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Foraging by breeding tākapu / Australasian Gannets in Tīkapa Moana / Hauraki Gulf
No full textRESEARCH QUESTIONS
• How do tākapu partition the gulf resource?
• Potentially explains different populations trends in inner vs outer gulf
• Are there favoured foraging areas?
• How persistent are these?
• Do individual tākapu show patterns to foraging?
• Do foraging patterns provides indication of important foraging rules (cues to finding ephemeral prey)
• How does knowledge of foraging inform their potential use as indicators of ecosystem change in this coastal system
Leadership by Learning Design: Designing learning for a thriving future
No full textLearning Design continues to emerge as a distinct area of professional practice in both corporate and education contexts. This practice must now adapt to meet the challenges of increased expectation of learner experience, an exponential rate of global change, and the need for learning experiences to be future-fit. However, there is a lack of a coherent framework to guide Learning Design practice in addressing these challenges. There is a lack of a framework that supports the learning designer as a leader of change for a thriving future.
This thesis proposes an emergent framework: Leadership by Learning Design. The researcher adopts a pragmatic approach, which draws upon both existing research and professional experience across a range of design related themes including anthro-complexity, future studies, decolonisation, transformational learning, and systems transformation. Key literature in each of these areas is explored, contextualised to Learning Design, then applied in a manner that pushed beyond the boundaries of prevalent practice. Together these themes form an emergent, yet coherent, framework which allows Learning Designers to explore their role as leaders for a thriving future - Leadership by Learning Design.
Logistics: Operational interdependencies for food supply chain resilience
No full textRESEARCH QUESTION
What are the logistics operational interdependencies that support food supply chain resilience in disaster prone regions?
Introduction
Literature review
Research methodology
Analysis: findings and discussions
Conclusions and contribution
The Meke Meter™: Exploring the wellbeing and quality of life of New Zealanders during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020
No full textAIM
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) originated from Wuhan, China in 2019. The pandemic has had a significant impact on the world today. While the national 2020 lockdown in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) was successful from a disease containment perspective, its impact on the wellbeing of individuals must be explored. The aim of this study was to explore the quality of life (QoL) and wellbeing of New Zealanders during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 using the online Meke Meter™ app. The Meke Meter™ is a subjective hauora (holistic health and wellbeing) self-assessment tool developed in consultation with indigenous communities. As part of the research, participants were also asked about the usefulness of the Meke Meter™ and whether they intended to continue using it.
METHODS
A mixed-methods approach was employed and involved the collection of quantitative data using the Meke Meter™ and qualitative data collection from Meke Meter™ users through two online questionnaires and several focus groups (both online and face-to-face). The qualitative data was analysed for emergent themes and categories using a general inductive approach. To analyse the quantitative data, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and general linear mixed-effects models (GLMMs) were used to explore associations, if any, between the demographic data, time intervals and the participant Meke Meter™ scores.
PARTICIPANTS
A total of 692 individuals completed the Meke Meter™ (81.8 percent female, 17.3 percent male; 62.4 percent Māori, 37.6 percent tauiwi/non-Māori). Seventy people completed the SurveyMonkey© questionnaires, and a total of 33 people participated in the focus groups.
RESULTS
The quantitative results showed that in general approximately three-quarters of the participants only filled in the Meke Meter™ once. Higher Meke Meter™ scores are desirable, and as age increased, so did the Meke Meter™ scores; females had lower scores than males, and Māori had higher scores than tauiwi/non-Māori for the Mental and Social domains. The thematic analysis identified key themes: whānau/family and friends, mental distress, exercise, kai/food, and work/income. The qualitative data revealed that COVID-19 had a range of impacts on the respondents. In some cases, it brought families closer together facilitated by technology while for others confinement, isolation, and financial insecurity caused distress. A dichotomy of responses regarding the impact of COVID-19 on exercise, diet and weight was evident, as were the responses about mental wellbeing with some respondents being happy and relaxed while other experienced increased stress and anxiety, and/or substance abuse. The qualitative data suggested that several factors may have contributed to lower Meke Meter™ scores for females, including increased workload, multiple household jobs, unstable relationships, and a decrease in exercise. Māori had higher scores than tauiwi/non-Māori for the Mental and Social domains, which was most likely related to cultural factors. The Meke Meter™ was better at engaging Māori and males than other online platforms recently used in NZ to collect convenience samples for research. Most people found the Meke Meter™ easy and useful, but they lacked the self-motivation to fill it out regularly. Accordingly, the most frequently suggested improvements to the online Meter Meter™ app included notifications.
CONCLUSION
The national 2020 COVID-19 lockdown negatively affected many New Zealanders’ physical, mental, social wellbeing thereby effecting their QoL. This study reports a broad range of negative impacts on people’s wellbeing and highlights the need for targeted, community-appropriate post-COVID-19 wellbeing interventions. A key recommendation from this study would be to ensure the achievability, accessibility, and affordability of physical activity during a lockdown and post-lockdown. Decreasing the digital divide and improving equity to ensure all households and communities have equal opportunities to digitally connect to work, study and/or socialise is also vital in the context of a pandemic. This study also highlights the importance of culturally appropriate tools and instruments built by indigenous people, for increasing a greater response from indigenous communities particularly for research purposes
Critical comparison of statistical and deep learning models applied to the New Zealand Stock Market Index
No full textRESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. What are the critical fundamental determinants of the NZX 50 Index movements?
2. How can effective forecasting models based on HWES and ARIMA methodologies be devised and applied with high precision to the NZX 50 Index prediction?
3. How can an efficient univariate LSTM forecasting model and a multivariate LSTM forecasting model be formulated and applied to forecast the NZX 50 Index movement with a high degree of predictive efficacy?
4. Considering all the models tested in different sample periods and scrutiny processes, is it possible to identify a superior forecasting model? Is the recognised model consistently outperforming other tested models in all the testing procedures? Can the redeveloped models efficiently handle the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic?
ABSTRACT
Financial markets enable buyers and sellers to trade financial instruments (stocks, bonds, foreign currencies, and derivatives) and improve capital allocation. These markets play a pivotal role in facilitating the interactions between those who seek capital and those who are prepared for capital investments, allowing market participants to transfer risks and stimulate economic growth. Financial time series are inherently dynamic, interdependent, and highly sensitive to many factors. These time series contain deterministic and stochastic characteristics, and many interrelated factors influence them. Accurate predictions of financial time series benefit various market participants to generate wealth through the right trading strategies and other stakeholders to enhance funds. However, due to their inherent complexities, financial time series prediction is considered one of the most challenging problems in data mining.
This thesis employs popular and efficient time series prediction models, reformulates them and implements them to analyse stock market index movements. This scientific exploration uses two widely used classical forecasting techniques [Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Holt Winter's Exponential Smoothing (HWES)] and efficient deep learning (DL) [Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)] network. The predictive precision of the reformulated models will be empirically tested using Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE).
Four research questions are meticulously examined to close the identified empirical research gaps in the time series prediction models applied to the New Zealand stock market. Once the redesigned models are sufficiently trained, they are implemented as prediction models on selected stock market indices. Several statistical and econometric tests are executed to substantiate my research findings
Embodied creativity: Creative play as a catalyst for adult learning, spirituality and a ludic (playful) mindset
No full textIn my research, I explored and investigated the potential of creative play to enrich adult learning, creativity, spirituality, liturgical worship, and ministry formation, in an Anglican theological college setting (2020–2021).
In my experience as an Anglican priest in a parish, and a student in a theological college, I have discovered that the church and theological institutions do not always offer a creative way for adults to learn about or engage with the sacred. Although there is growing evidence that creativity and play can have positive benefits for adult learning, there is less research regarding the effect of creative play on adult spirituality and theological education.
I used a crystallisation qualitative framework (as described by Ellingson, 2009, 2014) and phenomenological methodology to provide a trans-disciplinary perspective and hold in tension a bricolage of relationships, data-collection methods, and artefacts to engage and ‘play’ with my research. Through my experience-based learning, autoethnographic critical reflection, cycles of action research, poetic inquiry, and a rich and complex range of qualitative data sources I investigated the impact of creative play initiatives at the theological college.
During three parts of the project, I used creative play strategies to stimulate the imagination and evoke a ludic (playful) mindset. In Part 1, I developed eight creative liturgical services for the college students to enrich their sense of the holy/ divine/sacred. In Part 2, I facilitated a series of three workshops (online and face-to-face) to understand the impact of creative play on the students’ own learning, imagination, sense of fun, and creativity. In Part 3, I worked with a group at the theological college over 6 months to explore the role of creative play in terms of group dynamics and liturgical worship as we planned and led a number of worship services.
My facilitation of the group led to the discovery of six conditions that were helpful in my practice and context for encouraging a team culture of creativity and an enhanced sense of the holy/divine/sacred to develop. These conditions are:
1. a ludic mindset,
2. a facilitator/guide/role model,
3. the creation of a team culture of creativity,
4. shared learning experiences designed to stimulate imagination,
5. a variety of locations for creative play activities,
6. a reflection/action process.
Through the development of these conditions, I encouraged three main ludic qualities (curiosity, embodied creative expression, and relationality), in myself as a priest and in participants. My research revealed the importance of not only a ludic mindset but also an embodied creativity that has a collaborative aspect. Therefore, based on the work of Kaufman and Beghetto (2009) and their 4-C model of creativity (Big-C, Pro-C, mini-c, little-c), I suggest a fifth dimension, collaborative-c, be added, to bring a more embodied, collective, and culturally inclusive dimension to this model.
The research provides an evidence-based study of how creative play methods can be woven into theological formation and training, support participants’ confidence and creativity in their ministry and help adults encounter the sacred in their everyday lives through creativity and playfulness
An approach to interesting objects detection in low quality image sequences for fisheries management
No full textIn order to extract interest objects in low quality image sequences from fisheries management, this paper proposes a new significant feature extraction method based on cascade framework. This algorithm involves pre processing image sequences, clipping interesting areas, extracting SURF features, removing boundary features, and acquiring significant features with interesting objects. We apply our algorithm to fisheries management for counting and matching ships and cars, the proposed method can efficiently detect multiple objects from real-scene video frames with averaged accuracy 91.63
A small-N study of body weight during free-feeding in the brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula)
No full textAnimals in captivity can develop physiological characteristics such as obesity that could negatively affect their health. In the captive brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula), it is unknown what effect longterm free-feeding has on body weight. In this study, which took place over 12 months, three possums were fed according to a free-feeding regime. Food intake was measured daily, and the possums were weighed every four days. The possums all gained weight but showed bouts of stable body weights across the year. Stability was evaluated using mathematical models. It was concluded that long-term free-feeding is not recommended for animals-in-waiting for use in operant experiments to mitigate weight gain due to overeating
Expert consensus on the metaverse in medicine
No full textBACKGROUND
Recently, Professor Chunxue Bai and colleagues have proposed a definition of the Metaverse in Medicine as the medical Internet of Things (MIoT) facilitated using AR and/or VR glasses.
METHODS
A multi-disciplinary panel of doctors and IT experts from Asia, the United States, and Europe analyzed published articles regarding expert consensus on the Medical Internet of Things, with reference to study results in the field of metaverse technology.
FINDINGS
It is feasible to implement the three basic functions of the MIoT, namely, comprehensive per ception, reliable transmission, and intelligent processing, by applying a metaverse platform, which is composed of AR and VR glasses and the MIoT system, and integrated with the technologies of holographic construction, holographic emulation, virtuality-reality integration, and virtuality-reality interconnection. In other words, through interactions between virtual and real cloud experts and terminal doctors, we will be able to carry out medical education, science popularization, consultation, graded diagnosis and treat ment, clinical research, and even comprehensive healthcare in the metaverse. The interaction between virtual and real cloud experts and terminal users (including terminal doctors, patients, and even their family members) could also facilitate different medical services, such as disease prevention, healthcare, physical examination, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, rehabilitation, management of chronic dis eases, in-home care, first aid, outpatient attendance, consultation, etc. In addition, it is noteworthy that security is a prerequisite for the Metaverse in Medicine, and a reliable security system is the foundation to ensure the normal operation of such a platform.
CONCLUSION:
The application of a Cloud Plus Terminal platform could enable interaction between virtual and real cloud experts and terminal doctors, in order to realize medical education, science popularization, consultation, graded diagnosis and treatment, clinical research, and even comprehensive healthcare in the metaverse
Coping with Covid19 pandemic: Exploring not for profit organisations (NFP) in New Zealand
No full textCONTENT:
Background of the research: research aims and its importance:
Why NFPs?
Covid 19 and it’s impact on NFPs
- Challenges
- Opportunities
Digital transformation
Research methods: case studies
Findings:
Opportunities & challenge