Tuwhera Research Repository

The Tuwhera Research Repository provides sustainable open access and archiving to a broad range of AUT produced research - theses, research outputs and datasets.

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Research outputs

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Recent Submissions

Access status: Open Access ,
Fencing Off the Black Hole
(Bridget Williams Books, 2022-02-14) Molineaux, Julienne
My doctoral thesis was a black hole into which years of my life and millions of words of writing disappeared. I took the long route to doctoral status. That had never been my plan, but then little of my time as a PhD student went to plan: I struggled with the shift from a highly structured masters degree to the blank page of my PhD; a lot happened in my personal life, none of which aided thesis completion; and eventually I had to return to full-time work. While I continued to chip away at my doctoral thesis it never seemed to get closer to finishing – until, finally, I had to bite the bullet and just do it.
Access status: Open Access ,
Metafluidic Metamaterial: A Review
(Taylor & Francis Open, 2018-01-11) Zhang, Wu; Song, Qinghua; Zhu, Weiming; Shen, Zhongxiang; Chong, Peter; Tsai, Din Ping; Qiu, Chengwei; Liu, Ai Qun
Metafluidic metamaterial is a metamaterial the optical response of which is dependent on fluid contributed metamolecules. The dependence originates either from a fluid background coupling to the metamolecule or from the resonance in a liquid structured metamolecule. Different liquid materials including water, liquid crystal, and liquid metals are applied to realize the metafluidic metamaterial. Sophisticated technologies like electric bias and microfluidic system have been used for active control of metafluidic metamaterials which provide a new platform for electromagnetic wave manipulation and metadevice realization. The liquid background and significant tunability of the metafluidic metamaterial promise numerous applications, such as material sensing, bio-detection, energy harvesting, and imaging, just to name a few.
Access status: Open Access ,
Remittances for Disaster Risk Management: Perspectives from Pacific Island Migrants Living in New Zealand
(SPRINGEROPEN, 2018-09-10) Pairama, Jenna; Le Dé, Loïc
In many low-income countries, migrant remittances are essential in sustaining people’s livelihoods and become even more important during and after disasters. Researchers, policymakers, and practitioners increasingly emphasize the need to better support this people-based mechanism, so disaster risk can be reduced. This suggests the importance of understanding migrants’ perspectives on the remittance channels used and the challenges and opportunities of supporting remittances. However, such information is largely missing. Drawing on interviews and a focus group discussion carried out with Pacific Island migrants living in New Zealand, the article identifies the capacity of migrants to utilize different remittance channels and resources to assist those affected in their country of origin. Challenges faced include high transfer fees, lack of information and support from external stakeholders, and limited resources to effectively send both individual and collective remittances. The article concludes that there is a serious need to involve a large array of stakeholders in finding ways to better support remittances for disaster risk management, including migrants, government agencies, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and those receiving remittances.
Access status: Open Access ,
Collective Indigenous Approaches to Centring Pacific Voices of Leadership for Our Futures
(Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Library, 2022-12-15) Uasike Allen, Jean M; Melini Fasavalu, Taupa’ū; Iosefo, Fetaui; Ualesi, Toleafoa Yvonne; Faʻavae, David Taufui Mikato; Cunningham, Emma
Education systems in western nations are often built on a long history of centralising the western canon of knowledge and colonial norms. These norms are perpetuated and reinforced via western research which amplifies the voices of the dominant, while working to silence the values, practices, and knowledges of minority groups. As a colonial nation, Aotearoa New Zealand continues to be impacted by its colonial histories, where colonial (read white) ways of being, knowing, and understanding dominate initial teacher education, schools, tertiary institutions, research, and our everyday lives. However, within education and research more generally, Indigenous and Pacific researchers and practitioners have been working hard to carve out space in institutions to challenge colonial hierarchies of knowledge and make space for Indigenous ways of being, knowing, seeing, doing, and feeling. This article contributes to the work being done by Indigenous and Pacific scholars in Aotearoa New Zealand by detailing our collective, relational approach to convening the special issue of Shifting the System for the Ethnographic Edge journal. Convening a special issue is not unique and groups of academics do it regularly across a range of academic journals and fields. However, our experiences of convening this special issue were quite different. Here we share the journey and reflect on how our focus on privileging the often-marginalised voices of Pacific school leaders was underpinned by an Indigenous, collective approach embedded in the pedagogical practice of Indigenous Storywork. Employing collaborative critical autoethnography, we articulate the ways in which our engagement with each other and the authors within this special issue disrupted western power relations often present in interactions between ‘researchers’ within the university and ‘practitioners’ at the coalface. Furthermore, we demonstrate how engaging in relational practices builds a space that encourages the principles of respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy.
Access status: Open Access ,
A Reproducible MRI-to-FE Workflow for Generating Population-Specific and Subject-Specific Finite Element Head Models
(Springer, 2026-10-26) Saludar, Christian John A; Tayebi, Maryam; Kwon, Eryn; Mathew, Jacob; McGeown, Joshua; Schierding, William; Mātai mTBI Research Group; Wang, Alan; Fernandez, Justin; Holdsworth, Samantha; Shim, Vickie
PURPOSE: Finite element (FE) models are widely used to study traumatic brain injury, but most are based on single-subject scans or generic atlases that may not represent specific cohorts, introducing variability in biomechanical outputs. This study presents a reproducible framework for generating a cohort-specific MRI-derived template brain and constructing a representative FE head model. METHODS: A cohort-specific template was created from T1-weighted and diffusion-weighted MRI scans of collision sport athletes (n = 78). An FE head model was then generated from this template, with material properties mapped using MRI-derived microstructural information. The anatomical accuracy of the template was evaluated using deformation-based morphometry against standard brain atlases. The FE model was validated against cadaveric head impact experiments. Subject-specific FE models were also developed to test the pipeline's applicability and model performance. RESULTS: Registration of an external non-collision sport controls (n = 20) to the template showed reduced deformation compared with registration to the MNI152 and an existing adolescent atlas, indicating improved cohort representation. Validation against cadaveric data demonstrated small to moderate correlations between simulated and experimental nodal displacements. The subject-specific model showed significantly different strain distributions from isotropic and fiber dispersion-informed models at both impact intensities; the two template models did not differ significantly. CONCLUSION: The proposed framework enables reproducible construction of cohort-specific FE brain models using open-access tools. Results highlight the importance of subject- and cohort-specific modeling for accurately characterizing brain biomechanics. This approach improves the anatomical and microstructural realism of FE models and supports more precise mapping of mechanical strain to clinical outcomes in TBI.