Otago Polytechnic

Abstract This study explored the reflective experiences of three teachers using formative feedback to support the development of learner autonomy and lifelong learning skills. The reflective narrative explores the evolving journey and experiences of three teachers to support learners’ development of self-directed and independent learning skills to enable learning autonomy in an Institute of Technology and Polytechnic (ITP) in New Zealand. This study adopts an introspective-reflective method to report three contextual reflections of three teachers/facilitators to support self-directed and independent learning for undergraduate and postgraduate learners. The findings show specific examples of how each teacher adopted formative feedback to support independent and self-directed learning to enhance learning. The authors’ contribution adds to the growing body of guidance for teachers and facilitators on how to use formative feedback in ways that empower learners rather than directing them – striking a balance that nurtures learners without undermining original ideas or creative intent.

Nexus of technologies leads to a digital revolution to reshape the construction industry, such as artificial intelligence of things (AIoT), but the leverage through integration with drones is still unexplored. The study conducts a systematic literature review of relevant literature retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science repositories to uncover the applications of AIoT-enabled drones in the construction industry. Preferred reporting items for systematic and meta-analyses protocols were applied to conduct a review of 182 retrieved articles. The publication trend peaked in 2023, with dips in 2020 and 2024. IEEE journal supersedes other publishers. Most research was conducted in India, followed by the USA and China. The most recurring keywords for this review were ‘Internet of Things’ and ‘Artificial Intelligence,’ based on the Scopus database. Keyword co-occurrence revealed four knowledge clusters. Seven areas of application are identified for AIoT-powered drones in the construction sector. A detailed discourse is conducted on the findings to unveil their implications for theory and practice. Challenges to adopting AIoT-powered drones are explored, and future directions for research and industry are delineated. The study aims to accelerate the adoption of AIoT technology in the construction industry. Researchers, academics, and industry practitioners are the target of this study as it seeks to expedite the adoption of AIoT in the construction industry, owing to its promising implications.

ObjectivesWe examined how shoe recommendation based on gait analysis influences subjective perceptions of comfort, performance and injury reduction in runners while monitoring spatiotemporal and kinematic parameters.DesignSingle‐blind crossover randomised controlled trial with repeated measures.MethodTwenty‐one women runners completed a clinical gait analysis and four 5‐min treadmill trials at a self‐selected comfortable speed sequentially in their own shoes (OS), the first experimental shoes (randomised), their OS, and the second experimental shoes (randomised). The two experimental shoes were identical except for their colour (randomised) and were presented to runners as either a ‘basic’ shoe or, deceptively, a ‘gait‐matched’ shoe selected for them based on the clinical gait analysis conducted.ResultsRunning Comfort Assessment Tool (RUN‐CAT) scores and 100 mm visual analogue scale ratings of subjective comfort, performance and injury reduction differed significantly between own and experimental shoes (p < 0.001). Post‐hoc comparisons revealed that runners’ OS were the most comfortable (83.3 ± 3.8 mm) followed by gait‐matched (66.1 ± 21.5 mm) and then basic (49.0 ± 24.1 mm) shoes. RUN‐CAT, performance and injury reduction ratings were similar between own and gait‐matched shoes, but gait‐matched shoes had better mean difference (95% confidence intervals), RUN‐CAT (15.6 mm [5.7, 25.5]), performance (17.1 mm [5.6, 28.6]) and injury reduction (30.1 mm [8.9, 51.2]) scores than the basic shoes. Discrete spatiotemporal, foot strike angle and resultant tibial acceleration parameters were not significantly different between shoes (p ≥ 0.157). Most runners overall preferred their OS (71.4%), followed by gait‐matched (23.8%) and basic (4.8%) shoes.ConclusionsShoe recommendation and description can significantly affect subjective shoe comfort and overall preferences without significantly altering spatiotemporal and kinematic parameters. Runners should be cautious while choosing shoes based on recommendations and descriptors derived from gait analysis or based solely on perceived comfort as runners’ subjective perceptions can be artificially manipulated.Trial Registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry: ACTRN12623000516684.

The kākāpō is a critically endangered flightless parrot which suffers from exudative cloacitis, a debilitating disease resulting in inflammation of the vent margin or cloaca. Despite this disease emerging over 20 years ago, the cause of exudative cloacitis remains elusive. We used total RNA sequencing and metatranscriptomic analysis to characterise the infectome of lesions and cloacal swabs from nine kākāpō affected with exudative cloacitis, and compared this to cloacal swabs from 45 non-diseased kākāpō. We identified three bacterial species – Streptococcus gallolyticus, Enterococcus faecalis and Escherichia coli – as significantly more abundant in diseased kākāpō compared to healthy individuals. The genetic diversity observed in both S. gallolyticus and E. faecalis among diseased kākāpō suggests that these bacteria originate from exogenous sources rather than from kākāpō-to-kākāpō transmission. The presence of extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC)-associated virulence factors in the diseased kākāpō population suggests that E. coli may play a critical role in disease progression by facilitating iron acquisition and causing DNA damage in host cells, possibly in association with E. faecalis. No avian viral, fungal nor other parasitic species were identified. These results, combined with the consistent presence of one E. coli gnd sequence type across multiple diseased birds, suggests that this species may be the primary cause of exudative cloacitis. These findings shed light on possible causative agents of exudative cloacitis, and offer insights into the interplay of microbial factors influencing the disease.

INTRODUCTION: The theme, ‘network,’ speaks to the idea that relationships between phenomena are more important than—and indeed produce or perform—things and beings themselves. Some such things and beings might typically be regarded as relatively proximate, the connections well-known and reiterated; others more distant and the act of connecting them daring, difficult or speculative. These latter relationships often depend on a willingness to traverse multiple areas of knowledge or disciplines, which is precisely what this journal, The Journal for Thematic Dialogue, encourages. In recent decades, there has been much ‘thematic dialogue’ about the place of human beings in the greater scheme of things. Contrary to dominant tendencies in Western thought since the Enlightenment, a ‘networked’ perspective suggests that the putative intelligence of people does not make them separate from everything else on the planet; but, at the same time, this same intelligence, or an assumption of its distinctiveness and superiority, has succeeded in having an exceptional—to the point of catastrophic—impact on the planet’s ecosystem. If there is any way out of this pickle, or at least of surviving in the midst of it a little while longer, it would seem propitious to regard human beings merely as constituent factors in a much vaster and multitudinous assemblage, constellation or ecology, not as the centre around which everything else revolves, while, at the same time, recognising that this puts us in a place of responsibility—to care for everything else we connect with, for the sake of sustaining the wider network and by extension our place within it.

In 2013 I edited the final issue (as I was dismayed to discover afterwards) of the Journal of New Zealand Art History (JONZAH). It is a pleasure, then, to write this introduction for a special issue of the Journal of New Zealand Studies (JNZS) devoted to New Zealand art history. The quantity and quality of the articles in this issue go a considerable way to filling the void left by JONZAH in the intervening decade, even if the loss of a dedicated double-blind peer-reviewed journal remains keenly felt.

The “Young Guns” were an emerging generation of contemporary Māori artists in the 1990s. Their work was irreverent, and provoked uncertainty and controversy regarding its relationship to the genealogy of customary and contemporary Māori artists. This paper reviews notable works by Shane Cotton, Michael Parekowhai, Lisa Reihana and Peter Robinson, and their evolving critical reception, from complex readings through an internationalist, post-conceptual lens to accommodation within a vitalist Māori framework. The focus is on patterns of re-evaluation within Māori culture, whereby humour, belligerence, profanity and mundane materiality are mixed with the metaphysical, and “rubbish” becomes valuable art or taonga.

Understanding the future of carbon neutrality in the culinary arts through non-representational theory, practice theory, and design