bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Collective Coast
Authors:   , Ritchie Matthew
Published: November 2021

Deeply rooted with cultural and historic ties, the coastline is inherently linked to the New Zealand way of life. The coast belongs to ‘the people’ and has been legislated so that land adjacent to the sea falls within public ownership. Most New Zealanders take for granted their ability to access the coast and firmly believe coastal access should be unrestricted. As a result, there is signifcant public opposition to a built-up waterfront.  The quality of the coastal environment relies on more than natural qualities. In an urban and suburban setting, the built environment determines which activities and functions can occur and the levels of social engagement that can be experienced. Consequently, the root concern for the future of the waterfront may be a fear of ill-designed developments, escalated by fears of spoiling the water’s edge.  The New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS) recognises there is a need for social, economic and cultural development in the coastal marine area. Acting as stimulus for activity, architecture enhances the way the waterfront is utilised. It fosters economic venture and defnes the character of the region. The waterfront faces growing pressure from real estate exploitation.  Having to suitably balance the social, economic and cultural needs that come with the location. Impactful decisions concerning the preservation or destruction of historic remnants and the natural condition of the environment must be made. The balance of public and private use of coastal land should also be considered. Arousing local and international contention, these ideologies are at the heart of waterfront debate.  ‘Collective Coast’ explores Wellington’s coastal condition and the intersecting desires of public, private, cultural, economic and environmental interests through a mixed residential design proposal. The proposal tests the application of this wide breadth of research, and stretches across many disciplines and design scales. The proposed project is set in Shelly Bay, along Wellington’s Miramar Peninsular. The site allows for a breadth of possibilities gathered from a wide range of literature to be explored. Given the importance of the waterfront as both a destination for the public and a highly sought after residential zone, the project presents major challenges in planning, urban design, infrastructure and community formation. The desired outcome is to create a coastal community that both engages and facilitates the wider public’s engagement with the shared environment.
Harmony, associativity, and metaphor in the film scores of Alexandre Desplat
Authors:   , Clark Ewan Alexander
Published: November 2021

The objective of this doctoral study is to develop and demonstrate a theoretical framework to guide both the analysis and composition of twenty-first-century film music. The compositional portfolio submitted as part of this thesis includes scores for nine short films and for a feature-length docudrama. The thesis is based on analysis of twenty feature film scores by Alexandre Desplat (b. 1961), with particular attention to two: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2009) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Studying one composer’s output enables the observation of a compositional voice articulated across multiple film genres. Desplat’s work has proven a relevant and worthy subject, because the films he has scored exemplify a wide variety of styles and approaches, including skilful integration of past styles and current trends.  The theoretical framework I use to discuss both Desplat’s film music and my own, draws together selected concepts from semiotics, metaphor theory, narratology, and harmonic analysis, especially transformational theory. I use the framework to explore how musical objects – such as modes, chords, and their transformations through time – might act as symbols, icons, or metaphors for one or more elements of the narrative – such as a setting, character, characters’ emotions, events, or the attitude of the cinematic narrator. It is argued that this combination of ideas provides a suitable framework – useful in both composition and analysis – for understanding how music might expressively contribute to filmic narratives.  It is argued that Neo-Riemannian triadic transformations – in Desplat’s work and mine, at least – are often most usefully considered in relation to the scales and modes that they articulate, transform, and/or subvert. This is a point of difference from other recent transformational analysis of film music. Although my analyses focus primarily on pitchbased features, I also consider how these elements accrue meaning in their interactions with other musical features, such as tempo and orchestration.
Whanganui Kaiponu: Ngāti Ruakā Methodologies for the preservation of Hapū waiata and oral taonga
Authors:   , Haami Meri
Published: November 2021

This research explores Ngāti Ruakā perspectives on the preservation of hapū waiata and oral taonga, and it examines Whanganui kaiponu as a culturally appropriate methodology and research framework. Ngāti Ruakā perspectives are central to the study of hapū taonga within this research. This thesis also investigates the analysis of waiata through the decolonisation of western frameworks and methodologies on waiata study that have been used previously in ethnomusicology.  This journey led me back home to the ahi kā, my whānau (especially my Nanny, Angel Haami) as well as my hapū from the Whanganui awa. This further affirmed my own identity through whakapapa and the significance of tūrangawaewae. Through discourse with hapū members and throughout the interview process, karanga was gifted and performed as oral hapū taonga to me. The context of this research centres on the interdisciplinary bridging of ethnomusicology and waiata Māori studies.  This study highlighted critical aspects of preservation for Ngāti Ruakā concerning waiata. Hapū members raised issues relating to protection, transmission and pedagogy in regards to their hapū waiata or oral hapū taonga. This led to a need for re-establishing Whanganui kaiponu as a way of preservation and protection.
Converting Motion Capture Into Editable Keyframe Animation: Fast, Optimal, and Generic Keyframe Selection
Authors:   , Roberts Richard
Published: November 2021

Motion capture is attractive to visual effects studios because it offers a fast and automatic way to create animation directly from actors' movements. Despite extensive research efforts toward motion capture processing and motion editing, animations created using motion capture are notoriously difficult to edit. We investigate this problem and develop a technique to reverse engineer editable keyframe animation from motion capture.  Our technique for converting motion capture into editable animation is to select keyframes from the motion capture that correspond to those an animator might have used to create the motion from scratch. As the first contribution presented by this thesis, we survey both traditional and contemporary animation practice to define the types of keyframes created by animators following conventional animation practices. As the second contribution, we develop a new keyframe selection algorithm that uses a generic objective function; using different implementations, we can define different criteria to which keyframes are selected. After presenting the algorithm, we return to the problem of converting motion capture into editable animation and design three implementations of the objective function that can be used together to select animator-like keyframes. Finally, as a minor contribution to conclude the thesis, we present a simple interpolation algorithm that can be used to construct a new animation from only the selected keyframes.  In contrast to previous research in the topic of keyframe selection, our technique is novel in that we have designed it to provide selections of keyframes that are similar in structure to those used by animators following conventional practices. Consequently, both animators and motion editors can adjust the resulting animation in much the same way as their own, manually created, content. Furthermore, our technique offers an optimal guarantee paired with fast performance for practical editing situations, which has not yet been achieved in previous research. In conclusion, the contributions of this thesis advance the state of the art in the topic by introducing the first fast, optimal, and generic keyframe selection algorithm. Ultimately, our technique is not only well suited to the problem of recovering editable animation from motion capture, but can also be used to select keyframes for other purposes - such as compression or pattern identification - provided that an appropriate implementation of the objective function can be imagined and employed.
Sight of Sound: Designing for the Senses
Authors:   , Shepherd Kate
Published: November 2021

It has been agreed that one of Interior Architecture’s primary roles is to create atmosphere. This is generally achieved by engaging the senses in specific spatial conditions that shift the emotions and create moods. This view of interior is more particularly relevant to the needs of inhabitants/ users with sensory impairment. The intention within this thesis is for individuals with hearing and sight impairment to experience space/ interiors, with at least the same, wholeness as those with the capacity of full range of sense.  Pallasmaa states that “it is evident that ‘life-enhancing’ architecture has to address all of the senses simultaneously” (Pallasmaa (C) 11). It has been suggested that if a sense is taken away there is a higher importance placed on the remaining senses. Early research has indicated that people, specifically children with sight impairment “perceive the built environment very differently and pay more attention to tactile, haptic, auditory and olfactory aspects” compared to a person with full sensory abilities (Vermeersch et al. 1). Engagement with all possible senses allows a connection with space and orientation within architecture. It is this engagement with surroundings which “is a key component of happiness” (Fox, “Emotion Science”). This helps to achieve the independence that is desired among the sensory impaired. “A dialogue between architects and people with visual impairment can therefore contribute to a more multi-sensory design approach to architecture” (Vermeersch et al. 1).  While specific senses engage with mood to stimulate a learning experience for those with hearing and sight impairment, this design research demonstrates how the play of light and water can be used as a tool in creating specific atmospheres. These in turn influence moods in creation of interiors for multisensory experience. Henry Plummer’s light categories are the basis for which this research invents categories of sound. It is also proposed as a tool for interior designers to think about space for people with sensory impairment and to design with specific guidance. This invention will be tested by applying a program, Gallery of the Senses, to a Wellington site.
Chordality in Matroids: In Search of the Converse to Hliněný's Theorem
Authors:   , Probert Andrew
Published: November 2021

Bodlaender et al. [7] proved a converse to Courcelle's Theorem for graphs [15] for the class of chordal graphs of bounded treewidth. Hliněný [25] generalised Courcelle's Theorem for graphs to classes of matroids represented over finite fields and of bounded branchwidth. This thesis has investigated the possibility of obtaining a generalisation of chordality to matroids that would enable us to prove a converse of Hliněný's Theorem [25].  There is a variety of equivalent characterisations for chordality in graphs. We have investigated the relationship between their generalisations to matroids. We prove that they are equivalent for binary matroids but typically inequivalent for more general classes of matroids.  Supersolvability is a well studied property of matroids and, indeed, a graphic matroid is supersolvable if and only if its underlying graph is chordal. This is among the stronger ways of generalising chordality to matroids. However, to obtain the structural results that we need we require a stronger property that we call supersolvably saturated.  Chordal graphs are well known to induce canonical tree decompositions. We show that supersolvably saturated matroids have the same property. These tree decompositions of supersolvably saturated matroids can be processed by a finite state automaton. However, they can not be completely described in monadic second-order logic.  In order to express the matroids and their tree decompositions in monadic second-order logic we need to extend the logic over an extension field for each matroid represented over a finite field. We then use the fact that each maximal round modular flat of the tree decomposition for every matroid represented over a finite field, and in the specified class, spans a point in the vector space over the extension field. This enables us to derive a partial converse to Hliněný's Theorem.
The Ethics and Dilemmas of Preventive Detention
Authors:   , Bhim Geetanjali
Published: November 2021

There has been a considerable increase in the use of preventive sentencing in New Zealand since the mid-1980s. It has become widely accepted across Western society that preventive sentencing and supervision regimes are needed to protect the public from dangerous offenders. This thesis examines whether the development and use of preventive sentencing regimes is ethically justified, and if not what changes need to be made in order to alleviate some of the ethical dilemmas associated with indeterminate sentencing regimes. Preventive detention practices in Australia the UK and the US are reviewed to establish general practice regarding the development of legislation, use of risk assessment and the detention of dangerous offenders. This is compared to New Zealand practices, through research and analysis of three preventive detainee case files. The files confirm that the ethics of preventive detention has shifted from protecting the rights of individual offenders to protecting the public from them.
A Pound of Flesh: Human Remains, Ethics and Museums in Tertiary Education
Authors:   , Milnes Paulette
Published: November 2021

The collection and display of human remains has long been accepted within many cultures and religions. However, in contemporary Western society the practice has become contentious, and acquisition by museums has all but ceased. Among academic and museum communities, debate and discussion on the problem have been centred almost entirely on indigenous repatriation claims and Body Worlds exhibitions, to the exclusion of other aspects of what is in fact a much broader issue. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the question of whether human remains can ever justifiably be collected and held by museums. The focus of the study is the situation of health science disciplinary museums within tertiary education, with specific and detailed reference to the W.D. Trotter Anatomy Museum and the Drennan Pathology Museum at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.  Three interconnected aspects of the topic are considered in order to answer the primary question. The first is an examination of the codes of ethics and professional practice that govern the treatment of human remains; the second reviews the justifications commonly given for the use of human remains; and the third aspect considers the role museums play in tertiary education. Documentary sources, exhibitions and interviews were analysed to address these issues and corroborate evidence. Examined together, these three areas of investigation bring a fresh focus on whether the acquisition and retention of human remains can be justified, at least within certain parameters.  This study concludes that in the particular educational context of the health science teaching museum there is a strong justification for continued acquisition and display, albeit in a highly regulated and clearly defined ethical environment, of human remains. A key outcome of the research is that the most important consideration across all three areas of investigation, and for all groups working with human remains, was the concept of respect. Definitions and expressions of respect differed depending on context and professional boundaries, but within specific ethical parameters it is possible to determine that the collection and retention of human remains can be justified.
Why the Internet is Good for Music
Authors:   , Malone Thomas Michael
Published: November 2021

The purpose of this thesis is to challenge the common notion that the internet has had a detrimental impact on the music industry, and on musicians’ ability to generate a viable income while still producing good music. Note, that the following arguments do not automatically extend to the effect that the web has had on books, patents, films, journalism or any other medium. The reason for this is because these different disciplines have individual characteristics that make them respond differently to the same socio-economic pressures. However, on the same token, it does not necessarily follow that the conclusions reached here are inapplicable to other activities: perhaps what is true for music in the following pages is also true for e.g. photography. Furthermore, I am not advocating for a free-for-all internet where behemoths like Google, Amazon and Facebook get to do whatever they wish. Although I am intrigued by such matters, the constraints of both time and space allow me only the possibility to focus on the subject that I am most familiar and passionate about. Furthermore, because I am painting a broad picture which encompasses many intellectual disciplines, many of which I am not an expert in, this work is to be considered more on the consistency of the overall argument rather than the minutia of its individual parts.
MICE-PES: An Algorithm for Accurate Conformational Analysis and its Implementation to Natural Products
Authors:   , Hashmi Muhammad Ali
Published: November 2021

Secondary metabolites from natural sources have revolutionized the modern drug industry by acting as lead compounds. Many commercial drugs have evolved originally from natural molecules before being synthesized in the laboratory for commercialization. Because of the importance of natural molecules, it is crucial to determine their structural properties carefully as it is essential for their synthesis and studying their pharmacological behaviour. Many natural molecules have flexible structures and can adopt many different conformations in solution at room temperature. Hence, the determination of their relative configuration is a challenging task with the available experimental techniques. For structural analysis of natural molecules and to study their properties, all conformers which might be responsible for their chemical properties have to be considered.  Theoretical chemistry has been very helpful in absolute structure determination of complex and conformationally flexible natural molecules by calculating their theoretical nuclear magnetic resonance, ultraviolet, infra red, and circular dichroism spectra etc. There are a number of software tools that offer conformational analysis by utilizing different molecular mechanics approaches. They produce a large number of possible conformers and are not general purpose, thus compromising accuracy. Apart from that, different force fields available for conformational analysis and minimization have been designed for specific molecular classes and do not produce good results beyond their scope.  In the past, there have been reports about a “build-up procedure” for predicting the low energy conformations of peptides by optimising smaller fragments of the molecule under study and then joining them while minimizing their energies using force fields. Later on, this method was extended to predict the structure of DNA from sequences. This method used force field methods and did not gain much popularity due to its various limitations.  Here, MICE-PES (Method for the Incremental Construction and Exploration of the Potential Energy Surface) is presented, an algorithm which performs a conformational analysis using high level quantum chemical calculations by building the molecule incrementally from its smallest possible analogue whose conformational degrees of freedom are very well separated than the rest of the molecule. MICE-PES has been validated through studies on known biomolecule 3-epi-xestoaminol whose absolute configuration has been determined already by experimental and theoretical methods. MICE-PES has also been used to assign the relative configuration of a natural product (meroterphenol C) whose configuration could not be established experimentally. Overall, the development of MICE-PES will be very helpful in solving problems in the study of conformationally flexible systems, in all aspects of organic chemistry.
The Underestimated Value of Internal Marketing: Impact on Employee Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction through Organisational Restructure
Authors:   , Micek Monica Nicole
Published: November 2021

Internal Marketing, a long-debated concept amongst academics and practitioners, is suggested to be a competitive advantage to organisations that utilise its practices. Often dismissed as merely selling the marketing of a product or service to employees within an organisation, Internal Marketing encompasses a combination of the key elements of communication, training, and feedback in order to create motivated, customer-orientated employees. Through employees and managers working together towards a well communicated organisational cause of Internal Marketing, internal procedures can evolve to better service and satisfy customers.  Organisational restructures are an ongoing concern as technological advances, value-adding business process, and globalisation change the way that businesses run and operate. In order to save on costs of operations, employment, and office rental space, downsizing an organisation may initially present itself as a cost-saving practice. Often unconsidered are the front-line customer-facing employees and customers of an organisation. Employees may feel distraught and concerned about losing their job, or having to find a new job, which may affect customer service, and subsequently customers may face the brunt of the domino effect, either intentionally or unintentionally, due to employees’ emotional disconnection from the organisation.  This research is an exploratory study into Internal Marketing, specifically around an organisational restructure, to better understand its impact on employees and customers through different stages of a restructure. Through the use of online surveys, participants were asked to recall an organisational restructure they were involved in within the last five years. They were asked to report their perceptions of Internal Marketing, their own satisfaction with their job at the time, and their perceptions of Customer Satisfaction throughout different stages of the organisational restructure.  The analysis found that Internal Marketing does have a significant positive relationship with Employee Satisfaction both during and after an organisational restructure. Although no significant relationship was found between Employee Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction at any stage of the restructure, there is a trend within the data suggesting that the relationship may be stronger before and after an organisational restructure.  Benefits and contribution of this research for academics include development of a conceptual model, as well as the benefits and effects of Internal Marketing, and extending the existing literature. For practitioners, benefits include insights into better understanding of the role of Internal Marketing. Specifically, the differences in perception of the practice between employees and managers, and why it is important to understand and address Employee Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction during an organisational restructure.
What are young Pacific peoples understandings of leadership in Aotearoa New Zealand?
Authors:   , Faletutulu Grace
Published: November 2021

This thesis is an exploration of the way leadership is understood by young Pacific peoples. It looks at the possible relationship between leadership and education outcomes for young Pacific peoples. It is located in an interpretative paradigm, and uses qualitative methods and seeks phenomenological date. This is because individuals interpret experiences differently, therefore understanding how these young Pacific people interpret ideas can help answer the thesis question. As Pacific research it foregrounds Pacific concepts such as vā and Pacific methods such as talanoa. These features seek to alignment with the community participating in the study. The findings suggest that young Pacific peoples understand leadership as a negotiation between Pacific and Western ideas. This negotiation is performed contextually. However, young Pacific peoples are also redefining leadership for themselves and a way they are doing this is by combining their Pacific and Western understandings of leadership. From the research there were three implications found for young Pacific peoples. Firstly, too much focus on culture can become a problem. Secondly, the different contexts that young Pacific peoples are being raised in influences their leadership beliefs, especially compared to the older generation. Lastly, young Pacific peoples need to receive recognition for their ability to negotiate ideas between the Pacific and Western worlds. Therefore, recommendations for future research come under two main categories environment. This is focused on rethinking leadership, firstly for young Pacific peoples in New Zealand-Pacific context, then rethinking for young Pacific peoples in a Western context. The second recommendation discusses ways to improve leadership development programs for young Pacific peoples in New Zealand.
No More Than Comfort? A logics approach to the 'grip' of cost-benefit analysis in a New Zealand public policy decision
Authors:   , Markham Clare
Published: November 2021

This study explores an apparent paradox: cost-benefit analysis (CBA) requires a series of highly subjective decisions to calculate, yet is employed for its perceived objectivity. The dominant view of CBA in the academic and policy literature is as a neutral technology, offering an objective resolution to difficult resource allocation problems. However, this view has been much challenged, with long-standing and still-unresolved debates on CBA’s technical calculation and methodological approaches, as well as critiques of its underpinning socio-political assumptions and its consequences. Drawing on the literature considering accounting as a form of discourse, this study investigates CBA and its discursive use in the debate between 2006 and 2008 around the public policy decisions regarding New Zealand’s public funding of Herceptin (trastuzumab) for early HER2-positive breast cancer (‘the debate’). The repeated use of cost and CBA in arguments by the participants in this debate was striking, with both those for and those against funding appearing to regard CBA as especially authoritative. This authority – even dominance – of CBA in public policy decision-making has been addressed from several perspectives, but its affective (embodied, emotional, non-cognitive) dimensions remain under-explored. This study addresses that gap through a qualitative documentary analysis employing the post-structural critical discourse-theoretic approach of Glynos and Howarth’s Logics of Critical Explanation (LCE) framework (Glynos, J., & Howarth, D. (2007). Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge). It offers the following contributions: (a) it provides knowledge of how CBA is presented, positioned, contested, and defended in the Herceptin debate; (b) it generates a genealogically-inflected understanding of how these have come about; (c) its offers an explanation for CBA’s ‘grip’ (continued authority despite its difficulties); and (d) it proposes some alternative presentations, positionings, contestations, and defences of CBA.
Building and Sustaining Connections through Music Therapy with Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in a Special Learning Centre of a Primary School in New Zealand
Authors:   , Kong Jingyuan Cici
Published: November 2021

This research project helped me, a student music therapist, to understand the process of building and sustaining connections through music therapy with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The clinical work took place in eight months and I employed secondary analysis of music therapy session data as my research strategy to look at how to build and sustain connections through music therapy with children with ASD in a special learning centre of a primary school in New Zealand. This study showed the results of my work with four students, by reusing my clinical notes, reflective journal and notes from discussions and meetings with staff members in March and May. I used thematic analysis as my analysis method to identify themes from my data, in order to answer my research question.  This research suggested that the building of connections and later sustaining them seemed to occur in stages, not identical for each child, but showing a certain type of pattern, characteristic of children with autism. I used some strategies to address the challenges in my music therapy practice, and these are the codes and themes that I identified in the findings.  The process of my research improved my music improvisation skills, verbal communication skills, ability to establish and hold boundaries, and self-confidence.
Safeguarding Sarawak's intangible cultural heritage: A knowledge management approach
Authors:   , Bolhassan Rashidah
Published: November 2021

The importance of indigenous knowledge is receiving increasing recognition. Some cultural institutions (CI) are responsible for safeguarding indigenous knowledge and they acquire, document, and record works and images of indigenous knowledge which are contained or embedded in the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of their indigenous communities such as songs, rituals, arts, and medical wisdom. These items of ICH become ‘knowledge objects’ or ‘representations of knowledge’ when documented, which are unlikely to represent the indigenous people's knowledge holistically. Indigenous knowledge embedded in the ICH requires interpretations of the processes, rituals, experiences and practices from the indigenous communities.  This interpretivist study, using a knowledge management (KM) lens, examined the knowledge sharing processes of the indigenous people of Sarawak, Malaysia, to understand the nature of indigenous knowledge and knowledge sharing from the perspectives of the indigenous people of Sarawak, in order to assist Sarawak’s cultural institutions in safeguarding their ICH.  This research used narrative inquiry as a research methodology, acquiring stories from two clusters of participants, purposively selected from three ethnic groups and from cultural institutions in Sarawak’s Civil Service. This study used a knowledge management perspective in analysing the findings. The findings on the nature of indigenous people’s knowledge highlight a three-tiered knowledge system. The findings on the CIs’ safeguarding efforts elucidate the gap in the management of the CIs’ organizational knowledge on safeguarding.  This study makes several important contributions. First, it contributes to the literature about the cultural protocol requirements of the indigenous people of Sarawak before they can share their knowledge. Secondly, this study elucidates the indigenous people’s knowledge as a three-tiered system which influences the people’s knowledge sharing ways. This system can be used to guide the CIs’ practices of safeguarding ICH. The third contribution of this study is that it expands our understanding of the complexity of indigenous knowledge, and creates a conceptual model to aid and guide this understanding. Fourth, this study also contributes towards a greater understanding of the importance of the CIs including the indigenous peoples in the safeguarding practices in order to avoid the decontextualization of the ICH. Thus, this study confirms the importance of the participation of the indigenous people in the CIs’ practice of safeguarding ICH.  Another contribution of this study, based on its findings, is the adaptation of three elements of a KM spectrum (Binney, 2001) for the CIs’ KM approach in managing their organizational knowledge on safeguarding ICH.
Designing an augmented reality video game to assist stroke patients with independent rehabilitation
Authors:   , Petrie Regan
Published: November 2021

Early, intense practice of functional, repetitive rehabilitation interventions has shown positive results towards lower-limb recovery for stroke patients. However, long-term engagement in daily physical activity is necessary to maximise the physical and cognitive benefits of rehabilitation. The mundane, repetitive nature of traditional physiotherapy interventions and other personal, environmental and physical elements create barriers to participation. It is well documented that stroke patients engage in as little as 30% of their rehabilitation therapies. Digital gamified systems have shown positive results towards addressing these barriers of engagement in rehabilitation, but there is a lack of low-cost commercially available systems that are designed and personalised for home use. At the same time, emerging mixed reality technologies offer the ability to seamlessly integrate digital objects into the real world, generating an immersive, unique virtual world that leverages the physicality of the real world for a personalised, engaging experience.  This thesis explored how the design of an augmented reality exergame can facilitate engagement in independent lower-limb stroke rehabilitation. Our system converted prescribed exercises into active gameplay using commercially available augmented reality mobile technology. Such a system introduced an engaging, interactive alternative to existing mundane physiotherapy exercises.  The development of the system was based on a user-centered iterative design process. The involvement of health care professionals and stroke patients throughout each stage of the design and development process helped understand users’ needs, requirements and environment to refine the system and ensure its validity as a substitute for traditional rehabilitation interventions.  The final output was an augmented reality exergame that progressively facilitates sit-to-stand exercises by offering immersive interactions with digital exotic wildlife. We hypothesize that the immersive, active nature of a mobile, mixed reality exergame will increase engagement in independent task training for lower-limb rehabilitation.
O2: An Investigation into the Architectural Agency of Air
Authors:   , Guilford Tasenka
Published: November 2021

Miyake Jima, an island off the East coast of Japan, was home to 3,600 residents until 2000 when an escalation in volcanic activity caused noxious gas to burst from the crater, sending twenty thousand tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the air each day. The noxious gasses forced a mass evacuation, leaving the island uninhabitable for five years. Since 2005, two thousand eight hundred residents have returned to the island but are at constant risk of gas eruptions. Residents’ solution is to don gas masks when the sulphur dioxide levels become too high; however this does not ameliorate an ever-present, and real, danger from the air.  In this research, Miyake Jima Island is employed as a testing ground to explore how air can influence architecture. Miyake’s problematic atmosphere is used as a starting point for a series of experiments that interrogate air’s architectural agency. Design experiments explore the problem of noxious air across a range of scales, from the human body to the scale of landscape. These experiments have a twinned focus: combining scientific and aesthetic understandings of air, design explorations are informed by a rich mix of chemical and material dynamics, human dynamics, and intuition. The results of these experiments give insights into two research objectives: to understand air as an aesthetic and conceptual driver in architecture, and, to propose architectural solutions to Miyake’s ever-present threat of noxious air.  The research draws on the work of Jane Bennett (2010) and N Katherine Hayles (2014), in the areas of New Materialism and OOI (Object-Oriented Inquiry), to develop a methodology of designing and physical modelling where material agency takes precedence. This is addressed through design research, by way of design experiments at three scales: an installation, at human scale, focusing on “making air visible”; an Air Safety Pod, at “mid” scale; and an Air Crisis Centre. The Crisis centre is at landscape scale and designed to accommodate the island’s population in the event of a sulphurous air event. Critical analysis of site, theoretical contexts, and case studies are undertaken to aid the explorations. The thesis connects with key thinkers on the aesthetics and science of air, such as Sean Lally, Malte Wagner, Jonathan Hill and architect Phillip Rahm. This context is supported by specifically chosen case studies that relate to and support each scale of experiment.  The residents of Miyake Jima have shown resilience to continue living on the island, and this research contributes to helping them create a sustainable future. In doing so, the design research explores how air can be powerful in shaping architecture: how air, the primary component of architectural space, can influence architecture.
An examination of refugee protection attitudes in Southeast Asia
Authors:   , Lam Yin Cheung
Published: November 2021

This thesis examines how Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Malaysia sought to articulate attitudes towards refugee protection during the Indochinese and Rohingya refugee crises. While countries in Southeast Asia are known to be reluctant to discuss and participate in refugee protection, preferring to follow the norm of non-interference encapsulated in the ‘ASEAN Way’ in recent years, over time, attitudes towards refugee protection have varied significantly. The thesis explores the internal and external pressures that have impacted on changing perceptions of refugee protection in Southeast Asia. To explore changes in refugee protection attitudes, I conduct a comparative case study between the Indochinese and Rohingya refugee crises, analysing the responses and the rationale justifying the level of refugee protection in Thailand and Malaysia. These two countries have employed a variety of arguments such as ethnicity, religion and economic costs of treaty accession to inform their practices of refugee protection. In addition, regional/international dynamics and the labelling of refugees have also affected the level of refugee protection as well. Overall, their selective engagement with international refugee law; ethnic considerations; regional influences and the securitisation of refugee crises contribute most to arguments as to why refugee protection attitudes in Southeast Asia have remained poor. My findings indicate that due to the overlapping nature of these factors, any examination of refugee protection attitudes cannot be answered adequately by a single explanation, be it the practice of non-interference or a non-ratification of the 1951 Refugee Convention. These attitudes are mostly influenced by internal pressures, with national and regional factors interacting in tandem to produce higher levels of insecurity for the refugees studied in this thesis. Ultimately, this thesis will demonstrate that while refugee protection attitudes in the two refugee crises were influenced by shifting notions of national security, race and regional dynamics, not much has changed in terms of the consequences for refugees.
Evaluation of low-intensity therapy and parent training for young children with autism based on the early start Denver model
Authors:   , Waddington Hannah
Published: November 2021

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder that is characterised by deficits in social communication and restricted and repetitive behaviours, interests and activities. Recent developments in identification techniques mean that many children can be reliably diagnosed with ASD before the age of 2. Early identification creates the opportunity for early intervention. In fact, some research suggests that the earlier a child with ASD receives intervention, the greater the progress he or she is likely to make. Naturalistic developmental behavioural interventions are a relatively recent method of early intervention for children with ASD, which combine elements of previous intervention approaches (behavioural, naturalistic behavioural, and developmental/relationship-focused intervention). One such naturalistic developmental behavioural intervention is the early start Denver model (ESDM), which is designed for children with or at risk for ASD between the ages of 12 and 60 months (5 years). Research suggests that ESDM intervention may improve a range of child outcomes when delivered for at least 15 hours per week over at least 10 months. However, many families may not be able to access or afford such intensive intervention. Therefore, the two studies in this thesis evaluated the effectiveness of two ESDM delivery approaches that required relatively few hours of professional input per week. Specifically, low-intensity therapist delivered ESDM intervention, and ESDM parent training.  Study 1 used a multiple probe across participants design to evaluate the effectiveness of 3 hours per week of home-based ESDM therapy for 12 weeks for improving imitation, communication, and engagement for four young children with ASD. It also examined whether children showed increases in these outcomes with their mothers following the intervention. The results of this study suggest that, following the intervention, all four children increased their imitation skills and their engagement with the therapist. In addition three of the children had more functional utterances and one child increased his use of intentional vocalisations. These results were maintained four weeks after intervention and generalised to a lesser degree to each child’s mother. This suggests that low-intensity therapist delivered ESDM intervention may improve outcomes for children with ASD.  The results of Studies 1 and 2 suggest that both low-intensity therapist delivered ESDM intervention and ESDM parent training may be promising intervention approaches for young children with ASD. This is particularly encouraging as both approaches involved relatively few hours of professional input per week. In theory, this could increase the number of families who are able to access such intervention. More research is needed to identify the most effective low-intensity ESDM intervention method, or combination of methods.
Moving beyond consent in data privacy law. An effective privacy management system for Internet services
Authors:   , Betkier Marcin
Published: November 2021

This thesis looks for a way to overcome the failure of consent as a means of addressing privacy problems associated with online services. It argues that consent to collection and use of personal data is an imperfect mechanism for individual authorisation because data privacy in relation to online services is a dynamic, continuous process. If people are to have autonomous choice in respect of their privacy processes, then they need to be able to manage these processes themselves.    After careful examination of online services which pinpoints both the privacy problems caused by online service providers and the particular features of the online environment, the thesis devises a set of measures to enable individuals to manage these processes. The tool for achieving this is a Privacy Management Model (PMM) which consists of three interlocking functions: controlling (which consent may be a part of), organising, and planning.    The thesis then proposes a way of implementing these functions in the context of online services. This requires a mix of regulatory tools: a particular business model in which individuals are supported by third parties (Personal Information Administrators), a set of technical/architectural tools to manage data within the ICT systems of the online service  providers, and laws capable of supporting all these elements.    The proposed legal measures aim to overcome the shortcomings of procedural principles by implementing a comprehensive model in which substantive legal principle underpins a bundle of statutory-level laws which enable privacy management functions. Those are explained against the background of the General Data Protection Regulation. All of this is designed to change the way decision-makers think about Internet privacy and form the theoretical backbone of the next generation of privacy laws.
Closing the Loop: Implementing Real-time Audio Feedback Systems in Musical Robots
Authors:   , Long Jason
Published: November 2021

A closed-loop control system is any configuration that feeds information about its output back into the control stream. These types of systems have been in use for hundreds of years in various engineering related disciplines to carry out operations such as keeping rooms at the correct temperature, implementing cruise control in cars, and precisely positioning industrial machinery. When a musician performs a piece, a type of biological closed loop is invoked in which the player continuously listens to the sound of their instrument, and adjusts their actions in order to ensure their performance is as desired.  However, most musical robots do not possess this ability, instead relying on open-loop systems without feedback. This results in the need for much manual intervention from the operators of these robots, unintuitive control interfaces for composing and performing music with them, and tuning, timing, dynamics and other issues occurring during performances.  This thesis investigates applying closed-loop audio feedback techniques to the creation of musical robots to equip them with new expressive capabilities, interactive applications, musical accuracy, and greater autonomy. In order to realise these objectives, following an investigation of the history of musical automata and musical robotic control systems, several new robotic musical instruments are developed based on the principals of utilising embedded musical information retrieval techniques to allow the instruments to continuously ‘listen’ to themselves while they play.  The mechanical and electronic systems and firmware of a closed-loop glockenspiel, a modular unpitched percussion control system, and a robotic chordophone control system are described in detail, utilising new software and hardware created to be accessible to electronic artists. The novel capabilities of the instruments are demonstrated both through quantitative evaluations of the performance of their subsystems, and through composing original musical works specifically for the instruments. This paradigm shift in musical robotic construction paves the way for a new class of robots that are intuitive to use, highly accurate and reliable, and possess a unique level of musical expressiveness.