Advance - Winter 2012

Research with impactWinter 2012

smart buildingUsing the latest technology to teach building and construction students

backyard invasionKeeping the Hauraki Gulf islands pest free

contents4 shorts Billy Apple in US tissue bank + Kea update + Imagine event + New Awhina campus + Community business research + Natalie Waran

8 cover story Diane Fraser and her students work with Auckland Council to keep the Hauraki Gulf islands pest free

13 architecture Regan Potangaroa works on a slum housing project in Haiti

14 building Kamuka Pati teaches building and carpentry using the latest technology

17 animation Artist in Residence Stephanie Maxwell brings her animation experience to Unitec

18 herbariumCurator Dan Blanchon talks about the official registration of the Unitec Herbarium

22 studentsTwo osteopathy master's students' research into breathing dysfunction

26 teaching The Adult Literacies Team on the action research projects around campus

29 graduate Mick McBeth on going to the Olympics with the New Zealand Triathlon team

30 completions Learn more about Kiely Murphy and the other recent Unitec graduates

editor Simon Peel writer Trudi Caffell design Nadja Rausch cover photo Neil Fitzgerald printing GEON

published by Unitec Institute of Technology Private Bag 92025, Victoria Street West, Auckland 1142, New Zealand ISSN 1176-7391 phone 0800 10 95 10 web www.unitec.ac.nz

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Over the past months staff at Unitec have been busy working on the Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF) quality assessment exercise. In July Unitec staff, along with staff from all the other universities and institutes of technology in New Zealand, submitted portfolios to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) detailing their research activity over the previous six years.

These portfolios are reviewed by panels of experts and given ratings. The ratings are intended to assess the quality of research activity being conducted at an institution and in part determine how much funding the TEC will allocate to institutions to further support and promote research activity. Aside from the significant amount of funding that Unitec receives based on the quality of its researchers, participation in the PBRF enables Unitec staff to be rated alongside their peers at other institutions and for us to see how we measure up in terms of our research performance.

While the PBRF and its focus on journal articles, books and other forms of research output is important, it is not the main focus of research activity at Unitec and it’s certainly not the

main reason why we do research. As an institute of technology our mandate

from the government is to ‘undertake applied research that

supports vocational learning and knowledge transfer’. Therefore the type of research that characterises Unitec is applied,

practical, and useful research - in other words research that has

‘impact’.

This issue of Advance has a strong student flavour. Unitec’s 13 Master's degree

programmes and two Doctoral programmes produce a steady stream of fascinating projects. Master of Osteopathy students (Unitec is the only institution in New Zealand where students can study to become a registered Osteopath) are often worthy of mention and in this issue we profile research into the diagnosis of breathing problems.

Undergraduate students also undertake significant and interesting research projects and we profile a group of four Natural Sciences students and examine how their research assists Auckland Council in their work to keep the islands of the Hauraki Gulf pest free.

At its heart, Unitec is a teaching-led, research-engaged institution. It is a pleasure to highlight projects that tick both of those boxes and this issue we do that by focusing on research into innovative teaching practice. Building Technology lecturer Kamuka Pati shows us how new technologies can make the learning process easier and more efficient through the use of an innovative ‘smart shed’.

I hope that you enjoy this issue of Advance. If you wish to know more about research at Unitec please visit the research pages of our website www.unitec.ac.nz/research or contact me directly.

Associate Professor Simon Peel Dean of Research and Postgraduate Studies [email protected]

Research with impact

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Art intersecting with science is a unique and exciting area of research that continues to intrigue Unitec Lecturer and Osteopathy Head of Department, Dr. Craig Hilton.

The biochemist and artist previously worked on a project with well-known New Zealand Pop Art exponent Billy Apple® to immortalise the artist by creating a cell line to be used for research.

The process involved isolating Billy Apple’s B-lymphocytes from peripheral blood and growing them in appropriate tissue culture. These cells were then virally transformed and now grow indefinitely. Without such transformation, these cells have, like the artist they are derived from, a limited life span.

To complete the art section of the experiment, the immortalised lymphoblastoid cells were placed in a container that mimicked the precise environmental conditions present in the artists’ body, and displayed in an installation at Starkwhite Gallery in Auckland. To satisfy the science component, the Billy Apple® cell line is being used in studies that will directly benefit cancer and immunology research as well as continue the conceptual work of Billy Apple®.

“It fits with Billy Apple’s art practice, and it gives a new cell line for scientists to use for research. It makes everyone happy,” says Hilton. The resulting artwork by Hilton also won an award at the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica.

This year, further developments mean the project is again in the limelight. Hilton has

managed to place Billy Apple’s tissue in the prestigious US tissue bank, ATCC. Officially called a biological resource centre, ATCC focuses on the acquisition, authentication, production, preservation, development and distribution of standard reference micro organisms, cell lines and other materials for research in the life sciences.

The cell line can be used by anyone doing research in the US, as well as other artists looking to participate in what Hilton calls ‘Bio Art’ – an art practice that uses live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes.

The first immortal cell line was generated in the US in 1951, and the cells are still being used. The woman, cancer patient Henrietta Lacks, was not informed that her tissue was being harvested, but that same cell line has yielded around 50 million tonnes of HeLa cells and 300 HeLa studies are added each month to a library of over 60,000 studies.

Hilton says that Billy Apple’s cell line has the potential to create a similar history of use. “I set out to immortalise Billy Apple® by creating this cell line, and I think this latest development will ensure that it succeeds.”

Billy Apple immortalised…again

I believe this is the first time they have collected a sample that was part of an art piece. It’s quite an achievement.

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The work being done by Unitec Senior Lecturers Dr Lorne Roberts and Dr Nigel Adams in association with the Kea Conservation Trust continues, with new research showing that the method being used to control the mammal predator populations (i.e. 1080 drops) has had substantial benefits for kea populations, a protection that extends for some years after the poison bait drops.

This contrasts with the popularly held belief that kea predation by mammal pests was not an important factor impacting kea populations.

The cameras deployed inside and outside a number of kea nests in Nelson Lakes and Arthur’s Pass for monitoring have also provided critical data not only about breeding activity, but also pest visitation and predation. These motion-sensor cameras clearly show that some nests are regularly visited by mammalian pests and it is these nests that fail to produce fledged chicks. This supports the assertion by the Kea Conservation Trust that predation of kea, particularly kea chicks in the nest, is a serious factor in reducing numbers of the species.

The 1080 drops in this region have been a problem in the past because native birds, including kea, eat the poison as well as the intended mammalian pests. A potential repellent developed at Unitec has now had field trials through DOC with promising results. It will go into final trials this year and, if successful, the repellents will be introduced into all DOC 1080 operations from 2013.

An exciting spin off to this is that the secondary repellent Anthraquinone is being trialled to test whether it will repel kea from attacking sheep. Working with one farmer near Queenstown, 203 sheep have had the repellent applied topically to their fleece. Along with a control group of 134, the sheep were put up in the high country in an area where kea attacks on Merinos are common and persistent. They have only recently been mustered and data on kea strike across the two groups will be gathered in the near future.

Watching out for keas

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Awhina Campus LaunchesAn innovative new research and teaching campus has been created at Waitakere Hospital, the result of a joint initiative between Unitec and Waitemata District Health Board (DHB). The Awhina Waitakere Health Campus will provide opportunities for learning, innovation, research and collaboration among health practitioners, community agencies and more than one thousand Unitec health science and social practice students in Waitakere.

The campus was opened in May by National MP for Waitakere, Paula Bennett, who was keen to emphasise the importance of such a venture for the region. “This link between education, research, innovation and health is vital,” she says. “It ensures that the healthcare provided is of the highest standard and helps to achieve better health efficiencies and more integrated services for the community.”

The simulation centre, used by Unitec nursing students at Waitakere Hospital since 2006, has been upgraded and incorporated into the new Awhina campus. Other facilities include a new 164-seat multi-purpose seminar room, new study areas, examination facilities, teaching rooms, a wireless network, research spaces and a collaboration laboratory.

The Waitemata DHB has appointed Dr Janice Chesters to lead the Awhina Health Campus. She says the community will see improved patient and community outcomes flowing from the development. “Our partnership will create better, smarter, more workforce-ready graduates, and will also mean more research links and partnerships with Unitec. We want educators, researchers, learners and others to come together in groups for projects, problem solving and opportunity identification.”

According to Waitemata DHB Chief Executive Dr Dale Bramley, “The new campus will provide a stimulating learning, teaching and research environment that will meet both educational and workforce needs. When health and education providers work together everyone benefits.”

Managing diabetes is child’s playA team of Unitec computing students recently made it to the top 16 in the 2012 Microsoft Imagine Cup, with their idea for a diabetes-related game and mobile application. The competition, which had over 400 entries, is open to tertiary students with an innovative idea that tackles global issues using technology. The team were also awarded second place in the showcase section by the judges at the Auckland Town Hall showcase evening.

Over 300 million people worldwide have diabetes, with around 200,000 in New Zealand alone, making it a serious global issue. Added to this, managing diabetes can be a challenge, especially for young children. The four students, calling themselves Team Dawn Phenomena, came up with an educational tool that uses video games, mobile phone and web applications to help children who have been newly diagnosed with diabetes to manage their condition.

Using avatars, the children learn about their condition through in-game tutorials and in-game puzzles. The innovation comes with the mobile application – to unlock new worlds in the game, the children must move their avatar from the video game to the mobile app and perform diabetes-related tasks. Young patients carry out tasks in real-time and get reminders about diet, medication and other aspects of managing diabetes.

The project started when Starship Hospital approached Unitec. “They wanted a website done,” says Quincy Makiiti, the team’s project manager. “But because they wanted something interactive and engaging, our department said it might be better to have a game. It all grew from there.”

The computing department has also been in talks with Diabetes NZ, who are keen for the team to continue developing the game and conduct research using real patients. At this stage they are aiming to put full versions into clinical trials with the Starship Hospital diabetes team, running a small pilot programme with 7-10 year old children who are newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. They are also intending to create a hardware version to run the game and application, which may include a blood glucose monitor.

According to Makiiti, the project was more than just an entry into a competition. “I have family members with diabetes and I lost my grandmother to the complications this disease caused,” he says. “For me, it has real world value and could potentially help our children end the global war on diabetes.”

Congratulations to Team Dawn Phenomena − Quincy Makiiti, Project Manager/ Game Designer; Conroy Griffiths, Lead Programmer/Game Developer; Evan Backhouse-Smith, Mobile Application Developer; Kyoung-Hwan Kim, Lead Artist/ Programmer.

Over 300 million people worldwide have diabetes, with around

200,000 in New Zealand alone

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Business for the communityA new style of business is emerging in New Zealand and Unitec is involved with research to learn more. Community economic development organisations are businesses that focus on a wider social or environmental good rather than solely on profit. In partnership with Unitec’s Dr Ken Simpson, Di Jennings from the New Zealand Community Economic Development Trust has successfully applied for money from the Lotteries Communities Fund to do research on the new style of business.

“It’s a bit of a confusing area, with some conflicting terms,” says Jennings. “Essentially community economic development is about communities taking responsibility for their own wellbeing using economic tools like social enterprise, community-owned assets, social finance, and engaging local people. It’s got that whole community empowerment edge to it. It’s about trading for a social or environmental purpose and the profits are principally returned for the community benefit.”

A traditional example would be the charity shops that inhabit the main streets in most towns and cities in New Zealand. “They’re usually owned by a faith-based organisation, and the profits come back to the organisation for social purposes,” says Jennings. “One of our more well-known, innovative and cutting-edge examples would be Whale Watch in Kaikoura. The whole town has benefited from that local economic venture based on tourism.”

According to Jennings, community economic development sits in a hybrid space between the traditional not-for-profit sector that is dependent on grants for funding, and the business sector. “I have been working in the not-for-profit sector for some time, and I was frustrated about how we find our funding, looking to councils, governments and philanthropics for grants. It involved continually filling out grant applications, never being able to plan for the long term, and getting captured by the funder’s agenda.”

She went overseas on a study tour, and discovered another way of doing things in the UK, where there is a government department for social enterprise and a whole sector called social finance to fund social enterprises. In New Zealand it is still very new. “Only three or four pieces of research have been carried out in the area in the last 15 years, the last one in 2008. It’s such a fast changing area, new research is way overdue,” says Jennings.

The research will involve talking to social enterprise practitioners in New Zealand. “We’ll be asking them what’s working, what is helping them to make their social enterprises thrive, what are the challenges and barriers, and what would help as an enabling environment.”

Jennings says the research will provide vital information for extending the social enterprise sector in New Zealand. “I think it is a global movement. There’s research coming out of the UK telling us that social enterprises are growing faster than regular business.”

The research will give insight into the sector in New Zealand and perhaps give some indications as to what kind of help community economic development organisations require. “I think what is going to be really important in the future is that we have education for social enterprise in our schools and our tertiary institutions,” says Jennings. “What I’m hearing from the UK, where they do have it, is that young people are showing a much bigger interest in businesses that have social and environmental drivers alongside the economic. Young people get it straightaway. That’s where there is a huge opportunity for us in New Zealand.”

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Across the distancesFormer head of the Unitec Natural Science department, Professor Natalie Waran is no stranger to the Unitec campus. She lived and worked in New Zealand for six years, teaching in animal management and animal welfare, before being offered her dream job, as the director of the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education at the University of Edinburgh.

But when she left New Zealand earlier this year, she was able to keep her connections to Unitec. “Because I’m very passionate about what has been developed here at Unitec, and wanted to be involved, I was lucky enough to be offered an adjunct professorship, which means that I am still engaged with Unitec, and in particular the school of Natural Sciences, to provide specialist expertise in the area of animal welfare.”

The practical nature of Unitec’s research philosophy has always appealed to Waran. “I’m a scientist and I do research, but I’m keen to make sure my research is applied − that it is translated if you like − so that it can have a positive impact on horses, and horse owners and horse welfare. For me, my link with Unitec, and my interest in Unitec, has always been that it has a very applied focus.”

The research currently being conducted by Waran is around measuring positive emotions in animals. “Most animal welfare research tends to focus on measuring when the animal has a problem: when the animal is stressed, or distressed or hungry,” she says. “What we tend to

do as researchers is advise on how to reduce the negative emotions. But there is a move now to understand more about the positive emotions, such as happiness or pleasure.

“In the future, we hope to strengthen the relationship through the development of the post graduate research projects relating to our shared interest in the area of animal welfare.”

It's about trading for an environmental purpose and the profits are principally returned

for the community benefit

My link with Unitec, and my interest in Unitec has

always been that it has a very applied focus

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Spending the summer on an island in the Hauraki Gulf could be considered more of a pleasure than a job, but that’s exactly what a group of students from Unitec’s Natural Sciences department did earlier this year. Working on three different projects for the Auckland Council, the four students were given the opportunity to get some real field experience in the bio-diversity sector, and also use the data collected for their negotiated study research paper.

The studentships were set up by Senior Lecturer Dr Diane Fraser, in association with Auckland Council’s Nick Waipara, and involved two projects on Kawau Island and a pest control survey for passengers on the Hauraki Gulf ferries. “This is such a positive thing for Unitec because our whole aim is collaboration with industry, to conduct real life learning,” says Fraser. “But it’s also beneficial to the council because they are obtaining data to support their bio-security objectives.”

For Fraser, the chance to show off her students to an outside organisation was a hugely positive aspect of the collaboration. “I jumped at the chance, because I knew these students were good. All of them were extremely well received. It means they’re in the field, doing practical work that is relevant and pertinent to what the council actually wants and needs. The whole experience for the students, being thrown into the field, and learning problem solving, is fundamental to our whole degree philosophy of practical application.”

The two Kawau Island projects involved the students spending three to four days each week on the island, for a period of six weeks. For third year student Jacqui Wairepu, this meant systematically searching Kawau Island for a small invasive pest called the rainbow skink. “Rainbow skinks came from Australia in the 1960s; unlike our natives they like human disturbance and can survive in all sorts of areas that our native skinks don’t like going,” she says.

If you live in Auckland you might recognise the small skink. “They’re dubbed the garden skink, because you’ll find them basking around in the

sun in your garden. They’re the one the cat drags in and dumps on your carpet, or the one that scoots across your front doorstep. They’re all over Auckland; they’ve spread as far as the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, and towards Northland.”

This small and seemingly harmless lizard is on the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) Unwanted Organism list, and is considered a pest by the Auckland Council. “They occupy exactly the same niche as our copper skink,” says Wairepu. “They arrived in Hawaii and got out of control, and they’ve led to two native Hawaiian species becoming extinct. That’s the threat they pose here. For every two or three live native babies, a rainbow is laying six to eight eggs and she’s doing it several times a year. It’s not that they’re exceptionally aggressive, it’s just that they out-compete through numbers.”

To find out if they had arrived on Kawau, she set up small ‘artificial covering objects’, made of an undulating plastic similar to corrugated iron, in areas that would make a good habitat for the

small skinks. She also used tracking tunnels, where ink cards were placed inside open plastic tubes baited with fruit to draw in the animals. “Rainbows have very distinctive footprints, with one long toe. The animals run into the

Four students spent the summer helping the Auckland Council keep the Hauraki Gulf islands pest free.

Dr Diane Fraser talks with three of the students who participated in the Auckland Council research projects, Lisa Gardner, Jacqui Wairepu and Rose Graham.

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tunnels, eat, and run out the other end, leaving their little inky footprints.”

Then she went out in the bush and searched. “I used manual hand searching, turning over logs and rocks, searching through foliage, in areas I thought I’d be likely to find them.”

The result of her survey was that, happily, the invasive rainbow skink didn’t seem to have made it across to Kawau Island at the time she searched. “The council were very pleased I didn’t find any,” says Wairepu. “Because they’re rife throughout Auckland, they really wanted to see if they’d made it to Kawau.”

Fellow students Rose Graham and Lisa Gardner were searching for a slightly smaller organism. The invasive Argentine ant might look like any other ant in your garden, but it’s been named in the top 100 invasive species in the world. “They’ve been steadily invading the world and they’ve arrived in New Zealand,” says Gardner. “New Zealand is exceptional on a global scale, because of our unique flora and fauna, so we’re more susceptible in terms of impact when invasive species do get in.”

Unlike the rainbow skink, the Argentine ant has a few nasty habits. “They get into bird nests, and swarm them, and then eat the baby birds through the eyes; they eat them alive from the inside out. They also chew through irrigation pipes, and they bite,” says Gardner.

They’re different to other ants in that they create super colonies that can stretch over cities and through countries. They breed faster than other ants because they have more than one queen per colony, they work 24 hours a day, form neat lines where other ants swarm, and they inevitably disrupt ecological systems wherever they invade, displacing the native ant population, and potentially other species as well.

On Kawau Island they were initially found in one spot, Vivian Bay. “The council wanted to look at eradication, because they

were only established in one spot to their knowledge,” says Gardner. “Because we didn’t find them anywhere else, it looks like they might be able to look at eradication as a possible option.”

To find out if Argentine ants had made it past Vivian Bay, Gardner and Graham used two methods. “First we used pottles with peanut butter and jam in them; that was to attract them. We put them on high risk sites on a property and left them for an hour and a half and then came back and

see what we got,” says Graham.

“Then we targeted high risk sites within the properties for a visual search. We looked

for citrus trees, piles of timber, evidence of gardening, sources of water, water tanks things like that,” adds Gardener. “We kicked garden walls, turned over rocks or wood piles, searched through citrus trees,

looking for trails.”

Like the rainbow skink, Argentine ants love human disturbance, and they move to new

areas through human travellers. “It would be people coming over and saying ‘I’m going to do some building and

gardening this weekend’, so they’ll bring over some bags of soil and some timber and there will be a nest in amongst them.”

If you’re thinking you might head out into your garden to check for this nasty invasive ant, think again. “Most people wouldn’t even pick them as being different. They don’t look that unusual,” says Graham. “They’re bigger than the main native black ant, but they’re still quite small, they’re between two and three millimetres. They’re generally brown, although there is some minor variance between different populations; you may find a colour variation in one bay, and there is a different colour in Auckland.”

Everything the two students did was checked by Argentine ant expert and collaborator Department of Conservation (DOC) entomologist Dr Chris Green. He checked every pottle they sent back for identification, and was able to verify their findings.

"The Argentine ant has been named

in the top 100 invasive species

in the world."

These small ants are actually a serious threat to New Zealand’s natural environment. Because of their numbers, appetite and aggressiveness,

Argentine ants can have a massive impact. Once established in an area they eliminate other species of ants, compete with native birds such as kiwi, and

lizards for food such as insects, worms and nectar, and displace and kill native invertebrates.

They are one of the world’s most invasive and problematic ant species. Unlike other ants, Argentine ant colonies co-operate with each other, and can combine over winter into super-colonies. They also have an aggressive nature and a tendency to bite. They are small, (2-3mm long) and generally honey-brown in colour, while most other common household ants in New Zealand are black. Unlike most other ants, they will climb trees to get to food sources. They are known to be in many parts of Auckland, and Northland, as well as the Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Nelson and

Christchurch. Argentine Ants also don’t smell when squashed.

ARGenTine AnTs

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In fact, working in with the council and DOC representatives was an important part of the project. “We would check in with them, every single week, and sometimes during the week. We wanted to make sure we were doing the job properly. When we were trying to do as many properties as we could, it wasn’t just for our own data collection, we wanted to do the job as best we could for them,” says Graham.

While they say they loved the experience, all three students say it was difficult work. “It was a big smack with reality. It’s tough and demanding field work, but it’s totally necessary,” says Gardner. “We would keep going if we got tired. We wanted to find them if they were there, because we’re passionate about bio-security. It makes you realise that the people from Auckland Council and DOC, they work really hard, and they do a good job, and unless you’re in that situation you can’t appreciate just how much work they do.”

But they agree it was ultimately worthwhile. “It was just exciting to do something that was relevant and useful to New Zealand,” says Graham. “We felt like we were contributing in a really small way to something bigger.”

The final student, Lydia Tyrrell, worked on another aspect of the issue for the Auckland Council. She spent the summer travelling the Hauraki Gulf ferries, asking passengers what they knew about pests getting onto the islands, and the council’s bio-security campaign, Treasure Islands. “My main role was advocacy, talking to people and getting them thinking,” says Tyrrell. “But the questionnaire will provide invaluable data for their future plans.”

The questionnaire was designed by Tyrrell, with help from her supervisor Fraser and council representatives Nick Waipara and Geoff Cook. She then took it out to the ferry passengers. “Because it was working with people, and working on awareness, it was a positive campaign which was aimed at a culture change. So I was working on getting people to check their bags and their gear for any pests, and clean their shoes.”

Tyrrell travelled at least twice on the ferries to Great Barrier, Tiritiri Matangi, Motu Tapu, Motu Ihi, Rakino and Rangitoto. She talked with passengers on the ferries, often filling out the forms with them if time permitted. “I learnt that questioning people really gets through to them and really engages them

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1. Jacqui Wairepu, Lisa Gardner and Rose Graham on the boat out to Kawau Island. 2. Gardner and Graham searching for ants on Kawau Island. 3. Wairepu setting up the ‘artificial covering objects’ for habitat searches. 4. Wairepu about to go out and set up her rainbow skink tracking tunnels and artificial covering objects. 5. A pottle filled with ants. 6. Argentine Ants. 7. Filling the small pottles with peanut butter and jam, before putting them out to catch ants on high risk sites.

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more effectively than just telling them things. Because you actually have to get them to think, and their brain starts working and they pay attention.”

Because the islands in the Hauraki Gulf are mostly pest free, and are home to some vulnerable native species, it was important to Tyrrell that she make them engage with the issue. “Everyone loves the islands and they’re all really positive about the environment, but they just haven’t thought about it usually. It’s just about getting them to connect the dots and say, ‘If I love it I should look after it’. Generally there was a really positive response to the message.”

She was able to gather data that will be used by the Council in a variety of ways. “First it will let them know how well their campaign is working; it will give them an idea of the level of awareness and the people they’ve reached. I’ve got demographic questions, so they will know that boaties in their fifties seem to have a high level of awareness, but people under 30 may not. This will inform Auckland Council as to who they need to target in terms of increasing awareness. They also need to do risk profiling so I had a question asking what kind of gear people are taking over. People who take camping gear, building material, potting mix are much more high risk.”

All these questions will help the Auckland Council decide the direction for their pest-free campaigns in the Hauraki Gulf. “It’s all so they can spend their money more efficiently. Instead of randomly targeting everybody, they can figure out the people who are most important to target and work out how to get through to them.”

The students have the satisfaction of knowing their hard work and study is being used for

something outside of getting good marks for their course. “The research is being used by Auckland Council, and will be ongoing,” says Fraser. “For example with the survey we’re trying to set up a longitudinal study so we can keep monitoring each year, or biannually, so we can see if there is a change in awareness of bio-security issues.”

Tyrrell is the preferred candidate for the questionnaires next year. If everything goes according to plan, she’ll be out sailing the ferries over summer and talking to passengers. “She’s done a fantastic advocacy job for the Auckland Council,” says Fraser.

Wairepu was also asked to extend her survey of the rainbow skinks to other islands around the Hauraki Gulf, and some of the marinas in Auckland. “It seems the Auckland council is keen to set up a long-term relationship,” says Fraser. “They have numerous small projects which are perfect for our third year degree students.”

According to Fraser, the students, who are all passionate about biodiversity, have been fantastic representatives for everyone involved. “They all did an extremely good job of promoting themselves as young women, promoting Unitec, and promoting Auckland Council’s Treasure Island and bio-security work. I tagged along with them a couple of times; didn’t do the supervisor thing, but just hung back and watched them. It was great to see these young people taking pride in what they were doing, and demonstrating a strong passion and belief in the value of the work they were doing. I was just very proud of how they conducted themselves. They were very responsible, articulate, and conscious of doing the very best they could.”

These small Australian lizards were first recorded in Auckland in the 1960s, probably arriving accidentally in cargo. They are Unwanted Organisms under the Biosecurity Act 1993. They are usually brown or grey-brown with an iridescent rainbow or metallic sheen, and a dark brown stripe on each side of their body. From the tip of the nose to the hind leg, they are around 3-4 cm long. The best time to see them is during the day when temperatures are above 10°C. They can be found under vegetation, under stacked wood, in gardens,

on pathways and out in the sun on the edge of bush and on the coast. Rainbow skinks can reproduce rapidly, laying up to eight eggs three times

per year, and live for about two years. New Zealand native skinks are long lived, and only breed once per year at most. Some don’t even start breeding

until they are five years old. New Zealand has around 35 native skink species, many of which are in decline, or

in some cases have already become extinct. Rainbow skinks compete directly with our native skinks for food and habitat.

Rainbow skink on left, native copper skink on right

RAinBoW skink

Lydia Tyrell at the Rangitoto Island wharf.

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» contact Dr Diane Fraser Senior Lecturer Department of Natural Sciences email: [email protected]


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Providing safe housing for residents of an informal slum area in Port au Prince in Haiti might seem like a million miles away from teaching at Unitec, but for architecture Associate Professor Dr Regan Potangaroa, it’s part of his regular commitments. The structural engineer has been in Haiti since July this year, helping to implement the new housing structures suggested in his report for the British Red Cross last year as part of their work to rebuild the quake-affected city.

According to Potangaroa, much is known about appropriate responses to natural disasters for rural areas, but very little for urban areas. The goal was to provide the community with safe housing that was resistant to predictable events – such as earthquakes – by repairing damaged houses and reconstructing unsafe or collapsed houses using new, higher-quality construction methods.

Delmas 19 – where Potangaroa has been working with the British Red Cross – is an informal settlement in the CBD of Port au Prince that is bounded by major roads and buildings. It consists of around 500 houses, and is close to neighbouring factories where many people work. There are no parks or open public areas, and alleyways and lanes are narrow. Only a few houses have city water supply and water cartage is a constant requirement. Drainage is by gutters built in the alleyway. Children, by necessity, play on the narrow streets.

The architecture team was asked to find a way to improve the quality of the homes people were living in, as part of the process of rebuilding after the 2010 earthquake. The area has little or no adherence to basic quality standards, and in the wider city context, there are no laws around seismic or hurricane conditions.

Potangaroa used research by Jacobson (2002) into what turns a building or house into a ‘home’ to assess the situation in Delmas 19. Using the ten ‘patterns’ put forward in Jacobson’s research he assessed 20 homes in the slum settlement. He

looked at whether the houses responded to the site they were on; if they had a balance of indoor and outdoor rooms; if they had an area that allowed people to inhabit the edges (just enough exposure to be aware of the surroundings, while having protection from it); if they were a good refuge and outlook; if they had balanced private and communal spaces throughout; if they had a good flow through the rooms; if they used a composition of the available local materials; if they had a sheltering roof; if they included a hierarchy of parts in proportion; and finally had they captured, reflected and filtered the available light.

Originally conceived to help move humanitarian work away from focusing on how many houses were built in a disaster recovery situation, the assessments are intended to help provide real homes for those affected by a disaster.

Potangaroa’s team was able to address some of the areas they felt were lacking in the current housing situation, in particular making sure the area just outside the door and the area just inside the front door were freed up, and also attempting to allow more light into the dwellings. The final design creates a good quality foundation that addresses safety needs, but also allow for expansions and expression of individuality. “It was a difficult process, trying to balance the needs of the donors with the needs of the beneficiaries, but I think we’ve come up with a good middle ground,” says Potangaroa.

By being part of the team that studied, reported on, and is now implementing the suggested homes in Haiti, Potangaroa will be able to use the corresponding data for his continuing research into housing for informal settlements in disaster zones when he returns to New Zealand. “The role of architecture is often seen as making things look beautiful. But it has a more fundamental contribution to make. The role and contribution of architecture, particularly in post-disaster situations, goes unrecorded.”

Helping out in Haiti

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Building and construction students are now using their smart phones to access course information, and newly built ‘smart sheds’ to learn while they’re on the building site.Under the careful eye of building technology Lecturer Kamuka Pati, Unitec building students are using technology to make the learning process easier.

At the Mt Albert and Albany campuses, new ‘smart sheds’ have been built by students, a project promoted by Pati in an attempt to solve the strict scheduling that hampers the transition from the theory to the practical elements of the course. “Often what happened was that when we were doing practical work, the students had their tools set up, and they were wearing an apron and work boots and it wasn’t convenient to stop and say ‘Hey guys we have to go and learn theory on scaffolding, so put your tools away’.”

The smart sheds mean they can stop on the site, look at the theory, and then keep going. It’s a simple and elegant solution that means the lecturers are able to be more flexible in the way they teach theoretical aspects of building. “That’s the convenience of having it on the building site, impromptu sessions are easier,” says Pati. “We no longer have the restraints of being stuck to a timetable and having to go back to a classroom at a specific time.”

The smart sheds are still in the early stages, and Pati gets regular feedback from students — but it’s been positive so far. “The first project we did was on steel frames. We did the theory down on the building site, the guys were given the plans, and then they were able to immediately start construction on the steel frames. After the first group came through and we got them to use it, we did surveys on how they found the use of it. It was such a new project, it was a new way of thinking for us.

“In the initial feedback we got from the students, one of the main things that stuck out was the proximity to the building site. They all said it was good to be close to the building site.”

Building with Technology

Kamuka Pati holds up his iPad showing course information, which is connected to the Smart Shed screen behind.

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In January this year, Pati presented the preliminary results of his trials with the smart sheds at the Hawaii International Conference on Education, an event that hosts over 1300 people from around 35 different countries. “The paper was specifically about technology being used in vocational education. It was around the integration of theory and practice into a far more flexible environment where technology resources are available to students within the construction site.”

But the innovation isn’t just about the theory sessions being integrated onto the site, it’s also the ability to use the smart sheds for impromptu learning. “Recently we were cutting scaffolding pipes to length, and my students were asking why we were cutting them to these particular lengths. So I took them to the smart shed, and brought up photos of the scaffolding being constructed. I was able to show them key components, and they were able to relate it to what they were doing.

“For me it eliminates that barrier between theory and practice. A lot of times what I try to do is show the guys that what they do in practice is also relevant to what they learn in theory. I shouldn’t generalise, but people who are practical often have fears of theory, so we try to encourage them.”

The smart sheds were designed with multiple uses in mind, and some of the

other benefits have been very successful as well. “One of the things we wanted the smart sheds for was wireless access, so students could use their smart phones on site. We had an Ethernet cable connected, so we have a really good connection to the internet, and then we had a wireless device

put in place, so we have a system that allows up to one hundred students to connect at one time.”

This wireless connection has several uses. The first is the Quick Response (QR) codes Pati is currently trialling with the students. “A lot of the time we talk about the theory, and then

we go out and do the practical work and the students say ‘Oh, what did we talk about again?’ Students learn at different speeds; some get it straight away, some take a day, and others take two days. By putting up a QR code it means students can access specific information when they’re ready.”

Pati makes up the QR code, connecting it to information that relates to what they’re currently studying. He then puts it up on the building site for students to access. “One afternoon last year I went down to the building site and I stapled up QR codes for the first group I was trialling it with.

"Students learn at different speeds.

By putting up a QR code it means

students can access specific information when they’re ready"

Students are benefiting from using the smart sheds which are located on site, as well as using their smart phones to pick up information about their courses.

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Then I posted on Google Plus basic steps on how to use QR codes in preparation for the next day. When I got down to the building site the next day, a couple of students were already scanning it.”

Students can also upload pictures of their work for their portfolio onto their smart phones, and use the Google Plus application to store and manage their portfolios. “Google Plus is new, it’s just come out. It’s got a lot of similarities to Facebook, but it’s better for our purposes. The interface is similar to Facebook, so students know how to drive it fairly quickly. It has a thing called circles, so we can limit posts, and share to specific groups instead of posting to everybody, which the students like. The group I have now up at the Northern campus is the first group I’ve run with Google Plus, and I’m getting some good feedback.”

The previous system was much more paper-based, says Pati. “They used to have to write it in a book, and every time they would give it to us to mark, we’d have it for a couple of weeks, and while we had it they couldn’t do anything in it.”

The initial work that Pati has done is now being expanded into further research to determine the value of the new technology innovations for students. “The original research was around the smart shed, and now what we want to look at is how the smart shed affects the learning process, as well as the wider contextualised learning package that we’re offering, around the QR codes.

“We want to establish how effective the QR codes are — or if they’re effective at all — and how we could use them differently. This new environment we’re offering to the students, we haven’t captured it enough in terms of data. We have much more to learn from the students, from how they’ve found this new learning space they’ve got.”

And it doesn’t stop with QR codes and smart sheds. “Dan Fuemana [Building Technology Head of Department] just bought the software for AR codes, which stands for Augmented Reality. It’s very similar to students scanning a QR code, but instead they scan an AR code, and it gives them an augmented view of an example of a practical component. The first one we actually trialled with was a saw stool, a builder’s workbench. If you scan it by holding your phone over it, an image pops up, kind of like a hologram, and you can zoom in, spin it around, and look at different components like how many nails have been used. We’re still trying to get it off the ground.”

QR codes are a two dimensional bar code, released in 1994, and first developed in Japan for the automotive industry. They can store more information than a traditional barcode because they carry information both vertically and horizontally.

QR CoDes DeCoDeD

Pati shows students how to use an application

on his phone.

» contact Kamuka Pati LecturerBuilding Technology Department of Building Technology email: [email protected]


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Stephanie Maxwell, Professor of Film from the Rochester

Institute of Technology and experimental filmmaker, is staying in the Creative

Industries and Business Artist in Residence house.

Miriam Harris, Stephanie Maxwell and Emily , one of the

US students.

American Professor Stephanie Maxwell is a familiar face around Unitec. The experimental filmmaker has been to New Zealand several times in the last few years, twice as the Creative Industries and Business faculty’s Artist in Residence. “New Zealand keeps me mentally alive,” she says. “It’s just such an exotic and wonderful place. When I first stepped off the plane, the first time I visited, it was like, ‘oh this is really different’. Even the sky is different; it has this metallic lustre. It’s very majestic and stunning and unusual.”

Known for her use of animation processes that directly alter the film surface with paint and other media, Maxwell was influenced by New Zealand experimental filmmaker and kinetic sculptor Len Lye early in her career. In 2005 she was the keynote speaker at a symposium on Lye, organised by Unitec Design and Visual Arts senior lecturer, Miriam Harris. The pair had met at an international animation conference years earlier. “We got talking, and got on well, and she expressed her ardent admiration and adoration of Len Lye,” says Harris. “She’s got a very impressive resume, her work has been shown at all kinds of prestigious festivals, and she explained how monumental an influence he’d had on her work.”

After two very successful residencies in New Zealand, Maxwell returned again this year -

with some additional guests. A group of nine students from the School of Film and Animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York, came with her for a five-week production-based course that Maxwell taught with help from Harris and Unitec Performing and Screen Arts lecturer, Scott Wilson. “They worked on films in collaboration with Kiwi students at Unitec. They formed small groups to define an idea and execute a project during the time they were here. The idea was that they formed a collaboration to conceive of an idea together, and there was no director on the project. We call it ‘true collaboration’.”

Having such an experienced animator and filmmaker on campus is a boost for students and lecturers alike. “Stephanie is a very enthusiastic, passionate and experienced animator,” says Harris. “She works in both digital and analogue, and that’s very current these days. It is a good concentrated integration of her expertise: expertise that comes from overseas, yet it’s nice that the expertise has been so inspired by one of our iconic locals.”

While Maxwell has spent much of her time with her students, she will also be starting on a new film project. “I’ve got the Creative Industries and Business residence again for a couple of months. I am always am making work, so I will have another project underway before I leave.”

Film collaboration with RiT

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Registering the Future

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Collecting plant samples has been an important part of understanding our environment for centuries. They provide an historical record of changes in vegetation, and can represent the only record of some plant species’ original distribution. They can also track changes in climate and human impact.

Today, herbaria around the world store collections spanning the last 400 years and now the Unitec Herbarium joins their ranks as a fully registered international facility with its own Index Herbariorium entry, and the ability to store internationally recognised specimens.

Herbarium curator and Natural Sciences Lecturer Dr Dan Blanchon says the registration of the herbarium has been a vital component in his own research, and the work being produced by students. “It is standard practice in biodiversity and botany-type research, if you’re talking about a plant you’ve collected somewhere, to collect what is called a voucher specimen that proves you’ve looked at that particular plant. That voucher specimen goes into a registered herbarium. That’s one reason for being registered, it means that when I write a refereed scientific publication, I can put my specimens into our herbarium here.”

Blanchon, who is one of a handful of lichenologists in the country, co-founded the herbarium in 2001 with former Unitec technician Carol Elliot. “It was the goal all along to reach 5,000 specimens,” he says. “Up to now it’s been an informal herbarium – 5,000 is the magic number to be officially registered and recognised internationally. We now have around 5,150 specimens.”

Unitec’s herbarium was started with the help of the Auckland Museum, which Blanchon says is the regional herbarium ‘mother ship’. “We work quite closely with the Auckland Museum and have quite a good relationship with them. For bio-security reasons they handle any loans of specimens I want from overseas for research, and they also donated specimens to get us going.”

For research purposes, having an actual physical specimen on site is a huge benefit. “It’s better than a photograph. A photograph doesn’t actually cover all the features, because some of

the features that tell one species from another are actually microscopic, you might have to look down a microscope to look at the hairs or the vein pattern,” says Blanchon.

Added to that, plant names can change over time and having physical plant samples means that research becomes more

accurate. “Names that were used 50 years ago might not be used now, but you can always go back to the voucher specimen and see exactly what that person was looking at 50 years ago,” says Blanchon.

Being registered also gives Unitec’s herbarium an official international status, allowing for ease of transferring samples overseas. “It makes it easier when you’re sending specimens,” says Blanchon. “We occasionally send duplicates of our specimens overseas, and it makes it easier to get through customs and border control. Because we’re registered, and therefore we have a status, there is a degree of trust for sending material.”

Unitec is now the only tertiary institution in Auckland to have a registered herbarium,

Unitec’s herbarium has now achieved the crucial number of specimens to be officially registered as an international herbarium.

"It was the goal all along to reach 5,000

specimens - the magic number to be officially registered

and recognised internationally."

» contact Dr Dan Blanchon Senior Lecturerand Herbarium CuratorDepartment of Natural Sciences email: [email protected]

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a point of difference Blanchon is keen to emphasise. “It’s important in a learning environment. Students do herbarium assignments in the first and second years of the Bachelor of Applied Science degree. It teaches them botany, awareness of natural history, and plant taxonomy, which is the naming and classifying of plants. It teaches them how to create a herbarium specimen, and if they go and work for someone like MAF - now MPI - or a council or DOC they may need to create herbarium specimens as voucher specimens of where a new weed is collected from, or where a rare plant might be.”

It’s a matter of credibility as well. “For any tertiary organisation that is teaching biodiversity or bio-security, a collection of plants that includes native plants and weeds is really at the centre of being able to teach and do research in those areas.”

The Unitec Herbarium has a number of volunteers helping Blanchon with the day-to-day requirements of entering data. Christy Reynolds is in his second year of the Applied Science degree, and regularly helps with the formal process of recording a new sample, called accessioning. “We have samples collected, some from Bioblitzes, or student work, like assignments. They all go onto sheets if it’s a plant specimen, or packets if it’s lichen or fungi,” says Reynolds. “Then it gets hand written into a book, which gives it a number, where it was found, and then that goes into the computer which is the whole herbarium database. From there we print out new labels or new packets in acid-free archival paper, and then they get put into the herbarium.”

Not just any sample will do either. They are very specific about what they put into the herbarium. “A herbarium specimen is a scientific record, and a scientific record has to have really good information with it,” says Blanchon. “The specimen itself has to be something we want in the herbarium. From a scientific record side of things if you don’t know where it was collected from, it has no scientific value. You’ve got to know where it was collected, and it’s also important to know when it was collected. Those are the two key things you need.”

Reynolds is currently working on a project with fellow second-year student Orhan Er that would be difficult without the information provided by the Herbarium. With funding from Unitec’s sustainability fund the two students are doing a plant survey of the Wairaka stream on Unitec’s campus.

“Unitec is talking about restoring the stream, but you can’t restore something unless you know what’s already there and what kind of impact it might have, so that’s where the project came from,” says Blanchon. “Orhan and Christy stood out as being really interested and excited about plants. They went the extra mile, collected extra specimens they didn’t need to for their projects, that kind of thing.”

It’s a unique opportunity for the two students. “We’re fortunate in that we’re second year students and have been asked to do something like this,” says Er. “It shows a level of trust in us, which is quite exciting.”

Once they’ve collected a sample from the stream, they must identify it using reference books and specimens from the herbarium. “The most challenging part is the identification of the plant,” says Reynolds. “There’s a guide or a key, which describes certain parts of the plant, but there’s a lot of jargon.”

“There’s a lot of Latin and Greek,” agrees Er. “But all those big long names are actually describing aspects of the plant. Once you get to grips with what the words mean, it helps you to understand, and realise that instead of just putting a big long name on the plant it’s actually describing it. That’s one of the bonuses of hanging around in the herbarium; you get to familiarise yourself with those names.”

The herbarium itself needs to have certain conditions to ensure the samples are kept in the best possible condition. “The biggest threat to a herbarium is the specimens being eaten,” says Blanchon. “Anything that will damage a book or a fabric

will attack a dried plant. Carpet beetles, book lice, silverfish, and cockroaches: anything like that will eat your herbarium specimens. There are some very tragic herbarium specimens in the world where all the flowers are gone and they’re just sad little stumps.”

Traditionally insecticides have been used to kill these bugs, including harmful mercury-based products, but the techniques used these days are a little less invasive. “The modern way of doing it is to keep the temperature really low and the humidity below around 50 per cent,” says Blanchon. “That generally discourages insects from living in there. We’ve been using that system for the last three years and it seems to be working quite well.”

As to its future, the herbarium will continue to accept new specimens, with plant samples being added all the time. There are still many to be collected, says Blanchon, including an array of lichen species, his main research focus. “New Zealand has around 2,000 native flowering or higher plants, and around 2,000 invasive or weedy plant species and probably another 20,000 flowering plants that are garden plants,” he says. “I’m obviously focusing on getting a really good collection of lichens - altogether we have around 2,000 lichen samples. I think we’ve probably got about 800 species [out of around 1800 recognised species in New Zealand], so we’ve got quite a way to go. We’ll just continue to collect specimens and keep filling the gaps on plants we don’t have yet.”

Fast Facts

» There are approximately 3,400 herbaria around the world.

» Collectively they have an estimated 350 million specimens.

» The largest herbarium in the world is located at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France, and holds eight million samples.

» The Auckland Museum has approximately 350,000 specimens, including some from Captain Cook’s voyages.


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1. A sample of a Kauri tree from the herbarium. A sample generally includes leaves, branches, seeds and roots, along with the information about the sample on acid-free archival paper. 2. Students Christy Reynolds and Orhan Er look at some of the dried samples they have collected from around the Wairaka Stream. 3. Orhan holds up two samples collected from the stream. 4. Dan Blanchon checks out a sample through the microscope. 5. A sample in the herbarium. 6. Dan Blanchon in front of one of the herbarium cabinets full of samples.

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It’s such an integral part of our everyday existence that most of us don’t even notice we’re doing it. But for those with breathing problems, it can be a massive effort to take each and every breath.

According to recent master of osteopathy graduate Ashleigh Mitchell, not enough is known about breathing dysfunction, how to determine who has it, what’s the cause or how to treat it. “Dysfunctional breathing has no set definition, but it’s a term that is used to describe breathing that is unable to perform functions for an individual at a given time,” she says.

Dysfunctional breathing is estimated to affect somewhere between 5-11 per cent of the population, a number that rises to 30 per cent among asthmatics, and then up to a huge 83 per cent of anxiety sufferers. The interrelation between asthma and breathing dysfunction isn’t unexpected, says Mitchell. “Basically they can have asthma, but they can also have poor breathing function, which makes it worse,” she says. Mitchell’s master’s study was completed last year, and based on research by Australian

osteopath Roselba Courtney into methods of testing for dysfunctional breathing. “As part of her research, she did a lot on the diagnosis, coming up with a gold standard for diagnosing dysfunctional breathing,” says Mitchell. “She did a lot on manual assessments of breathing, and she also formulated the self-evaluation of breathing questionnaire [SEBQ] which is what my study is based around.”

The SEBQ asks participants to self evaluate their breathing, to help determine

where the issues may lie. Mitchell’s research aimed to assess the

reliability of the questionnaire, developed by Courtney as part of her PhD thesis. “I also asked questions about their lifestyle and demographic variables.

Whether they smoked, female/male, physical activity levels,

occupation, and then I looked at what lifestyle and demographic

variables affect people’s breathing,” says Mitchell.

When it came to finding participants for her study, Mitchell used an online tool called www.getparticipants.com, a website developed by Unitec tutor Jamie Mannion specifically to help health science researchers find online

One breath at a time Two master of osteopathy students have been contributing to new research around one of our most vital functions – breathing.

"Dysfunctional breathing is

estimated to affect somewhere between

5-11 per cent of the population."


A study in the Netherlands found that

people with cardio-vascular disease who did regular breathing

and relaxation exercises had a massive 30 per cent reduction in the incidence of cardiac events

over a five year period.

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DiD yoU knoW?° Breathing is one of the few bodily

functions which, within limits, can be controlled both consciously and unconsciously.

° We take over 20,000 breaths every day

° each of those breaths involves the movement of over 150 joints and a complex interplay of breathing muscles.

° The breathing rate in women and children is faster than men.

° Laughter, physically, is simply repeated sharp breaths.

° More than half a litre of water per day is lost through breathing.

° People under 30 years of age take in double the amount of oxygen to an 80-year-old person.

1. Martin Ludwig tests Ashley Mitchell's breathing. 2. Mitchell demonstrates breathing function aparatus.3. A variety of techniques is used to test breathing levels.

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participants. “I did it all online. My participants could be anyone, except those who were bed-ridden and really sick. I got 180 participants, a really good strong sample for a study, and it was New Zealand-wide.”

Mitchell used the test-retest model to assess the reliability. “We sent it out to people who were interested, and then two weeks later we sent it out again, but changed the order of the questions to minimise them remembering how they answered it last time.”

The results were very positive and mean further research into the questionnaire could result in its use in a clinical environment, which would be a huge step forward in diagnosing dysfunctional breathing. “It came out that the questionnaire had a very high reliability,” says Mitchell.

She also found relationships between dysfunctional breathing and other conditions. “The most highly related were smoking, which is hardly surprising, and chronic respiratory illness, like asthma, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Also if someone had a cold or flu in the last two weeks before filling out the form, they tended to score higher.”

Mitchell was able to use the results from her survey to come to some other more surprising results. “I did a regression model, which is what variables predict how people might score on the questionnaire. Those three variables I mentioned came into it, but also female gender. Females were likely to score higher, so they are more likely to have breathing difficulty than males.”

Although she says this is more easily explained than it seems. “There’s research that suggests that females are more highly affected by anxiety and stress and it’s known that dysfunctional breathing is higher in people with anxiety.”

Mitchell’s study was just the beginning of the breathing research being done in the osteopathy department. Continuing on from her research, current master of osteopathy student Martin Lugwig is now testing the reliability of a manual assessment of respiratory motion (MARM) — another tool developed by Courtney — and assessing whether there is a correlation between the breathing symptoms as described by patients in the SEBQ, and the results of the manual assessments. “The big issue with breathing dysfunction is that we’ve got no standardised test for it, and no standard definition for it,” he says. “It’s this whole floating area out there that no one can grasp because it has so many aspects to it.”

Ludwig says testing the tests is an important step in the process of determining whether

they can be accurately used in the diagnosis of patients. “That’s why Roselba Courtney is trying to develop the SEBQ and the MARM, so you have different ways of assessing it,” he says. “The gold standard, would probably be to use a physical measurement like the MARM, alongside a measurement of symptoms like the SEBQ and a bio-chemical measurement like the capnogram, which measures exhaled CO2.”

As part of his study, Ludwig needed to find subjects with a history of breathing dysfunction, from those with a slight problem, to those at the more severe end of the spectrum. He contacted Auckland clinic Breathing Works, a group of physiotherapists who specialise in breathing pattern disturbance. “I met with Tania Clifton-Smith and Dinah Morrison, and asked them if I could recruit patients from their clinics and they were more than happy for me to do so.”

He also organised for Courtney to come across to New Zealand to train a group to be testers in the MARM technique for his study. “When Roselba’s breathing workshop came along, I asked Tania and Dinah if they wanted to join my study, and be testers, and again, they agreed. It’s great to have physiotherapists and osteopaths working together on a project like this.”

Ludwig is also using another survey, the Nijmegen Questionnaire (NQ) as part of his study to determine links between other symptoms around breathing dysfunction. “The NQ was invented to determine hyperventilation syndrome, so it includes a lot more symptoms than those that relate to breathing dysfunction. For example it asks about tingling in the fingers and blurred vision.”

Hyperventilation syndrome was discredited in the 1990s, and breathing dysfunction emerged as an alternative umbrella for people who have trouble with breathing. “Breathing dysfunction involves bio-mechanical, bio-chemical, and psychological aspects. Some people may only exhibit one or two of the symptoms. That’s where the research needs to come in. How bad does the breathing dysfunction have to be for you to get symptoms? Why you get symptoms without breathing disturbance?”

In the longterm, the tools that Ludwig and Mitchell have been testing will help determine how to diagnose patients with breathing dysfunction. “Breathing dysfunction should be a medical condition in itself, but it just can’t be that just yet, because we haven’t figured out how it really works. Hopefully my study will become part of that.”

"It's this whole floating area out there that no one can grasp,

because it has so many aspects."

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Using research to actively make changes to the teaching methods used by teaching staff at Unitec is just one of the central aims of Te Puna Ako, Unitec’s Centre for Teaching and Learning.

As part of the initiative to embed language, literacy and numeracy into programmes across Unitec, the Te Puna Ako Academic Literacies Team formed an action research group in 2009 to investigate sustainable change and educational reform theories, with an emphasis on the capability development of teaching staff.

The action research methodologies used were specifically those of Eileen Piggot-Irvine, who was then Associate Professor in Unitec’s Education department. She was able to guide the team with regards to the correct procedures and help develop the research.

Ac·tion n 1 the process or state of acting or of being active; 2 something done or performed; 3 energetic activity. Re·search n 1 diligent and systematic inquiry or investigation into a subject in order to discover or revise facts, theories, applications; 2 a particular instance or piece of research.

putting actioninto research


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Action research is a qualitative style of research that encourages participants to go through a process of gathering data and identifying an issue; planning and carrying out changes indicated by the information gathering; doing analysis of the impact of implementation; reflecting on the results; and then either making further changes or reporting and presenting the results.

The successful outcome of that original action research cycle led to the Academic Literacies Team setting up further action research projects with Unitec staff over multiple disciplines with a focus on improving teaching and learning. Over the last three years they have provided support, advice and data to encourage a range of research topics.

One of this year’s participants is Foundation Studies Lecturer Sue Crossan, who teaches academic study skills on the pre-nursing pathway. She did an action research project in 2010 around report writing for nursing students. “The results were amazing actually. We had really positive results from the students, and we found out what needed to happen to make things easier for the students.”

This year, Crossan is working on an action research project looking at the numeracy and literacy assessment tools that recently became mandatory for all tertiary institution courses from levels one to four. “We get diagnostic feedback for each student from their literary assessment, and we wanted to know what the teachers are doing with that information. Is it useful? How are they using it to inform their teaching in the classroom?”

Trying to ensure the best use of the new assessment tool is significant for tertiary educators across New Zealand. “It’s topical and relevant,” says Crossan. “The research we wanted to do is around how we can use it in a positive way, because we have to work with it. It’s about trying to make the information more useful to teachers.”

The research could potentially be used by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), which is keen for research on how the tool is being used. “This online assessment tool is the only one of its kind, so there isn’t any research out there on how it works, how it affects the teachers or the students. So TEC will welcome any feedback we can give. It was only introduced a year ago, so we really don’t know what we’re going to find. It could be a mixed bag, or it could be a really positive response.”

Robyn Gandell, Curriculum Leader of Science in Foundation Studies, has also been looking at the online assessment tool, but from a slightly different perspective. “Because we’ve been doing a lot of work in our numeracy subjects about embedding literacy, I was wondering if there is a link between literacy and numeracy,” she says.

from above: 1. The facebook page for students to connect. 2. Sue Crossan from the Department of Foundation Studies. 3. Robyn Gandell, Curriculum Leader of Science in Foundation Studies. 4. Mark Smith, Senior Lecturer, Te Puna Ako, and director Adult Literacies team. 5. Katherine Bruffy, Lecturer from the Department of Sport.

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Her result, after analysis of the current students’ tests, is that yes, there is a strong link between the numeracy and literacy abilities of students. “But the problem is, what does that mean? Does it mean that you can’t learn your maths until you have a good basis of English or does it mean you can’t learn English unless you have a good basis in maths? Who’s to say? It’s not causal. There are a lot of questions about what I’ve come up with; not many answers, but a lot of questions. But I don’t mind that, I like questions.”

There is interest in the results of any research being completed within adult learning, says Gandell. “Everybody is interested in adult learning. I recently presented this research at an international conference, called Adults Learning Maths, held by AUT. Also, Bettina Schwenger from the Academic Literacies Team and I are going to the Australian Council for Adult Literacy National Conference; we’ve been accepted to present.”

Gandell says that presenting at the conferences will help to focus the next phase of her research. “Part of my idea is to show everything I’ve got, and then ask people what they think. When you go to conferences, especially international conferences, people tell you about all kinds of things they’ve read, or done, that could add to the research.”

Action research was a new process for many of the teacher researchers involved. With a background in quantitative research, Sports Management lecturer Katie Bruffy found it hard at first to accept the change in research methodologies to the qualitative active research style. “At first it was a bit problematic for me, I wanted the results; I wanted the validity and reliability. It was hard to get my head around letting things evolve and reacting to the implementation and evaluating it. But actually I found it really beneficial. It’s the true stories that came out. You get to see the true reaction.”

Bruffy’s study involved setting up a Facebook page for her level five and six students to allow them to interact outside the classroom. “The main purpose of it was trying to provide an additional resource for the students to bring in their own real world experience. I wanted to create a platform where people could be outside the classroom, and be sharing and experiencing living, real-world sport marketing examples.”

Bruffy says the feedback from students was mostly positive towards using Facebook as an alternative learning resource. Friendships were formed and ideas were shared. “The vibe was quite positive around the use of it, and making it a real world experience. Some of the feedback I got was that people appreciated the social network. All of a sudden their network got bigger.”

She was also able to attend the North American Society of Sport Management’s annual conference to present her findings, accompanied by Eileen Piggot-Irvine. “It was great, people were definitely interested. They had been dabbling in the classroom with social media, were curious and wanted to know more. They were interested in collaborating in the future, and great conversations were had out of it. Plus, Eileen was able to come over, and we were able to share action research with the group.”

Aside from the invaluable knowledge gained from doing research across a variety of areas around Unitec, the process of action research has been beneficial to the lecturers who have taken part. “Research is often structured, but this is more flexible. It’s more responsive. You need to move and flow with what you’re doing,” says Crossan. “It’s also an educated response. If you keep teaching without thinking about it, you’ll just keep making the same mistake. But this way, you’re making an educated response, and then changing something in a positive way.”

Gandell agrees. “I like the way you start off looking at information to decide what to do, before you move into actually saying ‘We’re going to try this and see if something happens’. I also like that we look at our own students, so you can see if it’s actually working for your students. It’s very involved in teaching practice.”

Overall the response to the action research process through the Adult Literacies Team has been very positive. “Research is always challenging and I would never have done it without having their support. I had several meetings with Mark Smith [Director, Adult Literacies] and Eileen, just brainstorming, helping me with some of the analysis, and framing certain things,” says Bruffy. “It was about breaking out of my comfort zone, but I just decided I needed to embrace it.”

"Research is often

structured, but this is

more flexible. It's more

responsive."

» contact Bettina Schwenger Curriculum Development Adult Literacies Te Puna Ako [email protected]


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Go for GoldThis year’s London Olympics has an exciting Unitec connection: Master of Osteopathy graduate Mick McBeth is on the Triathlon NZ support team, helping to ensure our top athletes perform at their peak.

McBeth did his master's thesis on the management of discomfort associated with road cycling, looking at using a bike fit − where the cycling position of the cyclist is analysed and necessary changes are made to the bicycle based on a set of optimal ergonomic measurements − and osteopathic treatment to minimise damage.

Cyclists experience a range of musculoskeletal overuse-type injuries, including injuries to knees, neck and shoulders, hands and the perineum and McBeth’s research looked at whether intervention on a regular training programme could help with the management of these injuries. All participants experienced a reduction in their overall discomfort while cycling, and at the conclusion of his thesis he was able to say that the combined use of a bike fit and osteopathy appeared to be an effective management plan for road cyclists.

His results — and his osteopathic skills — were sufficient to convince Triathlon NZ to contract him onto the support team for the duration of the London Olympics. He started working with the team late last year, and has been at several training sessions, and travelled overseas with the

athletes to competition events in the lead up to the big event in August. He works with all eight athletes on the team, including the two reserves. “I’m looking after the core group, depending on where they are. Some, like Bevan Docherty, train in the United States, so I only see him at races, he says.

According to McBeth, his master's degree ensured he was well prepared for being thrust into managing athletes in a high performance setting so soon after studying. “Unitec focuses on ‘real world’ research, so my study prepared me for not only getting out there and doing the work, but also taking it to the next level and being able to successfully support athletes at the elite level of our triathlon team.”

He says the athletes were keen to get an osteopath on the support team, having seen the results achieved by other international teams. “A lot of the French teams, where some of our athletes train, use osteopaths and in Europe it’s quite common. Some of the Kiwi athletes really pushed for it. I had a bit of a trial before I was contracted and NZ Tri were happy with the results.”

Once the excitement of the Olympics is over, he will be winging his way back to New Zealand and his regular work. “I’ve also set up my own business, Body Logic, in New Plymouth. Things have been happening pretty quickly this year, but I am enjoying the ride!”

" Unitec focuses on ‘real world’ research, so my study prepared me to successfully support athletes at the elite level of our triathlon team.”

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Mastering her work For Kiely Murphy, doing her Master of Educational Leadership and Management meant she could study a topic close to her heart. Along with her other teaching responsibilities at Baradine College in Auckland, she’s also the year 12 dean. “Traditionally deans are seen as the disciplinarians, dealing with uniform issues and problems students might be having. But they’re also the glue that brings together teachers, students, parents and the community,” she says.

Murphy found there was very little research into pastoral care by middle leaders such as deans, house leaders, and heads of year. “I decided to look at the importance of the role, the challenges of the role, and the professional development of the role. I found that with the changes in secondary schools recently, the role has become very multifaceted, but it is fundamentally supporting learning. It’s doing that by maintaining that holistic school-wide view between pastoral care and academic studies.”

After doing her master's full-time last year, Murphy is now back in the role of media studies teacher and year 12 dean and she’s putting her research to good use. “I’ve identified some areas in my environment where we can make some changes. I’ve also found there’s a huge lack of professional development for pastoral care leaders out there. So I’ve started a blog and I am collating links and information that I think would be useful for people in the role. I’d like to organise a conference for pastoral care professionals as well.”

She also did a presentation at Kings College. “They saw my research topic in Advance magazine last year, and they invited me to go out and talk at one of their professional development days about pastoral care.”

As for her future as a school dean, that remains unchanged. “I want to support young people, to make a difference in their lives. You can’t measure the difference you make as a dean.”

Master of Architecture Name: Anne MilbankResearch: Ole Nu'u o le Ao: Polynesian Domestic Archetypes in Auckland.

Master of Architecture (Professional) Name: Erxin ShangResearch: A "Pulpitumic" School - A Place to Project Architecture into the Consciousness of the Public.

Name: Martin Leung-WaiResearch: The Taualuga: A Spatial Study.

Name: Steven HutanaResearch: Hamo Te Rangi- Design for a Contemporary Urban Marae.

Name: Tony NgResearch: New Urbanism for Auckland.

Name: Georgy RajanResearch: Eco-Resort in Rural India.

Name: William WeaversResearch: Active Living Architecture.

Name: Xue BaiResearch: Principles of Housing which Achieves Social Interaction and Community Integration.

Name: Charlotte BrennanResearch: Modernism: A Contemporary Interpretation.

Name: Tess FenwickResearch: Programme: Morphosis.

Name: Zhenyu LiResearch: Tangible Architecture.

Completions Unitec congratulates the following students who have recently completed postgraduate research projects at Unitec. Copies of these studies can be found in the Unitec library or through the Unitec Research Bank, www.unitec.researchbank.ac.nz

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Name: Kyle LombardResearch: Future Living in Auckland's CBD.

Name: John O'SullivanResearch: The Aesthetics of Topology Optimisation and Non-standard Analysis.

Name: Brendan Scott-WoodsResearch: Exploring Cultural Gateways: Designing a New International Airport Terminal That Represents New Zealand's Cultural Identity.

Master of Business Name: Garikai TachiwonaResearch: Understanding the Potential of the Balanced Scorecard to Drive a High Performance Culture in a New Zealand Information Technology Organization: An Exploratory Study.

Name: Mary Ling-PuiResearch: Exploring Not-for-Profit Marketing: A Service-Dominant Logic Perspective.

Name: Feletiliki Kefu Manisela Research: The impact of working capital management dynamics on performance of Tongang enterprises in New Zealand.

Master of Computing Name: Guorong XuResearch: Social networking sites, Web 2.0 technologies and e-learning.

Name: Rachel Chandra SelvanResearch: Impacts, changes and technical issue that arise when introducing an online learning tool in a tertialry educational organisation.

Name: ZhengYi (Alex) GuanResearch: A Reliability Evaluation of Wireless Sensor Network Simulator: Simulation vs Testbed.

Name: Lian WeiResearch: Success Factors for Transactional eCommerce Websites: An Investigation Focusing on Technical and Business contexts.

Master of Design Name: Gillian DeeryResearch: Processing Practice/Practice as Process.

Name: Robert ShawResearch: Designing the Shaw 9 Metre.

Name: Jan SimmonsResearch: Response to Nature and Space.

Name: Ilse-Marie Erl Research: Street Combing: An Investigation into the use of Found Materials from the Urban Landscape in Contemporary Jewellery Making.

Name: Ann McIverResearch: Navigating the Arteries of Loss - A figurative Ceramic Exploration of the Human Condition in Situations of Loss.

Name: Rachel Bell Research: Fragmentation and the found in the production of contemporary jewellery.

Master of educational Leadership and Management Name: Bill BarkerResearch: Turnaround leadership: how three successful leaders turned around their schools.

Name: Justine Driver Research: Teaching as Inquiry: Understandings and Challenges Towards a Professional way of Being.

Name: Claire Edwards Research: Effective Evaluation of Professional Development.

Name: Raewyn PilbrowResearch: Influences on Pasifika Student Academic Achievement in New Zealand Primary Schools.

Name: Janice BorsosResearch: Principals supporting aspiring principals while attending a development programme.

Name: Fiona CavanaghResearch: The Problem of Boys’ Underachievement in Writing in New Zealand Primary Schools.

Name: Vaughan CouillaultResearch: Expectations and Experiences of Independent Learning in Two New Zealand Secondary Schools.

Name: Syharath SaengalounResearch: The middle manager's role and professional development needs in Lao higher education.

Master of Health science Name: Exelda Kruger Research: Prescription Rights for New Zealand MRI Technologists – An Opportunity for Role Extension.

Master of Landscape Architecture Name: Daniel CoombesResearch: Unfamiliar Terrain: From the Paradox of Intervention to Paradoxical Intervention.

Master of osteopathy Name: Tonia Peachey Research: Marketing the osteopathic practice: An exploratory investigation.

Name: Nicola Gardyne Research: Predictors of Parents seeking Osteopathic Care for their Infant.

Name: Ashleigh MitchellResearch: Test-Retest Reliability and Determinants of the Self Evaluation of Breathing Questionnaire (SEBQ): A Measure of Dysfunctional Breathing.

Name: Karen Gardner Research: An Exploration of the Experience of Parents in the Osteopathic Treatment of their Infants.

Name: Tasman DarraghResearch: The effect of Home-exercise with and without Additional Osteopathic Treatment for those with Shoulder Impingement Syndrome.

Name: Anna Kurth Research: Women's Attitudes to and Experiences of Osteopathic Care during Pregnancy.

Name: Natalie Knight Research: The Behaviours and Attitudes Surrounding the use of Equine Complementary and Alternative Medicine Amongst Horse-carers.

Name: Lisa WalkerResearch: Variables associated with neck dysfunction in amateur soccer players.

Name: Bhakti HargovanResearch: The development of grading criteria and investigation of test-retest reliability of selected floor sitting postures.

Name: Pearl AlbertsonResearch: What are the Factors that Guide an Osteopath During the Process of Technique Choice?

Master of social Practice Name: Sheree Veysey Research: Look at the Human Being in Front of you who’s Hurting: Clients with a Borderline Personality Disorder Diagnosis Describe their Experience of Discriminatory and Helpful Behaviour from Health Professionals.

Name: Alabi Adeosun Research: How people who have a relative or friend with mental illness are supported by the Auckland branch of supporting families in mental illness.

Name: Faye PouesiResearch: Te Puawaitanga o te ngakau.

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Advance - Winter 2012