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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Access status: Open Access ,
Sāmoan Health Worker Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand
(Auckland University of Technology, 2026) Timmins, Josie Lorraine; O'Brien, Daniel; Boon, Juliet
A strong Sāmoan health workforce is required to improve inequitable health outcomes for the growing Sāmoan population within Aotearoa New Zealand (AoNZ). However, despite initiatives to increase an underrepresented Sāmoan health workforce, little is known about the wellbeing of these workers or the safety of the spaces they occupy. Existing literature on Sāmoan health worker wellbeing is sparse, superficial, and largely focused on increasing overall Pacific health workforce numbers rather than understanding the lived experiences and support needs of Sāmoan health workers. This research, through two comprehensive studies, aimed to engage with regulated Sāmoan health workers and their communities within AoNZ to explore their wellbeing, how they navigate their roles, what supports are needed for their practice, and help develop safe spaces for new Sāmoan health workers. Study One involved a scoping review using a broad literature search that included grey literature to capture often neglected Pacific knowledge and create a comprehensive understanding of the literature. Thirty-four sources, including 29 from grey literature, were reviewed. The findings exposed an underrepresented Sāmoan health workforce whose wellbeing is hindered by institutional racism, discrimination, the undervaluing of cultural knowledge, and discourteous additional work. Sāmoan health workers sought improved wellbeing through support to further their education, cultural education and supervision, and strong Pacific leadership. Study Two used the foundational methodology of Fa‘afaletui alongside Interpretive Description to explore deeper understandings of Sāmoan health worker wellbeing. Participants (n=23) were Sāmoan and represented a collective lens, with experience or the ability to speak to Sāmoan health worker wellbeing. Purposeful sampling enabled perspectives from faife‘au (church ministers), matai (chiefs), elders, parents, health managers, unregulated health workers, healthcare students, and regulated health workers. Data were collected through two fa‘afaletui (meeting for discussion) held in Porirua and Manukau, transcribed verbatim, and analysed initially collectively within the fa‘afaletui and then using reflexive thematic analysis. From the data, four themes were constructed that described wellbeing and its intricate link with Fa‘aSāmoa (Sāmoan culture) and tautua (service): Theme 1 ‘Leadership—Lighting the Path’ illuminated the Sāmoan values of collective leadership, where pathways to leadership come from tautua, fa‘aaloalo (respect), and alofa (love) and are reciprocated by those who hold leadership positions. Theme 2 ‘Identity and Visibility’ describes the importance of expressing and maintaining Sāmoan identity while working within westernised health systems. Theme 3 ‘Culture Implemented in Service—The Flame’ reflects the talanoa (conversation) of embedding Fa‘aSāmoa into Sāmoan health worker roles and environments, allowing culturally safe and appropriate services. Finally, Theme 4 ‘Self-Care—Stoking Your Own Fire’ reveals the tension between collective cultural expectations and the need for individual self-care and wellbeing. This Pacific-based and Sāmoan-specific research has shed light on generational understandings of Sāmoan health workers’ wellbeing. Sāmoan health worker wellbeing extends beyond workforce growth and addressing racism and discrimination, to encompassing the ability to maintain and express Sāmoan identity and cultural values within professional practice. Culturally responsive leadership, meaningful approaches to self-care, and Pacific-led health policies are essential to supporting wellbeing, challenging Western-centric systems, and enabling Sāmoan health workers to thrive and continue faithfully serving their communities.
Access status: Open Access ,
An Ontology-Driven AI Framework for Context-Aware Threat Detection in Mobile Health Applications
(Auckland University of Technology, 2026) Ferdous, Raiyan; Petrova, Krassie
Mobile health (mHealth) applications have substantially improved the accessibility of healthcare, enabling remote monitoring, chronic-disease management, and personalized interventions. However, because these applications collect and transmit sensitive personal health information on resource-constrained mobile devices, they introduce significant security and privacy risks, including weak authentication, unsafe data sharing, and a lack of awareness of user context (Luxton et al., 2012; Aljedaani & Babar, 2021). Traditional, signature-based security methods are largely static and frequently fail to adapt to the changing situations in which mobile users operate, leaving context-dependent threats poorly addressed. This thesis proposes a context-aware mHealth security architecture and develops an OWL 2 DL contextual ontology in Protégé. It separately evaluates a candidate machine-learning (ML) detection component on a network-intrusion benchmark. The architectural integration is a design proposition; its effect on detection performance has not been tested. The empirical work consists of a Python/scikit-learn classification pipeline applied to NSL-KDD network-connection records, following the publicly available Kaggle notebook by josiagiven (n.d.). The ontology is a design artefact. The Android context-collection layer, ontology-to-ML transformation, mitigation module, and on-device application were designed but not implemented or empirically evaluated. To preserve participant privacy and satisfy ethical requirements, no real patient data were used. The appendix records point estimates from a validation split, including Decision Tree accuracy of 0.983, KNN accuracy of 0.995, and Linear SVC accuracy of 0.981; the displayed Random Forest confusion matrix contains no errors and reports AUC = 1.00. These unusually high scores require verification for leakage and proxy features before being interpreted as reliable out-of-sample performance. The different ranges in Table 4.4 are retained as originally reported but cannot be identified as estimates from that same run without the fold-level records. Latency below 150 ms and CPU utilization below 12% were proposed design targets. No Android deployment or device resource measurement was carried out. The contribution is a specified ontology and mHealth security architecture together with an offline benchmark evaluation of a candidate ML detection layer. Whether semantic enrichment improves detection or an on-device implementation is feasible remains open to empirical testing.
Access status: Open Access ,
Tihei Māuri Ora: Exploring The Threads of Whakapapa Through Kōrero Tuku Iho Within a Tikanga-Oriented Practice
(Auckland University of Technology, 2026) Korewha, Hope; Tapuni, Nooroa; Walker, Arielle; Shin, Jeena
‘Tihei Māuri Ora’ pays homage to the Pūrākau of the creation of humankind and the origins of the cosmos. This phrase introduces the notion of this Wairua-guided painting project: by returning to our Pūrākau, we can further contextualise what it means to be Māori and pave the way towards an Indigenous future. But what does an Indigenous future look like? I engage with this question through a Tikanga-oriented art practice, setting boundaries and rules to ensure a sense of rightness within myself– affording my art and the concepts I am engaging with the respect they deserve. As a means of ‘storied memory’, painting becomes a form of processing and a learning of Kōrero tuku iho woven with my own lived experiences to stay connected to the culture I love so dearly. At the heart of this project lies Te Whare Tupuna, the ancestral home; and the Mārae, which is the centre of Māoridom. Throughout this project, the Mārae has manifested in various ways: as a source of Mātauranga, as a grounding to Māori ways of being, and as a home. The concept of the Mārae establishes itself as a site of Whakapapa leads us to ideas around the interrelatedness of existence and toi as rongoā. These concepts build my own kaupapa Māori guided by Wairua and focussed on Indigenisation and sharing a message of hope for Indigenous futures.
Access status: Open Access ,
Using Cognitive Interviews With Children to Test the Content Validity of a Paediatric Patient Reported Experience Measure
(BMJ, 2026-09-25) Barr, Karlen R; Fortunati, Erika; Studniberg, Zachary; Nikolovski, Jessica; White, Leslie; Elliott, Sarah; McCartney, Lynn; Smith-McCue, Dianna; Noah, Mary; Swaminathan, Girish; John, James R; Treadgold, Claire; Hall, Aaron; Dadich, Ann; Vernon, Barb; Toscano, Elesha; Hiscock, Harriet; Chow, Josephine; Johnston, Leanne; Whitehead, Lisa; Foster, Mandie; Sung, Valerie; Eapen, Valsamma
BACKGROUND: Paediatric patient reported experience measures (pPREMs) can help children's voices be heard to evaluate and improve healthcare delivery. However, no standardised child-completed pPREM has been co-designed with children and validated in Australia. This research aimed to test the content validity of a co-created pPREM using an iterative, participatory approach with children. METHODS: 21 children aged 6-11 years were recruited across four Australian hospitals. Children participated in online cognitive interviews to evaluate pPREM items and rating scales (using 'stars' or 'smiley faces') for their understandability, usability, relevance and importance related to their needs in hospital. Framework analysis was conducted iteratively, with items refined after the first round of interviews based on children's feedback. RESULTS: Most (n=20; 95%) children understood the instructions. After nine interviews, two items were revised: 'Someone I knew could stay with me' changed to 'Family and friends could be with me' and 'I was able to talk to other patients', to 'I was able to talk to other kids in hospital'. Following these revisions, all children understood most (13 of 18=72%) items. In the remaining five items, some phrases, such as 'Care and treatment', were not easily understood, and items were edited according to children's feedback. Most children (n=14; 67%) preferred the 'smiley faces' rating system, and 83% (n=15) reported the number of questions as the right amount. Children generally found all items important, although some items did not apply to all and a 'Does not apply to me' response option was added. CONCLUSIONS: Children aged 6-11 years can meaningfully engage with a co-designed pPREM. Cognitive interviews and an iterative approach helped identify and rectify comprehension issues. It is feasible to involve children in the design of pPREMs and doing so strengthens pPREMs' usability and understandability.
Access status: Open Access ,
Biochemical and Flavour Profile of Lingzhi (Ganoderma lucidum) Mycelium Fermented by Lactiplantibacillus plantarum: A Dual-Modelling Approach to Umami Synergy and Antioxidant Capacity
(MDPI AG, 2026-09-18) Gu, Yutong; Zhao, Zhiyu; Lakshitha, Rushan; Chen, Tony; Kantono, Kevin; Wan-Mohtar, Wan Abd Al Qadr Imad; Raseetha, Siva; Hamid, Nazimah
The broader application of Lingzhi (Ganoderma lucidum) in functional foods is fundamentally restricted by its intense, triterpenoid-driven bitterness. This study investigated the biochemical changes in Lingzhi mushroom mycelium (LMM) over a 10-day controlled fermentation with Lactiplantibacillus plantarum. To evaluate bioactivity enhancement, a dual predictive modelling strategy (Partial Least Squares Regression [PLSR] and elastic-net) was applied to the non-volatile metabolite matrix, identifying model-supported candidate contributors to TPC and FRAP antioxidant responses. Concurrently, fermentation significantly transformed the matrix, yielding an estimated 24-fold increase in synergistic umami intensity, with Equivalent Umami Concentration (EUC) increasing from 0.27 to 6.49 g MSG/100 g fermented LMM by Day 10. This increase was primarily driven by the accumulation of glutamic acid (Taste Activity Value [TAV] = 1.27) and its potent synergy with 5'-GMP (TAV = 2.82). Furthermore, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of GC-MS volatile data revealed a distinct temporal transition from lipid-derived aldehydes to microbially generated 'mushroom' alcohols and mid-fermentation esters, suggesting enhanced aromatic complexity. These findings indicate that targeted L. plantarum fermentation can convert raw LMM into a bioactive ingredient with enhanced umami and antioxidant capacity suggesting potential for improved palatability that warrants sensory confirmation.