An Ethical Framework for Facial Recognition Use in New Zealand

Facial recognition technology is an increasingly growing, constantly adapting technology. It can serve many benefits for legal entities in many ways. Examples of this would be biometric recognition or border control at an airport. Because of its power and efficiency, many legal entities are looking to utilise this technology. With this continued growth comes ethical concerns about ensuring data privacy for individuals whose data is collected, used, and stored to power this technology. Currently, there is a lack of an ethical framework for legal entities to adopt, follow and utilise within New Zealand. This makes it an ethical grey area for the businesses and individuals looking to utilise this technology. This document aims to review existing frameworks about facial recognition technology,finally concluding a code of ethics for facial recognition use in New Zealand for the engineering profession

Stepping stones to others' minds : the relation between maternal mental and non-mental state input and social understanding in 15-, 24, and 33 month-old children

Recent research has shown that children under two years demonstrate some early social understanding. Previous research has also demonstrated that mother talk about mental states is a factor in older preschoolers' later theory of mind understanding. In order to learn more about the predictive nature of mother mental state talk to very young children, this study examined the relation between mother talk about mental states at 15 and 24 months and their later mental state language and emotion understanding at 24 and 33 months. At all three time points, 71 mothers and 3 fathers (N=74) described pictures to their infants and mother talk was coded for mental and nonmental state language at 15, 24 and 33 JnOnths. In addition, at all three time points, children's mental and non-mental state vocabulary levels were obtained via parental report. At the second and third time points the children were administered an emotion situation and a body emotion task. The mothers' ability to interpret emotion faces was also assessed. The results showed that mother use of desire language was more prevalent at 15 months, with references to thinking and knowledge increasing at 24 months. Partial correlations demonstrated that mother use of desire language with 15-month old children uniquely predicted a child's mental state language and emotion situation task performance at 24 months, even after accounting for earlier child language, mother socioeconomic status, mothers' own emotion understanding, and other types of mother nonmental state language. Similarly, at 24 months of age, after accounting for potentially confounding variables, such as child language, mother use of think/know language as well as desire language were both predictors of children's mental state language and emotion task performance at 33 months. The results further demonstrated that mothers' tendency to refer to the child's (versus others') desires at 15 months was the more consistent correlate of children's mental state language and emotion understanding at 24 months. At 24 months a different pattern emerged with both references to the child's and others' thoughts and knowledge correlating with child mental state language and emotion task performance at 33 months. It is proposed that Vygotsky' s zone of proximal development provides a framework within which maternal talk about specific mental states scaffolds the development of children's later social understanding. I also suggest that such scaffolding motivates mothers to talk more about the child's mental states when they are younger, before introducing talk that focuses on others' mental states

Training manual for teaching working with Pacific students: engaging Pacific learners

The Centre’s vision is to “Embrace Pacific Cultures to enhance student experience through improvement of student engagement and achievement so that students become valued leaders and contributors to Pacific communities and New Zealand society”. The main function of the centre revolves firstly, around providing academic and pastoral support for Pacific students. Secondly, through the provision of advise and support for academic lecturers. Finally, through engagement and working closely with Pacific families and communities. The Nakuita, which is Fijian for octopus was developed by the Pacific Centre’s Director, Linda Aumua in 2008, to inform the work of the centre. The octopus has one central body which metaphorically refers to the centre and its tentacles as the Pacific support provided through the learning development lecturers infiltrating the departments and services. The concept started out with the centre employing learning development lecturers. The learning development lecturers are nurtured at the centre before they are placed in the departments, usually in the staff member’s area of expertise. The idea is that the staff member will be able to provide content support and learning development support for Pacific students. The flexibility of the octopus framework enabled the centre to collaborate with departments to co-employ the learning development lecturers with the aim of the departments picking up full employment of the Pacific staff. The success of the Nakuita has extended into the area of staff support. This include providing professional development workshops on understanding Pacific learners; engaging Pacific learners; providing input into curriculum development around embedding Pacific dimensions into the curricula and collaborating with staff on Pacific research. Through collaboration with the two lecturers in the Graduate Diploma in Not-For-Profit Management, Sandy Thompson and Fraser McDonald we are also able to produce this training resource. This collaboration started with the centre providing support for the Pacific students on their programme. This has extended to a co-employment of a Pacific staff member to provide focus support for students in this programme. This manual is divided into five sections. Section 1 is the introduction and includes a triangulation of a literature review on engagement of Pacific learners, students’ evaluation and tutors learning experiences. Section 2 draws on the experiences of the above Unitec staff and looks at meaningful ways to engage Pacific learners in classroom discussions and class content. Section 3 provides some example of teaching plans and Section 4 consist of a list of references used in this work. Finally, Section 5 is a resource/information section that will provide additional information and resources to support the work of teachers

Introduction by editors of the Special Edition on Spaces and Practices of Pacific Thought and Research

For centuries, Pacific societies were sustained by collective knowledge systems premised on a relational existence between humans and the environment. European contact, through its modernising agenda disturbed this reality, and turned Pacific knowledge systems on their head, relegating them as secondary, or in some instances irrelevant. Political independence since the early 1960’s has seen a renaissance in things Pacific. Universities have been central to this development. At the University of Otago, under the umbrella of the Pacific Thought Network (PacTNet), graduate students and academics both of Pacific and of non-Pacific heritage participate in a range of activities that foster Pacific ways of knowing and engagement

Tourism in Pacific island countries: a status quo round-up

In the 21st century, Pacific island countries (PICs) continue to leverage for tourism the attributes that have imbued them, including appeals to their cultural, geographical, and climatic allure. However, the question raised more frequently by many is why despite the many decades of tourism across the region, development impacts from the sector remain largely muted. The key remit of this paper is to offer a status quo round‐up of tourism in PICs and to draw on key emergent themes that underlay the present context. There is little doubt that for policymakers and their international development partners, whether tourism has or can lead to enduring development outcomes remains clouded in questions over whether there is ample evidence available to support such assertions. However, this has failed to dampen the enthusiasm of multilateral agencies that promote the notion that tourism's potential remains largely underdeveloped. With largely narrow economic bases, PICs have little choice but to seek further development of tourism despite the many fundamental constraints that make them less competitive than Southeast Asian destinations

Could, would, should: theory of mind and deontic reasoning in Tongan children

This study examined the developmental profiles of children's social reasoning about individual agentive and deontic concerns. Tongan children (N = 140, 47.9% male), aged 4–8 years, were given a set of mentalistic (standard theory-of-mind) and deontic reasoning tasks. On average, children found diverse desires, knowledge access, hidden emotion, and belief emotion easier than the false-belief and diverse belief tasks. Tongan children were sensitive to social norms governing behavior, and this information was recruited for predicting behavior in a false-belief task when embedded in a socially normative context. We discuss the potential for cultural mandates to shape children's social understanding and the impact of culture on our theoretical framing of children's development

The revitalised Fonofale as a research paradigm: A perspective on Pacific sexuality and reproduction research

Research into Pacific peoples’ sexuality and reproduction is often complex and conflicts with social tapu. Historically, Pacific sexuality and reproduction research had been approached using a deficits-based lens with minimal congruence of Pacific cultural values. We offer a revitalised Fonofale model (Pulotu-Endemann, 1995) as a research paradigm that centres tapu in all considerations and decisions surrounding the research. This revitalised model offers a strengths-based approach that can promote valuable collection of, and meaningful engagement with data. We offer a case study which utilised this research paradigm as an overarching strategy. Te Tīpani Project was a mixed methods investigation into eighty-two Pacific tertiary students’ understandings of sexuality and reproduction. Pacific research methods and methodologies, including the Kakala model and Talanoa method supported the integration of the paradigm into components of the study. We encourage researchers to utilise this strategy to fulfil their research obligations, as facilitators and guardians (mana tiaki) of the research environment. Pacific research methods, methodologies and epistemologies hold an important place in the field of sensitive Pacific well-being research by enabling cultural consideration and responsiveness

Randomized controlled trial of a book-sharing intervention in a deprived South African community: effects on carer-infant interactions, and their relation to infant cognitive and socio-emotional outcome

Background: Consistent with evidence from high income countries, we previously showed that, in an informal peri-urban settlement in a low-middle income country, training parents in book-sharing with their infants benefitted infant language and attention (Vally et al., 2015). Here, we investigated whether these benefits were explained by improvements in carer-infant interactions in both book-sharing and non-book-sharing contexts. We also explored whether infant socio-emotional development benefitted from book-sharing. Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled trial in Khayelitsha, South Africa. Carers of 14-16 month-old infants were randomized to 8 weeks’ training in book-sharing (n = 49) or a wait list control group (n = 42). In addition to the cognitive measures reported previously, independent assessments were made at base line and follow-up of carer-infant interactions during book-sharing and toy play. Assessments were also made, at follow-up only, of infant pro-social behaviour in a ‘help task’, and of infant imitation of doll characters’ non-social actions and an interpersonal interaction. Eighty-two carer-infant pairs (90%) were assessed at follow-up. (Trial registration ISRCTN39953901). Results: Carers who received the training showed significant improvements in book-sharing interactions (sensitivity, elaborations, reciprocity), and, to a smaller extent, in toy-play interactions (sensitivity). Infants in the intervention group showed a significantly higher rate of pro-social behaviour, and tended to show more frequent imitation of the interpersonal interaction. Improvements in carer behaviour during book-sharing, but not during toy play, mediated intervention effects on all infant cognitive outcomes, and tended to mediate intervention effects on infant interpersonal imitation. Conclusions: Training in book sharing, a simple, inexpensive intervention that has been shown to benefit infant cognitive development in a low-middle income country, also shows promise for improving infant socio-emotional outcomes in this context. Benefits are mediated by improvements in carer-infant interactions, particularly in book-sharing contexts

Thinking or feeling? An exploratory study of maternal scaffolding, child mental state talk and emotion understanding in language-impaired and typically-developing school-aged children

Background Mother–child mental state talk (MST) supports children's developing social–emotional understanding. In typically developing (TD) children, family conversations about emotion, cognition, and causes have been linked to children's emotion understanding. Specific language impairment (SLI) may compromise developing emotion understanding and adjustment. Aims We investigated emotion understanding in children with SLI and TD, in relation to mother–child conversation. Specifically, is cognitive, emotion, or causal MST more important for child emotion understanding and how might maternal scaffolding support this? Sample Nine 5‐ to 9‐year‐old children with SLI and nine age‐matched typically developing (TD) children, and their mothers. Method We assessed children's language, emotion understanding and reported behavioural adjustment. Mother–child conversations were coded for MST, including emotion, cognition, and causal talk, and for scaffolding of causal talk. Results Children with SLI scored lower than TD children on emotion understanding and adjustment. Mothers in each group provided similar amounts of cognitive, emotion, and causal talk, but SLI children used proportionally less cognitive and causal talk than TD children did, and more such child talk predicted better child emotion understanding. Child emotion talk did not differ between groups and did not predict emotion understanding. Both groups participated in maternal‐scaffolded causal talk, but causal talk about emotion was more frequent in TD children, and such talk predicted higher emotion understanding. Conclusions Cognitive and causal language scaffolded by mothers provides tools for articulating increasingly complex ideas about emotion, predicting children's emotion understanding. Our study provides a robust method for studying scaffolding processes for understanding causes of emotion