19366 research outputs found
Sort by
The implications of climate change for Māori-led tourism businesses in New Zealand/Aotearoa: A case study of Westland Tai Poutini National Park and its proximate destination townships : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Applied Science at Lincoln University
No full textThis study set out to explore through qualitative semi-structured interviews (n= 13) how selected Māori-led tourism businesses are experiencing and adapting to the effects of climate change in Westland Tai Poutini National Park and proximate destination townships. The research sought to explore how Māori-led tourism businesses are preparing for the predicted climate change impacts and how their businesses’ adaptation planning aligns with Māori values. Also explored, in the context of climate change adaptation, were the risks and opportunities for Māori-led tourism businesses in Te Tai Poutini. The results of this research provide a cultural lens, which is rarely considered for climate change adaptation. The findings will inform strategy discussions among tourism operators, managers and the wider tourism sector in relation to climate change adaptation planning
Managing tourist reactions towards gastronomy tourism: An examination of Human-Food-Place (HFP) experiences within a value chain system : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University
No full textIndonesia is a food-obsessed society and has been named a global hub of sustainable gastronomy tourism by UNWTO. Thousands of unique Indonesian gastronomy experiences make food a popular reason why many tourists visit Indonesia. The Indonesian government has identified five main gastronomic destinations: Bandung, Semarang, Solo, Yogyakarta, and Bali. Tourist loyalty is critical for gastronomy tourism as it can be economically and culturally advantageous for a place, even for a broader region. Prior studies have shown that tourist satisfaction is a significant predictor of tourist behavioural intentions, and this includes the intention to revisit a gastronomy destination, visit other gastronomy destinations, and recommend a gastronomy destination to other potential tourists. Studies on gastronomy tourism have also investigated various aspects such as place attachment and place association, local food quality and local food experiences, and the tourist-local interactions between tourists and residents. Two relatively new constructs, tourist self-congruity and destination stereotypes, have appeared in recent research in this topic area. However, no studies to date concerning gastronomy tourism have examined all these constructs in one conceptual model. This study is based on two research objectives: 1) To explore the inter-relationships amongst the constructs in the Indonesian gastronomy tourism industry and 2) To explore the moderating effects of the intensity to travel and to examine whether the conceptual model is supported for both gender sub-groups. The sample used in this study was based on the perception of domestic (Indonesian) tourists. To analyse the collected data, structural equation modelling, and multigroup comparisons using SPSS 28 and SmartPLS 4 was employed. The results showed that when considering tourist behavioural intentions towards gastronomy tourism, the intention to recommend a destination to others was the most significant construct in this study. This was followed closely by the intention to revisit a gastronomy destination and the intention to visit other gastronomy destinations. The findings highlighted the direct relationships amongst constructs. They demonstrated that place association and place attachment affect the intention to revisit a gastronomy destination and the intention to recommend a gastronomy destination to others through the mediating variable of tourists’ satisfaction. This research found that there were no significant associations that supported the role of tourist intensity in travelling as a moderator in the relationship between overall tourist satisfaction and intention to revisit a gastronomy destination. In addition to this, statistically significant differences were found between female and male tourists in terms of the relationship between tourists’ satisfaction and the intention to revisit a gastronomy destination.
This research also provides some important theoretical and practical contributions. From a theoretical standpoint, it provides a comprehensive model for a gastronomy tourism value chain. This study also examines distinct types of tourist’s intensity to travel and gender. In terms of practical contributions, this research provides best-practice insights for key place stakeholders. Stakeholders include destination management organizations, managers of Indonesian gastronomy tourism businesses, the Indonesian government, and residents, as they all have roles in the management and success of a gastronomy destination’s branding and sustainability
The abundance, activity, and community composition of comammox Nitrospira and canonical ammonia oxidisers in New Zealand soils : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University
No full textNitrification, the microbial oxidation of ammonia (NH3) via nitrite (NO2-) to nitrate (NO3-) is an important process in terrestrial ecosystems, as it contributes to the production of two environmentally significant products, nitrous oxide (N2O), and nitrate. Traditionally, nitrification was thought to be a two-step process, where ammonia is first converted to nitrite by ammonia-oxidising bacteria (AOB) before nitrite oxidising bacteria (NOB) complete the oxidation to nitrate. Later, it was discovered that a group of archaea (ammonia oxidising archaea, AOA) could also undertake ammonia oxidation, typically in oligotrophic/extreme conditions such as low ammonia availability and pH.
The separation of nitrification into two steps involving different microorganisms has puzzled scientists as a single organism completing both steps of nitrification was theoretically assumed to be more efficient. The presence of complete ammonia oxidisers (comammox) was later confirmed by cultivating them from an aquaculture system and a core from a deep-sea oil well. It was found that comammox belongs to lineage II of the genus Nitrospira, a group of bacteria traditionally thought to be responsible for nitrite oxidation. Comammox Nitrospira and canonical Nitrospira can be distinguished by the presence of the ammonia monooxygenase gene (AMO). Furthermore, comammox Nitrospira can be separated into clade A and clade B based on the phylogeny of this gene. Clade A can also be further divided into sub-clades A.1, A.2.1, A2.2, and A.3.
Since its initial discovery, comammox Nitrospira has been found in a variety of terrestrial ecosystems. Typically, studies have shown that clade B are more abundant in forest and paddy soils, whilst clade A.2 may prefer agricultural soils. Clade A.1 is seen to be the dominant cluster in natural and artificial aquatic ecosystems such as freshwater wells and wastewater treatment plants.
However, the presence and distribution of comammox Nitrospira, relative to canonical ammonia oxidisers, in different soils and relationships with soil and environmental conditions are not fully understood. The research described in this Thesis was designed to fill this knowledge gap and improve our understanding of comammox Nitrospira and canonical ammonia oxidisers.
Experiment 1 determined the abundance and community composition of comammox Nitrospira throughout New Zealand Dairy farms and quantified the abundance and community composition of comammox Nitrospira in New Zealand under various land uses. It was concluded that comammox Nitrospira are ubiquitous throughout New Zealand soils. Comammox Nitrospira amoA abundance shared a strong positive and strong negative correlation with soil moisture and pH, respectively. Interestingly, the sequencing analysis determined that the comammox Nitrospira community solely consisted of clade B.
Two experiments were devised to investigate these correlations, with respect to canonical ammonia oxidisers. Experiment 2 explored the effect of soil pH, with N inputs, on comammox Nitrospira abundance and community composition in New Zealand dairy pasture soils. Comammox Nitrospira preferred the natural (6.1-6.2) soil pH with no nitrogen amendment. Comparatively, the AOB community (dominated by Nitrosospira) responded positively to soil pH and nitrogen input. This may be due to the difference in ammonia availability. Estimated ammonia availability in the synthetic urine treatments (equivalent to 700 kg N ha-1, N700) accurately predicted the AOB amoA gene abundance.
Interestingly, the AOA communities (which were predominantly made up of Thaumarchaeota group I.1b clade E) seemed to prefer the natural and high pH soils over the low pH. This may be due to the lineage of AOA present. AOA did not respond to the application of nitrogen.
Experiment 3 investigated the effect of soil moisture and temperature on comammox Nitrospira abundance, transcriptional activity, and community composition, relative to canonical ammonia oxidisers. AOB was the dominant nitrifier in the synthetic urine treated soil regardless of temperature or moisture. Peak AOB amoA transcript abundance was positively correlated with estimated soil ammonia availability. While the nitrification rate and changes in AOB amoA gene abundance followed a similar relationship.
Ammonia oxidising archaea were strongly influenced by soil temperature. At 20 °C, AOA amoA peak transcript abundance averaged over 1 order of magnitude higher than at 8 °C. A member of the AOA community associated with the Nitrosocosmicus subclade was positively correlated with ammonium and estimated soil ammonia concentrations. The presence and relative increase of Nitrosocosmicus AOA in a high nitrogen environment poses an interesting contrast to the current scientific opinion.
Contrary to Experiment 1, the abundance of comammox Nitrospira amoA was not positively correlated with soil moisture. This suggests that the association is more complex than previously thought. Further research is required to determine the drivers of comammox Nitrospira abundance in a high moisture environment.
Overall, the results of this thesis indicate that in New Zealand, AOB are the dominant ammonia oxidiser in a nitrogen-rich environment, such as a dairy farm soil. While the majority of the AOA community prefer a high temperature, low nitrogen environment. However, Nitrosocosmicus-like AOA may respond positively to nitrogen amendment, which challenges our current understanding of terrestrial AOA. Comammox Nitrospira may prefer a slightly acidic, oligotrophic soil environment and do not respond to temperature change. However, they may be the main ammonia oxidiser in some high moisture environments, potentially due to biotic interactions with plants or microbes
Living in two worlds: Sir Hēnare Ngata, the first Māori Public Accountant in Aotearoa New Zealand (1917-2011).
No full textSir Hēnare Ngata was the first Māori Public Accountant in New Zealand in 1949. Using a biographical approach, we explore his accounting career and the use of his knowledge of the Indigenous and Anglocentric worlds to empower his wider community. The research utilises a career-crafting theoretical framework, archival sources and unstructured, in-depth conversations and meetings conducted with family and work associates to examine his role in the Māori community and impact as an accountant.
Career crafting analysis reveals how Sir Hēnare Ngata combined Māori culture, Māori practices and beliefs with the tools of Anglocentric accounting and knowledge of Māori land law to support Māori in navigating land development, business financial requirements and policies and programmes. He made a significant contribution to mana Māori, bicultural management practices and Māori economic development. His bicultural approach combining the holistic Māori worldview and Anglocentric accounting provides rich insights for those involved in social and environmental accounting and governance reporting
Where’s the community in community resilience? A post-earthquake study in Kaikōura, Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textTheories about what communities are have been constantly evolving in response to considerations about the complex and multi-faceted processes that shape them. While this has led to conceptual refinement in some areas of research, debates about the nature of community are often overlooked when the term is paired with other concepts such as resilience. In such pairings, more discussion is evident over the meaning of resilience than the nature of community. Studies that focus on the resilience of a community risk neglecting the complex dynamics that shape them and, as a consequence, tend to underestimate how these processes influence resilience. Framed by Paton’s (2006) model of adaptive capacity, in this paper we argue that a more nuanced understanding of community which acknowledges the web of formal and informal relationships is required. These relationships give rise to “collectives” which, in turn, are integral to a community’s resilience because they bridge the gap between the individual and “the” community. This paper uses qualitative methods to examine collectives in Kaikōura, Aotearoa New Zealand following a Mw7. 8 earthquake to further our understanding of what is meant by community in community resilience. By examining the meso/collective level, rather than the micro/individual or macro/community level of community, a more nuanced understanding of community resilience emerges
Investigating biomarkers, biochemical changes and metabolomic features associated with high ph lamb meat
No full textIn the meat industry, pH is the primary measure to determine if meat has undergone the proper muscle-to-meat conversion. When the pH is high, there has been an insufficient reduction in the pH, resulting in undesirable meat quality traits. Several factors including muscle type, animal age, animal sex, and exposure to low-impact exercise stress can impact meat quality. Lincoln University has a low-impact exercise/high pH stress model that can consistently produce lamb meat with high pH, representing poor quality meat products; allowing for investigating the potential of different ways to determine meat quality.
Phosphoglucomutase 1 (PGM1), Pyruvate Kinase (PKM2), Beta Enolase (ENO3), and Phosphoglycerate Kinase 1 (PGK1) are enzymes in the glycolytic pathway shown potential as biomarkers for meat with high pH, therefore investigating how they differ between control and low-impact exercise stress animals will help to determine if they are viable for measuring meat quality. Glycolytic proteins were analysed using western blotting methods on 10 control and 10 exercise stress animal’s samples of Longissimus lumborum (LL), Gracilis (G), Semimembranosus (SM), Supraspinatus (SS), with Glyceraldehyde 3-phopshate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) as a loading control.
Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS) is a novel technology that ‘burns’ tissue samples to produce an aerosol which detects metabolites and their adducts in a mass spectrometer to create a metabolic fingerprint of the sample. REIMS has been applied in-line at a slaughterhouse for the detection of boar taint as a proof of principle, proving that it has the potential to be applied for meat quality measures. Therefore, using data produced during REIMS from animal tissue in the low-impact exercise/high pH stress model to develop a machine learning model to classify groups based on high pH will help to determine the potential of REIMS for online, rapid assessment of meat quality in the meat industry
Towards an enhanced Māori career framework
No full textCareer research models and frameworks have accumulated an impressive wealth of knowledge about the nature of careers over the past three decades. Yet, few appear to enhance awareness and understanding of the diverse ways in which life-career might be constructed and enacted. Career models are predominantly Eurocentric and based on the lived experiences of majority groups and the ways they operate in dominant environments. In this workshop we propose an enhanced Māori career framework based on our research with wāhine Māori accountants in the Aotearoa New Zealand.
Researchers have examined the severe under-representation of indigenous people’s barriers to advancing careers, and social exclusion in the accounting profession. Adding to the complexity surrounding discrimination in professional work, indigenous women have faced the “double whammy” of gender and ethnicity discrimination. In our research with wāhine Māori in the accounting profession, normalising Māori knowledge and experiences was paramount. This required us to challenge prevailing structures that determined social conditions and relations which undermine a Māori worldview. We also position the experiences, beliefs and exchanges that occurred between the presenters, as a Māori and non-Māori indigenous researchers.
We draw on our cultural identity and research findings to inform this workshop. The career framework developed from our research will illustrate how career pathways are experienced within dimensions of whānau, whakawhanaungatanga and Te Ao Hou. We consider whānau as being central to one’s cultural identity and societal acceptance, i.e. sense of belonging; whakawhanaungatanga refers to relational practices we engage in across structures and organisations, and Te Ao Hou relates to understanding the contemporary world for Māori.
We aim to initiate discussion on each of the dimensions with the audience and how this framework may support career practice in schools. We support career practitioners to look beyond Eurocentric career paradigms and value our unique knowledge to enhance their careers and guidance practice
A redescription of the Pacific Bounty hunter, Pacificana cockayni Hogg, 1904 and an attempt to reunite with its family
No full textThe male of the Bounty Island endemic Pacificana cockayni Hogg, 1904 is described for the first time and the female is redescribed. We attempted to place the monotypic genus Pacificana in an appropriate family based on cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 DNA sequence data, however, our phylogenetic analysis was inconclusive. Morphologically, P. cockayni shares characters with the New Zealand genera Pakeha Forster & Wilton, 1973 (Cycloctenidae) and Otira Forster & Wilton, 1973 (Amaurobiidae) plus two Australian amaurobiid genera, Storenosoma Hogg, 1900 and Oztira Milledge, 2011. We note that while other spider species recorded from the Bounty Islands are found on other sub-Antarctic islands, Pacificana is not. We have not suggested a family placement until the placement of Otira, Oztira, Pakeha, and Storenosoma has been resolved by further, more extensive phylogenetic analysis
Earth science field trips in the age of Covid-19: A case study of the SOSC223 virtual field trip : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Applied Science at Lincoln University
No full textUndergraduate earth science education emphasises the role of field trips in student learning and development. Thus, when the Covid-19 pandemic caused teaching to shift online, many educators developed replacement virtual field trips (VFTs) to deliver the field components of their courses. Such was the case with SOSC223, a second-year geomorphology course at Lincoln University, where the 2021 Covid-19 lockdown saw us replace the scheduled field trips with a VFT to the same locations. In this thesis, I investigate instructor and student experiences developing and learning from the SOSC223 VFT in order to evaluate what may have been lost or gained through the rapid shift from a traditional field trip (TFT) to virtual. I conducted semi-structured interviews with students and staff involved with the VFT and analysed the interview data for themes relating to 1) student and instructors’ perceptions of the VFT, 2) the strengths and weaknesses of the trip, and 3) how the VFT compared to a TFT.
Thematic analysis of participants’ interview transcripts revealed different overall attitudes between the students and instructors. Instructors' reflections heavily featured the limitations and frustrations of developing the trip during lockdown. They felt the VFT was an adequate resource given the circumstance yet nevertheless saw potential benefits to VFTs as a whole. Students were apprehensive at the outset of the VFT but appreciated having the computerised replacement to the TFTs. Although most would have preferred attending a TFT, they felt the VFT benefitted their learning given the circumstances. The weaknesses of the VFT included its lack of easy interpersonal interaction, its reliance on technology like fast computers and stable internet, and the resourcing requirements to integrate multimedia and scaffold the content of the trip. Despite these challenges, the flexibility and repeatability of the VFT benefitted all participants, and the trip demonstrated clear potential for well-designed interactive multimedia to facilitate students' visual connection to place and ability to visualise complex processes. The SOSC223 VFT differed from TFTs in the logistical constraints and affordances of each and how the mode of delivery impacted students' social and physical immersion within the learning experience.
Through conducting this research, it became clear that VFTs can add value to course design when thoroughly resourced and thoughtfully integrated. Whether they are used to augment or replace TFTs or incorporated into a course as standalone activities, VFTs should be designed in a way that builds on their flexibility and repeatability, minimises the impact of their lack of sociality, and builds visual connection through well-resourced, well-integrated multimedia
Calamities of Fresh Value Chains in developing economies: The case of the avocado value chain in Ethiopia
No full textEnsuring availability and affordability are the most critical and pertinent requirements for Fresh Value chains (FVCs) to ensure food and nutritional security. On the other hand, securing adequate income is critical to ensuring economic development. However, studies indicate that FVCs in developing countries perform poorly, with persistent shortfalls in the availability of affordable fresh produce and very low incomes for producers and other actors. Literature suggests that the poor performance of FVCs in Ethiopia could result from a lack of investment by actors across all stages of the chains. A thorough literature review has identified four theories that can explain the apparent lack of investments in FVCs in developing countries. New Institutional Economics (NIE) theory asserts that the nature of transactions and characteristics of actors and exogenous changes in the general economy create uncertainty that brings about high transaction costs and inefficient institutions, leading to the likelihood of opportunism, lack of investment, and Pareto-suboptimal efficiency. Agency theory asserts that agents' opportunistic behaviours arise from information asymmetry and goal incongruence when two actors are required to collaborate in an economic system through transactions. These result in high levels of unmitigated state, effect and response uncertainty and the likelihood of opportunism, disincentivising investments in these mostly arm's length relationships. Post- Keynesian investment theory asserts that the availability and cost of different forms of finance (profit and credit) affect the level of investments. Systems Theory asserts that shortages of different types of capital are potential constraints to producing and marketing fresh produce in developing countries, implying the role of investments.
This article presents empirical findings on the current performance of the Avocado Value Chain (AVC) in Ethiopia. It attempts to identify the underlying factors for the ongoing lack of investments by utilising a framework developed from the above mentioned theories. The research utilised the critical realist approach, Systems Dynamics Modelling (SDM) methodology, and a four-tiered research process to achieve the overall research objectives. The data was collected using the four tiers: an extensive literature review, direct observation of all value chain activities, in-depth interviews with more than 65 actors and stakeholders, and participatory Group Model Building (GMB) workshops. Data gathered were used to describe the attributes of each actor, their interactions, the structure of relationships, the transactions, the business environment they operate in and the resulting severe lack of investment in the AVC manifested through each actor's modus=operandi and the poor performance that follows