"Gone by lunchtime" : social policy, breakfast radio and the 2005 New Zealand election campaign : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Public Policy at Massey University

New Zealand's 2005 election was fought largely on ideological and social policy differences between the country's two largest political parties. The campaign was closely fought with opinion polls putting either the New Zealand Labour Party or the New Zealand National Party ahead at various times. Election campaigns are an important opportunity for policy debate as public interest in politics and the direction of policy is usually much higher than at other times. Parties attempt to convince voters that their policy programmes are sound and that their leaders are both capable and responsible. The media play an important role in allowing politicians to communicate their policies and personalities to the voter. In addition to direct political communication the media play an important role in debating politics and policy which becomes all the more important during an election campaign. Auckland has a saturated radio market with a large number of heterogeneous stations attempting to service niche demographics. Almost all of these have some news content. Using data collected from four Auckland breakfast radio shows this thesis attempts to explain the policy detail, ideology and personality-based appeals made by politicians on social policy in their attempt to sell their policy programme to the voter, while also exploring how this debate was covered by the breakfast radio shows. Both Labour and National Party politicians concentrated on policy detail and ideologically-based appeals when debating social policies. For both major parties those ideological appeals were, to some extent, contradictory to the targeting of their policies to middle-income voters. Meanwhile the analysis of this debate differed greatly from station to station, but on all stations examining social policies came second to reporting on the contest between to two parties to gain the Treasury Benches

James Cowan: Autobiographical Historian and Traveller in Time

James Cowan’s childhood, growing up on the family farm built on the site of the Battle of Ōrākau, has always been seen as an influence in his writing, particularly as a historian. This article explores Cowan’s world on the frontier, as a child in the 1870s, but more importantly as an adolescent in the early 1880s. Not only was Cowan’s experience of these tense and sometimes turbulent decades a major influence on his writing, they also help us explain some of the contradictions presently seen in work. On the one hand, Cowan echoed nineteenth-century notions of colonial virtue and argued that the wars drew Māori and Pākehā closer together. At the same time, he was prepared to call confiscation of Waikato land theft on a massive scale. Cowan’s ability to be a historian of the time, while also reflecting a critical perspective of colonisation, reflected the world of the frontier in the early 1880s. Attempts to make peace between the King and the Queen created an atmosphere of reconciliation, where the protagonists of the 1860s, including Rewi Maniapoto, Wahanui Huatare and Te Kooti Arikirangi te Turuki negotiated for a new peace with old enemies, George Grey, John Bryce and William Gilbert Mair. Cowan’s writing reflected familiarity with these peace makers, but also made him conscious of the failure of the negotiations to resolve grievances over confiscations. Cowan’s was a personal history, forged not in archives, but through personal relationships built on interviews and correspondence

Settler Anxiety at the Outposts of Empire: Colonial Relations, Humanitarian Discourses, and the Imperial Press

While New Zealand historians have sometimes been influenced by the new imperial history, this increasing body of work focusing on empire in its international and comparative dimensions has remained on the periphery of the country’s historical imagination. This is even true in the study of nineteenth-century colonialism. Despite the central role of humanitarianism in New Zealand history, many historians have been more concerned with exploring Māori history in increasingly local settings than considering the broader pattern of imperial relationships. Tony Ballantyne’s work is a leading exception, and a number of legal historians have explored issues of Aboriginal title, while sharing a limited subset of the concerns explored by the new imperial history.&nbsp

Effects of Reproductive Experiences on Age-related Neural and Behavioral Changes in Female Rats

The experiences of motherhood, pregnancy, birth and postnatal care, are associated with neural and behavioral changes. Female rats undergoing multiple bouts of motherhood (multiparous) have been shown in some, but not all studies, to have a dampened HPA axis stress response, changes in some hormone levels and better performance on spatial memory tasks compared to age matched females who have not given birth (nulliparous). Moreover, some of these changes extend into old age, approximately 24 months old. Thus, parous rats provide a unique, physiological model in which to investigate neural and hormonal factors that may contribute to cognitive decline and other changes with aging. Subjects investigated were 2-4 months old nulliparous, 10-12 months old nulliparous and 10-12 months old female Fisher 344 (F344) rats. In the first study, we found nulliparous young females had significantly better spatial memory on the object placement task than the nulliparous middle-aged females and that the multiparous middle-aged females were not different from the nulliparous young or middle-aged groups. Thus parity partially mitigated the age dependent decrease in spatial memory found in nulliparous females. No differences in anxiety between any groups were noted on the elevated plus maze (EPM). Thus, multi-parity may have long lasting effects on spatial memory, but not on anxiety. In addition, serum oxytocin levels were assessed since oxytocin is known to contribute to maternal behavior and to mood, and levels are increased during pregnancy and lactation. Circulating oxytocin did not differ between groups. Similarly, basal serum corticosterone was not different in the groups. Possible mechanisms underlying these behavioral effects were investigated by measuring dendritic spine density in the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. Apical and basal spine density in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells of young virgins and multiparous females was higher than in the middle-aged nulliparous females. In the prefrontal cortex, apical spine density of hippocampal cells layer II/III showed a similar pattern as the hippocampus, but no significant differences were present in basal spines. Consistent with anxiety results, there were no significant differences in spine density in the medial amygdala, an area that contributes to anxiety regulation. Thus, the preservation of spine density in parous females may contribute to the mitigation of spatial memory loss at middle age. Because olfaction is a necessary component of maternal behavior and the olfactory bulb shares connections with memory and emotion centers, another cohort of female rats were assessed for olfactory behavior. Using an acuity task and an olfactory habituation/dis-habituation task, olfactory sensitivity was assessed. Anxiety was further investigated by testing closer to weaning of the last litter, using additional anxiety measures and assessing before other behavior test. As in the first study, no difference between groups was found on the EPM. In addition, the latency to approach an object was not different between groups. In contrast, nulliparous middle-aged females exhibited significantly more rearing compared to multiparous middle-aged females and significantly more wall climbing than nulliparous young females. Thus, some effects of parity on age-related increases in anxiety were noted. Corticosterone was lower in nulliparous middle-aged females as compared to multiparous middle-aged females following acute restraint stress indicating that multiparous middle-aged females appear to be more sensitive to restraint stress and exhibited a larger stress response. In olfactory assessments, no differences between groups were found on the acuity task. All groups also significantly habituated to the odor, but, in habituation 3, multiparous females spent significantly less time with the presented odor compared to nulliparous young females. This result suggests that olfactory sensitivity in multiparous females is impaired compared to young nulliparous females. While there were no differences in spine density of the semi-lunar cells in layer II/III of the piriform cortex, mitral cell number in the olfactory bulb of multiparous middle-aged females was significantly lower compared to nulliparous young females. Thus, both behavioral and morphological data suggest that parity may be detrimental to olfactory sensitivity as female\u27s age. Overall, these results suggest that the motherhood experience confers some neuro-protective effects that attenuate some of the negative aspects of cognitive aging. Parity preserves spine density in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex as well as spatial memory in reproductively experienced females as they age. Parity does not appear to attenuate anxiety long-term. The benefits of parity do not appear to extend to the amygdalar or semi-lunar cells of the piriform cortex. Long-term effects of parity on olfactory behavior need further investigation because the current results were inconclusive. In conclusion, parous females therefore may offer valuable insights into the aging process, could serve as a unique and useful model for studying aging in general and for understanding how reproductive experiences influence female aging

Hypoxia-Induced Alterations in Skeletal Muscle Cell Respiration and Resveratrol as a Potential Pharmacological Intervention

Using the C2C12 mouse muscle myoblast cell line, I sought to investigate the hypothesis that differentiation under hypoxia impairs muscle mitochondrial respiratory function irreversibly. Resveratrol (RSV) will increase expression of markers of mitochondrial biogenesis and reverse the hypoxia-induced depression of O2 consumption rates. Hypoxia decreased oxygen consumption rates after five days of differentiation and after two days of normoxic recovery. This coincided with a hypoxia-induced decrease in protein levels of the NDUFB8 subunit of complex I of the electron transport chain and decreases in mRNA levels of mitochondrial biogenesis transcription factors, both of which could contribute to the alterations observed in oxygen consumption rates. Normoxic recovery supplemented with RSV did increase oxygen consumption rates, however this increase was not observed across all oxygen concentrations that were measured which may have be associated with the decreases in cell viability observed with RSV treatment. RSV also increased mitochondrial abundance which could account for the increases in oxygen consumption rate. RSV did increase some skeletal muscle markers of mitochondrial biogenesis, but did not increase protein levels of the subunit NDUFB8 of complex I. Hypoxia alters mitochondrial biogenesis and skeletal muscle respiratory function and may induce permanent changes in mitochondrial respiration of differentiating skeletal muscle cells. RSV treatment did not consistently reverse hypoxic alterations during normoxic recovery and negatively impacted cell viability indicating that RSV may not be a suitable pharmacological intervention for skeletal muscle cells which have differentiated under hypoxia

The Characteristics of Children who are Referred On from Reading Recovery

This study investigates the hypothesis that children who are Referred On (RO) from Reading Recovery (RR) may share certain learning and behavioural characteristics. These characteristics were investigated and compared to those identified by the researcher based on experience as a classroom teacher, and to seven characteristics identified by Al Otaiba and Fuchs (2002) in their meta-analysis of 23 studies which had focused on children unresponsive to literacy interventions. Schools that use Reading Recovery as an early intervention programme were invited to participate in the research. Reading Recovery teachers, as well as students who had been through the programme, but had been RO, provided qualitative and quantitative data, to enable common characteristics to be identified, correlated and discussed, with reference to current literature and research around reading difficulties. This study does not offer any suggestions as to the remediation of children who are RO or unresponsive to intervention programmes. However, it does uncover some unexpected correlations that implicate the need for further research, particularly in the area of gender differences, within a sample group of RO students

Senior Recital: Kharis Belgrave, mezzo soprano

Kennesaw State University School of Music presents Senior Recital: Kharis Belgrave, mezzo soprano.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/1719/thumbnail.jp

Favorite Programming Language among Students

This project involves understanding the favorite programming language among students. I hypothesize that the favorite programming language will be Python. (Class Project

A Study into the Ownership and Care of Animals among the HU Community

My project involves understanding the animal care routines of persons in the HU Community. (Class Project

Dietary Supplement Used Among Americans

This project is to show the intake of vitamins before and after the pandemic among Americans. To get this information, I made a survey with a sample size of 100 people, and the questions that were asked were; What is your gender? Do you take vitamins? How often do you take vitamins? Types of vitamins? Age group? and Did your use of vitamins grow due to the pandemic?. (Class Project