bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Seeing the Trees from the Forest: Using Modern Methods to Identify Individual Objects in a Cluttered Environment for Robots
Authors:   , Prow Josh 
Published: December 2021

<p>Robotics and computer vision are areas of high growth across both industry and personal usage environments. Robots in industrial situations have been used to work in environments that are hazardous for humans or to perform basic tasks that require fine detail beyond that which human operators can reliably perform. These robotic solutions require a variety of sensors and cameras to navigate and identify objects within their working environment, as well as software and intelligent detection systems. These solutions generally require high definition depth cameras, laser range finders and computer vision algorithms, which are both expensive and require expensive graphics processors to run practically. This thesis explores the option of a low-cost computer vision enabled robotic solution, which can operate within a forestry environment. Starting with the accuracy of camera technologies, testing two of the main cameras available for robotic vision, and demonstrating the benefits of the RealSense D435 by Intel over the Kinect for X-Box One. Followed by testing common object detection and recognition algorithms on different devices; considering the advantages and weaknesses of the determined models for the intended purpose of forestry. These tests support other research on finding that the MobileNet Single Shot Detector has the fastest recognition speeds with accurate precision, however, it struggles where multiple objects were present, or the background was complex. In comparison, the Mask R-CNN had high accuracy and was able to identify objects consistently even with large numbers overlaid within a single frame. A combined method based on the Faster R-CNN architecture with a MobileNet backbone and masking layers is proposed, developed and tested based on these findings. This method utilized the feature extraction and object detection abilities of the faster MobileNet in place of the traditionally ResNet based feature proposal networks, while still capitalizing on the benefits of the region of interest (ROI) align and masking from the Mask R-CNN architecture. The results from this model did not meet the criteria required to recommend the model as an operational solution for the forestry environment. However, they do show that the model has higher performance and average precision than other models with similar frame rates on the non-CUDA enabled testing device. Demonstrating the technology and methodology has the potential to be the basis for a future solution to the problem of balancing accuracy and performance on a low performance or non GPU-enabled robotic unit.</p>
On the Connections between Thermodynamics and General Relativity
Authors:   , Santiago Silva Jessica 
Published: December 2021

<p>In this thesis, the connections between thermodynamics and general relativity are explored. We introduce some of the history of the interaction between these two theories and take some time to individually study important concepts of both of them. Then, we move on to explore the concept of gravitationally induced temperature gradients in equilibrium states, first introduced by Richard Tolman. We explore these Tolman-like temperature gradients, understanding their physical origin and whether they can be generated by other forces or not. We then generalize this concept for fluids following generic four-velocities, which are not necessarily generated by Killing vectors, in general stationary space-times. Some examples are given. Driven by the interest of understanding and possibly extending the concept of equilibrium for fluids following trajectories which are not generated by Killing vectors, we dedicate ourselves to a more fundamental question: can we still define thermal equilibrium for non-Killing flows? To answer this question we review two of the main theories of relativistic non-perfect fluids: Classical Irreversible Thermodynamics and Extended Irreversible Thermodynamics. We also take a tour through the interesting concept of Born-rigid motion, showing some explicit examples of non-Killing rigid flows for Bianchi Type I space-times. These results are important since they show that the Herglotz–Noether theorem cannot be extended for general curved space-times. We then connect the Born-rigid concept with the results obtained by the relativistic fluid’s equilibrium conditions and show that the exact thermodynamic equilibrium can only be achieved along a Killing flow. We do, however, introduce some interesting possibilities which are allowed for non-Killing flows. We then launch into black hole thermodynamics, specifically studying the trans-Planckian problem for Hawking radiation. We construct a kinematical model consisting of matching two Vaidya spacetimes along a thin shell and show that, as long as the Hawking radiation is emitted only a few Planck lengths (in proper distance) away from the horizon, the trans-Plackian problem can be avoided. We conclude with a brief discussion about what was presented and what can be done in the future.</p>
A screening strategy to identify novel immunomodulators
Authors:   , Patel Vimal 
Published: December 2021

<p>Understanding the immunomodulatory activities of compounds is important to identify the unintended adverse immunomodulatory effects of therapeutic compounds in development and to select novel compounds that may provide benefit for those diagnosed with immunemediated disorders. In both these cases, it is desirable to identify compounds with immunomodulatory activity early in the drug discovery process in a medium-throughput format. A screening strategy has been designed to fulfil these needs. The first step in designing the strategy was to select informative assays and optimise individual assays to suit medium-throughput drug discovery. These individual assays investigated effects on a broad range of functions associated with innate and adaptive immune cells including macrophages (activation, cytokine production, phagocytosis and motility), helper T cells (activation and cytokine production), cytotoxic T cells (degranulation and cytokine production), and B cells (antibody production and cytokine production). Cost effectiveness and ease-of-use were important considerations during assay design and optimisation. Using a compound set comprised of positive controls (i.e. compounds known to alter specific immune functions), a data set was generated to guide the strategy design. Assays were ordered to efficiently use resources and reduce the generation of less informative data. Additionally, using data collected from this compound set, strategies to assess and identify immunomodulatory activity were built and analysed. A second set of compounds was used to validate the screening strategy, and this screen highlighted new and novel activities for these known compounds that suggests they possess additional immunomodulatory effects. Once validated, several novel compounds were run through the screen, including a traditional Samoan medicine, a heparan sulfate mimetic, and a novel anti-cancer agent; unique immunomodulatory activities were discovered. Finally, a hierarchical cluster analysis was used to cluster compounds sharing similar activity profiles and suggested the potential to develop further statistical methods to provide insight into compound characterisation. Together, this research has developed and validated a novel, medium throughput drug discovery system that can facilitate the identification of the immunomodulatory activities of compounds in the drug discovery environment.</p>
Sound phantoms: The hidden sonic signatures resident in objects with particular reference to that of the tree
Authors:   , Lambourn Matthew 
Published: December 2021

<p>This exegesis informs the ten accompanying audiovisual artworks which express the concept of the sound phantom. The sound phantom is a speculative entity, enjoying persistence, and harboured by all objects. It consists of every sound, real or conceptual, that the object has made or could make, past and future, time-condensed and folded into spatial form. Once this form, or field, is entered by a listener, various sonic representations of the object can be experienced. The object chosen for this paper is that of the tree. There is a possibility that the sound phantom is an ancient idea in both academia and cultural fora, though it has not necessarily enjoyed the scrutiny and artistic response presented here. Given that the actual sound of an object is only part of the sound phantom, the phantom encompasses sonic representation of its other sensual properties (such as visual and textural) as well as conceptual (such as human and non-human perceptions of the object, and its own memories and goals). The sound phantom can be imagined as a zone straddling the boundary of scientific/philosophical understanding and the unknown. There is support from existing academic research for the existence of such a concept, not least in that conceptual and sensory objects enjoy the same status as objects, even if their ‘realness’ is what is in question. This also implies that at some level these objects have experience and even agency, even if it is far from human understanding. Once we accept that different life forms exist on vastly different timescales, it becomes easier to accept the notion that slowly-moving organisms like trees may be able to sense, remember, communicate and make decisions. If we could somehow perceive the object’s ‘sonic self’, that may re-encourage an idea that has been in decline over the last few hundred years: that of inter-entity empathy. At least in practice, it is undeniable that the environment and its non-human inhabitants have been severely disrespected and damaged to a critical point in modern times. If we are able to empathise with other things through art, we might yet rekindle enough action to avert disaster to both the world and ourselves. I have chosen established media to portray the idea of the sound phantom, using 2D projection of biaxial 360º video material as a visual guide to the immersive 7.1-surround sonic material. There are other artists that have approached various aspects of the idea of the sound phantom, if not necessarily the political reasons for doing so. Even though our perception of the sound phantom can only be partial, through this paper and our powers of cognition, we might yet be able to grasp the concept and remember that we are not seperate from the world, but of it, and would do well to realise that through our individual and collective actions. This exegesis and the works are a first a step along that pathway.</p>
Designing dolls according to Youkai stories and Shinto beliefs in Eastern culture
Authors:   , Liu Yanxiao 
Published: December 2021

<p>Contrary to the contemporary views on the function and complex mastery skills of an object, the Eastern world puts more emphasis on the value of the object is in its inner spirit. This view is based on Shinto beliefs, where everything is spiritual and valuable. My project undertakes a case study of the relationship between humans and things. This is done by building on the uses of Shinto beliefs to design an object that initiates a narrative. More specifically dolls. Thus, invites a relationship and engages the belief that objects have souls. The dolls which I designed are an intersection of the spirit world and reality. By providing a process that facilitates the traditional Youkai story base on Shinto beliefs and how it has developed in modern society. In promoting participant engagement through design methods and processes, this project discovered a new vision of forming meaningful relationships between humans and objects empowers the true value of an object. This project visualizes participant experiences created an exploration of a narrative that contains the spirit.</p>
A mixed methods study on early childhood services' touchscreen tablet use and non-use in New Zealand
Authors:   , Santamaria Michael Luke 
Published: December 2021

<p>With the ongoing debate on young children’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) use in early childhood education (ECE), empirical studies have reported that the increase in young children’s access to and use of touchscreen tablets, hereafter referred to as tablets, could positively and negatively impact their learning and development. According to the New Zealand ECE curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017), children growing up in the context of a changing society could benefit from using technology. This research, which explored tablet use in New Zealand’s four major early childhood service types: education and care centres, home-based services, kindergartens, and playcentres, provides useful information on the reasons why services used and did not use tablets as well as how teachers/educators used tablets to support children’s learning. The two phases to this sequential explanatory mixed methods study were underpinned by two research paradigms, the postpositivist paradigm for the quantitative phase and the constructivist paradigm for the qualitative phase. First, a national survey that was sent to all early childhood providers from the four major service types and then a collective case study was conducted in two sub-phases. Phase 2A consisted of focus group interviews with a tablet non-user service from each of the four service types and a tablet user service from each of the four service types. Phase 2B consisted of stimulated recall (SR) focus group interviews with the same tablet users who participated in Phase 2A. The survey responses revealed considerable variation in the use of tablets and the purposes for which tablets were used. More education and care services and kindergartens used tablets than home-based services and playcentres. Both quantitative and qualitative phases revealed complexities involving tablet use such as the types of scaffolding used and issues surrounding screen time and policies on tablet use including the use of personally-owned tablets and cybsersafety concerns. Particularly, the findings from Phase 2 confirmed that the socialized nature involving tablet use aligned with Te Whāriki. Thus, tablet use is not necessarily limited to a dichotomy of use and non-use but is spread across a spectrum ranging from limited, to specialised, and to comprehensive use.</p>
Bringing life to leadership: The emergence of principal leadership practice for educational success in low socio-economic schools
Authors:   , Millar Angela Blanche Anna-Lise 
Published: December 2021

<p>The persistent educational achievement gap and historically haphazard nature of progress for students in impoverished contexts in New Zealand primary schools is a deep-seated problem needing urgent attention. This multifaceted and interconnected problem has no distinct origin and no clear solution and is continuing to harm individual and collective futures. This thesis explores principal leadership practice and how it intersects with the low socio-economic context, to improve outcomes for vulnerable students. Using a case study approach, two principals and their schools are holistically described using a theoretical framework grounded in complexity theory. Both the approach and theory uniquely explores principal practice as an individual and collective phenomenon, as a living, evolving network of self-organisation where both parts and wholes are significant, and as practice grounded in context. The theory also offers a unique way to arrange and interpret findings. The study findings identified local notions of educational success as a way of understanding the trajectory of the ecosystem whole. The broad principal leadership patterns of practice included: building the network; integrating multiple perspectives; facilitating cohesion; and confronting and addressing injustices. These patterns evidenced a tight coupling between theory and practice. In the spirit of complexity theory, principal leadership practice is additionally explained as a sum greater than its parts. The capability of the network is described through concepts of stability and flow and shows, that no matter how competent the principal leader and their network, the contribution to education reform grapples to be transformational. Recommendations are made for principal leaders, professional development providers, as well as the Ministry of Education and policymakers that offer hope and contribute to disrupting the current trajectory, so transformational change is more likely. Areas of instability and important leverage points, include professional learning and development, community-school connections and resourcing.</p>
Confinement Properties of the 3D Topological Insulators Bi₂Se₃, Bi₂Te₃, and Sb₂Te₃
Authors:   , Kotulla Markus 
Published: December 2021

<p>Recent discoveries have spurred the theoretical prediction and experimental realization of novel materials that have topological properties arising from band inversion. Such topological insulators have conductive surface or edge states but are insulating in the bulk. How the signatures of topological behavior evolve when the system size is reduced is noteworthy from both a fundamental and an application-oriented point of view, as such understanding may form the basis for tailoring systems to be in specific topological phases. This thesis investigates the softly confined topological insulator family of Bi₂Se₃ and its properties when subjected to an in-plane magnetic field. The model system provides a useful platform for systematic study of the transition between the normal and the topological phases, including the development of band inversion and the formation of massless-Dirac-fermion surface states. The effects of bare size quantization, two-dimensional-subband mixing, and electron-hole asymmetry are disentangled and their corresponding physical consequences elucidated. When a magnetic field is present, it is found that the Dirac cone which is formed in surface states, splits into two cones separated in momentum space and that these cones exhibit properties of Weyl fermions. The effective Zeeman splitting is much larger for the surface states than for the bulk states. Furthermore, the g-factor of the surface states depends on the size of the material. The mathematical model presented here may be realizable experimentally in the frame of optical lattices in ultra cold atom gases.</p>
Click off: How digital has disrupted New Zealand sports journalism
Authors:   , Stutchbury Greg Michael 
Published: December 2021

<p>This thesis examined through a political economy framework how New Zealand’s two largest newspaper chains, Fairfax and NZME, have been impacted by the advent of digital technologies and the effects these have had on the practice of sports journalism. Digital technology, falling revenue and increasing pressure from financial owners have all played a part in the restructuring of both Fairfax and NZME’s editorial news operations, especially in the last five years as both companies transitioned to a ‘digital-first’ environment. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 senior journalists who had knowledge of the transition from a print to a digital focus. These interviews highlighted the strategies adopted by both companies as they faced a challenging and evolving marketplace. They also underlined the internal tensions within newsrooms between not only journalists and editorial news managers but also the digital and print operations. Despite the belief that digital technologies would make the print news media more collaborative and provide greater diversity and plurality, the opposite has occurred. Sports reporting remains highly routinised, coverage diversity is shrinking, and greater control is now exerted by editorial managers over the production of journalistic content. Digital technologies have also impacted the forms of content, with decision making on editorial content and resourcing now strongly influenced by data analytics, although there was still strong resistance to greater interactivity with readers. The relationship between sports organisations and print news media organisations, while considered in theory to be a symbiotic one but in reality, is an area of conflict, has also further deteriorated as sports organisations introduce significantly greater control over the media agenda. An element of this control has also heightened tensions with sports organisations moving into the digital space and competing directly with print news media organisations.</p>
Timing and Mechanisms of Silicate Differentiation and Basalt Magma Generation on the Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite Asteroid Parent Body
Authors:   , Dallas Jessica Anne 
Published: December 2021

<p>Meteorites provide the only direct record of the chronology and nature of the processes that occurred in the early solar system. In this study, meteorites were examined in order to gain insight into the timing and nature of magmatism and silicate differentiation on asteroidal bodies in the first few million years of the solar system. These bodies are considered the precursors to terrestrial planets, and as such they provide information about conditions in the solar system at the time of planet formation. This study focuses on eucrites, which are basaltic meteorites that are believed to represent the crust of the Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite (HED) parent body. The processes of silicate differentiation and the relationship between eucrites and the diogenitic mafic cumulate of the HED parent body are poorly understood. The major and trace element chemistry of the minerals in the eucrite suite was measured. There is little variability in mineral major element concentrations in eucrites, however considerable variability was observed in mineral trace element concentrations, particularly with respect to incompatible elements in the mineral phases. Magnesium was separated from digested eucrite samples, and the Mg isotope composition of the eucrites was measured to high precision in order to date the samples using the short-lived ²⁶Al–²⁶Mg chronometer and examine magmatic evolution on the HED parent body. Correlations between incompatible elements in pyroxene and ²⁶Mg anomalies, produced by the decay of ²⁶Al, indicate that the eucrite suite was formed from a single, evolving magma body. Large trace element and Mg isotopic differences between eucrites and diogenites indicate that the two meteorite groups did not, as previously suggested, originate from the same magma body. Instead they may have formed from two large magma bodies, which were spatially or temporally separated on the HED parent body. The application of the short-lived ²⁶Al–²⁶Mg chronometer to this suite of eucrites constrains the onset of eucrite formation to ~3 Myr after the formation of the solar system’s first solids, as a result of rapid accretion and melting of planetesimals due to heating from the decay of ²⁶Al.</p>