Browsing Division of Sciences Departments by Date Published
Now showing items 1-20 of 2145
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Developing a first principles approach to educating water skills for life to children
In New Zealand, despite the fact that the majority of drownings occur in open water, most swimming teaching occurs in public swimming pools. It is possible that learning to swim in a public swimming pool does not sufficiently ... -
Polymer Monolayers for Chromium(III) (Hydr)oxide, with Antifouling Applications for Stainless Steel Surfaces
The intended purpose of this work is to form a more complete understanding of how to maintain pristine, foulant-resistant stainless steel surfaces in aqueous proteinaceous or microbial environments such as those found on ... -
Relativistic Electron Microbursts: Properties and Possible Plasma Wave Drivers
Relativistic (>1 MeV) electron microbursts (<1 s duration) are particle precipitation events, thought to be significant contributors to radiation belt losses. Although these events are known to be intense, the exact ... -
Surtseyan volcanism: case studies from Pahvant Butte and Black Point, Western USA
Shallow to emergent basaltic subaqueous explosive eruptions, here referred as Surtseyan, are a source of pyroclastic material expelled from subaqueous vents and transferred to the water column and atmosphere. They can ... -
Investigating the Interaction between Motivation and Cognition in the Maternal Immune Activation Model of Schizophrenia Risk
Finding an animal model of schizophrenia that displays both reliability and validity is a difficult task. The Maternal Immune Activation (MIA) model is an animal model that mimics an epidemiological risk factor of ... -
Aspects of Self in Schizotypy: Basic and Narrative Sense of Self among Individuals at Psychometric Risk for Schizophrenia
The contemporary approach to detecting and studying schizophrenia, known as operational psychiatry, reduces the disease to a list of perceived and inferred signs and symptoms. Advocates of the phenomenological approach to ... -
Rich Reading and Reminiscing: Benefits of Parent-Preschooler Interactions for Children’s Developing Language, Behavioural Regulation, and Socio-Emotional Competencies
Given the importance of the preschool years in the development of children’s language, behavioural regulation and socio-emotional competencies, the purpose of this thesis was to empirically examine relations between ... -
The long and the short of it? An explanation of the spacing effect over long time scales
The spacing effect is the observation that repetitions spaced out in time produce better learning and retention than repetitions massed closer together in time. There has been a long history of research on the spacing ... -
Travelling towards 2050: Climate change, storytelling and the future of travel
Climate change is a serious threat that is expected to have grave consequences for humans and ecosystems. Current travel (both daily commuting and holiday tourism) is a significant contributor to climate change. Therefore, ... -
A Mechanism for Attending to 'Unusual' Object Properties, and its Role in a Model of Object Categorization
Categorization is one of the most fundamental aspects of human cognition. From soon after birth, humans form categories based on most of our sensory inputs. Stevan Harnad (2005) famously said, “To cognize is to categorize: ... -
An investigation into the meat processing waste biorefinery: design, integration and optimisation
In recognition of the possibility of utilising biomass waste streams as sustainable carbon resources and thus reduce society’s dependence on non-renewable carbon sources, the application of the biorefinery concept has been ... -
Numerical scalar curvature deformation and a gluing construction
In this work a new numerical technique to prepare Cauchy data for the initial value problem (IVP) formulation of Einstein's field equations (EFE) is presented. Our method is directly inspired by the exterior asymptotic ... -
Redox Polymers for Bulk Gel Actuators
The objective of this study is to make an electroactive, relatively fast (moderate speed), durable, and self-contained polymer gel actuator at the centimetre scale using redox polymers. There are many prototype electric ... -
The Stress and Strain of Triathlon Racing in Different Thermal Environments
Athletic endurance competitions in hot environments have become more relevant in professional sports. The inception for this thesis was to understand why a group of elite endurance triathletes repeatedly failed to perform ... -
The structure, petrology and mechanics of a plate-boundary-scale serpentinite shear zone: The Livingstone fault, New Zealand
Serpentinite-bearing shear zones are important in a range of tectonic settings, including the slab-mantle interface, oceanic detachment faults, and large-displacement transform faults in the oceanic and continental ... -
How do homeopathy users perceive homeopathy?
Life expectancy has steadily increased over the last two centuries due to improvements in living standards, education, science and medicine. However, instead of basing health decisions on the best scientific evidence ... -
Development of a Nutrition Toolkit for New Zealand Patients with Neuroendocrine Tumours
Background: Neuroendocrine Tumours (NETs) is an umbrella term used to describe a complex group of heterogeneous tumours. These tumours can take on the ability to secrete hormones, peptides and amines which can cause an ... -
"Thrown to the Wolves": Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Youth's Perceptions of their Mental Health Experiences and Support
Youth with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) identities are over-represented in negative mental health statistics. Current literature indicates support for mental health difficulties is difficult for ... -
Exact nonlinear dynamics of Spinor BECs applied to nematic quenches
In this thesis we study the nonlinear dynamics of spin-1 and spin-2 Bose-Einstein condensates, with particular application to antiferromagnetic systems exhibiting nematic (beyond magnetic) order. Firstly, we give a derivation ... -
Focus on the task at hand: Contextual bias in the forensic examination of handwriting.
Forensic science evidence is a crucial part of the criminal justice system, and forensic examiners have long been held in high regard due to their ability to link suspects to crimes in an objective and scientifically ...