Thesis - Doctoral
Recent Deposits
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Kisspeptin regulation of the oxytocin neuronal system in late pregnancy
Preterm birth, a consequence of early activation of the uterus, has a negative impact on the health of the offspring and the mother. The stimulus for uterine contractions is through the action of the posterior pituitary ... -
Exploring the role of psychological flexibility in the management of fatigue-related disability in rheumatic disease
Fatigue is one of the most debilitating symptoms of rheumatic disease. Despite advances in medical treatments, fatigue persists for many people with rheumatic disease and remains a major contributor to functional disability. ... -
Implications of human interaction for health of past populations in Asia
Drivers of human mobility such as migration, trade and conflict is today recognised to considerably influence the spread and prevalence of infectious diseases globally. Additionally, these factors are known to impact ... -
Mining reality to explore the 21st century student experience
Understanding student experience is a key aspect of higher education research. To date, the dominant methods for advancing this area have been the use of surveys and interviews, methods that typically rely on post-event ... -
Taro (Colocasia esculenta) water-soluble non-starch polysaccharide: Extraction, characteristics, properties, and biological activities
Underutilized crops such as taro are known to contain valuable bioactive components. The water-soluble non-starch polysaccharide (WS-NSP) component of taro corm (mucilage) has been reported to have promising uses in food ... -
Prolific structures in combinatorial classes
Under what circumstances might every extension of a combinatorial structure contain more copies of another one than the original did? This property, which we call prolificity, holds universally in some cases (e.g., finite ... -
Impact of pulsed electric fields treatment on oat flour properties
This thesis aimed to investigate the impact of Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) treatment on oat flour properties. Two types of oat flour, namely raw (ROF) and thermally processed (TPOF), were characterised and subjected to ... -
Cognitive impairment and conversion to dementia in Parkinson's disease: an imaging study of amyloid PET and diffusion MRI
Objective To investigate the association between amyloid deposition or white matter degeneration with cognitive impairment and conversion to dementia in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Background Cognitive decline and ... -
Sperm whales at Kaikoura and the effects of whale-watching on their surface and vocal behaviour
Whale-watching has become a globally successful branch of the tourism industry. While there is ample information on its economic importance, there is only scant data on the environmental, social and cultural impact. Kaikoura, ... -
Evaluation of intranasal particulate strategies to enhance the delivery of anti-seizure therapeutics to the brain
Epilepsy is a common and serious neurological disorder to which a high proportion of patients continue to be considered “drug-resistant” despite the availability of a host of anti-seizure drugs. Investigation into new ... -
Crohn's disease: an in vitro analysis of T lymphocyte function and response to commensal microbes
Inflammatory bowel disease is a chronic, relapsing inflammation of the intestine. Approximately 0.5% of the western world is estimated to suffer from the disease. Crohn’s disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease, ... -
MARS molecular imaging: Potential clinical utility of spectral photon-counting computed tomography integrated with nanoparticle technology
The aim of the research documented in this thesis was to investigate molecular imaging using a MARS spectral scanner. This scanner is a photon-counting computed tomography (CT) system that simultaneously measures 5-8 ... -
Peace Education in Afghanistan: A Comparative Study of Conflict and Post-Conflict School Textbooks
Afghanistan has experienced numerous educational curricula supporting its different governments’ policies regarding the establishment of formal education. Afghanistan’s school textbooks were published in support of alternate ... -
Bioplanning: Practices of governing and resistance. A Foucaultian analytic of planning and resistance to planning practices in the occupied Palestinian West Bank following the peace process
Over the last twenty-five years of the Oslo era, Israel continued its interventionist colonialism that led to nearly irreversible political, economic, and cultural transformations within Palestinian society in the West ... -
Characterising the internal structure of major fault zones, using samples from outcrops and boreholes from the Alpine Fault Zone, New Zealand
It is important to characterize the internal structure of major fault zones to understand their gross physical attributes, including their mechanical, seismic, and hydraulic properties. Using the Deep Fault Drilling Project ... -
Water footprint management - theory to reality. Water management and performance of New Zealand livestock agribusiness
The livestock industry in New Zealand has seen remarkable growth in recent times, in terms of farm outputs and an increase in the farming area. This has put increased pressure on water resources around the country. In this ... -
Prehistoric settlement and networks of interaction in the Western Solomon Islands: A survey of Manning Strait
This thesis is an investigation into the prehistory of the western Solomon Islands and an examination of archaeological sites located in and around a deep-sea passage between Choiseul and Santa Isabel known as Manning ... -
Managerial overconfidence and corporate investment decisions - Research based on Chinese listed companies
Managerial overconfidence refers to a manager’s strong belief in their management ability, their ability to choose better investment opportunities, and the richness of their perceived knowledge level. That is, overconfident ... -
(Re)Presenting 1981: Narrating the Springbok tour
The extent to which historians impose themselves on the past through their narratives remains contentious. While historians of sport have engaged these debates (e.g. Phillips, 2002; Nathan, 2003; Booth, 2005; Liberti and ... -
Predicting the past: Mathematical models and numerical methods in molecular phylogenetics
Molecular phylogenetics is the study of phylogenies and processes of evolution by the analyses of DNA or amino acid sequence data. In this thesis we describe a computationally efficient Bayesian methodology for ...