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Post-disaster building functionality: Preliminary findings of a systematic review
No full textDuring a natural hazard event, buildings are likely to experience some sort of damage, thus limiting their ability to function as intended. The severity of the ensuing consequences for various stakeholders and the community depends on the function of the building and the severity of the damage that occurred. A systematic literature review was performed to investigate post-disaster functionality of various building types after a range of natural hazards. Forty-nine documents were deemed to be eligible for inclusion, with most documents discussing healthcare services and businesses due to the vital role they play in short- and long-term community recovery. The functionality of both facility types was found to be dependent on a complex range of structural and non-structural components, as well as social systems, such as staff and the community. The findings of this paper have been used to inform future research directions to apply post-disaster functionality concepts in the New Zealand context
Metabarcoding inventory of an arctic tundra soil ecosystem reveals highly heterogeneous communities at a small scale
Get PDFBiodiversity surveys of Arctic soil ecosystems are limited. Here, we provide a sequence-based inventory of soil fauna from an Arctic tundra ecosystem near the Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. Invertebrate communities were extracted at a vegetated and non-vegetated site in three replicates and inventoried using 18S metabarcode sequencing. A total of 361 amplicon sequence variants (ASV) were identified and assigned to the closest matching taxonomic orders, most of which belonged to the Nematoda and Arthropoda. Vegetated soils showed no significantly higher ASV richness relative to non-vegetated soils although they contained a significantly higher diversity of arthropod taxa including insects, mites, and springtails. Most taxa were found only at a single location and even samples from the same site displayed distinct communities, suggesting that belowground species richness in Arctic tundra habitats is highly heterogeneous. Preserving soil biodiversity in a changing Arctic is essential for Inuit communities who rely on intact tundra ecosystems for their health and wellbeing
When it's not safe to be me: employee authenticity mediates the effect of perceived manager psychopathy on employee well-being.
Get PDFBACKGROUND: Psychopathy in managers is often measured on global scales and associated with detrimental outcomes for subordinates, such as bullying and reduced well-being. Yet some features of psychopathy, like boldness, appear to have beneficial outcomes. Using the triarchic model of psychopathy, we differentiate between adaptive and maladaptive traits in managers and model their effects on employee engagement and burnout. In addition, we test the extent to which authenticity, known to ameliorate the effect of some negative experiences on well-being, might mediate the influence of managers' perceived psychopathic traits on employee well-being. METHODS: In a two-wave study, full-time employees (N = 246) reported on their manager's psychopathic traits (boldness, meanness, disinhibition), their own authenticity and, six weeks later, their engagement and burnout. RESULTS: In support of our hypotheses, manager boldness enhanced engagement and reduced burnout while meanness and disinhibition reduced engagement and increased burnout. Additionally, employee authenticity was a partial mediator of the effect of managerial psychopathy on engagement and burnout. CONCLUSIONS: Perceived psychopathic traits in managers have the potential to influence whether employees feel able to be their authentic selves at work, which consequently affects their well-being. A work culture that values authenticity can directly improve well-being and help employees to deal with managerial behaviour that stems from maladaptive psychopathic traits. We also highlight the importance of discriminating between constituent psychopathic traits to identify the potentially adaptive nature of the boldness element of psychopathy
Ensuring higher education campus maps support visibility and inclusion for parents
Get PDFIn 2022, we reviewed publicly available campus maps for all 37 Australian and 8 New Zealand public universities to identify what parentrelated facilities were evident. Of 281 distinct teaching and/or research sites, only 36% had maps showing one or more parent-related facilities. Childcare services (26% of sites) and parents’ rooms (25%) were the most common facilities, although still relatively rare. It was often unclear what some facilities entailed or who could access them
The development of tools and guidelines for surfing resource management
Get PDFSurfing is a mainstream pastime and competitive sport in many countries and provides a full range of economic, social, physical, and mental health benefits. Maintaining the integrity of surf breaks has proven to be a challenge, with a litany of degraded or destroyed surfing locations worldwide. This is attributed to a deficiency in expertise and experience in implementing surf science and management within governing authorities, associated consultants, or stakeholder groups; combined with a lack of value recognition and identification. This work considers how surf breaks as coastal resources could be better managed.
A literature review of technical reports, published articles, statutory instruments, evidence, and consents, along with interactive stakeholder workshops and surveys to identify key considerations, are combined with complex numerical modelling and machine learning methods to develop tools for effective surf break management.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, a surf break is described in policy as having various geophysical components in the vicinity of locations where surfing takes place and the areas offshore. Given the wide range of benefits associated with surfing, and the complexities of managing a natural resource, albeit in some cases anthropologically modified, the term ‘surfing resource’ was established and defined as a major outcome of this work and as a step in the process of developing a set of Management Guidelines for Surfing Resources (the Guidelines). The Guidelines, which are a world first, consider what aspects of the environment are the most important to surfing resources management, provide direction, as implementable steps, to authorities and proponents of activities in the coastal environment that can impact surfing resources, and include identification and monitoring strategies as well as a novel risk assessment framework which is underpinned by a surf break’s sensitivity as a function of geomorphological composition.
The Guidelines are supported by research streams that required field data collection and monitoring system development, numerical modelling, and machine learning to improve our understanding of surf break functionality and/or better our management strategies. This work emphasises the role of bathymetric features outside the surf zone that contribute to surfing wave quality, and the value of establishing swell corridors for management purposes. An automated system has been developed to monitor the key surfing wave quality indicator of peel angle through both space and time.
Effective surfing resource management requires a holistic, inclusive, case-by-case approach, that may require cultural, social and geophysical assessment, which is best implemented proactively with the identification of surfing resources and the establishment of environmental baselines
Financial market information flows when counteracting rogue states: The indirect effects of targeted sanction packages
Get PDFThis study investigates how financial sanctions packages targeting Russia influenced traditional information flow dynamics with other international financial markets and products. While providing empirical evidence regarding the use of payment systems and finance as weapons of war, it is crucial to understand if the market's response to international sanctions diminished as expectations shifted over time. Results, supported by robustness testing procedures, indicate important dynamic information flows relating to specific sanctions after the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war. In particular, those sanctions relating to the exclusion of Russia from the SWIFT payment system and those targeting banks and private wealth resulted in significant contagion effects sourced from all Russian markets examined. Such influence, however, is found to moderate and dilute as investors reconstruct their expectations and valuations. While targeted sanctions appear to impose intended market isolation, it is also associated with significant contagion effects. Although such secondary effects dissipate, they should be seen as important when implementing further targeted sanction packages
Legislative Strategies to Tackle Misinformation and Disinformation: Lessons from Global Jurisdictions
Get PDFThe spread of misinformation and disinformation on social media has become a major concern in recent years. This is due in part to the ease with which false information can be shared and amplified online, as well as the fact that social media platforms often lack the resources or expertise to effectively moderate harmful content. Addressing the problem of misinformation and disinformation in parliaments is a complex challenge. This paper will explore the different types of misinformation and disinformation that are being spread in New Zealand; the ways in which misinformation and disinformation are being used to target Parliament; the impact of misinformation and disinformation on public trust in government; the challenges that parliaments face in addressing the problem of misinformation and disinformation; and the potential solutions that are being proposed to address the problem of misinformation and disinformation. It will also identify some legislative strategies that have been proposed as potential solutions to the growing problem of widespread misinformation and disinformation, including those adopted by the European Commission and the United Kingdom
Afterword: Kinship Possibilities in Water Futures
Get PDFThis special issue of Oceania interrogates the material and cultural factors underpinning water socio‐economies in Australia; a critical project given the wet and dry crises now unfolding in theAnthropocene. Three themes inform the collection–materialities, imaginaries and temporalities–each of which animates a diverse array of ethnographic inquiry into transformative water futures. Theradical potential of kinship is also a cross‐cutting theme, with the articles collectively revealing howkin relatedness works to disrupt the categorical framing of‘modern water’as an extractive resource
Are women-who-have-sex-with-women an 'at-risk' group for cervical cancer? An exploratory study of women in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Get PDFBackground. International research consistently indicates that women-who-have-sex-with-women (WSW) are less likely to engage in cervical screening than heterosexual women. In the main, studies have explored rates of engagement and highlighted some reasons for non-engagement. This study extends on this work by exploring perceptions among sexual minority women (WSW) for lower rates of engagement among WSW more generally and is the first study on this topic undertaken in Aotearoa New Zealand. Methods. A sample of 177 self-identified WSW domiciled in New Zealand completed an online survey about their engagement in cervical screening, reasons for engaging (or not) in cervical screening, and perceptions of why SMW might be less likely to engage in cervical screening. Results. Fewer than half of participants had engaged in cervical screening every 3 years as recommended, with women who had only ever had sex with other women being significantly less likely to have engaged in screening. A lack of clear information about risk relative to sexual history, heteronormativity, and the invasive nature of screening were the dominant reasons for lower engagement among WSW. Conclusions. A legacy of misinformation, and endemic heteronormativity in public health messaging around cervical screening is a significant barrier to engagement in screening for WSW. To increase engagement in screening among WSW, public health information needs to specifically address the needs of WSW
Teacher thinking and teacher actions: a study of six teachers
No full textThis study is predicated on the assumption that teaching is an intentional behaviour and that a study of teaching therefore requires attention to teachers’ thoughts as well as their observable actions. It is an attempt to describe and account for: (a) the cognitive activities involved in teacher planning; (b) the contrastive features of teachers’ attention to and thoughts about elements of lessons; and (c) the relationship between planned and actual lessons. Data concerning these aspects of teaching were gathered from three experienced classroom teachers and three student teachers who were each asked to teach three small-group discussion lessons.
Several data collection and analysis procedures were developed to help the teachers report fully on the focus of their thoughts prior to and in the course of their lessons, and to allow the researcher to categorise accurately the content of their self-reports. Pre-lesson planning thoughts were captured by having teachers make a written ‘stream of consciousness’ record of emerging thoughts, and a ‘stimulated-recall’ procedure was used to help them identify incidents in the course of lessons during which their attention and thoughts had been consciously registered. Additional data about the planning undertaken for specific lessons were obtained from questionnaire responses, while a structured interview technique was used to identify teachers’ perceptions of ‘typical’ features of their conscious experience of teaching.
A comprehensive system for categorizing these data was developed and, as a means of ensuring that teacher self-reports were accurately categorized, the researcher systematically discussed their meaning with the teachers who were asked to confirm, disconfirm and where necessary correct the researcher’s interpretations.
The analysis of the data obtained revealed a number of significant similarities, differences, consistencies and inconsistencies in features of the teachers’ pre-lesson planning, their within-lesson attention and thoughts and plan-reality relationships. In accounting for these contrastive features, a number of explanatory propositions were formulated. These highlighted: (a) reasons why planning is likely to be undertaken before lessons; (b) the problem-solving nature of the planning process; (c) the contribution that factors internal and external to teachers may make to the nature of the planning process and the content of their plans (e.g. tolerance for uncertainty, teaching theories, information processing capabilities, availability of time and material resources); (d) factors that influence the focus of teachers’ within-lesson thoughts (e.g. the directive influence of plans, the ‘press’ of immediate events, significance and meaning attached to learner behaviours); and (e) the variables that influence teachers’ efforts to monitor learner behaviour (e.g. the availability, ambiguity and objectivity of behavioural cues).
Educational implications that follow from these propositions centre on two recommendations. Firstly, those who wish to influence the actions of classroom teachers need to be aware of the manner in which the thoughts of teachers shape their overt behaviours, and to take account of factors that impose constraints on the capacity of teachers to attend to teaching situations in particular ways. Secondly, it is suggested that teachers will benefit from having opportunities to analyze, evaluate and experiment with a variety of ways of thinking about teaching situations