Academic literature on the topic 'Unit: Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies'

The School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (LALS) at Victoria University of Wellington conducts research and teaching in Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Writing and Deaf Studies. It incorporates a Deaf Studies Research Unit, which undertakes research on topics relating to deaf people and their language in New Zealand, and the New Zealand Dictionary Centre, set up in partnership with Oxford University Press, which provides a base for research into New Zealand lexicography and aspects of language in New Zealand. It also incorporates an English Language Institute, which specialises in teaching English language courses and teacher education programmes. A particular strength of the School's makeup is the opportunity to engage in research which benefits and is benefited by both theoretical and practical approaches to issues in linguistics and applied linguistics. This report describes one of a number of examples of the productive integration of language teaching and language research at LALS. We describe an ongoing research project that has developed organically over the past twelve years. The research involved first collecting and analysing authentic workplace interaction between native speakers, and then making use of it in explicit instruction aimed at developing socio-pragmatic proficiency in the workplace among skilled migrants with English as an Additional Language (EAL). We are now engaged in evaluating the results of the instruction, not only in the classroom, but also in workplaces where the migrants have been placed as interns.

For nine years, the Pacific Media Centre research and publication unit at Auckland University of Technology has published journalism with an ‘activist’ edge to its style of reportage raising issues of social justice in New Zealand’s regional backyard. It has achieved this through partnerships with progressive sections of news media and a non-profit model of critical and challenging assignments for postgraduate students in the context of coups, civil war, climate change, human rights, sustainable development and neo-colonialism. An earlier Pacific Scoop venture (2009-2015) has morphed into an innovative venture for the digital era, Asia Pacific Report (APR) (http://asiapacificreport.nz/), launched in January 2016. Amid the current global climate of controversy over ‘fake news’ and a ‘war on truth’ and declining credibility among some mainstream media, the APR project has demonstrated on many occasions the value of independent niche media questioning and challenging mainstream agendas. In this article, a series of case studies examines how the collective experience of citizen journalism, digital engagement and an innovative public empowerment journalism course can develop a unique online publication. The article traverses some of the region’s thorny political and social issues—including the controversial police shootings of students in Papua New Guinea in June 2016.

Background Oxaliplatin and fluoropyrimidine chemotherapy administered over 6 months is the standard adjuvant regimen for patients with high-risk stage II or III colorectal cancer. However, the regimen is associated with cumulative toxicity, characterised by chronic and often irreversible neuropathy. Objectives To assess the efficacy of 3-month versus 6-month adjuvant chemotherapy for colorectal cancer and to compare the toxicity, health-related quality of life and cost-effectiveness of the durations. Design An international, randomised, open-label, non-inferiority, Phase III, parallel-group trial. Setting A total of 244 oncology clinics from six countries: UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand. Participants Adults aged ≥ 18 years who had undergone curative resection for high-risk stage II or III adenocarcinoma of the colon or rectum. Interventions The adjuvant treatment regimen was either oxaliplatin and 5-fluorouracil or oxaliplatin and capecitabine, randomised to be administered over 3 or 6 months. Main outcome measures The primary outcome was disease-free survival. Overall survival, adverse events, neuropathy and health-related quality of life were also assessed. The main cost categories were chemotherapy treatment and hospitalisation. Cost-effectiveness was assessed through incremental cost comparisons and quality-adjusted life-year gains between the options and was reported as net monetary benefit using a willingness-to-pay threshold of £30,000 per quality-adjusted life-year per patient. Results Recruitment is closed. In total, 6088 patients were randomised (3044 per group) between 27 March 2008 and 29 November 2013, with 6065 included in the intention-to-treat analyses (3-month analysis, n = 3035; 6-month analysis, n = 3030). Follow-up for the primary analysis is complete. The 3-year disease-free survival rate in the 3-month treatment group was 76.7% (standard error 0.8%) and in the 6-month treatment group was 77.1% (standard error 0.8%), equating to a hazard ratio of 1.006 (95% confidence interval 0.909 to 1.114; p-value for non-inferiority = 0.012), confirming non-inferiority for 3-month adjuvant chemotherapy. Frequent adverse events (alopecia, anaemia, anorexia, diarrhoea, fatigue, hand–foot syndrome, mucositis, sensory neuropathy, neutropenia, pain, rash, altered taste, thrombocytopenia and watery eye) showed a significant increase in grade with 6-month duration; the greatest difference was for sensory neuropathy (grade ≥ 3 was 4% for 3-month vs.16% for 6-month duration), for which a higher rate of neuropathy was seen for the 6-month treatment group from month 4 to ≥ 5 years (p < 0.001). Quality-of-life scores were better in the 3-month treatment group over months 4–6. A cost-effectiveness analysis showed 3-month treatment to cost £4881 less over the 8-year analysis period, with an incremental net monetary benefit of £7246 per patient. Conclusions The study achieved its primary end point, showing that 3-month oxaliplatin-containing adjuvant chemotherapy is non-inferior to 6 months of the same regimen; 3-month treatment showed a better safety profile and cost less. For future work, further follow-up will refine long-term estimates of the duration effect on disease-free survival and overall survival. The health economic analysis will be updated to include long-term extrapolation for subgroups. We expect these analyses to be available in 2019–20. The Short Course Oncology Therapy (SCOT) study translational samples may allow the identification of patients who would benefit from longer treatment based on the molecular characteristics of their disease. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN59757862 and EudraCT 2007-003957-10. Funding This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 23, No. 64. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information. This research was supported by the Medical Research Council (transferred to NIHR Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre – Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation; grant reference G0601705), the Swedish Cancer Society and Cancer Research UK Core Clinical Trials Unit Funding (funding reference C6716/A9894).

On 12 September 1999, John Mansfield Thomson, founding and most recent editor of New Zealand Studies, died after serious illness. Vincent O'Sullivan, Director of the Stout Research Centre, delivered this eulogy at the memorial service in Old St Paul's, Wellington, on 15 September.

This issue of the Journal of New Zealand Studies has been edited by Anna Green, who is the new staff member at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies. Wellknown as an oral historian and formerly of Waikato University, Associate Professor Green comes to us from the University of Exeter, and we are delighted to welcome her as a new colleague as well as the editor of the JNZS. She brings enormous experience and expertise to the role.

Brian Easton’s book Not in Narrow Seas: The Economic History of Aotearoa New Zealand was published by Victoria University Press in 2020. Rightly described as a magnum opus, the book attracted considerable attention for its extraordinary historical breadth and vision. Part of that attention was a panel discussion of the book hosted by the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, on 21 April 2021, as one of its continuing series of research seminars.

For nine years, the Pacific Media Centre research and publication unit at Auckland University of Technology has published journalism with an ‘activist’ edge to its style of reportage raising issues of social justice in New Zealand’s regional backyard. It has achieved this through partnerships with progressive sections of news media and a nonprofit model of critical and challenging assignments for postgraduate students in the context of coups, civil war, climate change, human rights, sustainable development and neo-colonialism. An earlier Pacific Scoop venture (2009-2015) has morphed into an innovative venture for the digital era, Asia Pacific Report (APR) (http://asiapacificreport.nz/), launched in January 2016. Amid the current global climate of controversy over ‘fake news’ and a ‘war on truth’ and declining credibility among some mainstream media, the APR project has demonstrated on many occasions the value of independent niche media questioning and challenging mainstream agendas. In this article, a series of case studies examines how the collective experience of citizen journalism, digital engagement and an innovative public empowerment journalism course can develop a unique online publication. The article traverses some of the region’s thorny political and social issues—including the controversial police shootings of students in Papua New Guinea in June 2016.

I recently retired from my job as Director of the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. It wasn’t an easy decision after 17 years in the role. One of the most exhausting parts of it was clearing out my office. It wasn’t so much the papers, it was the bookshelves. And then I had to work out what to do with them when I got them home, trying to impose what Walter Benjamin called “the mild boredom of order.” I wish. I would like to be mildly bored if it meant my books were ordered. But what is the order? I can’t see myself implementing the Dewey system, I don’t want to alphabetize my New Zealand books or my Australian collection into the larger conglomerate, and what about poetry, children’s books and crime fiction? Luckily my house has bookshelves in a lot of its rooms so I can impose a geographical and architectural rationale: crime fiction in the spare room, for example. But the question of books has exercised me: what to keep, what to take down to Vinnies, what to put where. I don’t think in tidy categories and nor do my books, and in the course of thinking about this lecture the part books play in our lives seemed germane. Benjamin’s essay is not about the kind of haphazard bookbuyer and reader that I am, it is about book collecting. He had a rather stringent rule at one point in his life which resulted in what he called the militant age of his library—no more than two or three shelves—because no book was allowed to enter unless he had not read it. Needless to say, I have never had such a rule. At the end of his essay Benjamin says that “ownership is the most intimate relationship one can have to objects.” Not, he goes to say, “that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.”

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine which factors are associated with 6,065 patient presentations with non-life-threatening urgent conditions (NLTUCs) to an after-hours general practice, an urgent care clinic (UCC) and an emergency department (ED) on Sundays in Southeast Queensland (Qld).Design/methodology/approachA retrospective, comparative and observational study was conducted involving the auditing of medical records of patients with NLTUCs consulting three medical services between 0,800 and 1,700 h, on Sundays, over a one-year period. The study was limited to 6,065 patients.FindingsThere were statistically significant differences in choice of location according to age, number of postcodes from the patient's residence, time of the day, season, patient presentations for infection and injury, non-infectious, non-injurious conditions of the circulatory, gastrointestinal and genitourinary systems, and need for imaging, pathology, plastering/back-slab application, splinting and wound closure. Older adults were more likely to be admitted to the hospital and Ed Short Stay Unit, compared with other age groups.Research limitations/implicationsBased on international models of UCC healthcare systems in United Kingdom (UK), USA and New Zealand (NZ) and the results of this study, it is recommended that UCCs in Australia have extended hours, walk-in availability, access to on-site radiology, ability to treat fractures and wounds and staffing by medical practitioners able to manage these conditions. Recommendations also include setting a national standard for UCC operation (National Urgent Care Centre Accreditation, 2018; NHS, 2020; RNZCUC, 2015) and requirements for vocational registration for medical practitioners (National Urgent Care Centre Accreditation, 2018; RNZCUC, 2015; The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 2021a, b).Practical implicationsThis study has highlighted three key areas for future research: first, research involving general practitioners (GPs), emergency physicians, urgent care physicians, nurse practitioners, urgent care pharmacists and paramedics could help to predict the type of patients more accurately, patient presentations and associated comorbidities that might be encouraged to attend or be diverted to Urgent Care Clinics. Second, larger studies of more facilities and more patients could improve the accuracy and generalisability of the findings. Lastly, studies of public health messaging need to be undertaken to determine how best to encourage patients with NLTUCs (especially infections and injuries) to present to UCCs.Social implicationsThe Urgent Care Clinic model has existed in developed countries since 1973. The adoption of this model in Australia close to a patient's home, open extended hours and with onsite radiology could provide a community option, to ED, for NLTUCs (especially patient presentations with infections and injuries).Originality/valueThis study reviewed three types of medical facilities for the management of NLTUCs. They were an after-hours general practice, an urgent care clinic and an emergency department. This study found that the patient choice of destination depends on the ability of the service to manage their NLTUCs, patient age, type of condition, postcodes lived away from the facility, availability of testing and provision of consumables. This study also provides recommendations for the development of an urgent care healthcare system in Australia based on international models and includes requirements for extended hours, walk-in availability, radiology on-site, national standard and national requirements for vocational registration for medical professionals.

Abstract STUDY QUESTION In a country with supportive funding for medically assisted reproduction (MAR) technologies, what is the proportion of MAR births over-time? SUMMARY ANSWER In 2017, 6.7% of births were conceived by MAR (4.8% ART and 1.9% ovulation induction (OI)/IUI) with a 55% increase in ART births and a stable contribution from OI/IUI births over the past decade. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY There is considerable global variation in utilization rates of ART despite a similar infertility prevalence worldwide. While the overall contribution of ART to national births is known in many countries because of ART registries, very little is known about the contribution of OI/IUI treatment or the socio-demographic characteristics of the parents. Australia provides supportive public funding for all forms of MAR with no restrictions based on male or female age, and thus provides a unique setting to investigate the contribution of MAR to national births as well as the socio-demographic characteristics of parents across the different types of MAR births. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION This is a novel population-based birth cohort study of 898 084 births using linked ART registry data and administrative data including birth registrations, medical services, pharmaceuticals, hospital admissions and deaths. Birth (a live or still birth of at least one baby of ≥400 g birthweight or ≥20 weeks’ gestation) was the unit of analysis in this study. Multiple births were considered as one birth in our analysis. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS This study included a total of 898 084 births (606 488 mothers) in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Australia 2009–2017. We calculated the prevalence of all categories of MAR-conceived births over the study period. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the association between parental characteristics (parent’s age, parity, socio-economic status, maternal country of birth, remoteness of mother’s dwelling, pre-existing medical conditions, smoking, etc.) and ART and OI/IUI births relative to naturally conceived births. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE The proportion of MAR births increased from 5.1% of all births in 2009 to 6.7% in 2017, representing a 30% increase over the decade. The proportion of OI/IUI births remained stable at around 2% of all births, representing 32% of all MAR births. Over the study period, ART births conceived by frozen embryo-transfer increased nearly 3-fold. OI/IUI births conceived using clomiphene citrate decreased by 39%, while OI/IUI births conceived using letrozole increased 56-fold. Overall, there was a 55% increase over the study period in the number of ART-conceived births, rising to 56% of births to mothers aged 40 years and older. In 2017, almost one in six births (17.6%) to mothers aged 40 years and over were conceived using ART treatment. Conversely, the proportion of OI/IUI births was similar across different mother’s age groups and remained stable over the study period. ART children, but not OI/IUI children, were more likely to have parents who were socio-economically advantaged compared to naturally conceived children. For example, compared to naturally conceived births, ART births were 16% less likely to be born to mothers who live in the disadvantaged neighbourhoods after accounting for other covariates (adjusted relative risk (aRR): 0.84 [95% CI: 0.81–0.88]). ART- or OI/IUI-conceived children were 25% less likely to be born to immigrant mothers than births after natural conception (aRR: 0.75 [0.74–0.77]). LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION The social inequalities that we observed between the parents of children born using ART and naturally conceived children may not directly reflect disparities in accessing fertility care for individuals seeking treatment. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS With the ubiquitous decline in fertility rates around the world and the increasing trend to delay childbearing, this population-based study enhances our understanding of the contribution of different types of MARs to population profiles among births in high-income countries. The parental socio-demographic characteristics of MAR-conceived children differ significantly from naturally conceived children and this highlights the importance of accounting for such differences in studies investigating the health and development of MAR-conceived children. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S) This study was funded through Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grant: APP1127437. G.M.C. is an employee of The University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit (NPESU), UNSW. The NPESU manages the Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproduction Database with funding support from the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand. C.V. is an employee of The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Director of Clinical Research of IVFAustralia, Member of the Board of the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand, and Member of Research Committee of School of Women’s and Children’s Health, UNSW. C.V. reports grants from Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and Merck KGaA. C.V. reports consulting fees, and payment or honoraria for lectures, presentations, speakers, bureaus, manuscript, writing or educational events or attending meeting or travel from Merck, Merck Sparpe & Dohme, Ferring, Gedon-Richter and Besins outside this submitted work. C.V. reported stock or stock options from Virtus Health Limited outside this submitted work. R.J.N. is an employee of The University of Adelaide, and Chair DSMC for natural therapies trial of The University of Hong Kong. R.J.N. reports grants from NHMRC. R.J.N. reports lecture fees and support for attending or travelling for lecture from Merck Serono which is outside this submitted work. L.R.J. is an employee of The UNSW and Foundation Director of the Centre for Big Data Research in Health at UNSW Sydney. L.R.J. reports grants from NHMRC. The other co-authors have no conflict of interest. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER N/A.