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Digital spaces : Pasifika parents and caregivers talanoa on the impact of digital technologies
No full textRESEARCH QUESTIONS:
1. What are Pasifika parents and caregivers perspectives on the access and use of digital technologies?
2. What are Pasifika parents and caregivers beliefs about using digital technologies at school and the connections with home learning?
3. How do Pasifika parents and caregivers view digital technologies and the impact on family life and cultural responsibilities?
ABSTRACT:
21st Century education now requires students to learn using digital technologies. This allows for learning to occur any place and at any time. This requirement, however, involves access to the internet and digital devices in order for learning to continue beyond the classroom. This study investigates perspectives of Pasifika parents and caregivers from low-socio communities and the impact of digital technologies on children’s education, family and culture.
Using talanoa qualitative methods within the Teu Le Va construct, allowed participants to talanoa through semi-structured interviews. Ten parents and caregivers of Pasifika descent namely from the Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Niue and Fiji took part in the study.
The data analysis revealed three key themes: (1) Disconnections of parents/caregivers within cyberspace from their children; digital exclusions because of access and skill (2) Reconnections to disadvantaged traditions with traditional inequalities and (3) Interconnections of parents/caregivers with digital technologies and how they currently navigate the digital space.
Recommendations are made for equitable access for families in low-socio communities around wifi and digital devices. The importance of upskilling parents and caregivers from these communities so that they remain connected with their children in cyberspace and the digital economy. The need for schools to review how parents and caregivers are involved in creating culturally responsive pathways in children’s digital learning
Pūrākau : our world is made of stories
No full textUa ta‘u mai e Pālagi i a i tatou, o le lalolagi e faū i atoma [atoms], ae tatou Sāmoa e lē valelea-matou [tagata-Sāmoa] e te iloa o le lalolagi e tele tala.
The white man has told us that the world is made of atoms, but we Sāmoans, we are not silly, we know the world is made of stories.
BACKGROUND:
Raumanga is a suburb of Whangārei in the province of Northland, New Zealand. Northland is New Zealand’s most impoverished province (Connelly et al., 2019) and has a significant concentration of Indigenous Māori and a growing renaissance of Māori-led governance and enterprise.
[...]
The Raumanga Community Group, sometimes known as the Raumanga Community Committee, has met regularly for more than a year and is currently undergoing incorporation as the Raumanga Community Roopu (group, committee or association). This practice note from the field is an attempt to record and understand the importance of story in the development of identity and to situate a small, local case study within a broader debate about the nature of community development.
[...]
Community-led development is the latest iteration of engagement between councils and communities. It is, in my view, a far weaker and depoliticised method than its antecedents in community development. The principal differences between the two methods are described in different ways by the adherents to both. The community development primer originally written by Ewen Derrick and updated by David Haigh in the late 1990s contains a chapter explaining community-led development (Bijoux et al., 2015). In this chapter, the authors describe community-led development as an approach born out of a new collaborative approach
A perspective on S4.5 Residence Category for Victims of Domestic Violence (VDV) Policy : addressing domestic violence against ‘ethnic’ women
No full textThis presentation will focus on S4.5 Residence Category for victims of violence (Operational Manual - Immigration New Zealand), in the context of intimate partner violence experienced by women of migrant and refugee background. Research shows that migrant and refugee background women face multiple challenges, including intimate partner violence. The lives of these women are compounded by factors tied to ethnic minority status, immigration status and processes, gender inequality and class marginalisation. The policy was introduced in response to a finding that legal issues connected to immigration status frequently extend migrant and refugee women's vulnerability once in violent relationships. It is argued in the presentation that while the policy ensures that women can have greater legal protection from perpetrators of violence, it is still problematic. Specifically, not all refugee and migrant background women are aware of this policy, will see themselves in a position to make best use of it, and/or cannot provide the required evidence. The challenges are discussed in the presentation.
Background
Why are their experiences unique? Intersecting factors.
S4.5 Residence Category for victims of domestic violence (VDV) Policy
Policy Provisions and requirements
Can this policy protect ‘ethnic’ women?
What next? Recommendations.
Reference
Erionite in Auckland bedrock and malignant mesothelioma: an emerging public and occupational health hazard?
Get PDFOverseas, emerging research has shown that where erionite is present in bedrock as a zeolite, and then subsequently disturbed and blown into the atmosphere, resulting exposure is associated with health effects similar to those caused by asbestos, including malignant mesothelioma (MM). Erionite-induced MM is thought to be particularly prevalent in the construction and quarrying industries, in regions where rock containing erionite is disturbed. In 2015, the then Government Chief Scientist, Sir Peter Gluckman, reported that erionite was a more potent carcinogen than asbestos, and more recent studies have established its presence in the Auckland Region. However, globally at present, there are no established occupational exposure limits for erionite, standard sampling and analytical methods or exposure mitigation guidelines. Given the many major construction projects being carried out in Auckland at the present time, which involve the removal of large quantities of bedrock containing erionite, an assessment of the health risks such activities pose to the public is needed
The work experiences of migrant process workers in the meat industry in Otago, New Zealand
No full textThe New Zealand meat industry is one of the largest contributors towards the success of the economy. It provides employment for a wide range of people comprising of local and migrant workers. The aim of this research is to explore the work experience of migrant process workers in the meat industry in Otago, New Zealand. To achieve this aim, four key objectives were set out which includes the reason behind the migration of migrant meat workers, the perceived workplace challenges, access to equal employment opportunities and the social relationships amongst the co-workers at the workplace. An interpretivism philosophy was used for this research and data was collected through two focus groups. The data was analysed using thematic analysis where seven themes emerged from the findings and they were categorised under the research objectives.
The first objective was based on the reason behind the movement of meat workers to New Zealand. The second objective focused on their perceived workplace challenges which included language barriers, changing job responsibilities, aging workforce, and work ethics. The third objective identified that the participants had access to equal employment opportunities with the aid of trade unions. The last objective explains how social isolationaffects their social relationship with the co-workers and can lead to homesickness. It is recommended to conduct future studies on other meat industries around New Zealand and to have a large sample size on different aspects relating to meat workers to have a more detailed understanding of the meat industry
Automatic assessment of dysarthric severity level using audio-video cross-modal approach in deep learning
No full textDysarthria is a speech disorder that can significantly impact a person’s daily life, and yet may be amenable to therapy. To automatically detect and classify dysarthria, researchers have proposed various computational approaches ranging from traditional speech processing methods focusing on speech rate, intelligibility, intonation, etc. to more advanced machine learning techniques. Recently developed machine learning systems rely on audio features for classification; however, research in other fields has shown that audio-video crossmodal frameworks can improve classification accuracy while simultaneously reducing the amount of training data required compared to uni-modal systems (i.e. audio- or video-only). In this paper, we propose an audio-video cross-modal deep learning framework that takes both audio and video data as input to classify dysarthria severity levels. Our novel cross-modal framework achieves over 99% test accuracy on the UASPEECH dataset – significantly outperforming current uni-modal systems that utilise audio data alone. More importantly, it is able to accelerate training time while improving accuracy, and to do so with reduced training data requirements
Regenerating social space to support the elderly : create an age-friendly, sociable and supportive housing environment for the ageing population
No full textRESEARCH QUESTION:
How can a new approach to the housing development provide a better prospect for the fast-growing ageing population in New Zealand, by designing an age-friendly, sociable and supportive environment for its inhabitants?
ABSTRACT:
The population structure of New Zealand is going to encounter a dramatic change in the next few decades. As a result of the longer life expectancy and the declining fertility, the latest projection indicates that by 2050, approximately a quarter of the population will be aged 65 and over. By that time, Auckland will have the largest number of the ageing population amongst other regions.
Nowadays, in many western societies including New Zealand, most of the elderly desire to age in their own homes and communities instead of entering traditional rest homes that often evoke the negative social perceptions, such as accepting of being dependent, frail and socially segregated. Nevertheless, despite the prevalence of “ageing in place”, the issues of loneliness and social isolation are still widespread amongst the elderly. The issues are notable and worthy of attention, not merely because loneliness and social isolation are painful, but also many scientific studies have proven that lack of social interaction can be harmful to one’s mental and physical health.
As a unique discipline, architecture has its role and social responsibility to criticise and improve the existing housing typologies for the communities, as well as providing innovative design solutions that accommodate the challenges from the fast-growing ageing population. Thus, this project began with two fundamental questions: What is the missing piece if the ways of housing the elderly in New Zealand remains unexplored by architects and the design professionals? Second, how do we reduce the level of loneliness amongst the elderly and enrich their social life through architectural designs? Accordingly, this project evaluates how architecture can contribute to these issues and accommodate the social needs of the elderly, as well as investigating the opportunities in redesigning an alternative housing development that allows the elderly residents to stay within an age-friendly, sociable and supportive environment.
SITE: Address: 65-67 Carlton Gore Road, 102-104 Park Road, Grafton 102
'droplet' : [how can photography as a medium be extended beyond realism to highlight recent feminist issues in New Zealand?]
No full textRESEARCH QUESTION:
How can photography as a medium be extended beyond realism to highlight recent feminist issues in New Zealand?’
ABSTRACT:
I am an artist exploring mixed media practices, including photography and video, from a feminist perspective. My aim is to stimulate debate and discussion in parallel with the contemporary #MeToo movement in NZ. My photobook droplet raises a necessary conversation in NZ society about sexual harassment in the corporate environment. It critiques these problematic behaviours with the aim of cleaning it up, and also symbolically articulates a counter narrative of empowerment.
In this exegesis I consider my choice of photography and the photobook as the medium for my work. I discuss the male gaze, and the values that stem from it, and the strategies some postmodern art theorists have advocated to effect change.
Four postfeminist artists, Yvonne Todd, Amalia Ulman, Sarah Lucas and Cindy Sherman, were examined for their tropes, metaphors and representations which subvert the male gaze. The common elements of humour and shock informed the ironic, playful and parodic approach within this project. Sophie Calle’s photobooks were closely examined for their materiality (table 1), and for how the covers, scale, layouts, typefaces and different paper-stocks amplify the stories she tells.
Drawing from various media sources about corporate sexual harassment in New Zealand, I responded by photographing in a range of genres – still-life, botanicals, tableaux and cityscapes to create a narrative of sexual harassment, and an appropriate and subsequent counter response.
Using this material I then created an installation in the gallery with the photobook supported by two simple moving image pieces and two framed prints
Evaluating encryption algorithms for sensitive data using different storage devices
No full textSensitive data need to be protected from being stolen and read by unauthorized persons regardless of whether the data are stored in hard drives, flash memory, laptops, desktops, and other storage devices. In an enterprise environment where sensitive data is stored on storage devices, such as financial or military data, encryption is used in the storage device to ensure data confidentiality. Nowadays, the SSD-based NAND storage devices are favored over HDD and SSHD to store data because they offer increased performance and reduced access latency to the client. In this paper, the performance of different symmetric encryption algorithms is evaluated on HDD, SSHD, and SSD-based NAND MLC flash memory using two different storage encryption software. Based on the experiments we carried out, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm on HDD outperforms Serpent and Twofish algorithms in terms of random read speed and write speed (both sequentially and randomly), whereas Twofish algorithm is slightly faster than AES in sequential reading on SSHD and SSD-based NAND MLC flash memory. By conducting full range of evaluative tests across HDD, SSHD, and SSD, our experimental results can give better idea for the storage consumers to determine which kind of storage device and encryption algorithm is suitable for their purposes. This will give them an opportunity to continuously achieve the best performance of the storage device and secure their sensitive data
Uncharted architectural theory of critical regionalism in the work of Aleksandar Deroko between the world wars
No full textThe paper comprises four parts. Drawing from the definition of critical regionalism presented by Tzonis and Lefaivre in their analysis of Mumford’s work, the first part focuses on Deroko’s interwar writing about architecture. Concisely introducing the intellectual environment that contributed to the development of Deroko’s architectural ideas, it considers the role that the borderline position of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, perceived as a cultural threshold between the West and the East, played in the shaping of Deroko’s critical regionalist attitudes. In addition to the five points offered by Lefaivre and Tzonis, Deroko’s text helped identify another essential premise of critical regionalism. Critical regionalism conditions design functionality, maintaining that architecture should be developed as a response to the unique conditions of the physical and socio-cultural context. The other three sections move the discussion into the domain of interwar architectural practice. The Hall of Residence for the Orthodox Theological Faculty (1937), The Church of Saint Sava (1926) and Deroko’s holiday house (1939), his three most famous interwar projects, serve as case studies for the implementation of the main points of critical regionalism in his designs