title: Abrupt millennial-scale changes in intensity of Southern Hemisphere westerly winds during marine isotope stages 2–4

authors: Whittaker, Thomas Edward

subjects: chemistry

abstract: The strength of mid-southern latitude westerly atmospheric circulation plays an important role in global climate. Due to a lack of long, continuous, high-resolution paleoclimate archives from mid-southern latitudes, it remains unclear what factors control changes in its intensity and how past changes affected the climates of landmasses in their path. Here we show growth rate and stable isotope (18O, 13C) profiles from a South Island, New Zealand, stalagmite (HW3) that permit centennial-scale investigation of Southern Hemisphere westerly paleointensity between 73 and 11 ka. Correlation between HW3 growth rate and isotope profiles suggests sensitivity to changes in annual precipitation, a factor controlled by westerly intensity. Low growth rates and relatively enriched isotope ratios define long-term trends in HW3, supporting existing evidence that weaker westerlies predominated during the last glacial period. Abrupt millennial-scale events occur frequently, such that the HW3 record resembles Greenland ice core stable isotope profiles. Furthermore, nearly synchronous timing of nine prominent wet and cool intervals with Heinrich events supports studies showing that increased westerly intensity is closely linked to North Atlantic cooling. As well as Heinrich events, the HW3 profiles also show an Antarctic Cold Reversal–like event during deglaciation, advocating for a bipolar seesaw of global climate at that time.

text: Abrupt millennial-scale changes in intensity of Southern Hemisphere westerly winds during marine isotope stages 2–4 The strength of mid-southern latitude westerly atmospheric circulation plays an important role in global climate. Due to a lack of long, continuous, high-resolution paleoclimate archives from mid-southern latitudes, it remains unclear what factors control changes in its intensity and how past changes affected the climates of landmasses in their path. Here we show growth rate and stable isotope (18O, 13C) profiles from a South Island, New Zealand, stalagmite (HW3) that permit centennial-scale investigation of Southern Hemisphere westerly paleointensity between 73 and 11 ka. Correlation between HW3 growth rate and isotope profiles suggests sensitivity to changes in annual precipitation, a factor controlled by westerly intensity. Low growth rates and relatively enriched isotope ratios define long-term trends in HW3, supporting existing evidence that weaker westerlies predominated during the last glacial period. Abrupt millennial-scale events occur frequently, such that the HW3 record resembles Greenland ice core stable isotope profiles. Furthermore, nearly synchronous timing of nine prominent wet and cool intervals with Heinrich events supports studies showing that increased westerly intensity is closely linked to North Atlantic cooling. As well as Heinrich events, the HW3 profiles also show an Antarctic Cold Reversal–like event during deglaciation, advocating for a bipolar seesaw of global climate at that time.

year: 2011

title: Cue word guided question generation with BERT model fine-tuned on natural question dataset

authors: Zhang, Zijing

subjects: Deep Learning

abstract: This thesis aims to develop an efficient question generator for an automated tutoring system. Given a context passage with an answer, the question generator asks questions to help the reader learn new material. By utilizing the BERT model, this thesis experiments on generating type-specific questions with a cue word. This thesis also uses an RNN encoder-decoder architecture for question generation on SQuAD as a comparative baseline and fine-tune the BERT question generation model on Google's Natural Question dataset. Ultimately, I deliver a RESTful API by the end of this year-long master program.

text: Cue word guided question generation with BERT model fine-tuned on natural question dataset This thesis aims to develop an efficient question generator for an automated tutoring system. Given a context passage with an answer, the question generator asks questions to help the reader learn new material. By utilizing the BERT model, this thesis experiments on generating type-specific questions with a cue word. This thesis also uses an RNN encoder-decoder architecture for question generation on SQuAD as a comparative baseline and fine-tune the BERT question generation model on Google's Natural Question dataset. Ultimately, I deliver a RESTful API by the end of this year-long master program.

year: 2020

title: A literary and linguistic critique of a Māori lullaby

authors: August, Tipene

subjects: waiata Māori

abstract: Māori song poems surviving from pre-colonial times can provide a valuable source of information about the artistic and cultural heritage of Māoridom. However, they present a number of challenges for the contemporary analyst. On the basis of a stylistic analysis of a Māori lullaby, a number of hypotheses about Māori song poems in general, and the lullaby in particular, are put forward and it is suggested that these hypotheses could be tested in relation to a corpus of song poems. It is hoped that the approach to stylistic analysis adopted here will be of use to scholars of Māori song poems and, perhaps, also to others who are interested in indigenous art forms more generally.

text: A literary and linguistic critique of a Māori lullaby Māori song poems surviving from pre-colonial times can provide a valuable source of information about the artistic and cultural heritage of Māoridom. However, they present a number of challenges for the contemporary analyst. On the basis of a stylistic analysis of a Māori lullaby, a number of hypotheses about Māori song poems in general, and the lullaby in particular, are put forward and it is suggested that these hypotheses could be tested in relation to a corpus of song poems. It is hoped that the approach to stylistic analysis adopted here will be of use to scholars of Māori song poems and, perhaps, also to others who are interested in indigenous art forms more generally.

year: 2001-02