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The breakfast effect revisited: Evaluating the influence of a recent meal on canine (Canis familiaris) performance in a scent detection task
(The University of Waikato, 2026) Yee, Journie; Edwards, Timothy L.
Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) are known for their excellent sense of smell, which is widely used to assist humans with important tasks. Despite this, there is limited research on how a dog's hunger state might influence their performance in scent-detection tasks. Previous research suggests that dogs demonstrate higher accuracy in search tasks when tested within 30 minutes of breakfast consumption. However, the underlying mechanisms are not clear, and whether similar effects might also occur in scent-detection tasks is unknown. One possible explanation is the glucose effect, which suggests that a recent meal improves cognitive performance. Alternatively, motivating operations (MO) theory suggests that feeding state modifies the dogs’ behaviour by changing the reinforcing effectiveness of food. Under this framework, recent food consumption is an abolishing operation (AO) that decreases the value of reinforcement and narrows stimulus control, while not eating recently is an establishing operation (EO), that increases the value of reinforcement and broadens response bias. This study evaluated scent-detection performance using an alternating-treatments design across breakfast (AO) and non-breakfast EO conditions. To prevent ceiling and floor effects, task difficulty was adjusted by increasing the formal similarity between target (discriminative stimulus; Sᴰ) and non-target odours across experimental phases. We hypothesised that the dogs would perform more accurately on the scent-detection task on breakfast days, as the absence of breakfast may increase the likelihood of false alarm indications, thereby reducing accuracy. Results showed that hit rates remained high, 89% across all phases in both conditions, and across individual sessions, ranging from 87%-93% for breakfast and 82% 94% for non-breakfast conditions. While correct-rejection rates were significantly higher on breakfast days (p = .016). This suggests that the AO narrowed stimulus control, whereas the EO broadened generalisation. A measure of log d and correct rejection rates improved significantly over time (p = .025; p = .014), suggesting that, cumulative food reinforcement (AO) throughout the day refined discrimination. These findings suggest that a recent meal functions as a MO which influence the precision of stimulus control, instead of, or possibly in addition to, a glucose effect.
Navigating national priorities, regionalism and internationalisation in National Universities of Moana Oceania
(The University of Waikato, 2026) Levy, Benjamin; Ellis, Sonja; Aporosa, S 'Apo'; Fa'avae, David Taufui Mikato
This thesis explores how national universities in Moana Oceania navigate national priorities, regionalism, and internationalisation. Focussing on five institutions - the National University of Samoa, Tonga National University, Solomon Islands National University, National University of Vanuatu and Fiji National University - the study is guided by the primary question: How are national priorities centred in national universities of Moana Oceania? Two secondary questions explore the impacts of regionalism and internationalisation on achieving these priorities. The research is framed through social constructionism alongside the Moana Oceania concepts of motutapu and wansolwara, which centre on relationality, the sacredness of place, and shared oceanic connectivity as foundations for knowledge-making and exchange. Methodologically, the study employs critical (Indigenous) ethnography and multiple descriptive case studies, drawing on talanoa, tok stori, and storian as culturally grounded, responsive, and relational knowledge-sharing, supported by collaborative sensemaking and critical policy analysis. The findings revealed three interrelated insights. First, national universities consistently positioned themselves as sites of nation-building and moral leadership, where higher education is inseparable from cultural identity, linguistic and epistemic continuity, and service to communities and the nation. Second, regionalism is experienced as both an anchor and a source of tension. Regional frameworks and institutions can provide solidarity, standards and voice, but often appear distant from the specificity of national contexts and priorities when driven by external agendas. Third, internationalisation is characterised by uneven power relations, donor dependency and epistemic asymmetry, but has the potential to be re-imagined as knowledge diplomacy when partnerships are relational rather than transactional, grounded in Indigenous leadership, reciprocity and equitable agency. Across the five case studies, centring Indigenous worldviews enabled a shift from peripheral adaptation to epistemic sovereignty and leadership in redefining what relevant higher education looks like in and for Moana Oceania. Conceptually, the thesis explores the idea of a ‘relational university’, elaborating on how national universities are being re-envisioned as institutions whose purposes, partnerships, and governance are anchored in Indigenous ethics of relationality, responsibility, and collective wellbeing, with practical and policy implications for regional cooperation and more equitable international engagement.
Early Cretaceous continental-scale sediment dispersal: Towards resolving the McMurray conundrum - Discussion
(Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM), 2026) Dashtgard, Shahin E.; Gingras, Murray K.; Ranger, Mike; La Croix, Andrew D.; MacEachern, James A.
Wahbi et al. (2025) addresses aspects of the oilsands-hosting McMurray Formation (Fm) in northeast Alberta, Canada. As one of the largest petroleum reservoirs on Earth, resolving the geology of the McMurray Fm has potentially wide-ranging economic implications, and so the interval has received significant research attention. As noted by Wahbi et al. (2025), differing interpretations of the McMurray Fm stem largely from varying assessments of the degree of marine influence, and this is commonly referred to as the “McMurray conundrum” (Gingras and Leckie 2017; Gingras et al. 2019). At its core, the McMurray conundrum describes the seemingly irreconcilable juxtaposition of: 1) fluvial architectures (point bars and channel belts) that are associated mainly with the C2 through A2 parasequences and some evidence that the regional parasequences were deposited in freshwater (terrestrial) environments; versus 2) the preservation of bioturbation in both sand beds and the mudstone layers that drape point bar surfaces (i.e., inclined heterolithic stratification) coupled with the minimal preservation of terrestrial strata (e.g., floodplain deposits, coal beds, and paleosols).
Seismic porosity estimation using geologically-informed seismic attributes and a kriging-enhanced random forest: Application to a shallow-marine carbonate reservoir
(Springer, 2026-05-08) Rezaei, Mohammadali; La Croix, Andrew D.; Emami Niri, Mohammad; Asghari, Omid
Reliable property modeling is vital for Earth resource development, and seismic data can provide secondary variables to improve accuracy. However, seismic-integrated models remain uncertain due to inherent limitations in seismic data such as the cumulative effects of signal processing and attribute computation. In this study, we aimed to estimate a high-accuracy 3D secondary variable for porosity modeling from seismic attributes using a kriging-enhanced random forest (RF). This approach leverages the ensemble learning capabilities of RF to effectively handle limited training data, while incorporating the ability of kriging to account for spatial correlation. Prior to implementing this model, we developed an innovative workflow to correct seismic attributes based on geological trends. This workflow generated geologically informed seismic attributes by vertically correcting seismic attributes in areas of lower quality, while preserving their original lateral trends. We applied our methodology to a late Albian–early Turonian shallow-marine carbonate reservoir with a complex diagenetic history. After creating geologically informed seismic attributes, we used them, along with porosity well logs, as inputs for the kriging-enhanced RF model. This model calculated the mean of decision trees through kriging estimation rather than the usual averaging method. To evaluate effectiveness, we compared it with a deep neural network, a kriging-enhanced deep neural network, and a standard RF. The kriging-enhanced RF produced porosity closer to blind-well values than other methods and captured complex heterogeneities, such as channels and differing reservoir qualities across sequences, making the porosity cube a reliable 3D trend for further geostatistical simulations.
Exploring the relationship between age and victimisation risk
(The University of Waikato, 2026) Steer, Donelle; Tompson, Lisa
Extensive research has examined the relationship between age and offending, which is reflected in the established age-crime curve. The age-crime curve shows that offending typically rises during adolescence, peaks in late adolescence, and declines through the twenties and beyond. But less attention has been given to investigating age-related patterns of victimisation. Therefore, in this thesis we1 sought to answer two research questions. First, is there an age-victimisation curve comparable to the well-established age-crime curve? Second, if present, does the age-victimisation curve differ across broad crime categories (property vs interpersonal crime)? To answer these questions, we analysed data from two main sources – the New Zealand Recorded Crime Victims Statistics (RCVS) and the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey (NZCVS). We plotted both the frequency and rates of victimisation across age using line graphs. For both our research questions, we found that there were age-victimisation curves that mirrored the age-crime curve for the RCVS samples, but not necessarily for our NZCVS samples. Generally, our research showed that the rate and frequency of victimisation increases from teenage years well into people’s twenties, before decreasing as age increases. However, the NZCVS samples showed a gradual decline rather than a discernible curve, with some spikes around middle adulthood. Future research should use longitudinal data to better understand the distribution of victimisation over the life-course and examine the age of onset of victimisation to inform targeted prevention and intervention efforts.