Bdellovibrionaceae (BD) are unique, predatory, endoparasitic, Gram-negative bacteria. As the world's smallest living hunter they prey on other Gram-negative bacteria giving them potential as biological control agents. Prior to this study, however, there were no reports of BD in New Zealand. The overall aim of this research was to isolate BD from New Zealand sources, characterise them and investigate their potential role as a biological control agent. The history, characteristics, life cycle and mechanism of predation of this organism are reviewed and the possibility of the industrial applications of BD, are discussed. In this study, a halophilic species of BD was isolated from fourteen coastal sea water sites around New Zealand. Thirteen isolates were characterised using proven characterisation techniques including general, microscopic and molecular techniques. It was found that the isolates were taxonomically identical or very closely related to each other and belong to the genus Bacteriovorax. The predation pattern of BD isolates was examined against a group of Gram negative bacteria in solid and liquid media. The predation patterns and efficiencies of the different BD isolates were similar, which confirms that the BD isolates are closely related, are selective in their predation, and prey on some Gram-negative bacteria but not all. The rapid loss of culture viability of BD is well known, but no studies have been reported to date on the survival of pure cultures of BD at different temperatures. The survival rate of BD in dense suspensions at different temperatures without host bacteria was investigated and it was observed that pure BD cultures can be stored with minimal reduction in numbers at temperatures ranging from 4°C to 20°C. However, significant reductions in numbers were observed at -1 8"C, 30°C and 37°C after 13 to 16 days. The effects of the 13 New Zealand BD isolates on the growth of a population of Photobacterium phosphoreum were examined to select the best isolate for in vitro application. All of the isolates tested had considerable reduction effect against P. phosphoreum. Some isolates were more effective than others, despite their taxonomic similarity to each other. The isolate OT2 was selected for further studies based on these results. The in vitro efficacy of BD was assessed against late exponential cultures of a seafood spoilage bacterium, P. phosphoreum, originally isolated from Cod fillets from Denmark. Loglo reductions of P. phosphoreum and some other Gram-negative bacteria ranged from 4.5 to 4.8 after 9 h of incubation at 25OC. BD was effective in reducing the numbers of P. phosphoreum at pH 5.5 to 8.5 and salinity 0.9 to 4.5% (wlv). A significant interaction was observed between the prey and predator concentrations and nutrient concentration. Prey concentrations were observed to be the most vital factor in predation and the most favourable predation conditions were at a prey concentration of -8 loglo colony forming units (CFU)/mL, together with a predator concentration of 3 - 7 loglo plaque forming units (PFU)/mL and a prey : predator ratio of >5.0. The thresholds of the prey and predator concentrations for predation were observed to be 3.7 loglo CFUImL and 3.9 loglo PFUImL, respectively. The trials carried out in this study focused on the efficiency of BD on a pure culture of one organism, P. phosphoreum and not on mixed cultures of Gramnegative spoilage bacteria, the normal condition observed in saltwater fish. There has been very little research in this field and the results of these trials suggest further investigation into the effect of BD on mixed cultures of Gram-negative spoilage organisms is warranted. Since only one isolate of BD (OT2) was examined against only one spoilage bacterium (P. phosphoreum) in liquid medium, the evidence of these findings must be restricted to these particular conditions. Future studies, using a range of BD isolates against a mixture of spoilage and pathogenic organisms in solid medium are warranted. The biopreservation capability of BD in extending the shelf life of king salmon was evaluated. A significant effect was observed at 20°C but not at 10°C. At 20°C the shelf life was extended through extension of the lag phase of growth of the prey bacteria and a reduction in total numbers attained. Sensory evaluation of the salmon product being tested confirmed that the shelf life was extended. However, at 10°C there was no reduction in prey organisms, which suggested that the strain of BD used is ineffective at refrigeration temperatures.

The disparity in tuberculosis rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people persists in Canada and New Zealand. The most common form of tuberculosis in humans is pulmonary tuberculosis so eliminating tuberculosis transmission is an important obstacle to decreasing the overall rates of the disease. In both Canada and New Zealand, social determinants of health such as housing conditions, access to health care and historical influences (including similar experiences with colonization) have been implicated in the high rates of tuberculosis. This thesis examines and compares the social determinants of tuberculosis transmission among Aboriginal people in the Canadian province of Alberta and Maori and Pacific people in New Zealand. In Alberta, ten Aboriginal individuals with smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis participating in a larger prairie wide study were divided into two groups (transmitter and non-transmitter) based on transmission events identified through contact tracing and DNA fingerprinting. Interviews with the ten participants were analyzed and compared using an interpretive phenomenological perspective and informed by an Aboriginal framework of health. Survey data from the same individuals provided complementary descriptive statistics. In New Zealand, interviews with Maori and Pacific pulmonary TB participants that had been conducted as part of other studies were accessed and analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological perspective. Like in Canada, Indigenous frameworks of health specific to Maori and Pacific people informed the analysis. The Canadian analysis identified three factors of greater relevance within the transmission group: substance use, patient-delay-in-seeking-treatment, and number of contacts. These factors were also relevant for the Maori and Pacific experience of tuberculosis. The results of this cross-cultural comparative study highlight the complexity of the experience of tuberculosis for Indigenous people in both Canada and New Zealand. Future research and education and intervention programs must not only consider the proximal social determinants of health, such as poverty, unemployment, etc, but also the more distal social determinants of health and the causes of causes such as colonization and its multi-generational effects.

The disparity in tuberculosis rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people persists in Canada and New Zealand. The most common form of tuberculosis in humans is pulmonary tuberculosis so eliminating tuberculosis transmission is an important obstacle to decreasing the overall rates of the disease. In both Canada and New Zealand, social determinants of health such as housing conditions, access to health care and historical influences (including similar experiences with colonization) have been implicated in the high rates of tuberculosis. This thesis examines and compares the social determinants of tuberculosis transmission among Aboriginal people in the Canadian province of Alberta and Maori and Pacific people in New Zealand. In Alberta, ten Aboriginal individuals with smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis participating in a larger prairie wide study were divided into two groups (transmitter and non-transmitter) based on transmission events identified through contact tracing and DNA fingerprinting. Interviews with the ten participants were analyzed and compared using an interpretive phenomenological perspective and informed by an Aboriginal framework of health. Survey data from the same individuals provided complementary descriptive statistics. In New Zealand, interviews with Maori and Pacific pulmonary TB participants that had been conducted as part of other studies were accessed and analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological perspective. Like in Canada, Indigenous frameworks of health specific to Maori and Pacific people informed the analysis. The Canadian analysis identified three factors of greater relevance within the transmission group: substance use, patient-delay-in-seeking-treatment, and number of contacts. These factors were also relevant for the Maori and Pacific experience of tuberculosis. The results of this cross-cultural comparative study highlight the complexity of the experience of tuberculosis for Indigenous people in both Canada and New Zealand. Future research and education and intervention programs must not only consider the proximal social determinants of health, such as poverty, unemployment, etc, but also the more distal social determinants of health and the causes of causes such as colonization and its multi-generational effects.

With the development of globalization, countries with positive and good ¡§country images¡¨ take more advantages when competing for tourists, products and investments in the world. Country images are attitudes that people have towards country¡¦s people, organizations and institutions. Country images normally derive from history and environment events and will affect the evaluation of country¡¦s products. This research holds that ¡§Country branding¡¨ can build up positive country images, improve negative images and increase consumers¡¦ desire to cousume country¡¦s products. Three cases are discussed in this research: product images and destination images of Taiwan and destination images of New Zealand. Literature review and interviews are the main research methods. This research concludes that setting up a responsible organization, maintaining sufficient and stable fund and assigning a suitable leader are essential for the country branding strateies. Besides, when forming the country branding strategies, this research suggests that: 1) Differentiation is one of the most important concept. 2) Country branding should be based on country¡¦s reality and features. 3) Country branding should deliver ¡§integrated, consistent and sustainable¡¨ images to customers.

Dissertation (MBus) -- AUT University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (x,133 leaves ; 30 cm.) in City Campus Theses Collection (T 331.120993 PAN)

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-239). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Developed by O＇Beirne and Trounson (Trounson, 2012), the UC Auditory-Visual Matrix Sentence Test (UCAMST) is an auditory-visual speech test in NZ English where sentences are assembled from 50 words arranged into 5 columns (name, verb, quantity, adjective, object). Generation of sentence materials involved cutting and re-assembling 100 naturally spoken ‟original” sentences to create a large repertoire of 100,000 unique ‟synthesised” sentences. The process of synthesising sentences from video fragments resulted in occasional artifactual image jerks (‟judders”)‒quantified by an unusually large change in the ‟pixel difference value” of consecutive frames‒at the edited transitions between video fragments. To preserve the naturalness of materials, Study 1 aimed to select transitions with the least ‟noticeable” judders. Normal-hearing participants (n = 18) assigned a 10-point noticeability rating score to 100 sentences comprising unedited ‟no judder” sentences (n = 28), and ‟synthesised” sentences (n = 72) that varied in the severity (i.e. pixel difference value), number, and position of judders. The judders were found to be significantly noticeable compared to no judder controls, and based on mean rating score, 2,494 sentences with ‟minimal noticeable judder” were included in the auditory-visual UCAMST. Follow-on work should establish equivalent lists using these sentences. The average pixel difference value was found to be a significant predictor of rating score, therefore may be used as a guide in future development of auditory-visual speech tests assembled from video fragments. The aim of Study 2 was to normalise the auditory-alone UCAMST to make each audio fragment equally intelligible in noise. In Part I, individuals with normal hearing (n = 17) assessed 400 sentences containing each file fragment presented at four different SNRs (-18.5, -15, -11.5, and -8 dB) in both constant speech-shaped noise (n = 9) and six-talker babble (n = 8). An intelligibility function was fitted to word-specific data, and the midpoint (Lmid, intelligibility at 50%) of each function was adjusted to equal the mean pre-normalisation midpoint across fragments. In Part II, 30 lists of 20 sentences were generated with relatively homogeneous frequency of matrix word use. The predicted parameters in constant noise (Lmid = 14.0 dB SNR; slope = 13.9%/dB ± 0.0%/dB) are comparable with published equivalents. The babble noise condition was, conversely, less sensitive (Lmid = 14.9 dB SNR; slope = 10.3%/dB ± 0.1%/dB), possibly due to a smaller sample size (n = 8). Overall, this research constituted an important first step in establishing the UCAMST as a reliable measure of speech recognition; follow-on work will validate the normalisation procedure carried out in this project.

Analysis of scattered, or diffraction energy (the seismic response of small-scale objects) in the seismic data from Canterbury Basin, New Zealand reveals additional geological information about depositional patterns in sedimentary deposits. Diffrac- tion images from the seismic response for Canterbury Basin provide complementary interpretation tools to the conventional specular reflection images. To image diffrac- tions for a dataset from Canterbury Basin, I take the following steps: First, I attenuate multiples using a surface multiple prediction algorithm to predict multiples and apply regularized nonstationary regression to adaptively subtract the predicted multiples. Next, I separate diffractions using the plane-wave destruction method. The plane- wave destruction method removes conventional reflected energy in order to enhance the diffracted energy. I then apply a velocity continuation method on diffraction data to estimate migration velocities and then migrate the data using Kirchhoff migration in the dip-angle-gather domain. The resultant conventional and diffraction images are improved images suitable for geological interpretation of prograding sediment drifts. / text

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This thesis analyses the scholarship of Sandra Coney from the 1970s through to the present day. I argue that Coney’s scholarship has made an important contribution to understanding New Zealand society from a feminist perspective. Coney’s scholarship provides an important representation of feminism. Through her scholarship Coney has constantly questioned dominant ideals within New Zealand society. The recovery of New Zealand women’s history has also been a focus of Coney’s scholarship. This thesis examines New Zealand’s feminist magazine Broadsheet, to which Coney contributed numerous articles from the beginning of the second wave feminist movement. It also draws upon archival sources and Coney’s extensive published books. What influenced Coney’s work and the context of time periods is discussed and analysed. Key themes suggested by Coney’s scholarship are the importance of: women’s voices and experiences, women having authority over their own representation, a second wave feminist perspective of New Zealand society, and the importance of recovering the past and recording it for the future.