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    The number of larval instars in the flax weevil (Anagotus fairburni) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)
    (Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group, 2023-09-20) Brockelsby WD; Miskelly CM; Glare TR; Minor MA
    The flax weevil Anagotus fairburni is a large flightless beetle, that is one of the members of the endemic insect ‘megafauna’ of New Zealand. It is a protected species that currently persists only on predator-free islands or in remote and difficult to access alpine areas. Little is documented about the ecology of the flax weevil. In this study we estimated the number of instars in the A. fairburni life cycle by measuring the head capsule widths of larvae collected in the field on Mana Island Scientific Reserve. We used kernel density function estimates to predict average head-capsule widths and the number of larval instars. We then used Brooks-Dyar’s law on the head capsule width data and analysed Brooks and Crosby indexes to refine the estimated number of instars based on imperfect data. Results from sampling of 86 larvae suggested four instar groupings, but further analysis based on Brooks-Dyar’s law found that A. fairburni likely passes through 6 or 7 larval stages prior to pupation, with some uncertainty for smaller instars. Our method provides new data on ecology of an endemic species and provides a framework for further work on similar endangered species where data is imperfect or difficult to gather.
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    Silicon Welly : the rise of platform capitalism and the paradoxes of precarity in Wellington City : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology at Massey University Manawatū, Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2024-09-20) Halley, Jessica
    This thesis addresses a central question: why do digital workers in Wellington’s tech sector persist despite the inherent precarity of platform capitalism? Examining the career histories of members of the Enspiral Network, a community focused on social entrepreneurship, reveals the paradoxical nature of subjectivity in digital labour. The research employs ethnographic methods, including life histories and narrative analysis, to explore the intersection of software materiality, neoliberal political economy, and Silicon Valley-inspired discourses. It investigates how digital workers navigate the precariousness of platform capitalism through emotional investment in programming and strategic career adaptations. Findings highlight the distinctive influence of Wellington’s cultural, political, and economic landscape on digital labour. The city’s counter-cultural ethos and state-driven entrepreneurial initiatives foster unique collaborative practices and open-source contributions within the tech sector. These elements collectively shape a hybrid form of platform capitalism that challenges traditional capitalist models. In conclusion, this thesis contributes to the understanding of contemporary labour by emphasizing the role of place, subjectivity, and paradox in the production end of platform capitalism. It underscores the active agency of digital workers in constructing their careers and identities amidst precarious conditions, offering insights into the broader implications of digital labour in the twenty-first century.
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    ‘Cheap, Scientific and Free From Danger’: Accounting for the Development of Field Hockey in Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2024-08-05) Watson G; Hess R
    Hockey’s emergence as an organized sport in New Zealand is typically regarded as having occurred during the 1890s. Reverend Henry Mathias, who formed the Kaiapoi Hockey Club in 1895, has been credited with a particularly influential part in the game’s development. Indeed, there is considerable truth to this foundation story in that the formation of clubs in Christchurch was the catalyst for the adoption of the 11-a-side form of the game played under the rules of the Hockey Association of England. Arguably, however, these 1890s developments represent a reformatory phase rather than an origin story in and of themselves. The analysis of online newspaper records contained in this paper suggests a widespread presence of informal games from at least as early as the 1860s, through to the formation of the Dunedin Hockey Club in 1876. Hockey also appears to have been played in schools from at least as early as the 1870s and, outside of school, was sometimes associated with ‘larrikinism’. By the 1890s, though, it was perceived to be a respectable game, supported by dedicated patrons and a much more developed sporting infrastructure in New Zealand.
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    Artificial rearing strategies to optimise new-born lamb growth and development : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Animal Science at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Hitihamy Mudiyanselage, Gayani Priyadarshani Herath
    A series of artificial lamb rearing experiments was conducted to investigate the effects of milk replacer protein to energy ratio (CP:ME), pellet fibre level and age at weaning on lamb growth and body composition, rumen development and rumen bacterial population. A mechanistic, dynamic, pre-weaned lamb growth and body composition simulation model was also validated using data generated from these experiments. The feeding of milk replacers with a high CP:ME ratio (15.89 g/MJ compared to a traditional industry value of 10.96 g/MJ) and adjustment of replacer CP:ME ratio (16.46 g/MJ to 10.96 g/MJ) to meet the lamb’s changing nutritional requirement as it aged resulted in higher pre-weaning lamb growth rates. Feeding a high CP:ME milk replacer also reduced carcass fat levels. When fed pellets ad libitum, an incrementally adjusted CP:ME milk replacer resulted in similar pre-and post-weaning growth rates as when fed milk replacer with a consistently high CP:ME ratio (12.28 g/MJ). Early milk weaning of lambs at 42 days of age did not impair growth rate to 57 days age but, reduced carcass fat, regardless of pellet fibre level. Early weaning of lambs also improved rumen n-butyric content and feeding low fibre pellets (NDF 116.76 g/kg) increased rumen n-valeric content. Early weaned lambs had increased rumen dorsal wall thickness. Nutrient intake from solid feed positively influenced rumen volatile fatty acid content, while both nutrient intake and rumen volatile fatty acid content positively impacted rumen physical development. The relative abundance of rumen bacteria phyla and genera were altered by weaning age and pellet fibre level, with Firmicutes being more abundant in milk-fed lambs at 57 days of age, while Bacteroidetes were the prominent phylum in early-weaned lambs. Prevotella was the prominent bacteria genus in early-weaned lambs. The most abundant bacteria genus in milk-fed lambs at 57 days of age was Succinovibrio. The existing pre-weaned lamb growth model was found to predict overall lamb growth accurately when utilising data collected in the present studies. However, it was not as accurate for predicting body composition components. In summary, results from thesis will contribute to improving new-born lamb growth and development in artificial rearing systems.
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    An investigation into the unsoundness of static program analysis : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2021) Sui, Li
    Static program analysis is widely used in many software applications such as in security analysis, compiler optimisation, program verification and code refactoring. In contrast to dynamic analysis, static analysis can perform a full program analysis without the need of running the program under analysis. While it provides full program coverage, one of the main issues with static analysis is imprecision -- i.e., the potential of reporting false positives due to overestimating actual program behaviours. For many years, research in static program analysis has focused on reducing such imprecision while improving scalability. However, static program analysis may also miss some critical parts of the program, resulting in program behaviours not being reported. A typical example of this is the case of dynamic language features, where certain behaviours are hard to model due to their dynamic nature. The term ``unsoundness'' has been used to describe those missed program behaviours. Compared to static analysis, dynamic analysis has the advantage of obtaining precise results, as it only captures what has been executed during run-time. However, dynamic analysis is also limited to the defined program executions. This thesis investigates the unsoundness issue in static program analysis. We first investigate causes of unsoundness in terms of Java dynamic language features and identify potential usage patterns of such features. We then report the results of a number of empirical experiments we conducted in order to identify and categorise the sources of unsoundness in state-of-the-art static analysis frameworks. Finally, we quantify and measure the level of unsoundness in static analysis in the presence of dynamic language features. The models developed in this thesis can be used by static analysis frameworks and tools to boost the soundness in those frameworks and tools.
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    Generating mock skeletons for lightweight Web service testing : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science at Massey University, Manawatū New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2021) Randunu Pathirannehelage, Thilini Bhagya
    Modern application development allows applications to be composed using lightweight HTTP services. Testing such an application requires the availability of services that the application makes requests to. However, continued access to dependent services during testing may be restrained, making adequate testing a significant and non-trivial engineering challenge. The concept of Service Virtualisation is gaining popularity for testing such applications in isolation. It is a practise to simulate the behaviour of dependent services by synthesising responses using semantic models inferred from recorded traffic. Replacing services with their respective mocks is, therefore, useful to address their absence and move on application testing. In reality, however, it is unlikely that fully automated service virtualisation solutions can produce highly accurate proxies. Therefore, we recommend using service virtualisation to infer some attributes of HTTP service responses. We further acknowledge that engineers often want to fine-tune this. This requires algorithms to produce readily interpretable and customisable results. We assume that if service virtualisation is based on simple logical rules, engineers would have the potential to understand and customise rules. In this regard, Symbolic Machine Learning approaches can be investigated because of the high provenance of their results. Accordingly, this thesis examines the appropriateness of symbolic machine learning algorithms to automatically synthesise HTTP services' mock skeletons from network traffic recordings. We consider four commonly used symbolic techniques: the C4.5 decision tree algorithm, the RIPPER and PART rule learners, and the OCEL description logic learning algorithm. The experiments are performed employing network traffic datasets extracted from a few different successful, large-scale HTTP services. The experimental design further focuses on the generation of reproducible results. The chosen algorithms demonstrate the suitability of training highly accurate and human-readable semantic models for predicting the key aspects of HTTP service responses, such as the status and response headers. Having human-readable logics would make interpretation of the response properties simpler. These mock skeletons can then be easily customised to create mocks that can generate service responses suitable for testing.
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    The growth and development of dairy heifers fed a low, high and ad libitum allocation of milk replacer : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Animal Science at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) Groenendijk, Mattes
    Feeding calves more milk has been shown to increase their pre-weaning growth rate and is associated with improved lifetime performance, but few studies have determined the effect of providing greater milk allowance on the feed intake and growth of heifer calves in New Zealand dairy farming systems. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of 3 different milk replacer (MR) allowances when allocated via automated feeding machines on the feed intake, growth, mammary gland development and grazing behaviour of dairy heifers (Holstein- Friesian x Jersey) in a pastoral system. Calves were allocated MR at either a low allowance, fed at 10% of initial body weight (BW) (LA; n = 67), a high allowance, fed at 20% of initial BW (HA; n = 65) or an ad libitum allowance (ADLIB; n = 66). Weaning began after 69 days on the study by gradually reducing MR allowance over 14 days, so that weaning was concluded by 83 days. All calves had free access to pelleted calf starter via automatic feeders until 121 days, and to ryegrass hay from 21 to 91 days. Calves were put outdoors and given access to pasture at 91 days. Calves that were fed more MR had greater total dry matter intake and greater growth rate before weaning (ADLIB > HA > LA; P < 0.01), but ADLIB calves had lower intake of calf-starter and lower growth rate in the first 5-weeks after weaning than HA and LA calves (P < 0.01). At 6 months of age, ADLIB and HA calves were heavier than LA (P < 0.05), but there was no difference in BW at 10 months of age. Pre-weaning growth rate was positively associated with BW at 6 months of age (R2 = 0.37; P < 0.01) but was not related to post- weaning growth rate. Pre-weaning growth of the mammary parenchyma, as measured by ultrasonography, was greater in LA than ADLIB calves (P < 0.05) but there was no difference in the mammary fat pad or total gland growth. A subset of calves (n = 28) had their behaviour monitored on 4 occasions over a 5-week period, beginning a day after being given access to pasture. One day after being given access to pasture, ADLIB calves spent more time grazing than LA calves, and LA calves spent more time ruminating than HA and ADLIB calves (P < 0.05). There was no difference among treatments in grazing behaviour at subsequent observations. This study demonstrates that group-housed crossbred heifer calves have greater pre-weaning growth rates when fed more milk (10% of initial BW vs 20% of initial BW vs ad libitum feeding), and maintain this weight advantage to 6 months, but not to 10 months of age when grazing pasture. The impact of increased pre-weaning growth rate and the effect of differences in pre-weaning mammary gland development on future lactation performance of heifers in a pastoral system require further investigation.
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    Investigating the role of HDAC4 subcellular distribution in Drosophila development and memory : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Biochemistry at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) Main, Patrick James
    The class IIa histone deacetylase HDAC4 has been previously demonstrated to play an essential role in brain development, learning and memory. However, the molecular pathways through which it acts are unknown. HDAC4 undergoes activity-dependent nucleocytoplasmic shuttling, disruption of the balance of nuclear and cytoplasmic HDAC4 has been identified as a factor in developmental and neurodegenerative disorders. This project used Drosophila melanogaster as a model to investigate the effects of altered subcellular distribution of HDAC4 on neural development and memory formation through the overexpression of Drosophila HDAC4 and wild-type human HDAC4 (hHDAC4), as well as nuclear- and cytoplasm-localising mutants of hHDAC4 named 3SA and L175A, respectively. The nuclear or cytoplasmic abundance of HDAC4 was adjusted by expressing the mutants during development or in adult flies. It was established that increased nuclear abundance of hHDAC4 in the brain impaired long-term memory and development, whereas increasing the cytoplasmic abundance did not. Further investigation showed that, contrary to vertebrate models, HDAC4 does not appear to repress memory in Drosophila through inactivation of MEF2 or CREB. Investigation of the transcriptomic changes induced by nuclear and cytoplasmic HDAC4 via RNASeq on RNA isolated from fly heads showed that L175A unexpectedly up-regulates the expression of genes in transcription and DNA synthesis. The relatively low number of transcriptional changes induced by 3SA suggested that it may be acting through largely transcriptionally independent means to impair memory and development in Drosophila. The localisation of HDAC4 to punctate foci in nuclei, potentially forming protein aggregates similar to Marinesco bodies seen in Parkinson’s Disease warrants further investigation. This project has shown that nuclear but not cytoplasmic HDAC4 impairs development and memory in Drosophila. Furthermore, cytoplasmic HDAC4 may play a role in transcriptional regulation of neurons, possibly regulation metabolic activity, suggesting that the activity-dependent nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of HDAC4 may not be primarily to remove HDAC4 from the nucleus and but instead to return HDAC4 to the cytoplasm.
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    Eat like a local : a culture cuisine guide for the English-speaking visitor in a non-major city in China : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master in Design at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) Lin, Danjing
    Cuisine and dining traditions are emblematic of local culture (Sutton, 2010), and tourism food consumption is an important way for travellers to experience the local culture (Chang, Kivela, & Mak, 2010; Germann Molz, 2007). As we know, China is not an English-speaking country, which has become a barrier for non-Chinese speaking travellers to travel independently. However, China is gradually perfecting multilingual translations of urban road signs and attractions, but there are still large gaps when it comes to food translations. In China, authentic food is usually hidden in the lives of local people. Due to many of these restaurants are family-owned inheritance of old stores with no commercial propaganda and gimmicks, and all rely on the reputation of customers. This project aims to design interactive media to help the English-speaking traveller to break the language barrier and experience Chinese food like a local. By focusing on authentic Chinese local food located in non-major cities that receive less attention from travellers. Most of the non-major cities are not well-known because there is not much tourist information available. Using the city of Changsha as a model, the function of interactive media will cover the basic functions of existing food apps, such as restaurant introductions, locations, recommendations, and menus and prices. Includes new features that differ from the general food app, such as food stories and dining traditions; food ingredients, with possible allergens; and diet habits. The goal is to design a digital guide for the English-speaking travellers in China.
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    Hijau : a mediation between conscious consumption and the contemporary media activism : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master in Design at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) Shari, Syamim
    The research project thus examines psychographic data to design for change to enable southeast iGen Asians become conscious consumers by using social media frameworks and techniques. iGens Asian are high consumer of fast fashion with limited knowledge of conscious consumerism. There is an identified gap in the sustainable fashion movement to address conscious consumerism. After outlining iGens’ key pain points and needs, the investigation examines the significant role of social media as a critical shaper in sharing collective knowledge, personal beliefs, desires, and hopes. It then explores how micro-narrative design can be employed to prompt a shift in attitudes towards sustainable fashion. The end goal is to elicit a long-term change starting with small habits. The methodology used in this one-year post-graduate research study encompassed naturalistic observation, in-depth semi structure interview and Instagram innovation. The design output in the form of face- filters provide an accessible platform for iGens in Malaysia to engage with conscious consumption. Furthermore, the flow of the project has been tested with three key participants. The study would be extended before the live release of the filters on Instagram.