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How does pasture management affect the metabolomic profile of bovine milk? : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Chemistry at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 18th February 2027.
No full textEmbargoed until 18th February 2027
Figure 36 is reused with permission.The dairy industry is essential to the economy of New Zealand and is embracing more advanced technologies to drive value in dairy exports. This includes the development of rapid metabolic profiling methods that can link on-farm conditions to nutritional outcomes of the milk and downstream processed dairy products. In this study, an untargeted milk metabolomics LC-MS/MS pipeline was optimised to increase the throughput of high accuracy metabolite identifications. Enhancements included automation of sample preparation, construction of a comprehensive in-house metabolite library and thorough profiling of every m/z signal generated from the analysis of raw milk. The methodology was tested on real raw milk samples from different NZ farms, and cross validated with a secondary technique (NMR spectroscopy). High throughput was achieved, with hands-on sample preparation time reduced by 75% (15 minutes per sample) and 60% of all m/z signals being automatically assigned (increased from 0%). The methodology was deployed to find biomarkers of cows grazing diverse (regenerative) pasture species, including unambiguous identification of nutritionally beneficial bioactive compounds not previously known in milk. The method successfully differentiated the milk from the two different feeding regimes based on the profile of small molecules (metabolites)
Digital competencies of accounting graduates in Malaysia : educator, employer, and graduate perspectives : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Accounting at Massey University, Manawatū Campus, Palmerston North, New Zealand
No full textDigital technologies are transforming work practices, with emerging tools such as big data and data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), and robotics reshaping the accounting profession. Such changes demand the development of new digital competencies in the workplace. Scholarly and professional literature has identified digital competency gaps among accounting graduates, raising concerns about their preparedness for the profession. This study examines the digital competencies required of accounting graduates transitioning into early career roles from the perspectives of Malaysian educators, employers, and accounting graduates. While new or advanced technology can be classified in many ways, this study considers the broad spectrum of digital competencies that graduates must develop to navigate the diverse range of advanced or emerging technologies. Using a quantitative survey approach, the study assesses eight core digital competencies: information system, data visualisation, data analytics, data governance, communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity. The analysis is framed by human capital theory, stakeholder theory, and by Bui and Porter’s (2010) expectation-performance gap model. It also explores four key dimensions of competency gaps: (a) the expectation gap between groups, (b) the performance gap between groups, (c) the constraints gap within the group of educators and graduates, due to factors that impede the development of graduates’ digital competencies, and (d) the expectation-performance gap perceived by employers. Findings reveal that while educators, employers, and graduates have high expectations for digital competencies in accounting graduates, the competencies achieved by graduates fall slightly short of these expectations, resulting in discernible gaps. Key barriers to competency development include curriculum overload, a shortage of IT qualified accounting academics, inadequate infrastructure, and limited institutional support. This study contributes to the accounting education literature by introducing a digital competencies framework that integrates technical and generic competencies tailored for accounting graduates. It also extends Bui and Porter’s expectation-performance gap framework by incorporating stakeholder perceptions, including those of graduates, as well as structural constraints. Importantly, the study highlights how alignment among educators, employers, and graduates can inform curriculum reform, policy development, and institutional strategy within Malaysia’s higher education and accounting sectors
‘Let us enjoy the fruits of our own labour, we have our own solutions’ Creative co-design methods and narratives of Māori whānau with chronic pain
No full textChronic or persistent pain disproportionately affects Māori and their whānau (family and significant others). Our previous engagement with Māori living with persistent pain has identified significant barriers for Māori to accessing primary, secondary, and tertiary services. This paper describes the insights obtained from Māori living with persistent pain by using a creative art-based data collection method as part of a co-design process to understand how they would like to be supported in their pain management journey. We used brainstorming discussion sessions and a creative art session to encourage divergent thinking and to stimulate innovative ideas for better pain management support for Māori. The creations showed a deep connection to taiao (nature) and the support of whānau as sources of strength. Connecting with other whānau living with pain in a safe space (i.e. community setting or a marae (community meeting place)) was an aspiration. Existing mainstream services were viewed as deficit-focused with an overwhelming support for Māori-led solutions delivered kanohi-ki-te-kanohi (face-to-face). Creative activities can be used as a culturally appropriate research method for both generating rich insights into the lived experiences of Māori living with persistent pain and how to deliver culturally responsive pain services.fals
The sustainability characteristics of Michelin Green Star Restaurants
No full textThe restaurant industry in increasingly aware of sustainability issues with around 34% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from life-cycle stages in food systems and increased concerns over packaging and food waste. The Michelin Restaurant Guide has awarded the distinction of a Green Star to restaurants at the forefront of the industry in their sustainability. However, although restaurant sustainable practices are often presented in food media, the characteristics of sustainability-awarded restaurants are often unknown. This study aims to identify the extent to which sustainability is promoted by Michelin Green Star Restaurants (MGSRs) as part of their online offerings. By conducting a website content analysis of 355 MGSRs, this study examines eight sustainability initiatives during food procurement, preparation, and presentation. The results suggest that MGSRs could be sustainability ambassadors and promoters, but currently, they are modest in promoting sustainability. Most MGSRs’ websites highlight their selection of local and organic food but place less emphasis on sustainable practices in food preparation, even though some of them are practising sustainability in reality. This study suggests that restaurants could be sustainability ambassadors by putting sustainable practices on their websites as well as on the “customer’s plates”.fals
Bioinformatic analysis of a potential hereditary disease in New Zealand police dogs : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Animal Science, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
No full textDogs have been used as working animals for centuries, one more recent example being the German Shepherd Dog (GSD) being trained and utilised as police dogs. Problems can arise from diseases associated to specific breeds, as well as the increased risks of inbreeding within already limited populations. This study aimed to investigate the genetic cause of an unknown illness seen in four dogs from a litter of seven GSD puppies bred for the New Zealand police dog section. Four nine-month-old GSDs presented with clinical symptoms of severe exercise intolerance, and extremely elevated muscle enzymes (creatine kinase, alanine aminotransferase and aspartate transferase) post-exercise. A muscle biopsy of an affected dog gave insufficient evidence for conclusive diagnosis, leading to subsequent whole genome sequencing. Various bioinformatic filters were applied to the sequence data from all seven puppies, and the dam and sire, to determine the mode of inheritance for the affected phenotype. Sex-linked, autosomal dominant and mitochondrial inheritance were ruled out due to a lack of evidence, which suggests that autosomal recessive inheritance was likely. The recessive filtering marked variants where the affected animals had a homozygous affected haplotype, and the parents were both heterozygous. Unaffected animals could be either heterozygous or homozygous unaffected. There were 94 variants across 30 different genes estimated to have either moderate or high impact. Further filters reduced this to four candidate variants, in the genes BOP1, IQANK1, THEMIS2, and ZNF517. None of the genes identified were directly associated with exercise tolerance in the affected phenotype, therefore it remains unclear whether one or a combination of these may be the cause of the phenomenon presented in affected animals. Variants were almost exclusively found across a 21 million base pair region on chromosome 2 and a 10 million base pair region on chromosome 13. This is a possible indication of a larger structural issue within the affected animals; however, it was not within the scope of this study to investigate this further. With inconclusive evidence, no single variant can be nominated as the likely causal variant, but considering the welfare implications of the affected condition, alongside their inability to continue their training as police dogs, all nine animals should be removed from further breeding to prevent the spread of the deleterious alleles
Methodological reflections on ethics, relations of care and reciprocity in feminist research praxis
No full textThis paper puts forward a model of feminist research practice, termed ‘TROVE’. This model emerged through methodological reflections on research ethics for a project exploring women's experiences of gender inequality over the life course. The paper discusses five relations of care that became core to the research: relations within the team; between researchers and participants; in participants' connection with their past, present, and future selves; among participants as a group; and across generations. Reciprocity, both in discourse and practice, played a pivotal role in these care relationships. The TROVE model highlights reciprocated relationships based on trust, recognition, openness, vulnerability, and empathy. These elements demonstrate the inherent value of care and reciprocity in feminist praxis and ethical research. They help to navigate tensions between procedural and situated ethics, and thereby have potential applications beyond explicitly feminist studies.fals
Essays on corporate finance in Indian markets : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Finance at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 10 November 2027.
No full textEmbargoed until 10 November 2027A strong and well-regulated financial system is essential for sustained economic growth. Financial sector reforms play a vital role in promoting efficient resource allocation, enhancing inclusion, mitigating business risks, and fostering long-term stability. India’s financial landscape has undergone a major transformation since the liberalization of the 1990s, transitioning from a highly regulated economy to a more open, market-oriented, and globally integrated system. Two landmark reforms—the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) introduced in 2016 and the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) law enacted in 2013—have significantly reshaped India’s financial and corporate framework. The IBC has improved the ease of doing business by providing a structured mechanism for insolvency resolution and creditor protection, while the CSR law has institutionalized responsible corporate behaviour by aligning business goals with social and environmental objectives.
Despite these progressive measures, India’s financial system continues to face persistent external challenges such as rising crime, which creates uncertainty, increases transaction costs, and undermines investor confidence. This thesis examines the impact of legal reforms, corporate social responsibility, and crime on debt financing and investment efficiency in the Indian context. It provides robust empirical evidence that well-designed legal frameworks and governance mechanisms significantly enhance corporate performance, while external challenges like crime hinder firms’ investment efficiency.
Collectively, the three essays in this study underscore the pivotal role of institutional frameworks in shaping corporate behaviour and economic outcomes—beginning with legal reform and extending to governance and enforcement. The findings reveal that proactive policy interventions such as the IBC and CSR reforms can enhance credit access and investment efficiency, contributing to sustainable and inclusive growth. However, the persistence of crime highlights the need for complementary governance and transparency measures to mitigate investment inefficiencies. Overall, this research contributes to understanding how institutional mechanisms and external constraints interact to influence firm behaviour and economic development in emerging markets. Importantly, these insights extend beyond India, offering valuable implications for policymakers and businesses in other developing economies seeking to strengthen institutions, promote economic resilience, and achieve sustainable progress
Examining the discursive landscape of women's sexual desire and implications for sexual subjectivity : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand
No full textSexual desire and pleasure can be an “awkward” subject to bring up in conversation, many choosing to ignore it completely, or relegate it to the private realm. Yet, our media landscape is filled with various representation of sex that fundamentally shape the way we can think about, speak about, and enact expressions of sexual desire. A substantial corpus of feminist research suggests that discursive representations of sexual desire are highly gendered and heteronormative. These researchers have mapped cultural and social constructions of women’s sexual desire, tracing its portrayal as, for example, absent, relational, and aligned with postfeminist discourses of sexual agency. Previous scholarship has considered how these discourses are circulated within talk, and through mainstream media. A research gap remains in considering alternative feminist media, and psychological literature as sites that circulate discourses of sexual desire. The central aim of this thesis is to determine how women’s sexual desire is constructed across three sites of discourse circulation: (a) mainstream media, (b) alternative media, and (c) psychological literature, how prevalent discourses are supported, transformed, and resisted, as well as the implications for women’s sexual subjectivity and sexual agency. Foucauldian-informed discourse analysis was conducted with each set of textual data collected from those sites. Specifically, 75 advice columns or articles from mainstream media websites, 55 articles from alternative feminist publications, and 12 published articles from psychological and therapeutic journals. Key findings from these analyses indicate that (i) an essentialist biological discourse of desire is prevalent, shaping women’s sexual subjectivity in relation to men, (ii) many discourses and sexual subjectivities on offer within the texts are highly heteronormative and restrict agency outside of a narrow prescription of appropriate desire, (iii) a neoliberal incitement for women to reflect on and work on themselves in various ways underscored much of the data, and (iiii) alternative media texts provided opportunities for resistance of heterosexual norms, along with a broadening understanding of what desire is and can be for women
Automatically identifying errors in primary level math word problems generated by large language models : a research report submitted to School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Information Sciences, School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, Massey University
No full textEnsuring the quality of mathematical word problems (MWPs) is essential for primary education. However, large language models (LLMs) struggle with error identification despite excelling in problem-solving. This research evaluates four LLMs – Mixtral-8x7B-Instruct-v0.1(Mixtral-8x7B), Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (Llama-3.1 8B), DeepSeek-Math-7B-Instruct (DeepSeek-Math-7B), and Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct （Llama-3.2-3B, for detecting errors in a dataset that was generated by LLMs. This dataset contains 5,098 MWPs from U.S. grades 1–6. A comprehensive framework with 12 error categories is introduced, which goes beyond most categorization schemes used in prior research. By evaluating Zero-Shot (inference without any examples), One-Shot (inference with one example), and Three-Shot (inference with three examples) approaches, as well as fine-tuning, across four models in seven experiments, we found that small-scale model Llama-3.2-3B achieved the finest Zero-Shot accuracy of 90% with minimal resources of 6GB GPU memory, comparable to the larger model Mixtral-8x7B's fine-tuned accuracy rate of 90.62%. However, due to data noise and prompt complexity, fine-tuning yielded negative results, with an average accuracy of 78.48%. The complexity of the prompts reduced accuracy by up to 20% for the Mixtral-8x7B model. Safety biases, particularly in Llama-3.1 8B and Mixtral-8x7B, led to misclassifications when triggering safety words. Our findings highlight the efficacy of small-scale LLMs and concise prompts for educational applications while identifying challenges in fine-tuning and model bias. We propose future research directions that include noise-robust data preprocessing, refined prompt engineering, and adversarial fine-tuning. These approaches aim to enhance the reliability of LLMs in detecting errors in MWPs, thereby ensuring the validity of educational assessments and ultimately contributing to the advancement of high-quality foundational mathematics education
Placement optimization of multiple UAVs for energy-efficient maximal user coverage
No full textThis paper proposes a deterministic Global Optimization Algorithm (GOA) for UAV-assisted communications, developed as an enhancement to the benchmark Two-Stage Optimization Algorithm (TSOA). The algorithm simultaneously addresses the dual objectives of maximizing ground user (GU) coverage and minimizing total power consumption in multiple UAV systems. Unlike existing literature, which predominantly relies on heuristic approaches, GOA provides a more precise and systematic solution to achieve optimal performance. Comprehensive simulations demonstrate that GOA achieves a 3.68 % increase in coverage count versus SOA under clustered GU distributions while delivering energy savings approximately 2.47 % (uniform) and 2.6 % (clustered) relative to the TSOA benchmark. Crucially, these efficiency gains are realized while maintaining superior GU coverage maximization versus all benchmarked methods. Both numerical results and visual analyses conclusively validate the proposed algorithm's outperformance of existing benchmarks. ©2025 The Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences. Publishing Services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NCND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).fals