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Reciprocally formed Tragopogon allopolyploids and their diploid parents : a comparative study : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Plant Biology, School of Natural Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North. EMBARGOED to 14 March 2027.
No full textEmbargoed to 14 March 2027Allopolyploidy has been a significant evolutionary force across the eukaryotic tree of life, particularly in plants. Newly formed polyploids inherit traits from their progenitors but may also show transgressive characters that allow them to inhabit different areas and/or outcompete their parents in similar habitats. In this thesis, multiple approaches were used to study differences between reciprocally formed allopolyploids (Tragopogon miscellus) and their diploid parents (T. dubius and T. pratensis) in the genus Tragopogon. This system was chosen because the parentage of the allopolyploids is known and the polyploids were recently (within the last 100 years) formed. These four species were analysed for: growth parameters under variable temperature and water conditions; physiology and cellular characteristics; and variations in plastid genomes. Both reciprocally formed polyploids were found to have different growth profiles from each other, with short-liguled Tragopogon miscellus being potentially more robust. Leaf physiology revealed T. dubius had low water use efficiency, but a higher transpiration capacity than the other diploid T. pratensis and the polyploids. Comparison of whole plastid genomes revealed variations in both DNA sequence and base modifications, including methylation patterns, among the four species. Collectively, these results help further our understanding of phenotypic and genotypic evolution in young allopolyploids
Investigating the interplay of bottom-up and top-down attention in hazard recognition: Insights from immersive virtual reality, eye-tracking and electroencephalography
Get PDFThe construction industry's high-risk environment demands effective hazard recognition strategies. Attention, a critical cognitive process, plays a crucial role in this task. Previous research focused on individual attention process, such as sustained attention, selective and divided attention. However, no research has been conducted to investigate the effects of the interplay between endogenous and exogenous factors on hazard recognition in construction settings. This paper aims to investigate the effects of the interplay between top-down (T-D) and bottom-up (B-U) attention networks on hazard recognition, using immersive virtual reality (IVR), eye tracking (ET), and electroencephalography (EEG). Two safety interventions—augmented stimuli and toolbox meetings—were tested in a dynamic IVR construction site. The results showed that both augmented stimuli and the safety toolbox meeting significantly affected B-U, T-D, and hazard recognition. This paper provided evidence that the interplay between B-U and T-D can significantly improve workers’ hazard recognition performance. The results improved our understanding of the mechanisms that control selective attention and the source of guidance over attention orientation. By demonstrating that T-D and B-U processes can work together rather than in isolation, this research contributes a key theoretical insight: attentional orientation in hazardous construction environments is neither fully determined by external stimuli nor entirely controlled by internal cognitive sets. In addition, this paper highlights and calls for an integrated approach to improving worker's hazard recognition performance, by combining digital-technology-enabled stimuli with safety-goal-oriented training and managerial practices.fals
Placemaking for tenant wellbeing: Exploring the decision-making of public and community housing providers in Aotearoa New Zealand
Get PDFIn addition to housing tenants, many public and community housing providers engage in placemaking to foster tenants’ connections to people and place. This paper reports on the placemaking practices of four community housing providers and two urban regeneration programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted with provider staff – including those leading strategy, community development, tenancy management, planning and design efforts – to investigate the placemaking strategies adopted by providers and the values, priorities and investment tensions that underpin their decision-making. Common placemaking strategies included site selection to secure tenants’ locational access to community services and amenities, and designing shared ‘bump spaces’ into housing complexes to encourage neighbourly encounters between tenants. Efforts to foster a sense of community through increased stability and diversity of households were hindered by a predominance of single-person units in older housing developments, and by funding and regulatory constraints. Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, comprise approximately half of all public housing tenants and many have deep intergenerational connections to place. Where providers were engaging with Māori, early steps had been taken to incorporate cultural landscapes and values into placemaking initiatives; such practices were more evident in urban regeneration than community housing provider developments, enabled by longer-term planning horizons, broader development mandates and partnerships with iwi (Māori tribes) and local government. Nonetheless, placemaking aspirations of all providers were tethered to resource constraints and investment trade-offs, with any social infrastructure provision weighed up against the value of providing one more home instead.fals
Mātai ako: Te Tiriti o Waitangi in learning and teaching
Get PDFThis article examines initiatives within the College of Health at Massey University to embed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in learning and teaching. Situated within broader strategies, it focuses on the Mātai Ako initiative, which supports staff in building an understanding of Te Tiriti, developing competence, and aligning curricula. Drawing on national policy and university commitments, the initiative advances four actions: developing foundational knowledge, offering skill-building workshops, providing pedagogical mentoring, and reviewing curricula. Early outcomes include increased understanding, pedagogical shifts, and identification of next steps, though sustaining systemic change remains a challenge. The initiative is guided by an ethic of open communication, collective growth, and a staged approach that centres mātauranga Māori while respecting diverse starting points. It offers lessons for higher education institutions navigating tensions between Western academic traditions and obligations to Indigenous rights. Despite ongoing challenges, strategic alignment has established a platform for meaningful change.fals
Effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, therapeutic hoof trimming, and orthopedic block application on lameness in multiparous dairy cattle: A randomized controlled trial
Get PDFHoof horn lesions are recurrent in nature and cause long-term pathological challenges to the functional anatomy of the hoof in dairy cattle. It is hypothesized that inflammation is a driver of these pathological changes. It has previously been identified that routine treatment with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) at first and subsequent calving and lameness events is important in reducing the future risk of lameness in dairy heifers. The effects NSAID administration has on lameness outcomes for multiparous dairy cattle is unknown. We conducted a 34-mo randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of routine administration of the NSAID ketoprofen during treatment for lameness and at calving on the future probability of lameness and culling caused by exposure to normal farm conditions. Dairy cattle that had calved at least once were recruited from a single herd and randomly allocated to 1 of 4 treatments controlling for parity, proportion of occasions scored as lame 8 wk before study onset, and DIM. All lactating animals were scored for lameness every 2 wk to identify lame animals requiring treatment. Animals in group 1 received a therapeutic trim and an orthopedic hoof block (if deemed necessary) every time they were treated for lameness. Animals in group 2 received a 3-d course of ketoprofen (single dose daily) alongside the same treatment given in group 1 every time they were treated for lameness. Animals in group 3 received a 3-d course of ketoprofen (single dose daily) starting 24 to 36 h after each calving alongside the same treatment given in group 2 for lameness. Animals in group 4 received a 3-d course of ketoprofen (single dose daily) every time they were identified with lameness, with no therapeutic trim, unless they were identified as severely lame (a single score ≥3a). Animals were followed for the 34-mo duration of the study. Independent lameness outcome scores were collected every 2 wk by technicians who were blinded to treatment group to assess the probability of lameness. Culling data were extracted from farm records. A total of 425 animals were recruited to the study (105 in group 1, 107 in group 2, 107 in group 3, and 106 in group 4), with data from 412 animals included in the final analysis (102 in group 1, 102 in group 2, 106 in group 3, and 102 in group 4). The effect of treatment group on the ongoing probability of lameness was evaluated through the use of mixed effect logistic regression models. Compared with animals in group 1, animals in group 4 were significantly more likely to be identified as lame throughout the study period. No effect on the risk of severe lameness was identified. The effect of group on time to culling was investigated using a Cox proportional hazards model. No benefit of the NSAID or hoof trimming intervention on culling risk was identified. Our results highlight the importance of frequent therapeutic trimming and the application of orthopedic blocks in the treatment of lameness in multiparous animals that may have a history of calving and lameness without NSAID administration.fals
Between the teacher and educator: a political analysis of an impossible combination
Get PDFThis article responds to some of the recent challenges issued to the field of teacher education constituted “between principle, politics, and practice.” By discussing the teacher educator as a tautology, the article analyses education policy and research discourses to illustrate how different politics are generated by the tautological character of the teacher educator’s title. The article concludes with a consideration of the limits of the educational in light of the politics of teacher education that emerges from the analyses.fals
I am (M)other-wise : decolonising Family Court systems in Aotearoa New Zealand through nomadic processes of re-membering and becoming : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 2nd May 2026
No full textEmbargoed until 2nd May 2026.This project flows from my own experience of silence and suffering within the Family Court of Aotearoa New Zealand as I attempted to move my life, and those of my children, to safety following the end of my marriage. It seeks to disrupt the demonisation of separated (m)others within the Family Court system that results in unsafe outcomes for women and children and is perpetuated by the privileging of majoritarian/masculinist, colonial and patriarchal knowledge. I move through this project alone, but not alone, my own knowing linking deeply and inextricably with that of others in a process of collective becoming-with (Haraway, 2019). Informed by a feminist politics of location that privileges situated knowledge as the route to strong objectivity, albeit always partial and incomplete (Haraway, 1988), and a relational process ontology, I engage in a nomadic process of re-membering (Braidotti, 2011), listening hard to hear the unsaid in order to map a cartographic figuration of the conditions of the present from within my embodied and embedded location. Creative, nomadic re-membering opens space for the ethical affirmation of difference and dis-identification from dominant, singular representations, enabling me to resist the figuration of vindictive, hostile, obstructive, selfish, uncaring and in-credible (m)other produced through the gendered norms of Western heteronormativity that form the bars of my epistemological cage. As I push against the bars of my cage, I seek to move away from pathologisation and suffering by re-telling myself differently, transforming my own knowing and repositioning my song as legitimate. Through acknowledgement that the personal is political, my resistance to the figuration of Vindictive (M)other also seeks to decolonise knowledge systems that perpetuate the suffering of women who have left coercively controlling relationships. My creative, interdisciplinary process of affective re-membering enables re-imagining of new possibilities for my own future and the collective futures of other (m)others engaged in Family Court processes within Aotearoa New Zealand, opening space for the (m)other-wise knowledge of women to be heard and legitimised. I re-imagine a future in which (m)others who leave coercively controlling relationships might be permitted the right to freedom and flourishing
A Single-Plasmid Inducible-Replication System for High-Yield Production of Short Ff (f1, M13 or fd)-Phage-Derived Nanorods
Get PDFFf (f1, M13 or fd) filamentous phages have been used for myriad applications including phage display, assembly of nanostructures and as carriers of agents used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Recently, short Ff phage-derived functionalised nanorods have emerged as a superior alternative to full-length filamentous phages for applications from lateral flow assays to cell- and tissue-targeting. Their advantages, such as shorter length and the lack of antibiotic resistance genes, make them particularly promising for expanding the current scope of Ff bionanotechnology and biomedical applications. Limitations to the widespread use of Ff-derived nanorods include a requirement for two plasmids and the relatively low production efficiency. This is due to the presence of only the positive Ff origin of replication, allowing replication of only the positive strand. Here we describe a single-plasmid negative origin-containing inducible-replication system for nanorod production. These improvements simplify and increase nanorod production by two orders of magnitude compared with the constitutive positive origin-only production system. The high concentration of nanorods allows formation of higher-order structures, such as stacks and rafts, as imaged by transmission electron microscopy. In summary, our system will facilitate production and expand the applications of Ff-derived biological nanorods.fals
Navigating precarity : Korean migrants’ experiences and resilience within formal and informal systems in Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
Get PDFMigration has occurred throughout human history for a range of reasons. Today, various cultures and persons continue to come into closer proximity with one another through their migratory journeys; and the resulting complexities of resettlement warrant further investigation. This thesis explores the lived experiences of precariat Korean migrants in Aotearoa New Zealand, focusing on how participants navigate formal (government) and informal (community) support systems to obtain necessities of life. Drawing insights from Narrative Psychology, I investigate how Korean migrants story cultural values and systemic barriers that inform their strategies for addressing the socioeconomic adversities they face as members of the emergent precariat class. This study documents the experiences of three cases from Korean migrant women who were engaged through four waves of semi-structured enhanced interviews (n=12) using drawing and photo-elicitation exercises. Key findings reveal that barriers related to government policies and systems, such as visa restrictions, precarious employment, and limited access to welfare services can exacerbate settlement challenges. Although the extent of participant engagements with Korean community support systems varied, all articulated these cultural support systems as a key source of resources for their obtaining necessities of successful resettlement. This study contributes to knowledge regarding the nuances of migrant precarity by documenting how households obtained employment, housing, food and emotional support through the re-articulation of core Confucian and Christian cultural principles, 관계 (gwangye; 關係 guanxi; relationship or connections); 인 (in; 仁 ren; benevolence); 체면 (chemyeon; 臉 lian; face); 예 (ye; 禮 li; ritual propriety); 효 (hyo; 孝 xiao; filial piety); 충 (chung; 忠 zhong; allegiance); 정 (jeong; affection and attachment); 양심 (yangshim; moral conscience) and 자비심 (jabishim; merciful heart). The informal system formed within the Korean community emerged as a source for material, psychological, spiritual and cultural buffers against precarity, underscoring the significance of re-articulations of Korean cultural values and relational practices of mutual support in diaspora. Cumulatively, insights generated from research such as this can inform future research and policy developments to enhance support for Korean and other migrant communities navigating precarity in Aotearoa New Zealand
Generative AI, Large Language Models, and ChatGPT in Construction Education, Training, and Practice
Get PDFThe rapid advancement of generative AI, large language models (LLMs), and ChatGPT presents transformative opportunities for the construction industry. This study investigates their integration across education, training, and professional practice to address skill gaps and inefficiencies. While AI’s potential in construction has been highlighted, limited attention has been given to synchronising academic curricula, workforce development, and industry practices. This research seeks to fill that gap by evaluating AI adoption through a mixed and multi-stage methodology, including theoretical conceptualisation, case studies, content analysis and application of strategic frameworks such as scenario planning, SWOT analysis, and PESTEL frameworks. The findings show AI tools enhance foundational learning and critical thinking in education but often fail to develop job-ready skills. Training programmes improve task-specific competencies with immersive simulations and predictive analytics but neglect strategic leadership skills. Professional practice benefits from AI-driven resource optimisation and collaboration tools but faces barriers like regulatory and interoperability challenges. By aligning theoretical education with practical training and strategic professional development, this research highlights the potential to create a future-ready workforce. The study provides actionable recommendations for integrating AI across domains. These findings contribute to understanding AI’s transformative role in construction, offering a baseline for effective and responsible adoption.fals