UC Research Repository
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The UC Research Repository collects, stores and makes available original research from postgraduate students, researchers and academics based at the University of Canterbury.
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Recent Submissions
The Perspectives of Māori and Pasifika Mate Kirikōpū (Endometriosis) Patients in Aotearoa New Zealand
(MDPI AG, online-publication-date) Ellis K; Tewhaiti-Smith J; Munro, Deborah; Wood, Rachael
Experiences with endometriosis have been understudied in indigenous and people of colour populations. This study aimed to investigate the experiences of Māori and Pasifika endometriosis patients in Aotearoa New Zealand. Twenty-seven Māori endometriosis participants from 21 iwi (tribes), and 10 Pasifika participants from 8 different island nations participated in online, asynchronous, anonymous text-based discussions about their endometriosis journeys. Their explanations were analysed qualitatively with an inductive thematic approach. The average delay from symptom onset to a confirmed or suspected endometriosis diagnosis was 11.6 ± 7.8 years in the Māori cohort and 12.4 ± 6.2 years in the Pasifika cohort. There were high levels of dissatisfaction with the availability of treatment, with 66.7% of Māori participants and 60.0% of Pasifika participants feeling that endometriosis treatment was not readily available to them. Poor experiences with the medical profession might dissuade Māori and Pasifika patients from seeking care, exacerbating a culture of distrust and perpetuating healthcare inequities. This could potentially be improved by increasing the capacity to take time for relationship building within general practice or through the incorporation of cultural advisors to support relationship establishment that emphasises holistic consideration of patient well-being and culturally safe care.
Listening to the Voices of Rangatahi: Sexual Health Promotion in the Digital Age.
(2023) CLELLAND, Tracy ; O'Reagan , Abagail; Gilson , Fabian; Clark , Adrian
Reinvestigating social vulnerability from the perspective of Critical Disaster Studies (CDS): directions, opportunities and challenges in Aotearoa disaster research
(Informa UK Limited, online-publication-date) Uekusa, Shinya; Wynyard , Matthew; Matthewman , Steve
This article argues that resilience has been overemphasised in
popular and scholarly discourse, while social vulnerability has
been comparatively overlooked. We therefore need to shift the
focus from resilience and adaptation towards vulnerability and
the various structures that engender and maintain systemic
inequality and disadvantage. This necessitates a shift from strict
hazard management and resilience building to considerations of
social justice. People should not have to be resilient to ongoing
marginalisation and stigmatisation, and, in focusing on individual
resilience, systemic disadvantage is obscured. Disaster scholars
here must also reckon with the structural violence of colonisation.
Aotearoa New Zealand has a unique hazard profile, and it has
unique social infrastructures that can help deal with them. The
best disaster mitigation and recovery programmes are inclusive
and equity driven. Greater attention to Indigenous Knowledge –
Mātauranga Māori – and Indigenous institutions, such as marae
and the myriad relationships and connections that such
institutions support, might potentially play a crucial role in future
disaster mitigation and response.
Mapping minor plantation species for New Zealand’s small-scale forests using Sentinel-2 satellite data
(2022) Xu, Cong; Manley, Bruce; Ye, Ning
Background: Relying solely on radiata pine (Pinus radiata D.Don) leaves New Zealand’s plantation forest industry vulnerable to fluctuations in market demand and at risk from a potentially devastating pest or disease outbreak. Therefore, the New Zealand government and forestry industry urge to diversify the forest resource and wood supply beyond the reliance on radiata pine. Unfortunately, the lack of accurate information on minor species’ area, composition, and location poses challenges to forecasting potential log supply and logistics planning. Methods: The objective of this study is to classify minor species in New Zealand using imagery and phenological features extracted from data collected by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite. The study collected reference data of minor species from large-scale forest owners and applied Random Forest classification using Sentinel-2 imagery to classify nine minor species classes in the Hawke’s Bay region of New Zealand. Results: The study achieved an overall classification accuracy of 92.2% for minor species in New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay region. Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) and Eucalyptus species had the highest accuracies, exceeding 90% for both producer’s and user’s accuracies. Acacia, larch, and other mixed species had lower accuracies, likely due to their lower occurrence. The most important input variable for classification was the Digital Elevation Model, indicating the significance of elevation in differentiating plantation species. The Greenness Index (GI) and Red edge bands also proved useful in the classification. The phenological measure Mean-EVI2 was found useful in classifying deciduous species such as larch and poplar. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to map the spatial extent and distribution of minor plantation species in New Zealand at the regional level, providing promising results for potentially expanding the study to national-level species mapping.
Temporal dynamics of geothermal microbial communities in Aotearoa-New Zealand
(Frontiers Media SA, 2023) Power , Jean F.; Lowe , Caitlin L.; Carere, Carlo; McDonald , Ian R.; Cary , S. Craig; Stott, Matthew
Microbial biogeography studies, in particular for geothermal-associated habitats, have focused on spatial patterns and/or individual sites, which have limited ability to describe the dynamics of ecosystem behaviour. Here, we report the first comprehensive temporal study of bacterial and archaeal communities from an extensive range of geothermal features in Aotearoa-New Zealand. One hundred and fifteen water column samples from 31 geothermal ecosystems were taken over a 34-month period to ascertain microbial community stability (control sites), community response to both natural and anthropogenic disturbances in the local environment (disturbed sites) and temporal variation in spring diversity across different pH values (pH 3, 5, 7, 9) all at a similar temperature of 60–70°C (pH sites). Identical methodologies were employed to measure microbial diversity via 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, along with 44 physicochemical parameters from each feature, to ensure confidence in comparing samples across timeframes. Our results indicated temperature and associated groundwater physicochemistry were the most likely parameters to vary stochastically in these geothermal features, with community abundances rather than composition more readily affected by a changing environment. However, variation in pH (pH ±1) had a more significant effect on community structure than temperature (±20°C), with alpha diversity failing to adequately measure temporal microbial disparity in geothermal features outside of circumneutral conditions. While a substantial physicochemical disturbance was required to shift community structures at the phylum level, geothermal ecosystems were resilient at this broad taxonomic rank and returned to a pre-disturbed state if environmental conditions re-established. These findings highlight the diverse controls between different microbial communities within the same habitat-type, expanding our understanding of temporal dynamics in extreme ecosystems.