Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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11 views of Auckland: Soft-boiled in Ponsonby: The topographies of murder in the crime fiction of Charlotte Grimshaw and Alix Bosco
(School of Social and Cultural Studies, Massey University, Albany, 2010) Lawn J
11 Views of Auckland stresses a multidisciplinary approach to this most multicultural of New Zealand cities. The serendipitious - complementary rather than contradictory - way the various essays have grouped themselves according to themes during the editing process accents another virtue we've come to value highly during all our years of working together on this clean green suburban campus: collegiality
18O isotopic labelling and soil water content fluctuations validate the hydraulic lift phenomena for C3 grass species in drought conditions
(Elsevier B.V., 2024-02-29) Oliveira BA; López IF; Cranston LM; Kemp PD; Donaghy DJ; Dörner J; López-Villalobos N; García-Favre J; Ordóñez IP; Van Hale R
Hydraulic lift is a functional characteristic observed in some plant species, often associated with their ability to withstand drought conditions. It involves capturing water from deep soil layers and redistributing it to shallower soil layers through the plant's roots. Bromus valdivianus Phil., Dactylis glomerata L., and Lolium perenne L. may perform hydraulic lift at varying rates. Using both direct (isotopic labelling - δ18O) and indirect (soil water content sensors) techniques, the study assessed and validated the hydraulic lift under extreme drought conditions on the soil top layer (below permanent wilting point), maintaining the bottom layer at high (20–25% filed capacity [FC]) and low (80–85% FC) levels of soil water restriction. Above- and below-ground biomass growth and morpho-physiological responses were evaluated. All species displayed some degree of hydraulic lift, with significant differences observed in the isotopic analysis and soil water content (p > 0.05). This illustrates that water was redistributed from the deep to shallower soil layer and validates that the hydraulic lift phenomenon is occurring in these C3 grasses. Bromus valdivianus presented the highest δ18O values (25.05‰) and highest increases in soil water content (µ=0.00626 m3 m−3; five events). Bromus valdivianus had a dry matter ratio of approximately 4:1 (0–20cm:20–40 cm). In contrast, L. perenne and D. glomerata had approximately 6:1 and 5:1, respectively. This difference in root morphology may explain the higher rate of hydraulic lift observed in B. valdivianus relative to L. perenne and D. glomerata. This paper validates the occurrence and provides initial insights into the hydraulic lift process occurrence of temperature grass species.
20 years later: unravelling the genomic success of New Zealand’s home-grown AK3 community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
(Microbiology Society, 2025-07-25) White RT; Bakker S; Bloomfield M; Burton M; Elvy J; Eustace A; French NP; Grant J; Greening SS; Grinberg A; Harland C; Hutton S; Karkaba A; Martin J; Matthews B; Miller H; Straub C; Tarring C; Taylor WT; Ussher J; Velasco C; Voss EM; Dyet K
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) represents a significant public health challenge. In New Zealand, the community-associated MRSA sequence type (ST)5, carrying the staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) type IV genetic element (which confers methicillin resistance), has been predominant since its detection in 2005. Known informally as the AK3 strain, it also exhibits resistance to fusidic acid. Here, we investigated the genomic evolution of the AK3 strain by analysing 397 genomes, comprising 361 MRSA and 36 closely related methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) genomes, including 285 recently sequenced isolates from New Zealand spanning 2020 (n=30), 2021 (n=77), 2022 (n=88), 2023 (n=73) and 2024 (n=17). Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the AK3 strain evolved through stepwise acquisition of mobile genetic elements, with an MSSA ancestor likely introduced to New Zealand in the late 1970s. The lineage first acquired a SaPITokyo12571-like pathogenicity island, which contains the staphylococcal enterotoxin C bovine variant (sec-bov) and an enterotoxin-like protein (sel), between 1984 and 1991. This was followed by the integration of SCCmec type IV and adjacent fusidic acid resistance operon between 1997 and 2000. This timing coincides with increased community fusidic acid use in New Zealand. The AK3 strain then diversified into three major clades, spreading throughout New Zealand and Australia, with sporadic detection in European countries and Samoa. Our findings demonstrate how the sequential acquisition of mobile genetic elements, combined with antibiotic selection pressure, likely contributed to the successful emergence of AK3 and its spread in the South Pacific region.
20.08.14 Kane, Popular Memory and Gender in Medieval England
(The Medieval Studies Institute, 2020-08) McVitty EA
2021 Assessment of New Zealand district health boards' institutional healthy food and drink policies: the HealthY Policy Evaluation (HYPE) study
(Pasifika Medical Association Group (PMAG), 2022-08-19) Gerritsen S; Kidd B; Rosin M; Shen S; Mackay S; Te Morenga L; Mhurchu CN
AIM: To assess adoption of the voluntary National Healthy Food and Drink Policy (NHFDP) and the alignment of individual institutional healthy food and drink policies with the NHFDP. METHOD: All 20 district health boards (DHBs) and two national government agencies participated. Policies of those organisations that had not fully adopted the NHFDP were assessed across three domains: nutrition standards; promotion of a healthy food and beverages environment; and policy communication, implementation and evaluation. Three weighted domain scores out of 10, and a total score out of 30 were calculated. RESULTS: Nine of the 22 organisations reported adopting the NHFDP in full. Of the remaining 13, six referred to the NHFDP when developing their institutional policy and three were working toward full adoption of the NHFDP. Mean scores (SD) were 8.7 (1.0), 6.1 (2.6) and 3.8 (2.2) for the three domains, and 18.6 (4.8) in total. Most individual institutional policies were not as comprehensive as the NHFDP. However, some contained stricter/additional clauses that would be useful to incorporate into the NHFDP. CONCLUSION: Since a similar policy analysis in 2018, most DHBs have adopted the NHFDP and/or strengthened their own nutrition policies. Regional inconsistency remains and a uniform mandatory NHFDP should be implemented that incorporates improvements identified in individual institutional policies.
3D Printing of Textured Soft Hybrid Meat Analogues
(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2022-02-06) Wang T; Kaur L; Furuhata Y; Aoyama H; Singh J; Mirade PS
Meat analogue is a food product mainly made of plant proteins. It is considered to be a sustainable food and has gained a lot of interest in recent years. Hybrid meat is a next generation meat analogue prepared by the co-processing of both plant and animal protein ingredients at different ratios and is considered to be nutritionally superior to the currently available plant-only meat analogues. Three-dimensional (3D) printing technology is becoming increasingly popular in food processing. Three-dimensional food printing involves the modification of food structures, which leads to the creation of soft food. Currently, there is no available research on 3D printing of meat analogues. This study was carried out to create plant and animal protein-based formulations for 3D printing of hybrid meat analogues with soft textures. Pea protein isolate (PPI) and chicken mince were selected as the main plant protein and meat sources, respectively, for 3D printing tests. Then, rheology and forward extrusion tests were carried out on these selected samples to obtain a basic understanding of their potential printability. Afterwards, extrusion-based 3D printing was conducted to print a 3D chicken nugget shape. The addition of 20% chicken mince paste to PPI based paste achieved better printability and fibre structure.
3D Robotic Control of Micro-Scale Optical Swarms at an Interface
(IEEE, 2025-07) Carlisle N; Nock V; Williams MAK; Whitby CP; Chen JLY; Avci E
Optical force-induced assembly is a promising yet scarcely explored approach for developing functional tools and objects at the microscale, with a wide range of potential applications. Our previous work was the first to investigate the manipulation of these assemblies in the XY plane. Here, we expand on these techniques by systematically exploring optical trap manipulation with the addition of Z-axis control. Manipulation of the Z-axis is referred to as axial displacement and is a viable approach for actively manipulating the assembly morphology. Experiments are conducted for the first time to explore and detail the response of the assembly during active 3D trap manipulation, informing the development of an autonomous control algorithm over the 2D area of the assembly during motion. This control presents techniques to increase assembly stability or alter the area of the assembly for tasks such as passing through constrictions. This work aims to develop the control techniques required to create a unique micromanufacturing approach inspired by the Kilobot thousand-robot swarm.
40Ar/39Ar geochronology of Neogene phreatomagmatic volcanism 3 in the western Pannonian Basin, Hungary
(Elsevier, 2007) Németh, Károly; Wijbrans, Jan; Martin, Ulrike; Balogh, Kadosa
Neogene alkaline basaltic volcanic fields in the western Pannonian Basin, Hungary, including the Bakony–Balaton Highland and the Little Hungarian Plain volcanic fields are the erosional remnants of clusters of small-volume, possibly monogenetic volcanoes. Moderately to strongly eroded maars, tuff rings, scoria cones, and associated lava flows span an age range of ca. 6 Myr as previously determined by the K/Ar method. High resolution 40Ar/39Ar plateau ages on 18 samples have been obtained to determine the age range for the western Pannonian Basin Neogene intracontinental volcanic province. The new 40Ar/39Ar age determinations confirm the previously obtained K/Ar ages in the sense that no systematic biases were found between the two data sets. However, our study also serves to illustrate the inherent advantages of the 40Ar/39Ar technique: greater analytical precision, and internal tests for reliability of the obtained results provide more stringent constraints on reconstructions of the magmatic evolution of the volcanic field. Periods of increased activity with multiple eruptions occurred at ca. 7.95 Ma, 4.10 Ma, 3.80 Ma and 3.00 Ma. These new results more precisely date remnants of lava lakes or flows that define geomorphological marker horizons, for which the age is significant for interpreting the erosion history of the landscape. The results also demonstrate that during short periods of more intense activity not only were new centers formed but pre-existing centers were rejuvenated.
50 Years of the steric-blocking mechanism in vertebrate skeletal muscle: a retrospective
(Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2023-09) Parry DAD
Fifty years have now passed since Parry and Squire proposed a detailed structural model that explained how tropomyosin, mediated by troponin, played a steric-blocking role in the regulation of vertebrate skeletal muscle. In this Special Issue dedicated to the memory of John Squire it is an opportune time to look back on this research and to appreciate John’s key contributions. A review is also presented of a selection of the developments and insights into muscle regulation that have occurred in the years since this proposal was formulated.
A “great priest of civilization”: Reinterpreting Victor Meirelles’ A Primeira Missa through newspapers
(King's College London, 5/09/2020) Oliveira G
Using newspapers as primary sources, this article presents an innovative analysis of Victor Meirelles’ A primeira missa no Brasil (1860). Beyond canonical interpretations of Meirelles’ work as an erudite depiction of the beginning of Brazil’s history in 1500, the article demonstrates that for viewers of that time the painting also, and above all,represented the beginning of the history of Brazilian art in the 1800s. It demonstrates this by following general art debates in newspapers of the period, specifically in the years before and after the highly anticipated return of the young Meirelles fromhis European sabbatical. Debates in the press illustrate how Meirelles’ significance for nineteenth-century audiences in particular, and for Brazilian art history as whole, can only be fully decoded by situating the artist within Brazilian elites’ political-intellectual efforts to achieve European-style civilisational progress during the first decades of the post-independence period.
A ‘cannibalised’ cricket event? Mediatisation, innovation and The Hundred
(1/01/2023) Fletcher T; Sturm D; Malcolm D
Attending and consuming events are integral to many peoples’ leisure lives. However, as the literature attests, events represent significant sites of contestation over who does and does not belong. This paper explores such contestation in the notoriously elitist and traditionally exclusionary sport of cricket, and specifically The Hundred; the most recent attempt to democratise the sport by appealing to a more demographically diverse spectator base. It uniquely blends extensive semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (n = 33), and a synthesised theoretical framework of mediatisation, media events and digital leisure studies, to argue that the apparent success of The Hundred in attracting and including new audiences has been enabled by incorporating elements of media spectacle. We therefore, use The Hundred to further delineate the processes described in the extant literature, and extend analysis of the ‘digital turn’, by drawing attention to the tensions between the speed and trajectory of these developments and the constraints imposed by cricket’s history. We illustrate how digital and analogue leisure remain highly interdependent, and argue that the ongoing contestation of game forms championed by different cricket stakeholders makes it improbable that The Hundred can achieve its twin goals of being economically viable, while increasing the popularity and, ultimately survival, of other cricket formats.
A 'Good Employer' perceptions and practice in small enterprises
(Victoria University) Coetzee DT; Foster AB; Laird I
A 0.8 V 0.23 nW 1.5 ns full-swing pass-transistor XOR gate in 130 nm CMOS
(Hindawi Publishing Corporation, 2013-03) Ahmad N; Hasan SMREZAUL
A power efficient circuit topology is proposed to implement a low-voltage CMOS 2-input pass-transistor XOR gate. This design aims to minimize power dissipation and reduce transistor count while at the same time reducing the propagation delay. The XOR gate utilizes six transistors to achieve a compact circuit design and was fabricated using the 130 nm IBM CMOS process. The performance of the XOR circuit was validated against other XOR gate designs through simulations using the same 130 nm CMOS process. The area of the core circuit is only about 56 sq · µm with 1.5659 ns propagation delay and 0.2312 nW power dissipation at 0.8 V supply voltage. The proposed six-transistor implementation thus compares favorably with other existing XOR gate designs.
A 6 GHz Integrated High-Efficiency Class-F−1 Power Amplifier in 65 nm CMOS Achieving 47.8% Peak PAE
(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2021-10-09) Ali SMA; Hasan SMR; Ebrahimi A
This paper reports a “single-transistor” Class-F−1 power amplifier (PA) in 65 nm CMOS, which operates at the microwave center frequency of 6 GHz. The PA is loaded with a Class-F−1 harmonic control network, employing a new “parasitic-aware” topology deduced using a novel iterative algorithm. A dual-purpose output matching network is designed, which not only serves the purpose of output impedance matching, but also reinforces the harmonic control of the Class-F−1 harmonic network. This proposed PA yields a peak power-added efficiency (PAE) of 47.8%, which is one of the highest when compared to previously reported integrated microwave/millimeter-wave PAs in CMOS and SiGe technologies. The amplifier shows a saturated output power of 14.4 dBm along with an overall gain of 13.8 dB.
A behaviour and disease transmission model: incorporating the Health Belief Model for human behaviour into a simple transmission model.
(The Royal Society, 2024-06-05) Ryan M; Brindal E; Roberts M; Hickson RI
The health and economic impacts of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 affect all levels of a community from the individual to the governing bodies. However, the spread of an infectious disease is intricately linked to the behaviour of the people within a community since crowd behaviour affects individual human behaviour, while human behaviour affects infection spread, and infection spread affects human behaviour. Capturing these feedback loops of behaviour and infection is a well-known challenge in infectious disease modelling. Here, we investigate the interface of behavioural science theory and infectious disease modelling to explore behaviour and disease (BaD) transmission models. Specifically, we incorporate a visible protective behaviour into the susceptible-infectious-recovered-susceptible (SIRS) transmission model using the socio-psychological Health Belief Model to motivate behavioural uptake and abandonment. We characterize the mathematical thresholds for BaD emergence in the BaD SIRS model and the feasible steady states. We also explore, under different infectious disease scenarios, the effects of a fully protective behaviour on long-term disease prevalence in a community, and describe how BaD modelling can investigate non-pharmaceutical interventions that target-specific components of the Health Belief Model. This transdisciplinary BaD modelling approach may reduce the health and economic impacts of future epidemics.
A better start national science challenge: supporting the future wellbeing of our tamariki E tipu, e rea, mō ngā rā o tō ao: grow tender shoot for the days destined for you
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023-02-22) Maessen SE; Taylor BJ; Gillon G; Moewaka Barnes H; Firestone R; Taylor RW; Milne B; Hetrick S; Cargo T; McNeill B; Cutfield W; Moton TM; King PT; Dalziel S; Merry S; Robertson S; Day A
The majority of children and young people in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) experience good health and wellbeing, but there are key areas where they compare unfavourably to those in other rich countries. However, current measures of wellbeing are critically limited in their suitability to reflect the dynamic, culture-bound, and subjective nature of the concept of ‘wellbeing’. In particular, there is a lack of measurement in primary school-aged children and in ways that incorporate Māori perspectives on wellbeing. A Better Start National Science Challenge work in the areas of Big Data, Healthy Weight, Resilient Teens, and Successful learning demonstrates how research is increasing our understanding of, and our ability to enhance, wellbeing for NZ children. As we look ahead to the future, opportunities to support the wellbeing of NZ young people will be shaped by how we embrace and mitigate against potential harms of new technologies, and our ability to respond to new challenges that arise due to climate change. In order to avoid increasing inequity in who experiences wellbeing in NZ, wellbeing must be monitored in ways that are culturally acceptable, universal, and recognise what makes children flourish.
A better start to literacy for bilingual children in New Zealand: Findings from an exploratory case study in te reo Māori and English
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2024-04-09) Denston A; Martin R; Gillon G; Everatt J
This article details findings from an exploratory case study that examined the efficacy of a phonological awareness and vocabulary programme with children educated in a bilingual immersion context of English and te reo Māori (Māori language) in Aotearoa New Zealand. The current paper discusses changes in the development of early literacy skills in English and te reo Māori in two groups of children aged from 5 years 0 months to 7 years 5 months. Twenty-six children from two bilingual classrooms in a rural school participated in a programme implemented by teachers over 15 weeks. The programme included explicit instruction in phonological awareness and vocabulary. One classroom was from Level 1 te reo Māori immersion, and one was from Level 3 te reo Māori/English. Results were analysed at cohort and class levels. Analyses indicated that both groups of children significantly improved in phonological awareness skills, non-word reading, and expressive vocabulary. Correlational analyses indicated that growth in te reo Māori skills was positively associated with growth in English skills. These findings suggest that further investigation into how the explicit teaching of te reo Māori can benefit the development of phonological awareness and print-related skills in English.
A better start to literacy learning: findings from a teacher-implemented intervention in children’s first year at school
(Springer Nature B.V, 8/01/2019) Gillon G; McNeill B; Scott A; Denston A; Wilson L; Carson K; Macfarlane AH
This study investigated the feasibility of a teacher implemented intervention to accelerate phonological awareness, letter, and vocabulary knowledge in 141 children (mean age 5 years, 4 months) who entered school with lower levels of oral language ability. The children attended schools in low socioeconomic communities where additional stress was still evident 6 years after the devastating earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2011. The teachers implemented the intervention at the class or large group level for 20 h (four 30-min sessions per week for 10 weeks). A stepped wedge research design was used to evaluate intervention effects. Children with lower oral language ability made significantly more progress in both their phonological awareness and targeted vocabulary knowledge when the teachers implemented the intervention compared to progress made when teachers implemented their usual literacy curriculum. Importantly, the intervention accelerated children’s ability to use improved phonological awareness skills when decoding novel words (treatment effect size d = 0.88). Boys responded to the intervention as well as girls and the skills of children who identified as Māori or Pacific Islands (45.5% of the cohort) improved in similar ways to children who identified as New Zealand European. The findings have important implications for designing successful teacher-implemented interventions, within a multi-tier approach, to support children who enter school with known challenges for their literacy learning.
A BIM and AR-based indoor navigation system for pedestrians on smartphones
(Elsevier Inc. on behalf of the Korean Society of Civil Engineers, 2025-01) Zhang W; Li Y; Li P; Feng Z
Indoor navigation technology, as an emerging location information service, has shown continuous growth in its application demand in recent years. In indoor navigation, indoor localization and path planning are the key factors affecting navigation quality. Most of the existing methods rely on traditional methods for indoor localization with high implementation costs. As for path planning, most methods lack the acquisition and use of semantic information, affecting navigation's practicality and intuitiveness. To alleviate the above problems, we propose a building information modeling (BIM) and augmented reality (AR)-based indoor navigation system for pedestrians that can be implemented on smartphones. Specifically, we first map a three-dimensional model space subdivided by a triangular prism to the two-dimensional plane in order to construct an indoor navigation network. Secondly, the information is analyzed using inertial navigation system technology to identify indoor positions. Then, we propose an indoor augmented reality navigation algorithm based on architectural and spatial information (IARA) algorithm for indoor path planning. Finally, we integrated the above technologies and built an indoor pedestrian navigation system based on BIM and AR technologies. Experiments in specific scenarios show that our system ensures navigation stability while obtaining results that are more relevant to the needs of pedestrians.
A binding global agreement to address the life cycle of plastics
(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1/07/2021) Simon N; Raubenheimer K; Urho N; Unger S; Azoulay D; Farrelly T; Sousa J; van Asselt H; Carlini G; Sekomo C; Schulte ML; Busch PO; Weinrich N; Weiand L