acquiring items, and the ethical disposal of materials.
●Community perceptions and responses. Community resistance to the removal of items from collections can be strong, particularly when removals are large-scale or high-profile (Roy, 2020). Our participants discussed the importance of communicating deselection decisions and approaches with communities and stakeholders.
While approaches like MUSTIE help librarians take a practical approach to weeding their collections, we discuss how the process also has philosophical implications. Deselection is guided by core professional values such as intellectual freedom, sustainability, and social and cultural responsibility. In Aotearoa specifically, librarians should consider how weeding policies and practices often reflect Western collection standards and whose voices are prioritsed through conventional deselection approaches. Reflecting on these long-held principles, we explore how our respondents approach deselection to shape responsive and responsible collections for the future as communities change.
References
Broadbent, D., Goates, M. C., Frost, M., Nelson, G. M., & Pixton, D. S. (2022). In their own words: Perspectives on collection weeding from library employees and teaching faculty. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 48(4), 102563.
Johnson, P. (2013). Is weeding an unnatural act? Technicalities, 33 (5), 2-4.
Rowley, K., & Willson, R. (2022). Scotland's public libraries are nothing but practical when it comes to deselection. Library and Information Research. https://lirgjournal.org.uk/index.php/lir/article/view/795
Roy, E. A. (2020). ‘I literally weep’: anguish as New Zealand’s National Library culls 600,000 books. The Guardian, 11 September, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/11/i-literally-weep-anguish-as-new-zealands-national-library-culls-600000-book
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