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Development of a novel cyanide-free method for analysis of vitamin B₁₂ in milk-based infant formula
Get PDFThe analysis of vitamin B₁₂ in infant formulas requires the use of cyanide during the sample preparation process to convert the three unstable vitamers (hydroxocobalamin, methylcobalamin and adenosylcobalamin) to cyanocobalamin, the most stable form of vitamin B₁₂. The undesirable handling of cyanide for the analyst in the laboratory and the associated safety risk indicates a clear necessity for development of a cyanide-free method for vitamin B₁₂ analysis without compromising the analytical quality.
This doctoral research demonstrates the possibility of using cobalamin-derived α-ribazole to represent total vitamin B₁₂, since the α-ribazole exists in all vitamin B₁₂ forms removing the necessity for conversion. The absence of a commercial standard of α-ribazole required its in-house isolation from a cyanocobalamin standard. The α-ribazole was released through consecutive acidic hydrolysis and dephosphorylation by alkaline phosphatase. The freed α-ribazole was collected by boronate affinity chromatography and concentrated by lyophilisation. α-Ribazole was identified and characterised by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry to demonstrate its suitability as a standard. This protocol was optimised and adopted in the sample preparation for analysing vitamin B₁₂ in infant formulas. Several extra steps were added to eliminate or limit interferences, including protein denaturation and sugar removal using C₁₈ solid phase extraction. The final analyte was quantified using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection.
The single laboratory validation experiment showed that this cyanide-free method is fit for purpose. Analysis of various milk-based infant formulas and comparison with current procedure demonstrated no bias for vitamin B₁₂ analysis
Reading Lists Systems' pedagogical features: a comparative analysis
Get PDFReading Lists Systems are a pedagogical tool used in tertiary education to streamline the creation and management of course reading lists and make copyright compliance easier. This paper explores the design of current Reading Lists systems and how their features support the pedagogical needs of academics and students in tertiary education. A feature review combined with a comparative analysis approach was employed in our study. We analysed and compared Reading Lists systems and their features, implemented through Digital Libraries, that provide pedagogical support for academic teaching. As one of our outcomes, we identify the need to assist teachers to effectively use these tools in their daily practice
Thermophilic methane oxidation is widespread in Aotearoa-New Zealand geothermal fields
Get PDFGeothermal areas represent substantial point sources for greenhouse gas emissions such as methane. While it is known that methanotrophic microorganisms act as a biofilter, decreasing the efflux of methane in most soils to the atmosphere, the diversity and the extent to which methane is consumed by thermophilic microorganisms in geothermal ecosystems has not been widely explored. To determine the extent of biologically mediated methane oxidation at elevated temperatures, we set up 57 microcosms using soils from 14 Aotearoa-New Zealand geothermal fields and show that moderately thermophilic (>40°C) and thermophilic (>60°C) methane oxidation is common across the region. Methane oxidation was detected in 54% (n = 31) of the geothermal soil microcosms tested at temperatures up to 75°C (pH 1.5–8.1), with oxidation rates ranging from 0.5 to 17.4 μmol g−1 d−1 wet weight. The abundance of known aerobic methanotrophs (up to 60.7% Methylacidiphilum and 11.2% Methylothermus) and putative anaerobic methanotrophs (up to 76.7% Bathyarchaeota) provides some explanation for the rapid rates of methane oxidation observed in microcosms. However, not all methane oxidation was attributable to known taxa; in some methane-consuming microcosms we detected methanotroph taxa in conditions outside of their known temperature range for growth, and in other examples, we observed methane oxidation in the absence of known methanotrophs through 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Both of these observations suggest unidentified methane oxidizing microorganisms or undescribed methanotrophic syntrophic associations may also be present. Subsequent enrichment cultures from microcosms yielded communities not predicted by the original diversity studies and showed rates inconsistent with microcosms (≤24.5 μmol d−1), highlighting difficulties in culturing representative thermophilic methanotrophs. Finally, to determine the active methane oxidation processes, we attempted to elucidate metabolic pathways from two enrichment cultures actively oxidizing methane using metatranscriptomics. The most highly expressed genes in both enrichments (methane monooxygenases, methanol dehydrogenases and PqqA precursor peptides) were related to methanotrophs from Methylococcaceae, Methylocystaceae and Methylothermaceae. This is the first example of using metatranscriptomics to investigate methanotrophs from geothermal environments and gives insight into the metabolic pathways involved in thermophilic methanotrophy
Assessment of the Potential of Waste Copper Chromium and Arsenic (CCA)-Treated Timber Fibre Reinforced Polypropylene Composites for Construction
Get PDFThis paper investigates the potential of recycling waste copper chromium and arsenic (CCA)-treated timber for use as a reinforcement material in wood–plastic composites (WPCs) produced for use in construction, including an assessment of mechanical properties and the leaching of heavy metals. Wood flour was obtained through mechanical grinding, and fibres were obtained through alkaline digestion followed by bleaching. Composites produced with 40 wt.% bleached fibres showed increased tensile strength from 18.5 MPa for the polypropylene used as the matrix to 27.6 MPa. Likewise, the Young’s modulus was increased from 0.84 to 2.33 GPa. The treatment of fibres was found to reduce arsenic concentration by up to 99.9%. Furthermore, the arsenic in the leachate from composites was found to decrease from 41.29 to 0.07 ppb when comparing CCA-treated wood flour composites to bleached fibre composites. The composites’ material properties indicate that the use of end-of-life CCA-treated timber could be used to produce a composite material that could be used in New Zealand’s building sector to meet the requirements of semi-structural applications
Partnerships and participation in catchment scale restoration: A study of the Manga-o-tama, Ōhaupō Peat Lakes to Waipā River Catchment Restoration Project
Get PDFWith a changing climate, rapidly declining ecosystems and an increasing population, the time to act and redefine society’s relationship with the environment is upon us (Chapin et al., 2012; Jenkins, 2018). Collaborative approaches to environmental management have emerged across the globe to better provide holistic and sustainable outcomes for people and the planet (Fenemor et al., 2011; Reo et al., 2017). At the heart of landscape scale collaboration lies the formation of multistakeholder partnerships. This study investigates the factors that influence the formation of successful multistakeholder partnerships in collaborative catchment scale restoration, in an Aotearoa New Zealand setting.
Using a case study, the Manga-o-tama, Ōhaupō Peat Lakes to Waipā River Catchment Restoration Project, this research explores the interconnected social, political, economic and environmental factors at play in a collaborative partnership. Ostrom’s (2007, 2009) social- ecological systems framework guided the organisation and analysis of this study. Qualitative research methods comprising a comprehensive literature review, nine semi-structured interviews, document analysis and observations were carried out in this case-study analysis.
The findings show that purposeful and ongoing participatory processes are required to support the development of an effective partnership and a shared understanding. Participants in this study are largely motivated by a connection to the environment and a community, with a sense of stewardship or sense of place being key to supporting participation and ongoing behaviour change. Organisational barriers and challenges, including that of funding, capacity issues and the need to further strengthen relationships between some stakeholder groups were identified. Project planning and funding models that allow for adaptative management and social and ecological learning were also identified as being highly valuable to establishing effective collaborative partnerships. This thesis contributes to the field of multistakeholder partnership and social-ecological systems research, with a specific focus on catchment scale collaborations in an Aotearoa New Zealand context
Algorithmic mapping of software-defined networking pipelines
Get PDFNetworks with a consistent software stack reduce the complexity of monitoring, testing and automation, and reduce the mental burden on operators. However, when network software is bundled with the hardware, operators face being locked into a single vendor’s hardware, when they might otherwise be able to use cheaper or more suitable hardware from another vendor.
Ostensibly, Software Defined Networking (SDN) gives operators the freedom to operate hardware from different vendors using the same software stack. However, producing SDN software that controls hardware from different vendors is hampered by differences in the packet processing pipelines of the ASICs each vendor uses.
This thesis presents the design and evaluation of Shoehorn, a system for improving the portability of SDN control-plane software. Shoehorn finds mappings from virtual pipelines (defining the packet processing requirements of control-plane software), to physical pipelines (defining the packet processing pipeline of a physical device). Shoehorn improves on current approaches by ensuring that the mappings are suitable for real-time translation of controlchannel instructions, by ensuring a one-to-one mapping of virtual pipeline table entries to physical pipeline table entries. This also ensures that the mappings do not significantly increase the memory usage or power consumption of the pipelines.
This thesis evaluates Shoehorn by mapping 25 virtual pipelines, based on real SDN control-plane software for managing diverse networks, to a variety of physical pipelines, based on real hardware SDN implementations. The evaluation finds that all but 6 virtual pipelines are supported by multiple physical pipelines, and that in every case where Shoehorn could not find a mapping, it was due to a virtual table that no table in the physical pipeline could support
Strong Dispersal Limitation of Microbial Communities at Shackleton Glacier, Antarctica
Get PDFMicrobial communities can be structured by both deterministic and stochastic processes, but the relative importance of these processes remains unknown. The ambiguity partly arises from an inability to disentangle soil microbial processes from confounding factors, such as aboveground plant communities or anthropogenic disturbance. In this study, we characterized the relative contributions of determinism and stochasticity to assembly processes of soil bacterial communities across a large environmental gradient of undisturbed Antarctic soils. We hypothesized that harsh soils would impose a strong environmental selection on microbial communities, whereas communities in benign soils would be structured largely by dispersal. Contrary to our expectations, dispersal was the dominant assembly mechanism across the entire soil environmental gradient, including benign environments. The microbial community composition reflects slowly changing soil conditions and dispersal limitation of isolated sites. Thus, stochastic processes, as opposed to deterministic, are primary drivers of soil ecosystem assembly across space at our study site. This is especially surprising given the strong environmental constraints on soil microorganisms in one of the harshest environments on the planet, suggesting that dispersal could be a driving force in microbial community assembly in soils worldwide
Mindfulness-Based Attention Training in the Navy: A Feasibility Study
Get PDFMind wandering is common during daily activities and is even more prevalent under stressful conditions, which could lead to lapses in attention and poor performance. Newly recruited military personnel who undergo demanding training often experience high levels of stress. It is therefore imperative to find ways to foster mental health and avoid performance deterioration related to mind wandering in times of intense military training. This feasibility study investigated the effectiveness of an established low-dose mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), called Mindfulness-based Attention Training (MBAT), on mind wandering, attentional performance, and well-being, delivered by a facilitator who was taught how to deliver MBAT. A sample of newly recruited Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) Junior Officers (n = 17) undergoing demanding training participated in the 8-week long MBI with one weekly contact session. Measures of well-being and the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) were completed 4 weeks prior to the MBAT, at the start of the MBAT, at the end of the MBAT and 4 weeks after completion of the MBAT. Results suggest that MBAT might protect from performance decline during intense training and enhance levels of well-being at follow-up. These findings highlight the valuable role of mindfulness as a component in military training
The experience of thriving at work in rotational physiotherapists in Aotearoa New Zealand
Get PDFAim: This thesis aims to identify what contributes to thriving at work by rotational physiotherapists employed at national public hospitals in Aotearoa New Zealand. It will do this by exploring what enables individuals to thrive at work and what organisations can do to better support their rotational therapy staff to thrive, recommendations will be created to promote thriving at work to better support the retention and recruitment of staff in both a local and national workforce.
Background: Workforce retention and attrition is a major concern for all health professions, including physiotherapy. A workforce analysis undertaken for the New Zealand physiotherapy workforce highlights that whilst there are no issues with the supply of physiotherapists for graduate positions, the supply of experienced physiotherapists, i.e. over five years work experience, is less than demand. This study builds on the literature using the thriving at work model in the nursing workforce. Research has highlighted the lack of a perceived career pathway as a major concern for physiotherapists and a contributing factor to the number of physiotherapists who leave the profession before the seven-year mark. Recommendations to date have emphasised consideration be given to the implications regarding the quality of leadership support and positive workplace practices on job satisfaction and turnover intention in the profession.
Design: An exploratory sequential mixed methods design.
Method: Data were collected in 2021 via face to face focus groups at one hospital location in Aotearoa New Zealand with rotational physiotherapists. The focus groups data was coded using Nvivo and then used to generate a nation-wide survey for rotational physiotherapists using Qualtrics. Survey data was analysed using thematic analysis.
Results: The survey respondents had low intention to leave the profession, and agreed they found themselves learning often in their roles. Seven themes were generated from the qualitative data; 1) professional support; 2) culture of well-being; 3) supported learning activities; 4) workload; 5) engaged leaders; 6) rotations which align to career aspirations; 7) culture of Aotearoa. The recommendations include: 1) senior staff need to be available to provide regular clinical support and coaching; 2) mentorship by physiotherapists working outside of the hospital environment who also have previous experience within the environment; 3) provide access to cultural supervision for staff of Māori ethnicity; 4) explore the nationwide use of clinical coaches with rotational physiotherapists as they would be additional resource that would free-up current senior staff to provide workload support to the rotational staff; 5) replication for Allied Health of the funding models that exist for ongoing learning for other health professionals ; 6) increase connectivity by senior management in the organisation as well as line managers; 7) implement forums for rotational therapist nationwide to provide opportunity for two-way communication without senior clinicians present to provide safe space for open discussion; 8) rotation allocation processes need to include regional and cross-district placements; 9) Develop an allied health specific wellness group to promote wellbeing in the workplace with provision to implement the Good4work model within Allied Health.
Conclusion: Professional support, culture of wellbeing and supported learning activities play an important role in supporting early career physiotherapists to thrive at work. Being engaged in work that aligns with career aspirations also help rotational physiotherapist to thrive. The unique culture of Aotearoa New Zealand should be reflected in future health workforce research to embody the spirit of Te Tiriti o Waitangi
Learning linkages between projects and work placements in engineering education
Get PDFThis research study investigated the combined learning linkages of engineering projects (Problem-Based Learning [PBL]) and work placements (Work-Integrated Learning [WIL]) in engineering education in New Zealand. The learning process of both approaches was analysed based on the development of engineering knowledge, technical, and non-technical skills (collectively employability skills) in students. This research is aligned with theories of constructionism and sociocultural theory to understand learners’ engagement in WIL and PBL as building knowledge through social interactions in classroom and work settings. Constructionism is a learning theory that puts importance on active knowledge construction by learners engaged in hands-on experiential learning activities. In this study, WIL and PBL are the hands-on experiential learning activities that aid in construction of engineering knowledge and skills of students through hands-on engineering practice. Sociocultural learning theory informs this study, as WIL and PBL can be considered approaches where learning happens as a social process, within a community of practise, where people are engaged in an activity, in a socially and culturally structured work environment.
In this thesis, the PBL was engineering applied projects and WIL was work placements. Data collection occurred from five cohorts across different stages of their study by conducting online surveys, individual interview transcripts, document analysis, and direct observations. Investigation into classroom learning also provided students insight into fundamental engineering concepts/theories via lectures and tutorials.
The engineering projects assisted students’ ability to relate theory with practise and the ability to relate and understand previously developed engineering knowledge embedded in the project’s problem statement. Additionally, engineering projects were primarily interdisciplinary across engineering, which aided in developing additional engineering knowledge. Students also acquired technical skills such as problem- solving, critical thinking, design and manufacturing abilities, 3D drawing skills, 3D software skills, tools/machinery experiences, and non-technical skills like teamwork, communication, and interpersonal skills. The learning from engineering projects was then applied to students’ classroom learning and work placements. Learning from the classroom became the knowledge background for students, who then applied it to their future engineering projects.
In work placements, students worked in an authentic work environment, allowing them to engage with authentic practise and develop professional skills. Students drew on their previous learnings from classroom and engineering projects through engineering practise. As work placements were interdisciplinary, they aided in developing additional engineering knowledge. In addition, work experience via industrial projects helped students gain and develop other non-technical skills such as time management, planning, and organising skills, project management, engineering work culture, work experience, work ethics, and professionalism. These findings suggested underlying learning linkages between engineering projects and work placements.
Additionally, in this study, professional skills are used in place of employability skills. In general, all technical and non-technical skills may be commonly considered as employability skills, which are essential skills that make graduates employable. Employability skills is the common term used in WIL literature (Batholmeus & Pop, 2017; Jackson, 2013; Kilpatrick et al., 2021). Whereas, professional skills can be considered as specific profession related technical and non-technical skills, which may be different depending upon different type of workplace, while employability skills are a broad term, which may include professional skills in it. As students do different mechanical engineering work placements, so they develop different professional skills which may be different depending upon type of work placement.
This study concludes that there are aspects of sequencing of scaffolding and complementary learning support between engineering projects and work placements. Engineering projects are placed before work placements to enable sequence of scaffolding of engineering knowledge and skills (technical and non-technical). Additionally, engineering projects provide new knowledge outside classroom learning, thereby, complementing classroom learning. Work placements builds on classroom and engineering projects learning as well as workplace acumen. Work placements are designed to complement projects and, through opportunities to practise in authentic work environments, may also develop employability skills. Therefore, the research findings present recommendations for engineering lecturers and WIL educators to emphasise individual learning outcomes and learning linkages between engineering projects and work placements, which may help enhance students’ understanding of engineering knowledge and engineering practise