Rapua te mea ngaro : exploring the access of Māori to veterinary education in Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Listed in 2021 Dean's List of Exceptional ThesesCurrently there is no research literature regarding the ethnicity of veterinary applicants, veterinary students, or the veterinary workforce in New Zealand. Recent unpublished data indicates only 2% of veterinarians identify as Māori, despite Māori comprising 16.5% of the New Zealand population. This PhD is the first step in addressing this gap and bringing to light the important issues of Māori representation and inclusion in veterinary education and subsequently the veterinary profession in New Zealand. The thesis has two overarching goals. The first is to explore how the access of Māori to veterinary education, and therefore the veterinary workforce, is influenced by sociodemographic factors under three separate admission processes. The second is to explore the impact of sociodemographic factors and academic achievement prior to admission on the academic success of Māori once selected into the program. The studies in this thesis were conducted with Kaupapa Māori research positioning. The thesis presents a quantitative analysis of veterinary applicant and selected student data from 2003 to 2019. Descriptive statistics and linear and logistic regression are utilised to explore the representation of Māori in the veterinary applicant and selected student cohorts, the association of sociodemographic variables and selection assessments, and academic outcomes of Māori and non-Māori once selected. From this thesis it has been shown that Māori were underrepresented in the veterinary applicant pool and experienced more educational barriers than non-Māori. Māori are also underrepresented in the selected student cohort, and had 0.37 times the odds of selection than non-Māori prior to introduction of an equity process for Māori student selection. Scores on five of the six selection assessments were associated with ethnicity, with Māori receiving lower scores. However, once selected into the veterinary programme, there was no difference in the academic outcomes of Māori and non-Māori. Introduction of the equity process for Māori was not associated with a decrease in academic outcomes post-selection, and introduction of non-academic criteria into the selection process was associated with an improvement in academic outcomes. The veterinary profession is not representative of New Zealand. Māori underrepresentation is also seen in the veterinary applicant and selected student cohorts. This needs to be addressed for reasons of Indigenous rights, social justice, social mobility, and to ensure the veterinary profession benefits from Māori worldviews and therefore is relevant to a growing Māori population. Enacting initiatives aimed to widen access to the veterinary programme, with the eventual goal of improving representation of Māori in the veterinary workforce, needs to be a priority for Massey University, the sole provider of veterinary education in Aotearoa, and the wider profession

An Intelligent audio workstation in the browser

Music production is a complex process requiring skill and time to undertake. The industry has undergone a digital revolution, but unlike other industries the process has not changed. However, intelligent systems, using the semantic web and signal processing, can reduce this complexity by making certain decisions for the user with minimal interaction, saving both time and investment on the engineers’ part. This paper will outline an intelligent Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) designed for use in the browser. It outlines the architecture of the DAW with its audio engine (built on the Web Audio API), using AngularJS for the user interface and a relational database

Search for the Invisible Decay of Neutrons with KamLAND

The Kamioka Liquid scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector is used in a search for single neutron or two-neutron intranuclear disappearance that would produce holes in the s-shell energy level of ^(12)C nuclei. Such holes could be created as a result of nucleon decay into invisible modes (inv), e.g., n→3ν or nn→2ν. The deexcitation of the corresponding daughter nucleus results in a sequence of space and time-correlated events observable in the liquid scintillator detector. We report on new limits for one- and two-neutron disappearance: τ(n→inv) > 5.8 × 10^(29) years and τ(nn→inv) > 1.4 × 10^(30) years at 90% C.L. These results represent an improvement of factors of ~3 and > 10^4 over previous experiments

Production of radioactive isotopes through cosmic muon spallation in KamLAND

Radioactive isotopes produced through cosmic muon spallation are a background for rare-event detection in ν detectors, double-β-decay experiments, and dark-matter searches. Understanding the nature of cosmogenic backgrounds is particularly important for future experiments aiming to determine the pep and CNO solar neutrino fluxes, for which the background is dominated by the spallation production of ^(11)C. Data from the Kamioka liquid-scintillator antineutrino detector (KamLAND) provides valuable information for better understanding these backgrounds, especially in liquid scintillators, and for checking estimates from current simulations based upon MUSIC, FLUKA, and GEANT4. Using the time correlation between detected muons and neutron captures, the neutron production yield in the KamLAND liquid scintillator is measured to be Y_n=(2.8±0.3)×10^(-4) μ^(-1) g^(-1) cm^2. For other isotopes, the production yield is determined from the observed time correlation related to known isotope lifetimes. We find some yields are inconsistent with extrapolations based on an accelerator muon beam experiment

Automating the Production of the Balance Mix in Music Production

Historically, the junior engineer is an individual who would assist the sound engineer to produce a mix by performing a number of mixing and pre-processing tasks ahead of the main session. With improvements in technology, these tasks can be done more efficiently, so many aspects of this role are now assigned to the lead engineer. Similarly, these technological advances mean amateur producers now have access to similar mixing tools at home, without the need for any studio time or record label investments. As the junior engineer’s role is now embedded into the process it creates a steeper learning curve for these amateur engineers, and adding time onto the mixing process. In order to build tools to help users overcome the hurdles associated with this increased workload, we first aim to quantify the role of a modern studio engineer. To do this, a production environment was built to collect session data, allowing subjects to construct a balance mix, which is the starting point of the mixing life-cycle. This balance-mix is generally designed to ensure that all the recordings in a mix are audible, as well as to build routing structures and apply pre-processing. Improvements in web technologies allow for this data-collection system to run in a browser, making remote data acquisition feasible in a short space of time. The data collected in this study was then used to develop a set of assistive tools, designed to be non-intrusive and to provide guidance, allowing the engineer to understand the process. From the data, grouping of the audio tracks proved to be one of the most important, yet overlooked tasks in the production life-cycle. This step is often misunderstood by novice engineers, and can enhance the quality of the final product. The first assistive tool we present in this thesis takes multi-track audio sessions and uses semantic information to group and label them. The system can work with any collection of audio tracks, and can be embedded into a poroduction environment. It was also apparent from the data that the minimisation of masking is a primary task of the mixing stage. We therefore present a tool which can automatically balance a mix by minimising the masking between separate audio tracks. Using evolutionary computing as a solver, the mix space can be searched effectively without the requirement for complex models to be trained on production data. The evaluation of these systems show they are capable of producing a session structure similar to that of a real engineer. This provides a balance mix which is routed and pre-processed, before creative mixing can take place. This provides an engineer with several steps completed for them, similar to the work of a junior engineer

Geodetic, teleseismic, and strong motion constraints on slip from recent southern Peru subduction zone earthquakes

We use seismic and geodetic data both jointly and separately to constrain coseismic slip from the 12 November 1996 M_w 7.7 and 23 June 2001 M_w 8.5 southern Peru subduction zone earthquakes, as well as two large aftershocks following the 2001 earthquake on 26 June and 7 July 2001. We use all available data in our inversions: GPS, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) from the ERS-1, ERS-2, JERS, and RADARSAT-1 satellites, and seismic data from teleseismic and strong motion stations. Our two-dimensional slip models derived from only teleseismic body waves from South American subduction zone earthquakes with M_w > 7.5 do not reliably predict available geodetic data. In particular, we find significant differences in the distribution of slip for the 2001 earthquake from models that use only seismic (teleseismic and two strong motion stations) or geodetic (InSAR and GPS) data. The differences might be related to postseismic deformation or, more likely, the different sensitivities of the teleseismic and geodetic data to coseismic rupture properties. The earthquakes studied here follow the pattern of earthquake directivity along the coast of western South America, north of 5°S, earthquakes rupture to the north; south of about 12°S, directivity is southerly; and in between, earthquakes are bilateral. The predicted deformation at the Arequipa GPS station from the seismic-only slip model for the 7 July 2001 aftershock is not consistent with significant preseismic motion

Intelligent audio plugin framework for the Web Audio API

The Web Audio API introduced native audio processing into web browsers. Audio plugin standards have been created for developers to create audio-rich processors and deploy them into media rich websites. It is critical these standards support flexible designs with clear host-plugin interaction to ease integration and avoid non-standard plugins. Intelligent features should be embedded into standards to help develop next-generation interfaces and designs. This paper presents a discussion on audio plugins in the web audio API, how they should behave and leverage web technologies with an overview of current standards

Does blood contamination of urine compromise interpretation of the urine protein to creatinine ratio in dogs?

Aims: To determine the effect of contamination of urine with 0–5% blood, varying in haematocrit and protein concentrations, on the urine protein to creatinine ratio (UPC) in dogs, and to determine whether the colour of urine can be used to aid interpretation of UPC results. Methods: Urine samples were collected by free catch from 18 dogs, all of which had UPC <0.2. Venous blood samples were also collected from each dog, and the blood from each dog was added to its own urine to produce serial concentrations of 0.125–5% blood. The colour of each urine sample was recorded by two observers scoring them as either yellow, peach, orange, orange/red or red. Protein and creatinine concentrations were determined, and dipstick analysis and sediment examination was carried out on each sample. Based on colour and dipstick analysis, samples were categorised as either having microscopic, macroscopic or gross haematuria. A linear mixed model was used to examine the effect of blood contamination on UPC. Results: The uncontaminated urine of all 18 dogs had a UPC 0.5. For 108 samples with macroscopic haematuria the UPC was >0.5 in 21 samples (19.4 (95% CI = 13.1–27.9)%), and for 54 samples with gross haematuria 39 (72 (CI = 59.1–82.4)%) had a UPC >0.5. No samples had a UPC >2.0 unless the blood contamination was 5% and only 3/18 (17%) samples at this blood contamination concentration had a UPC >2.0. Conclusions and clinical relevance: This study showed that while blood contamination of ≥0.125% does increase the UPC, if the urine remains yellow (microscopic haematuria), then there is negligible chance that a UPC >0.5 will be solely due to the added blood. In that scenario, attributing the proteinuria present to the haematuria in the sample would be inappropriate. However blood contamination that results in discolouration of the urine sample from yellow to red (indicating macroscopic or gross haematuria) could increase the UPC above the abnormal range and would need to be considered as a differential for the proteinuria. Thus knowledge of urine colour, even if limited to simple colour scores (yellow, discoloured, red) could be utilised to aid interpretation of the UPC in samples with haematuria