16168 research outputs found
Sort by
Integrating mātauranga Māori into community resilience frameworks for the built environment
Get PDFEfforts to improve community resilience have seen universal efforts to grow capabilities in disaster management for the built environment. Although comprehensive frameworks exist, the perspective used to derive these frameworks fails to address marginalised communities' vulnerabilities, including the Indigenous Māori people. Colonisation and socio-economic deprivation of Māori mean community response frameworks fail to reflect their values and specific needs when preparing and responding to natural disasters.
The nature of Māori culture and values presents an opportunity to reimagine the scope of community resilience for an inclusive framework. The Māori history has resilient practices weaved into the very fabric of their culture through the oral transmission of waiata, whakataukī, whakairo, and pūrākau. The practice of community resilience amongst ancient Māori was not consigned to singular events but is a holistic perspective bound to their manner of living. Sourcing and qualifying this information from people aligned and immersed in nature is the knowledge required to improve the frameworks to respond to natural disasters while expanding the literature on community resilience.
This study collaborated with Ngāti Toa to represent the Māori worldview using tikanga Māori and Kaupapa Māori methodology in an action-based participatory research approach. The research analyzed traditional Māori resilience through wānanga and korero kanohi-ki-te-kanohi and evaluated various mātauranga, tikanga, and kaupapa that relate to the resilient nature of Ngāti Toa. Modern Māori perspectives of community resilience were compared to this information using a realistic earthquake scenario in the Wellington region. This led to expanding community resilience to be more inclusive of Māori communities and informed measures to enhance their resilience and address their unique needs following a disaster.
This study found that the Ngāti Toa community employs traditional resilience practices dating back to their migration to Aotearoa from Hawaiki. These practices are community-led and grounded in unity, with resilience being viewed as a collective responsibility. The study identified various Te Ao Māori resilience principles by translating traditional resilience principles into corresponding Te Ao Māori principles. A response and recovery plan was developed for Ngāti Toa in response to a realistic earthquake scenario. This plan includes a vulnerability matrix and a community resilience calculator to inform Ngāti Toa of their vulnerability level and needs following a disaster.
The community resilience frameworks developed for the Wellington region in response to the 7.5 magnitude earthquake were found to be economically dependent and did not utilize the response capabilities and strengths of Ngāti Toa. The frameworks lacked proper representation from Ngāti Toa and failed to address the needs of the Māori community in Wellington, resulting in inequitable outcomes. To rectify this,
Page | iii
community resilience frameworks for Māori should adopt a principle-based approach that supports collaborative engagement and integrates Māori cultural values. Unity is a crucial strength underpinning Māori resilience. Technological mediums such as retrofitting Marae should be developed to enhance Māori response capabilities and harness the strengths of Te Ao Māori resilience
"Experiences of families and professionals living/interacting with neurodivergent children while navigating the policy contexts of health, education and social services: The fight for accessible and suitable support"
Get PDFFamilies of neurodivergent children often end up interacting with policy contexts of health, education, and social services on a regular basis when they have unmet needs. My research investigates these policy contexts to better understand how more accessible and suitable support can be provided to meet those needs. My research also describes the experiences of families that struggle to find or receive accessible and suitable support. I also aimed to highlight the principles of the neurodiversity paradigm to illustrate the deficit-based thinking of current systems and practice. It is natural, healthy, and valuable to have diversity among minds, both in the classroom and in society. The principles of the neurodiversity paradigm challenge the ways in which health, education, and social service systems respond to neurodivergent children. My research design included literature review, policy analysis, key informant interviews and autoethnographic reflections. Literature was drawn from academic research, but grey literature was particularly important as sometimes families of neurodivergent children at crisis point feel that they had no choice but to talk to the media. I also undertook interviews with social service professionals locally to understand their position on New Zealand provision for neurodivergent children and their families. My findings indicate that there are key limitations and problems in relation to current policy and practice. There is tension between the policy emphasis of inclusion and the real-life experiences that document the practice of exclusion. This could be due to the ways in which neurodivergent children are constructed and framed through policy language that reflects a deficit-thinking model. To ensure that the needs of neurodivergent children are met through the paradigm of neurodiversity more professional development and policy language shifts need to occur so that society can see neurological differences as a valuable part of humanity. Furthermore, greater emphasis needs to be placed on options that are accessible for families, and suitable to the unique needs of their children. Overall, the research also demonstrates that much higher levels of transparency is needed between the siloed policy areas of health, education and social services, the professionals who work in each of these areas and most importantly between clinicians and families in relation to diagnoses, funding, and physical support. Finally, there also needs to be transparency in terms of the objectives of the neurodiversity paradigm which is to make clear the faults of the system and accept difference as the norm. The neurodiversity movement and paradigm challenge the deficit-based pathological views of neurological differences such as autism, ADHD, epilepsy and other neurodivergences. When neurodivergence is pathologized neurodivergent people are compared to a fictional norm or a ‘right’ way of being resulting in stigma, shame and often co-occurring mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. These findings are important as families of neurodivergent children with unmet needs are forced to interact with policy contexts to receive support and funding. Accessible, suitable support including funding availability is essential to a neurodivergent child’s well-being and inclusion within society
Late Quaternary paleoseismic history of the Te Puninga Fault, Hauraki Plains, northern New Zealand
Get PDFThe Te Puninga Fault is a newly discovered active fault on the western side of the Hauraki Plains, northern North Island, New Zealand. Preliminary evidence in a 2016 study suggests that it may generate earthquakes Mw>6.8. Therefore, the fault presents a hazard and risk to the population and infrastructure of the Hauraki Plains region, including the population centres of Morrinsville and Te Aroha, and beyond. Several consequences from rupture of the Te Puninga Fault are likely: strong ground motion from earthquakes (possibly amplified by basin effect in the Hamilton Basin and Hauraki Plains); permanent surface deformation by fault surface rupture; and secondary effects such as liquefaction and landslides. Thus, it is important to better understand the seismicity of this fault to better understand the hazard and risk to the wider region.
Paleoseismic trenching was undertaken in February 2021 along two fault traces at Ryland Trench and Arnold Trench. Exposures in the trenches enabled a stratigraphy to be established of the near-surface deposits (within 3 m) that were deformed by the fault. The deposits were described, and samples of organic material and tephra were collected. The organic material was submitted to the Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory for radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dating, and major element analysis of volcanic glass was undertaken at the electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) facility, Victoria University of Wellington. The bulk of the deposits exposed in each trench comprised secondary volcaniclastic sediments of the Hinuera Formation. An additional alluvial unit, deposited after 11,000 cal yr BP, was identified in the Ryland trench and correlated with the Waitoa Formation. The ¹⁴C dating indicated that the Hinuera Surface at each trench site was abandoned at approximately 24,000 cal yr BP. At both trenches, the Hinuera Surface was overlain by a cover bed of composite tephras deposited incrementally whilst being transformed pedologically (via pedogenic upbuilding) to form Allophanic Soils on well to moderately well drained higher landscape positions. Major element analysis of glass shards isolated from the base of the composite tephra column suggests that the Okareka (23,500 cal yr BP) or Rerewhakaaitu (17,600 cal yr BP), or both, (crypto)tephras were present, generally supporting the age ascribed to the Hinuera Surface (c. 24.0 cal ka) based on the ¹⁴C age modelling. The Taupo (1718 ± 10 cal yr BP) and Kaharoa (636 ± 12 cal yr BP) tephras occurred in the upper parts of both trenches as visible, thin, discontinuous deposits. They were identified by their stratigraphic superpositioning and physical properties, confirmed by their diagnostic ferromagnesian minerals and glass-shard major element compositions.
A site near Quine Road where the fault scarp dipped westwards, in the opposite direction to the eastward slope of the general land surface, and intersected stream terraces, was identified using high resolution LiDAR data. Using a digital elevation model, a hillshade model, and field work including geomorphic mapping, the terraces formed by the streams were identified and labelled from 1 (youngest) to 8 (oldest). Because terraces became progressively younger as they descended from the c. 24 cal ka Hinuera Surface, they can be used as chronological markers for fault activity. If the scarps formed by fault surface ruptures represent different surface displacement of different terraces, an analysis can be done to assess numbers and timing of fault ruptures. Elevation profiles were drawn parallel and perpendicular to the fault and it was found that the vertical fault displacement decreased as the terraces got younger. By comparing two models for incision rates, terrace ages were modelled and thus possible ages of displacement were obtained. The oldest terraces had an average vertical displacement of 2.6 ± 0.15 m, whereas Terrace 3 had a vertical displacement of 1.0 ± 0.15 m, and the youngest two had no vertical displacement. Therefore, it is likely that the penultimate earthquake that generated the displacement occurred between the formation of Terrace 4 (19,500 ± 1,400 yrs BP) and Terrace 3 (18,600 ± 600 yrs BP), and the most recent earthquake occurred between the formation of Terraces 3 (18,600 ± 600 yrs BP) and 2 (15,000 ± 1,900 yrs BP). Using the age of the youngest terrace that was displaced in two events (19,500 yrs BP), and the average vertical displacement of the other terraces displaced twice (2.64 ± 0.15 m), a slip rate of 0.135 ± 0.01 mm/yr was calculated. As this is one of at least nine strands of the Te Puninga Fault at this latitude, is a possible the 2016 published slip rate of 0.160 ± 0.03 mm/yr is understated.
A trial investigation of ground penetrating radar (GPR) at three locations on the Te Puninga Fault was conducted. The first two applications were at each of the two paleoseismic trench sites (Arnold and Ryland trenches), and hence the reflectors could be compared to the known stratigraphy, and the third at the Quine Road study site. The Quine Road site is a possible future trench location. The GPR investigation found: a) that a suitable depth of stratigraphy (<2.5 m) could be obtained; b) the displaced surfaces at all three sites were formed by seismic deformation rather than fluvial erosional processes because the reflectors in the radargrams ran parallel to the land surface, reflecting folding; and c) at Quine Road, in contrast, the sediments potentially show clear faulting rather than folding which could provide key information if trenching were to be undertaken at the site.
Getting back to work after the baby: A quantitative exploratory study
Get PDFThe postnatal period is a time of increased stress and sometimes high levels of anxiety and depression for mothers. While there has been substantial research on postnatal mental health problems and interventions, very little is known about the transition to work after maternity leave, and how work interacts with perinatal emotional distress. This work investigates how the mental health of mothers who are returning to work relates to their demographic characteristics as well as the interpersonal and administrative features of their work. These data were gathered with a comprehensive questionnaire that measured demographics, levels of distress, work characteristics, presenteeism, illness disclosure, co-worker support, manager support, and job quality. A total of 246 working mothers from New Zealand with children under 24 months old were included in the sample. The sample showed significantly higher levels of distress on the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) than the normative population. Education level and financial situation were negatively correlated with DASS-21 scores, and the experience of previous perinatal distress (PND) and working from home were positively associated with DASS-21 scores. Presenteeism, attitudes to illness disclosure, and co-worker support all had medium strength significant correlations with DASS-21 scores, while manager support showed a weak significant correlation with the DASS-21. A t-test showed that mean DASS-21 scores of Māori mothers were significantly higher than those of Pākehā mothers. Co-worker support, financial situation, being Māori, and job location all contributed significantly to the variance of DASS-21 scores within the full sample. Presenteeism, attitude to illness disclosure, and co-worker support all contributed to the variance of DASS-21 scores for the sub-sample that reported experiencing PND. These findings provide evidence that work related factors should be a focus in further research into perinatal distress. Future research might also explore these factors in a larger, more diverse sample to allow for examination of the experiences of mothers from a variety of ethnic, cultural, vocational, and socioeconomic groups
Pro-environmental behaviour change for nature: Empirical and theoretical evidence from a field experiment in Aotearoa New Zealand
Get PDFIndividual behaviour change is a crucial component of our response to current environmental challenges and over recent years, a growing body of literature has focussed on the drivers and levers of pro-environmental behaviours. However, scholars have noted there is a considerable shortage of behavioural science research that focuses on behaviours that directly impact nature and biodiversity. This is concerning, given the enormous value populations place on nature, the fundamental role nature plays in society and because nature is declining rapidly.
In this thesis, we focus on understanding volunteering for nature restoration groups, which we show is an under-researched behaviour in the literature. It also has relatively high potential to deliver positive impacts for biodiversity and nature. We start by developing a simple generalisable theoretical model that suggests three main factors may be inhibiting the uptake of volunteering for nature – uncertainty, inaccuracy and high behavioural adjustment costs. We use this model to inform the design and hypotheses for a large field experiment in Aotearoa New Zealand where we aim to answer the following questions:
How can we increase volunteering for nature restoration groups? What are the effects of volunteering for the first-time on future volunteering behaviour? How does volunteering affect other important outcomes of interest, like environmental identity, locus of control beliefs and wellbeing?
Our field experiment has two stages. In stage one, we randomly assign first-time volunteers (those who are not already engaged in nature volunteering) to treatment groups to assess the impact of a nudge, a supermarket voucher incentive and a nudge and incentive combined on volunteering behaviour. We find that a $50 NZD supermarket incentive increases attendance rates at volunteering events and commitment rates to attend volunteering events. On the other hand, an environmentally and socially motivated nudge in isolation has no effect on volunteering behaviour. However, combining the nudge with the voucher incentive enhances the efficacy of either treatment alone, demonstrating that significant positive synergies exist between nudges and incentives in this context.
In stage two, we show volunteering for the first-time is plausibly randomly assigned, conditional on availability and being offered an incentive. We use this feature to estimate the causal impact of volunteering for the first time on future volunteering behaviour and other outcomes of interest. We find that volunteering for the first time crowds in future volunteering behaviour, generates positive spillovers to other pro-environmental behaviours and strengthens environmental self-identity and locus of control beliefs, which are important pre-cursors to pro-environmental behaviour. Our results show two mechanisms are likely driving these effects. Firstly, volunteering for the first-time provides important information about the benefits of volunteering that are used in future decision-making. Secondly, it strengthens environmental attitudes and identity, which in-turn affect preferences for pro-environmental behaviour. Taken together, our results show that using a financial incentive to help people experiment with volunteering can lead to large positive spillovers and crowding-in effects for future pro-environmental behaviour
Grainyhead-like 2 is required for morphological integrity of mouse embryonic stem cells and orderly formation of inner ear-like organoids
Get PDFMutations in the transcription factor gene grainyhead-like 2 (GRHL2) are associated with progressive non-syndromic sensorineural deafness autosomal dominant type 28 (DFNA28) in humans. Since complete loss of Grhl2 is lethal in mouse embryos, we studied its role during inner ear pathology and hearing loss in vitro. To this end, we generated different homozygous deletions to knockout Grhl2 in mouse embryonic stem cells (Grhl2-KO ESCs), including some mimicking naturally occurring truncations in the dimerisation domain related to human DFNA28. Under naïve culture conditions, Grhl2-KO cells in suspension were more heterogenous in size and larger than wild-type controls. Adherent Grhl2-KO cells were also larger, with a less uniform shape, flattened, less circular morphology, forming loose monolayer colonies with poorly defined edges. These changes correlated with lower expression of epithelial cadherin Cdh1 but no changes in tight junction markers (Ocln, Tjp2) or other Grhl isoforms (Grhl1, Grhl3). Clonogenicity from single cells, proliferation rates of cell populations and proliferation markers were reduced in Grhl2-KO ESCs. We next induced stepwise directed differentiation of Grhl2-KO ESCs along an otic pathway, giving rise to three-dimensional inner ear-like organoids (IELOs). Quantitative morphometry revealed that Grhl2-KO cells initially formed larger IELOs with a less compacted structure, more eccentric shape and increased surface area. These morphological changes persisted for up to one week. They were partially rescued by forced cell aggregation and fully restored by stably overexpressing exogenous Grhl2 in Grhl2-KO ESCs, indicating that Grhl2 alters cell-cell interactions. On day 8, aggregates were transferred into minimal maturation medium to allow self-guided organogenesis for another two weeks. During this period, Grhl2-KO cells and wild-type controls developed similarly, expressing neural, neuronal and sensory hair cell markers, while maintaining their initial differences in size and shape. In summary, Grhl2 is required for morphological maintenance of ESCs and orderly formation of IELOs, consistent with an essential role in organising epithelial integrity during inner ear development. Our findings validate quantitative morphometry as a useful, non-invasive screening method for molecular phenotyping of candidate mutations during organoid development
Design and development of the trauma informed care beliefs scale-brief
Get PDFBackground: Trauma informed care (TIC) practices have been developed to diminish the range of negative consequences associated with adverse childhood experiences (e.g., unemployment, welfare, incarceration, and medical and psychiatric treatment). They have been demonstrated to benefit young people, their carers, and child welfare staff. However, a gap that has been identified in this area is the absence of psychometrically sound TIC instruments, which has hindered the TIC literature in terms of transitioning to a more methodologically robust and data driven research area. Objective: The current study aimed to develop a psychometrically sound instrument (i.e., the TIC Belief Scale) that could assess the TIC beliefs of child welfare carers who reside with youth. Methods: Initially, 143 items were developed based on widely used TIC models. After a review by an expert panel of 10 experienced trauma practitioners, 85 items were retained and administered to a sample of 469 child welfare carers. The psychometric properties of the scale were investigated using Item Response theory (Rasch analyses). Results: Following analyses, a final scale of 13 items was accepted. The scale had good internal reliability (PSI = 0.77), showed evidence of unidimensionality, and there was no evidence of differential performance across sub-groups. Conclusions: The application of the Rasch model in this study provides support for the TIC Belief Scale as a psychometrically sound scale for measuring child welfare carers’ beliefs about TIC practices. An algorithm proposed here for converting ordinal to interval scoring increases the precision in understanding carers’ less favourable TIC beliefs
Virtue, self-narratives, and the causes of action
No full textVirtues can be considered to play a causal role in the production of behaviour and so too can our self-narratives. We identify a point of connection between the two cases and draw a parallel between them. But, those folk psychological notions, virtues and self-narratives, fail to reduce smoothly to the underlying human physiology. As a first step towards handling that failure to connect with the scientific framework that is the familiar grounding for our understanding of causation, we consider the causal theory of action, a leading theory of action, which shows how reasons, understood as an appropriate pair of beliefs and desires, can be treated as causes of action. Davidson’s picture is based on cause as a relation between events, which can have both a description in scientific terms and in folk psychological terms. The character of both virtues and self-narratives is not that of events, even extended ones, so we need to refer to examples of scientific explanation that incorporate structural properties of objects. While we retain the spirit of the causal theory, we wish to guard against any unwarranted optimism that an explicitly scientific explanation for human action lies in our future, drawing on Chomsky’s view that a causal explanation of human actions is likely to remain beyond human science forming capacities. We take a mild-realist view of virtues and self-narratives, in the style of Dennett. We argue that, in spite of that limited form of realism, underlined by Chomsky’s mysterian position in this domain, we still need to frame our explanations of behaviour based on virtues and self-narratives in causal terms
Robust stutter bisimulation for abstraction and controller synthesis with disturbance
No full textThis paper proposes a method to synthesise controllers for cyber-physical systems subjected to disturbances, such that the controlled system satisfies specifications given as linear temporal logic formulas. To solve this problem, a finite-state abstraction of the original system is first constructed, and then a controller is synthesised for the abstraction. Due to the disturbances and uncertainty in the environment, future states cannot be predicted exactly, and the abstraction must take this into account. For this purpose, the robust stutter bisimulation relation is introduced, which preserves the existence of controllers for any given linear temporal logic formula that excludes the next operator. States are related by the robust stutter bisimulation relation if the same target sets can be guaranteed to be reached or avoided under control of some controller, thus ensuring that disturbances have similar effect on paths that start in related states. It is shown that there exists a controller enforcing a linear temporal logic formula for the original system if and only if a controller exists for the abstracted system. The approach is illustrated by a robot navigation example
Te Mātaiaho as curricular justice?
No full textTe Mātaiaho produces a version of curricular justice which aims to give effect to Te Tiriti and address long-standing inequities in education in Aotearoa New Zealand. We examine Te Mātaiaho’s vision for subject English and its construction of students’ identities as fundamental to a curriculum that advances both bicultural nationhood and just outcomes for all students. We draw on Raewyn Connell’s (2010) model of curricular justice, and Nancy Fraser's (2017) notion of progressive neoliberalism to explore the opportunities and implications for subject English within Te Mātaiaho's vision. How might these frameworks for justice help to critique the development of educational policy and support the implementation of Te Mātaiaho's vision for biculturalnationhood and just outcomes for all students