http://hdl.handle.net/2292/1 Sun, 21 Jan 2018 13:27:04 GMT 2018-01-21T13:27:04Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36648 When I am no longer alive: Parents’ views on the future of their disabled adult children with high and complex needs Thakkar, Hemant Sooner or later, a question that starts concerning most parents of children with high and complex needs is: What will happen to my child when I am no longer alive? The answer to this question depends upon the parents’ perception of how well their children will be supported in the future when they are no longer there to care for, or advocate for, them. The level of formal (publicly funded) support and informal support (provided voluntarily by family, friends and others) that the parents have access to, or can rely upon, plays a vital part in shaping this perception. In this qualitative study, 14 New Zealand parents and 18 Indian parents were interviewed with a view to understanding their wishes and worries concerning the longterm care and wellbeing of their adult children with high and complex needs; and ascertaining their views on the support mechanisms (both formal and informal) that they consider and value as being useful for their children’s future. Thirteen key informants from both countries were also interviewed with a view to getting an additional perspective on the issues raised by the parents. The data were analysed using a thematic analysis approach guided by a rights-based conceptual framework. The findings revealed that, due to the failure on the part of the policy makers to understand and appreciate the unique support needs of adults with high and complex needs, the formal support system of both countries are falling short in upholding these adults’ rights to adequate support in living and participating in the community on an equal basis with others. It was also found that this group of people are often deprived of opportunities to exercise choice and control over their lives due to the inability of people from both formal and informal networks to understand their children’s non-verbal communication used to express needs and preferences. This study has highlighted that, to adequately support adults with high and complex needs beyond their parents’ lifetimes, it becomes vital that they are provided funding and services commensurate to their needs; that they receive well-coordinated support from both formal and informal systems; and that their parents’ expertise and knowledge are utilised through a meaningful partnership with the state in designing and implementing future-oriented policies and services. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36648 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36533 Korea’s Growing Role(s) on the World Stage – South Korean Identity and Global Foreign Policy in the Early 21st Century Flamm, Patrick South Korea is usually seen as a ‘shrimp amongst whales’, a minor player with limited agency in regional and global affairs. After colonization, the Korean War, national division and decades of military rule in the 20th century, however, South Korea today contributes to international peace and security with its peacekeeping troops and has successfully promoted its ‘green growth’ vision of sustainable development. The rising status of Korea begs the question about related changes in the South Korean identity or ‘sense of self’ in the world. In the respective International Relations and Korean Studies literatures this question has not yet been fully addressed beyond hopes for South Korea to be a future cornerstone of the liberal international order. Further, a wide variety of ‘identity’ conceptualizations has been leading to ‘definitional anarchy’ as well as ‘confusion and analytical ambiguity’ in the study of identity in general and South Korean international identity in particular. This thesis presents a theoretically rigorous and empirically rich approach for the inquiry into state identity through the utilization of conceptual tools from symbolic-interactionist role theory as a contribution to the research on state identity and foreign policy. By focusing on South Korean agency and domestic self-identification practices, the empirical analysis at hand is able to provide a comprehensive account of the various identity narratives and role conceptions at play in South Korea’s global engagement in peacekeeping and climate diplomacy, complementing more systemic identity approaches such as the literature on norms and socialization. It argues that in the cases of peacekeeping and climate diplomacy South Korea’s identity as an international actor has been dominated by practices of self-identification that locate the country at the brink of advanced countries, aspiring to lead the rest of the world on the basis of the Korean developmental experience, but with the overall objective to maintain national autonomy in a changing regional and global context. Finally, this study is a contribution to the Korean Studies literature on how South Korea confronts globalization on the level of identity and politics. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36533 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36239 Global Climate Change: Transfer of Technology, Financial Assistance and Sustainable Economic Development of Developing Countries under the International Legal Framework Amadi, John This thesis seeks to answer the research question: Has the international legal regime governing climate change been effective in transferring technology and providing financial assistance to developing countries? The main reference point or criterion for answering the research question as to “effectiveness” will be based on the deduction that the obligation placed on developed countries to transfer technology and render financial assistance to developing countries is fundamentally at the root of attaining the greenhouse gas stabilisation objective set by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, among other objectives; and by extension the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. The scope of issues to be covered in the discourse to be undertaken in this thesis will be guided by the basic consideration that from the ultimate stabilisation objective of the UNFCCC flows other specific and general obligations and commitments of parties relating to mitigation, adaptation, technology, finance, capacity-building, transparency, etc. Thus, any employment of the term “stabilisation objective” ought to be interpreted as liberally as possible in the context of this thesis. This thesis will adopt the critical legal theory to argue that the treaty obligations placed on developed countries to transfer technology and render financial support to developing countries are supposed to be the main drivers of emission reduction and sustainable development in developing countries, if implemented. With cumulative greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries now projected to surpass that of developed countries in a couple of decades, current effort to support mitigation and sustainable development in developing countries becomes all more important thereby justifying an assessment of how the climate regime has fared so far in technologically and financially supporting the objectives of the UNFCCC, with specific reference to developing countries. This thesis will be divided into five chapters. Chapter one will further elaborate the research question and point out necessary limitations, define “developed” and “developing” countries for the purposes of this thesis, and set out the methodology and structure of the thesis. Chapter two will evaluate the international legal regime governing climate change with a view to finding out to what extent the regime has been effective in advancing the attainment of the stabilisation objective of the UNFCCC. Chapter three will undertake a detailed exploration of how the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDRRC) has evolved in governing the relationships between developing and developed countries from the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement, especially with respect to the main greenhouse gas reduction obligations of the parties, obligations pertaining to implementation, and obligations relating to technology transfer and financial assistance. Chapter four will undertake a critical assessment of the core provisions relating to transfer of technology, financial assistance, and sustainable development of developing countries, with a view to establishing their effectiveness or otherwise, using the stabilisation objective of the UNFCCC as the main criterion. The scope of the chapter will traverse the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, and relevant Conference of the Parties (COP) decisions, and so on. The final chapter will sum up the key findings in the previous chapters, recommend how to strengthen the Paris Agreement, and propose and expound a tripartite framework that may hold the key to future effective governance, assuming the Paris Agreement does not lead to the desired transformation. Although this thesis will be predominantly argued from the standpoint of developing countries, necessary balance will be maintained throughout the discourse taking into account developments since the negotiation of the UNFCCC in 1992. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36239 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36070 A Hybrid Clustering-Association Rule Mining Framework for Medical Knowledge Discovery Song, Shen To improve health management on the heart disease related hospital readmission, this thesis proposes a machine learning based framework for modeling the patients who are at-risk for preventable hospital readmission. Differing from the traditional statistical methods, this proposed framework integrates Association Rule Mining (ARM) and Clustering techniques to build at-risk identification models for the pursuit of new insights into the at-risk populations. The new insights allow general practitioners to view their patients in groups characterized by the predicted risk factors. We aim to provide the new insights to complement conventional regression models which are limited in scope to the significance and the weight of specific expected predictors. The proposed framework is called a ‘Hybrid Clustering-ARM framework’ (HCA framework). To experimentally assess the feasibility of the HCA framework, we were approved to access two data sources: Framingham Heart Study, which is a well-known historical dataset for heart events; and the New Zealand VIEW (Vascular Informatics Using Epidemiology and the Web) dataset, which is relatively new. We applied the HCA framework on both data sources with a series of sensitivity analyses. To some extent, the HCA framework is able to produce a model to identify the risk factors as good as the traditional regression based models. Besides the traditional perspective of detecting risk factors in the medical prediction models, the identification model, derived by the HCA framework, provides an insight on the ‘at-risk’ patients in clusters as well as ‘low-risk’ patients. Together, these detected ‘at-risk’ patients are allowed to map into multiple clusters, which makes the understanding on the ‘at-risk’ patients close to the natural distribution of the sampled patients. Theoretically, all sampled patients are at some risk of having the CVD conditions of interest. However, some of the sampled patients are more likely to develop the disease than others. By segmenting the sampled patients in the style with multiple ‘at-risk’ clusters and one ‘low-risk’ group, it helps the general practitioners (or others with an interest, e.g. public health physicians, cardiologists or health policy and resource planners) to categorize their patients for better health management. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36070 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36039 Microbiology of marine sponges: from community structure to symbiont function Astudillo Garcia, Maria del Carmen Marine sponges are filter-feeding metazoans that can host complex microbial communities which comprise as much as 35% of total sponge biomass. In this thesis I have employed high-throughput, next-generation sequencing technologies to study the sponge microbiota at two different scales. Firstly, I studied complex communities associated with different sponge assemblages, then subsequently conducted an in-depth investigation of an enigmatic sponge symbiont which has largely escaped attention until now. Analysis of the marine sponge microbiota poses unique conceptual and analytical challenges, as microbial species may number in the thousands. One way to overcome this issue is to consider only the persistent and/or abundant species, i.e. the „core‟ community. While this approach has been widely used to analyse diverse biological systems, including sponge microbiota, to date its robustness has not been rigorously evaluated. Thus, in this thesis I systematically evaluated the applicability of the core microbiota approach for the complex microbial communities of three Xestospongia species from southeast Sulawesi (Indonesia), using 16S rRNA gene-based amplicon sequencing (Illumina MiSeq). Different factors for OTU selection were then considered to generate a set of different core communities, including percentage occurrence, minimum abundance threshold and sample set selection. Alpha- and beta- diversity analyses conducted on the core communities were largely insensitive to major changes in core microbiota definition, thus revealing the robustness of this approach when considering closely related sponge species. Furthermore, none of the applied core definitions altered ecological network structure summarising interactions among bacteria within the sponges. Sponge reefs often comprise an array of different and sometimes phylogenetically distant sponge species, with most of them hosting distinct microbial communities. Thus, to further assess the strength and sensitivity of the core microbiota approach in complex sponge assemblages, I analysed the associated bacterial communities of 20 co-occurring sponge species from the south coast of Wellington (New Zealand), using the same 16S rRNA genebased amplicon sequencing approach described above. The application of different core definitions resulted in a marked (and uneven at sponge species level) decrease in bacterial OTU and phylum richness. As a consequence of this decrease in richness, alpha- and betadiversity patterns changed significantly. Therefore, although the application of a core microbiota approach may seem appropriate in closely related systems (e.g. congeneric sponges), I showed that this approach can have a profound influence on the results obtained when studying complex host species assemblages. While sponge microbiota surveys have tended to focus on the study of a few dominant symbionts, other, less prominent members of these diverse communities remain poorly understood. To shed light on one abundant but under-studied community member, I investigated the distribution and phylogenetic status of the sponge symbiont SAUL (spongeassociated unclassified lineage). A meta-analysis of the available literature revealed the ubiquitous distribution of this clade and its association with taxonomically different sponge species. Additionally, the phylogeny of SAUL was revisited using both a 16S rRNA genebased phylogeny and a concatenated set of single-copy marker genes. Phylogenetic analyses revealed the monophyletic nature of this clade and, consequently, I suggest its status as a novel putative candidate phylum. To provide the first information on the putative function of SAUL clade members, I conducted a comprehensive analysis of two draft genomes assembled from sponge metagenome data, revealing novel insights into the physiology of this ubiquitous symbiont. This included the identification of genes encoding several symbiosis factors such as eukaryotic-like repeats (involved in symbiont recognition) and the presence of a CRISPR-Cas defense system, as well as the genomic capability of secondary metabolite production. This thesis represents the first systematic evaluation of the widely applied core microbiota approach, and highlights the importance of testing data sensitivity before its implementation. Moreover, the phylogenetic and genomic analyses of the SAUL lineage conducted here have contributed to expand the knowledge of less prominent and poorly understood spongeassociated microorganisms. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36039 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36013 Children with Disabilities and Disaster Risk Reduction in New Zealand Ronoh, Steve The global rise in the number of disasters is largely due to the interplay between environmental and human factors. Children and especially children with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by disasters, with an estimated seven million children affected worldwide annually. Children with disabilities can have increased vulnerabilities because of mobility difficulties, pre-existing medical conditions, existing socio-economic barriers and policies that fail to recognise the diverse needs of this group. Indeed, researchers and practitioners have historically overlooked the experiences and needs of children, particularly so for those with disabilities, who are disproportionately affected by natural hazards and disasters. Their capacities, needs, and, importantly, potential roles in disaster risk reduction (DRR) have received little consideration from researchers and policy makers. This thesis draws on the findings of a multi-case study of three New Zealand schools working with children having diverse disabilities. The schools are in the regions of Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay and Auckland. It aims to generate new information to help inform DRR and give direction, and provide a holistic framework towards the development of an inclusive approach to DRR. This orientation aims to specifically integrate the experiences, perspectives and needs of children with disabilities. Although grounded in disaster studies, this thesis frequently draws upon the wider scholarship related to children, participatory approaches and disability. The central goal of the study is to assess and interpret the experiences of children with disabilities in dealing with natural hazards, and to identify their actual and potential contribution to DRR. It presents the use of flexible participatory tools which support a sustained continuum of engagement among children with diverse disabilities, skills, and experiences. Crucially, this work offers a bridge and conceptual framework that recognises communication as a two-way process between adults and children by requiring adults to learn how children express their views, thus according participants a voice in DRR research. The case studies reveal considerable variation on how children with disabilities access available resources, and how they perceive, face and cope with natural hazards. The research also identifies constraints and complexities towards achieving disability-inclusive DRR and shows that ideas about DRR are shaped and influenced by socio-economic structures. Based on the participants’ existing variation of potential vulnerabilities and capacities (individual and group) and their potential contribution in DRR, the thesis offers suggestions for policy and practice of a more inclusive approach to DRR. It emphasises the need to direct resources and programmes that facilitate and strengthen effective communication between adults and children to encourage sustained participation along children’s spectrum of abilities. Finally, the thesis recommends a framework incorporating a shift in attitude to children with disabilities as integral and active participants in DRR. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/36013 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/35835 A Study of Chinese University English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) Teachers' Beliefs, Practices and Identities Chen, Shan The 21st century has seen the Chinese government initiating multiple nationwide reforms to improve the efficiency of its English education at all educational levels, which promotes a shift from teaching discrete linguistic knowledge to emphasizing the development of students’ communicative competence. Against this backdrop, teachers and their cognitions have been placed at the center of attention because they are the key decision makers in the classrooms, and their beliefs about how English should be learned and taught as a foreign language are one of the most influential constructs in shaping teaching behaviors and practices. With a holistic interest in understanding English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching within the Chinese tertiary context, focusing on the mental lives of Chinese tertiary English teachers of non-English majors, or College English (CE) teachers, this study set out to investigate the intersection between CE teachers’ beliefs, practices and identities, which has not been addressed adequately in the existing literature. Adopting a mixed-methods research design, this study involved collecting both questionnaire data to identify dimensions of Chinese tertiary EFL teachers’ collective cognitions and practices, and interview and observation data to elucidate the complex interrelationships between them. Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) results of the questionnaire data suggested that the collective beliefs of this cohort of teachers are a hybridity of a communicative orientation and sporadic traditional conceptions on the pedagogical level. Correspondingly, their practices demonstrated a mixture of both student-centered activities fostering communicative abilities and language-based didactic teaching activities. In terms of identities, teachers were found to identify strongly with the roles as the motivator/advocate for English learning, the facilitator for English learning, and the reflective practitioner and researcher, but generally resisted being recognized as textbook-centered scripted teachers. The in-depth multiple case study, drawing on narrative interviews and classroom observations, further probed into individual teachers’ beliefs systems, practices and identity formations. In spite of the intention to engage in communicative language teaching, the plural contextual discourses of social heteroglossia embedded in CE teachers’ working environments made teachers swing between the orientations of traditional approaches and communicative language teaching. Within this conflictive context, teachers drew on multiple I-positions which involved a dynamic range of positioning and repositioning activities as a strategy to cope with the dilemmas. Conceptualizing the CE teacher’s mind as a polyphony containing multiple discourses and voices, three patterns of identity formation were identified: (a) the active identity resolver referred to the teachers who did not allow themselves to be crippled by the unfavorable contextual discourses but chose to confront challenges by exercising agency to resolve the conflicts and tensions; (b) the passive identity resolver referred to those who were sensitive to disrupting discourses and developed emotional blocks giving rise to adoption of a passive, safe strategy by returning to the traditional teaching approach; (c) the identity seeker referred to the CE teachers who were aware of the competing discourses and were striving to define their own positions to create meaningful learning conditions for students in tertiary settings. The stories and experiences of the participants indicated the complex, dynamic, dialogic interplay between beliefs and practices, and crafting a teacher self or an identity mediating both cognitions and behaviors as sense-making mechanisms. The study has contributed to our current understanding of CE teacher’s cognitions about English language teaching and learning after ten years of a nation-wide College English reform, which is expected to inform the ongoing CE teaching and teacher development programs. It is argued that top-down reforms which neglect teachers’ subjectivities, internally persuasive discourses, and identification with the promoted teaching methodology can be hardly effective. Supporting teachers in situated identity construction and investing in the identity capital is essential for future reform initiatives. Implications of the study and recommendations for further research are also offered. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/35835 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/35780 Education for Food Literacy Slatter, Norma Thesis embargoed until 18/9/2018. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/35780 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/35779 In silico approaches in Drug Discovery and Development of Anticancer Drug Candidates Eurtivong, Chatchakorn Thesis embargoed until 3/10/2019. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/35779 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2292/35725 Performance analysis of adaptive chaos-based DS-CDMA system with imperfect channel estimation Patel, Meher This thesis presents the analysis of chaos-based direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems under imperfect channel estimation environments. Chaos-based CDMA systems are studied extensively in the last few decades, but their performances under imperfect channel estimation conditions are never studied. The main motivation of the thesis is to fill this research gap under various possible conditions. The thesis focuses on three main objectives. The first objective is to determine the effect of spreading sequences in channel estimation processes. Here performances of channel estimators in the presence and absence of chaotic spreading sequences are investigated. The second objective is to study the performances of imperfect channel estimations in chaos based CDMA systems under various fading conditions. This part mainly focuses on the various factors which deteriorate the performance of the systems. The third objective focuses on the various techniques which can improve the performances of the systems. In this part various available techniques for CDMA systems are studied under imperfect channel estimation environments. It is concluded that performances of all the available chaos based CDMA systems significantly depend on performances of channel estimators. Analytical simulation results in the thesis show that performance degradation in available systems due to various fading channels can be significantly improved by using channel estimators. Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2292/35725 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z