title: Pōuri: Two original screenplays

authors: Kohere, Anthony

subjects: Screenplays

abstract: Pōuri, as defined on Te Aka Māori Dictionary, means “regret, mournful, gloomy, in the dark.” It is an apt description of the following stories: Unprivate Moments, and Haytham; or, The Māori Gothic. A common thematic tie between the characters is that they regret past actions, have become disheartened, and experience severe distress. As a thesis, the aim is to expand on what a “Māori story” is beyond the familiar, or dare I say, expected.

'Unprivate Moments' is about an estranged father and son reconciling their differences, disguised as a low-level spy film. I see this as an opportunity to take a well-defined genre and treat it in a realistic fashion in terms of location and character, although not necessarily in believability. Set in Whanganui it can play with many tropes and preconceptions, almost with self-awareness without falling into parody or metacommentary. The formatting does not follow industry standards but inverts the layout of the scene descriptions and dialogue. While I cannot say for certain, Stanley Kubrick is the only one I am aware of that has done this when he adapted 'A Clockwork Orange'. His rationale for this break in style was to draw the eye to the visual storytelling rather than the dialogue.

'Haytham' is centred on a young Byronic Māori man during the late 1880s. Like the archetype he is derived from, Haytham is a tall, dark, and mysterious man. As he reveals himself both to the audience and to the other characters, we come to find someone who has been  damaged and corrupted. This issue of childhood trauma is the central crux of the story and is explored through his relationships with the women in his life. And finally, despite the script’s setting and intentional use of familial names, this is not a biographical work.

text: Pōuri: Two original screenplays Pōuri, as defined on Te Aka Māori Dictionary, means “regret, mournful, gloomy, in the dark.” It is an apt description of the following stories: Unprivate Moments, and Haytham; or, The Māori Gothic. A common thematic tie between the characters is that they regret past actions, have become disheartened, and experience severe distress. As a thesis, the aim is to expand on what a “Māori story” is beyond the familiar, or dare I say, expected.

'Unprivate Moments' is about an estranged father and son reconciling their differences, disguised as a low-level spy film. I see this as an opportunity to take a well-defined genre and treat it in a realistic fashion in terms of location and character, although not necessarily in believability. Set in Whanganui it can play with many tropes and preconceptions, almost with self-awareness without falling into parody or metacommentary. The formatting does not follow industry standards but inverts the layout of the scene descriptions and dialogue. While I cannot say for certain, Stanley Kubrick is the only one I am aware of that has done this when he adapted 'A Clockwork Orange'. His rationale for this break in style was to draw the eye to the visual storytelling rather than the dialogue.

'Haytham' is centred on a young Byronic Māori man during the late 1880s. Like the archetype he is derived from, Haytham is a tall, dark, and mysterious man. As he reveals himself both to the audience and to the other characters, we come to find someone who has been  damaged and corrupted. This issue of childhood trauma is the central crux of the story and is explored through his relationships with the women in his life. And finally, despite the script’s setting and intentional use of familial names, this is not a biographical work.

year: 2022

title: Putting Sylvia in her place: Ashton-Warner as New Zealand educational theorist

authors: Middleton, Sue

subjects: Sylvia Ashton-Warner

abstract: Sylvia Ashton-Warner, a New Zealand teacher, won international acclaim in the 1950s-1950s with her novels, autobiographies, and accounts of her educational theory. Blurring genres between fiction and autobiography, much of her writing was centred on the ‘creative teaching scheme’ she developed in Maori Schools. At the heart of the scheme was the idea that literacy was best achieved when children captioned their experiences of fear and sex, the two great (Freudian) drives. In Sylvia’s infant room, these erupted to the surface by means of captions (a child’s ‘key vocabulary’). I introduce Lefebvre’s idea of ‘rhythm analysis’, applying it first to the teaching scheme, then to the ‘system’ in which Ashton-Warner taught. With reference to extracts from Ashton-Warner’s Creative Teaching Scheme and Myself, I connect the rhythms of her life with her ‘theory.’ I identify Sylvia’s own ‘key words’ (violence and war; ghosts; sex and the kiss) and their rhythmic engagements and collisions with educational ‘authorities.’

text: Putting Sylvia in her place: Ashton-Warner as New Zealand educational theorist Sylvia Ashton-Warner, a New Zealand teacher, won international acclaim in the 1950s-1950s with her novels, autobiographies, and accounts of her educational theory. Blurring genres between fiction and autobiography, much of her writing was centred on the ‘creative teaching scheme’ she developed in Maori Schools. At the heart of the scheme was the idea that literacy was best achieved when children captioned their experiences of fear and sex, the two great (Freudian) drives. In Sylvia’s infant room, these erupted to the surface by means of captions (a child’s ‘key vocabulary’). I introduce Lefebvre’s idea of ‘rhythm analysis’, applying it first to the teaching scheme, then to the ‘system’ in which Ashton-Warner taught. With reference to extracts from Ashton-Warner’s Creative Teaching Scheme and Myself, I connect the rhythms of her life with her ‘theory.’ I identify Sylvia’s own ‘key words’ (violence and war; ghosts; sex and the kiss) and their rhythmic engagements and collisions with educational ‘authorities.’

year: 2009

title: From reactionary to proactive security: context-aware security policy management and optimization under uncertainty

authors: Chaisiri, Sivadon

subjects: computer science

abstract: At the core of its nature, security is a highly contextual and dynamic challenge. However, current security policy approaches are usually static, and slow to adapt to ever-changing requirements, let alone catching up with reality. In a 2012 Sophos survey, it was stated that a unique malware is created every half a second. This gives a glimpse of the unsustainable nature of a global problem, any improvement in terms of closing the 'time window to adapt' would be a significant step forward. To exacerbate the situation, a simple change in threat and attack vector or even an implementation of the so-called 'bring-your-own-device' paradigm will greatly change the frequency of changed security requirements and necessary solutions required for each new context. Current security policies also typically overlook the direct and indirect costs of implementation of policies. As a result, technical teams often fail to have the ability to justify the budget to the management, from a business risk viewpoint. This paper considers both the adaptive and cost-benefit aspects of security, and introduces a novel context-aware technique for designing and implementing adaptive, optimized security policies. Our approach leverages the capabilities of stochastic programming models to optimize security policy planning, and our preliminary results demonstrate a promising step towards proactive, context-aware security policies.

text: From reactionary to proactive security: context-aware security policy management and optimization under uncertainty At the core of its nature, security is a highly contextual and dynamic challenge. However, current security policy approaches are usually static, and slow to adapt to ever-changing requirements, let alone catching up with reality. In a 2012 Sophos survey, it was stated that a unique malware is created every half a second. This gives a glimpse of the unsustainable nature of a global problem, any improvement in terms of closing the 'time window to adapt' would be a significant step forward. To exacerbate the situation, a simple change in threat and attack vector or even an implementation of the so-called 'bring-your-own-device' paradigm will greatly change the frequency of changed security requirements and necessary solutions required for each new context. Current security policies also typically overlook the direct and indirect costs of implementation of policies. As a result, technical teams often fail to have the ability to justify the budget to the management, from a business risk viewpoint. This paper considers both the adaptive and cost-benefit aspects of security, and introduces a novel context-aware technique for designing and implementing adaptive, optimized security policies. Our approach leverages the capabilities of stochastic programming models to optimize security policy planning, and our preliminary results demonstrate a promising step towards proactive, context-aware security policies.

year: 2016