Hearing loss is a disability that affects thousands of people in the world. It is estimated that there is 400,000 people with hearing difficulties in New Zealand (New Zealand Audiological Society, 2007). People with hearing loss have the right to access to information and communication (United Nations Enable, 2003). Without access to information and communication, the hearing impaired may encounter problems with emotional and social functioning, and consequently suffer with decreased quality of life. Clinical experience and investigations have revealed success with assistive listening devices (ALDs) where use of hearing aids has been unsuccessful. ALDs are devices that improve the communication function for the hearing impaired. ALDs can be used with or without hearing aids to overcome the negative effects of poor room acoustics. Currently, in the literature, little is known about the use and maintenance of ALDs in community organizations. This study investigates the use and maintenance of ALDs in the Christchurch community of New Zealand. A list of community organizations that provide ALDs to the public of Christchurch was also made available to individuals who have hearing impairment. The study found there is a lack of ALDs within the Christchurch community. Also that current ALD technology within the Christchurch community is not necessarily compatible with current hearing aid technology and that most organizations rely too heavily on PA systems. PA systems do not necessarily meet the needs of the hearing impaired and an ALD specifically targeting their hearing loss would improve their speech perception. Community organizations are not advertising enough that they offer ALDs which adds to the lack of awareness in Christchurch. Results found that most ALDs in the Christchurch community are in working order, however, there is a need for organizations to be educated about their use and maintenance. Audiologists and other health professionals have a key role in providing appropriate recommendations in the use and benefits that ALDs have on speech perception. These will directly improve the listening situations that the hearing impaired have throughout their communities, thus improving their quality of life.

This paper looks at the different influences behind my senior art project. Chapter I discusses the history of ceramics and the ceramic artists whose work was influential for my project, specifically, Robert Arneson and Viola Frey. Chapter II looks at the non-ceramic artists whose work influenced my project by, Andy Goldsworthy and Sally Mann. It also talks about Land Art. Chapter III moves away from my artistic influences to discuss the main idea behind my project, which is my journey of self-discovery in New Zealand. Chapter IV looks to the influence of fantasy and science fiction genres on my project.

The period 1840 to 1880 is important for the demographic history of both Scotland and New Zealand. During the second half of the nineteenth century Scotland had the second or third highest rate in Europe of emigration to destinations overseas. New Zealand became a British territory in 1840 and in the four following decades immigration, not natural increase, was the main source of New Zealand's population growth. Most of the immigrants who entered New Zealand during these years were born in the UK, and of these about one quarter were Scots. Between 1853 (when estimates can first be made) and 1880 Scottish emigrants who went to New Zealand account for 12 per cent of the gross total of Scots emigrating overseas. This was a significant minority of all Scots who left the land of their birth in this period, and for a time emigration to New Zealand was a highly visible movement which captured the popular imagination in Scotland. The thesis asks 'who' were the emigrants who left Scotland for New Zealand, 'why' did they travel 15 000 miles to Britain's farthest colony when other 'established' destinations were closer and cheaper to reach, and 'how' were they enabled to go. As a preliminary to answering these questions, the geographic and social background of the emigrants is explored. The thesis takes a 'longitudinal' approach: nominal data derived from New Zealand ships' lists are traced back to a variety of Scottish sources including vital registers and unpublished records of the census enumerators. Wherever possible the thesis compares these data with similar evidence from other studies and finds that emigration from Scotland to New Zealand was not aberrant from the general experience of Scottish emigration, although Scots who went to New Zealand had a number of distinctive characteristics which set them apart from, say, Scottish emigrants who went to the USA or to Canada. The thesis finds that these characteristics were not the resultant of selective criteria such as the regulations which governed eligibility for an assisted passage on an emigrant ship. However, Scots who went to New Zealand took advantage of cost-cutting facilities whenever they could. This thesis aims to provide a quantitative contribution to both Scottish and New Zealand history. In addition, the thesis treats this particular exodus of people as a case-study to explore a number of themes current in the literature of nineteenth century European emigration. These themes include: the relationship between emigration and the social and economic origins of the emigrants; the relationship between emigration and internal mobility; the role of interventionist forces, such as recruiting agencies, in effecting the process of emigration; and the extent to which emigration can be explained by the self-generating effect of emigration 'chains'. The thesis contributes new data and ideas with relevance to each of these themes. Patterns of emigration from Scotland, and indeed from all of Britain, are found to diverge significantly from common trends detected in the emigration flow from other European countries.

This thesis presents the results of structural analyses and detailed field mapping from a region near Adams Burn in central Fiordland, New Zealand. The region preserves assemblages of metasedimentary and metaigneous rocks deposited, intruded, and ultimately metamorphosed and deformed during the growth of a Gondwana-margin continental arc from Cambrian-Early Cretaceous. Evidence of arc growth is preserved in the Late Devonian-Early Cretaceous Median Batholith, a belt of intrusive rock whose growth culminated with the emplacement of the Western Fiordland Orthogneiss (WFO) into the middle-lower crust of the margin. Following this magmatic flare-up, the margin experienced Late Cretaceous extensional orogenic collapse and rifting. During the Late Tertiary, the margin records oblique convergence that preceded the Alpine fault. The history of arc growth and record of changing tectonic and deformational regimes makes the area ideal for study of structural reactivation during multiple cycles of magmatism, metamorphism and deformation, including during a mid-lower crust magma flare-up. Structural and lithologic mapping, structural analyses, and cross-cutting relationships between superposed structures and three intrusions were used to bracket the relative timing of four tectonic events (D1-D4), spanning the Paleozoic to the Tertiary. The oldest event (D1) created a composite fabric in the metasedimentary and metaigneous rocks of the Irene Complex and Jaquiery granitoid gneiss prior to emplacement of the Carboniferous Cozette pluton. S1 foliation development, set the stage for structural reactivation during the second phase of deformation (D2), where S1 was folded and reactivated via intra-arc shearing. These second-phase structures were coeval with the emplacement of the Misty pluton, (part of WFO in central Fiordland), and record crustal thickening and deformation involving a kinematically partitioned style of transpression. Arc-normal displacements were localized into the rocks of the Irene Complex. Oblique displacements were localized along the Misty-Cozette plutonic contact, forming a ≥1 km-wide, upper amphibolite-facies gneissic shear zone that records sinistral-reverse offset. Second-phase structures are cross-cut by widespread leucocratic pegmatite dikes. S2 in the Cozette and Misty plutons is reactivated by localized, ≤10 m-thick, greenschist-facies (ultra)mylonitic shear zones that record sinistral-normal offsets. S3/L3 shear zones and lithologic contacts were then reactivated by two episodes of Tertiary, fourth-phase faulting compatible with Alpine faulting, everywhere truncating the pegmatite dikes. Early faults accommodated shortening normal to the Alpine fault, and were obliquely reactivated by a younger population of faults during dextral transpression. My results show that structural reactivation occurred repeatedly after D1, and that structural inheritance played a key role in the geometry, distribution, and kinematics of younger deformation events throughout the arc's history. The sheeted emplacement of the Misty pluton was accompanied, and possibly facilitated, by a system of partitioned transpression during Early Cretaceous crustal thickening and arc magmatism. These results show that transpression helped accommodate and move magma through the middle and lower crust during the flare-up. This conclusion is important for the study of continental arcs globally, as evidence of deformation during high-flux magmatism at lower crustal depths (~40 km) is rarely preserved and exhumed to the surface.

One goal of modern geodesy is the global unification of vertical datums so that height data from them can be properly integrated. This thesis studies the unification of the 13 disparate levelling- and tide-gauge-based vertical datums in New Zealand (NZ). It proposes a new NZ-wide single vertical datum based on a gravimetric quasigeoid model to unify the existing local vertical datums. This will also include methods to transform height data in terms of the existing datums to the new datum and vice versa. After defining and comparing the main types of height system and vertical datum used around to world, the system of heights used in NZ was shown to be normal-orthometric. Consequently, datum unification was achieved using a quasigeoid model, as opposed to a geoid model. The quasigeoid was computed by combining the GRACE-based GGM02 and EGM96 global geopotential models with land gravity data (40,737 observations) and a 56-m resolution digital elevation model (DEM). Marine gravity data came from a least-squares collocation combination of 1,300,266 crossover-adjusted ship track observations and gravity anomalies derived from multi-mission satellite altimetry. / To ensure that the best quasigeoid was computed for the NZ datasets, a number of computation processes were compared and contrasted. The Hammer chart, fast Fourier transform (FFT) and prism integration methods of computing terrain corrections (TCs) were compared. This showed that the prism integration TC is the most realistic in NZ. The mean Helmert gravity anomalies, required for numerical integration of Stokes’s formula, were computed via refined Bouguer anomalies with the prism TCs, and reconstruction with heights from the DEM used to ‘reconstruct’ more representative mean anomalies. In addition, five deterministic modifications to Stokes’s formula were compared. There was little difference between three of them, so the Featherstone et al. (1998) modification ( 0 y = 1.5°, M = 40) was chosen because it is theoretically better than its predecessors. The global geopotential, gravimetric geoid, sea surface topography and geodetic boundary-value problem approaches to vertical datum unification were then contrasted. As none was likely to be effective in NZ, a new iterative quasigeoid approach was adopted. This procedure computes an initial quasigeoid from existing data on the various local vertical datums to estimate the vertical datum offsets from co-located GPS-levelling data. These offsets were then subsequently applied to the gravity observations by way of additional reductions to the initially computed quasigeoid to reduce gravity anomaly biases caused by the vertically offset datums. These adjusted gravity anomalies were then used to compute a new quasigeoid model, and the process repeated until the computed offsets between the local vertical datums (or equivalently two quasigeoid solutions) converged, which took only two iterations. / The computed offsets were then compared with spirit-levelled height differences among adjoining datums, where these were available, giving an average agreement of 7 cm. Since the local vertical datums are effectively unified, the new national vertical datum for NZ will comprise the iteratively computed gravimetric quasigeoid model, accompanied by local vertical datums. This approach is implemented to give a new national vertical datum for NZ. When used with the appropriate offset, this enables the transformation of heights in terms of the national vertical datum to the 13 precise-levelling datums and the ellipsoidal national geodetic datum, NZ Geodetic Datum 2000.

This study focused on the culture of engineering education, a culture which has been characterised internationally as reflecting masculine attitudes, values and norms of behaviour, thereby reinforcing the current under-representation of women. The goal of the study was to define the dimensions of the culture and the associated processes of enculturation, highlighting the interaction of these with gender. Following a review of relevant literature, research questions were formulated. These were addressed through an interpretive case study undertaken at a multidisciplinary School of Engineering in a New Zealand university. The study used predominantly ethnographic methods of data collection. To guide the analysis, a model was developed based on Schein's (1985) theoretical framework. The first level of the model involved the identification of observable manifestations of the culture (grouped as Artefacts, Practices and Behaviours). At the second level, shared values and cultural norms were induced from the observable manifestations. At the third level, the essence of the engineering education culture was distilled from these values and norms, in the form of seven cultural dimensions. At each level of the analysis the explicit and tacit processes of enculturation, especially in relation to gender, were considered. This research exposed the masculinity of the basic beliefs and assumptions at the core of the disciplinary culture, revealing the source of enduring cultural norms and their manifestations in behaviours and practices. Diverse forms of masculinity were evident, especially within sub-disciplinary subcultures, but all were constructed in opposition to perceptions of femininity. Participants in the study (whether male, female, students or staff) perceived women in engineering as different, not only to men, but to other women. / The women students appeared to construct for themselves a dual identity. They selectively incorporated in this identity both stereotypically masculine and stereotypically feminine qualities, in accordance with their perceptions of simultaneously "doing woman" and "doing engineer". The theoretical significance of this study lies in its provision of an accessible framework for cultural analysis by engineering educators and equity advocates. The framework facilitates exposure of the source of observable behaviours and practices in the unconsciously held beliefs and assumptions at the core of the culture of an institution or discipline. The practical significance lies in its potential to provide a base for developing strategies for cultural change advantageous to the participation of women. The findings of this thesis strongly suggest that such strategies must focus on disrupting the current dualities in language and discourse which implicitly construct women as different, deficient and therefore disadvantaged in engineering education. In particular strategies need to expose behaviours and practices to critical reflection by staff and students, making explicit the values and assumptions which underpin them. Further, while maintaining those features which are the strength of engineering education, there is a need to also include and value ways of knowing and learning styles from outside the current disciplinary and gendered boundaries.

Since the explosion of the internet as a business medium, one of its primary uses has been marketing. The advantages of using the internet for business-to-consumer transactions are clear. The openness of the internet is creating opportunities for virtually all companies across various industries. The words 'internet', 'World Wide Web', 'www' or the 'web' refer to the same thing and are used interchangeably within this research study. The tourism industry is also experiencing a rapid adoption of the internet technology for marketing travel products and services. As a destination New Zealand is a small country comprising two main land masses and smaller outlying islands, with a population of about 4 million people (Statistics New Zealand 2004). Tourism is promoted as an essential part of the national economy, particularly to earn foreign exchange and generate employment. The number of international tourists visiting New Zealand is 2.2 million (Tourism New Zealand, 2006). In New Zealand almost all regional tourism organizations (RTOs) have a web presence, thereby exposing potential tourists to an array of destinations to visit. However, there are few New Zealand based studies that profile tourists based on their internet adoption and the differences between internet users and non-users. The question that baffles every business manager is what predisposes consumers to use a website? This is the fundamental question that motivated the study. While usability does play a major role in the adoption and use of a particular website, it is outside the scope of this project, otherwise the scope would have been too large and complicated to permit a useable questionnaire given the other concerns about respondents' past experiences and attitudes toward use of the net for the specific purposes of holiday purchases. The study draws upon innovation diffusion theory (IDT) and more recent conceptualizations of IT adoption behaviour to examine differences among Rogers' (1995) adoption categories. Within this context, 'adoption' refers to the stage in which a technology is selected for use by an individual. 'Diffusion' refers to the stage in which the technology spreads to general use and application. For this study an attempt is made to create a behavioural profile of visitors based on a sample of 517 overseas visitors to New Zealand. Visitors were asked to complete a questionnaire and provide information on their demographics, travel related behaviour, internet usage patterns, perceptions of the internet and online shopping in general. The thesis thus describes the initiation and evolution of an empirical research project, which investigates the adoption and diffusion of internet technologies amongst international visitors to New Zealand. The study was launched in an attempt to: 1) learn more about internet usage by visitors to New Zealand; 2) create a psychographic profile of visitors; 3) attempt to empirically validate the technology acceptance model (TAM); and 4) fill a noticeable void so that future researchers on IT and internet adoption by tourists in New Zealand have a foundation and starting point. Most of the previous research related to TAM has been in workplace related situations while studies in tourism have used students as subjects, rather than actual visitors to a particular destination (Shang et al., 2005, Moon and Kim, 2001, Klopping and McKinney, 2004). Specific market studies undertaken by destination marketing organisations or regional tourism organisations were considered only inasmuch as they aided generalization as place specificity hindered conceptual development pertaining to themes of adoption and general usage patterns. The study seeks to build on Rogers' (1995) seminal work on the diffusion of innovations and make a unique contribution to existing diffusion studies by its focus on the individual visitors as the unit of analysis and by its test of the TAM model. This study presents descriptive results via standard statistical analysis, a cluster analysis of users and a structural equation modelling of the TAM applied within a context of international visitors to New Zealand. The data were collected at major locations - the viaduct basin in Auckland and the international departure lounge at the Christchurch International Airport. The two locations were chosen to enable faster data collection. Initially the data was gathered at the viaduct basin in Auckland but the number of respondents was not many. Since the data collection was slow, decided to collect from Christchurch International airport where departing passengers could be approached. Individual passengers/tourists were approached and a screening question to ascertain if they were visitors or not was asked. If they were visiting, then they were asked to participate in the survey. No prior specific screening was undertaken to determine if they had used internet or not for their trip/travel to New Zealand. However, subsequent analysis shows that only 2.3% of the sample had not used the internet, and 31% of the sample had not bought tourism products or services over the internet. Therefore, overall, experience and internet usage was not uncommon for the majority of the sample, but a large proportion of non-users existed to permit comparative analysis. While there is a bias towards males in the sample, the 19-35 years age group was slightly more numerous for both genders, than were other age groups. The results indicate that mean internet usage is comparatively high, as is familiarity with many electronic consumer durables. The sample possesses a bias toward English speaking countries, younger people and educationally higher qualified people. Internet search engines seem to be the most popular source of search. The socio-demographic variables such as age, gender and educational attainment appeared to be but a moderate influence on general internet usage and thus on the use of the internet for booking holidays. Factor analysis of the attitudinal statements revealed six factors, which accounted for about 60 % of the total variance. The clear emergence of factors enabled the development of clusters. The clusters appear to have significance with reference to usage rates of internet. The home ownership of electronics shows a high percentage of respondents had mobile phones. This implies that New Zealand Tourism has to look at options or possible services it can introduce to market to these people who could be using mobile devices not only in their country but also while travelling in New Zealand. Wireless is another important development in the field of technology and many of the tourism DMO in other developed countries in Europe and US are adapting approaches based on these technologies to market to potential customers.

Approximately 60% of New Zealand's electricity is produced from hydro generation. The Waitaki River catchment is located in the centre of the South Island of New Zealand, and produces 35-40% of New Zealand's electricity. Low inflow years in 1992 and 2001 resulted in the threat of power blackouts, and a national demand for electricity that is currently growing at 2 to 5% a year gives strong justification for better management of the hydro resource. Improved seasonal rainfall and inflow forecasts will result in the better management of the water used in hydro generation on a seasonal basis. Seasonal rainfall forecasting has been the focus of much international research in recent years, but seasonal inflow forecasting is in its relative infancy. Researchers have stated that key directions for both fields are to decrease the spatial scale of forecast products, and to tailor forecast products to end user needs, so as to provide more relevant and targeted forecasts, which will hopefully decrease the enormous socio-economic costs of climate fluctuations. This study calibrated several season ahead lake inflow and rainfall forecast models for the Waitaki river catchment, using statistical techniques to quantify relationships between land-ocean-atmosphere state variables and seasonally lagged inflows and rainfall. Techniques included principal components analysis and multiple linear regression, with cross-validation techniques applied to estimate model error. Many of both the continuous and discrete format models calibrated in this study predict anomalously wet and dry seasons better than random chance, and better than the long term mean as a predictor. 95% confidence limits around most model predictions in this study offer significant skill when compared with the range of all probable inflows (based on the 80 year recording history in the catchment). Models predicting winter Lake Pukaki inflows are those with the strongest predictive relationships in this study. Spring and summer predictions were generally less skilful than those for winter and autumn. Inflows could be predicted with some skill in winter and summer, but not rainfall, and rainfall could be predicted with some skill in autumn and spring, but not inflows. Models predicting inflows and rainfall for different seasons in this study use very different sets of predictor variables to accomplish their seasonal predictability. This may be related to the significant seasonal snow storage in the catchment, so that other factors such as temperature and the number of north-westerly storms may have a large part to play in the magnitude of inflows. Similarly, predicting the same dependent variable but for different seasons led to different contributing variables, leading to the conclusion that different wider physical causative mechanisms are behind the predictability in different seasons, and that they too should be studied separately in any future research. SST5 (sea surface temperature to the north of New Zealand) was found to have more relevance than any other predictor in predicting Waitaki river inflows and rainfall in any season. The models calibrated with SOI and IPO included as predictor variables were almost invariably worse in their predictive skill than those without, and the list of the most important predictor variables in all models did not include equatorial sea surface temperatures, sea level pressures, or 700hpa geopotential height variables. The conclusion from these findings is that equatorial ocean-atmosphere state variables do not have significant relationships with season ahead inflows and rainfall in the South Island of New Zealand. Seasonal climate forecasting on single catchment scale, and focussed to end user needs, is possible with some skill, at least in the South Island of New Zealand.

The initial reason I undertook this preliminary study was to inform myself and others about the views of women about the expectations of them as 'ideal workers' in paid employment. What resulted was a piece of research focused on women who recently graduated from the School of Education at the University of Waikato. This preliminary study challenged me in many ways. It challenged my existing knowledge, it challenged my beliefs and most of all it challenged me to think about the world of women through very many different sets of eyes. When I began this preliminary study there was very little previous research, which encouraged me greatly. I felt there was a large window of opportunity to present some initial findings about women and their role as 'ideal workers' in paid employment. The literature review investigated scholarly research and the TEC documents, resulting in the establishment of three macro-level elements that assist in creating the 'ideal worker'. Using feminist theory and three feminist critiques I constructed a reformulation of the 'ideal woman worker'. This preliminary study used a qualitative approach. A semi-structured interview technique was used to gather information from 5 participants. The women, aged 25 or over, had recently completed their Graduate Diploma in Teaching (Secondary). The selected findings revealed the experiences and views of the women participants which were presented as four main themes. These were the skill to manage demands between family and work, the capacity to care, the expertise to communicate, and the ability to be flexible. Three themes within the discussion were the gap between the TEC documents and women's views, the dominance of 'woman-ness', and the evidence of political ignorance. One of two main points of interest raised within the discussion was the tension between the New Right ideologies of previous governments, and the 'Third Way' ideologies of our current government. The evidence suggests that the tension between these ideologies is creating a gap between policy documents, in this case the TEC, and the understandings of the female respondents. The other main point of interest was the way women continue to adopt and appear to accept the traditional gender stereotypes. The women respondents iv involved in this preliminary study valued the capacity of women to care and nurture in both the private and public sphere. They also appeared to accept that these 'gender specific' attributes were not necessarily valued within the public sphere. In other words, these women accepted the inequalities that are still part of the world of 'paid' work. Recommendations were formulated for future theory, research and practice for those who are interested in pursuing aspects of this preliminary study. The recommendations may assist in moulding, refining and shaping the future of tertiary education, the role that women perform within the public and private sphere, and possibly the 'ideal woman worker' in New Zealand.

Three subspecies of house mice of different geographic origins have reached New Zealand; M. m. domesticus (10 haplotypes), M. m. musculus (1 haplotype) both from Europe, and M. m. castaneus (3 haplotypes) from Asia. Identifying the sources of the multiple historical introductions of the house mouse is a complex issue, particularly during the peak colonisation period of 1830-1880. The early European settlers came with many bags, crates, plants, seed and livestock, which provided ample travel opportunities for stowaway rats and mice. With the assistance of volunteers, I have collected mice from various locations throughout the New Zealand region, to confirm the previously recorded haplotypes and to look for evidence of hybridisation between the colonising subspecies. Morphological characteristics traditionally used for identification of subspecies were compared with genetic characters, to establish whether the use of morphology is still a viable method of identifying subspecific distinctions between mice in New Zealand. While no M. m. musculus haplotypes were found among these samples, some mice still had the coat colouration typical of M. m. musculus. Data from mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA (nDNA) markers revealed some surprising results. I have found six new M. m. domesticus haplotypes, and three new M. m. castaneus haplotypes. The data have also revealed extensive hybridisation, particularly between M. m. domesticus and M. m. castaneus. The finding of the new haplotypes supports the previous assumption that there were multiple introductions of mice into New Zealand, but the finding of M. m. castaneus in inland towns and cities does not support the associated assumption that European mice were initially the only mice present in New Zealand. Rather, the wide distribution of M. m. castaneus suggests that this subspecies probably arrived during the early nineteenth century. The house mouse has long been recognised as an ideal organism for hybridisation studies, and the finding of a hybrid zone within New Zealand would provide an excellent opportunity to extend our knowledge of hybridisation and gene transfer. Previous studies found M. m. domesticus in Napier, and a M. m. musculus/M. m. castaneus hybrids in Wellington. A systematic sampling programme was undertaken between Wellington and Napier following State Highway 2 (SH2), in an attempt to locate a hybrid zone. Analysis of mtDNA and nDNA showed that, M. m. castaneus was found as far North as Dannevirke, and M. m. domesticus as far South as Featherston. There was also extensive evidence of integration of M. m. domesticus nDNA markers into mice with M. m. castaneus mtDNA. There was no clear support for a hybrid zone, but this does not mean that one has not existed in the past and that it has since been overrun by movement of mice with humans and their goods. Identification of subspecies by morphological characteristics, while used with confidence in other countries, is of little use in New Zealand. Extensive hybridisation/and or introgression between the subspecies has long since blurred any morphological distinctions the colonising mice may have had. I propose that these physical characters should be used in support of genetic analysis of the subspecies. The official classification of the New Zealand house mouse currently stands as M. m. musculus, however, data collected does not support this and it is proposed that the official classification should be changed to M. m. domesticus.