title: Enumeration of thermophilic heterotrophs in Geothermally heated Soils from Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica

authors: Hudson, J. Andrew

subjects: biology

abstract: Soil samples with temperatures up to 64°C were collected from Mount Erebus, an active volcano located on Ross Island, Antarctica. Acridine orange direct counts and most probable number counts of soil samples stored at 4°C for 2 months showed a wide variation in the number of thermophilic microorganisms in different soils. Organisms similar to Clostridium thermohydrosulfuricum, Bacillus schlegelii, and Bacillus acidocaldarius, as well as neutrophilic Bacillus strains, were isolated.

text: Enumeration of thermophilic heterotrophs in Geothermally heated Soils from Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica Soil samples with temperatures up to 64°C were collected from Mount Erebus, an active volcano located on Ross Island, Antarctica. Acridine orange direct counts and most probable number counts of soil samples stored at 4°C for 2 months showed a wide variation in the number of thermophilic microorganisms in different soils. Organisms similar to Clostridium thermohydrosulfuricum, Bacillus schlegelii, and Bacillus acidocaldarius, as well as neutrophilic Bacillus strains, were isolated.

year: 1988

title: Patterns of Change: Can modifiable software have high coupling?

authors: Taube-Schock, Craig

subjects: software engineering

abstract: There are few aspects of modern life that remain unaffected by software, and as our day-to-day challenges change, so too must our software. Software systems are complex, and as they grow larger and more interconnected, they become more difficult to modify due to excessive change propagation. This is known as the ripple effect. The primary strategies to mitigate it are modular design, and minimization of coupling, or between-module interaction. However, analysis of complex networks has shown that many are scale-free, which means that they contain some components that are highly connected. The presence of scale-free structure implies high coupling, which suggests that software systems may be hard to modify because they suffer from the ripple effect.

In this thesis, a large corpus of open-source software systems is analysed to determine whether software systems are scale-free, whether scale-free structure results in high coupling, and whether high coupling results in ripple effects that propagate change to a large proportion of classes.

The results show that all systems in the corpus are scale-free and that that property results in high coupling. However, analysis of system evolution reveals that existing code is modified infrequently and that there is rarely sufficient evidence to be confident that ripple effects involving a high proportion of classes have actually occurred. This thesis concludes first that while it is desirable to avoid excessive interconnectivity, it is difficult to completely eliminate high coupling; and second, that the presence of high coupling does not necessarily imply poor system design.

text: Patterns of Change: Can modifiable software have high coupling? There are few aspects of modern life that remain unaffected by software, and as our day-to-day challenges change, so too must our software. Software systems are complex, and as they grow larger and more interconnected, they become more difficult to modify due to excessive change propagation. This is known as the ripple effect. The primary strategies to mitigate it are modular design, and minimization of coupling, or between-module interaction. However, analysis of complex networks has shown that many are scale-free, which means that they contain some components that are highly connected. The presence of scale-free structure implies high coupling, which suggests that software systems may be hard to modify because they suffer from the ripple effect.

In this thesis, a large corpus of open-source software systems is analysed to determine whether software systems are scale-free, whether scale-free structure results in high coupling, and whether high coupling results in ripple effects that propagate change to a large proportion of classes.

The results show that all systems in the corpus are scale-free and that that property results in high coupling. However, analysis of system evolution reveals that existing code is modified infrequently and that there is rarely sufficient evidence to be confident that ripple effects involving a high proportion of classes have actually occurred. This thesis concludes first that while it is desirable to avoid excessive interconnectivity, it is difficult to completely eliminate high coupling; and second, that the presence of high coupling does not necessarily imply poor system design.

year: 2012

title: Covering tangata whenua in Aotearoa: a big data exploration of print media and Māori

authors: Phillips, Justin B.

abstract: A large body of academic research documents harmful media coverage of indigenous populations across the globe. New Zealand is no exception. Aotearoa’s indigenous people, Māori, share similar damaging experiences, leading one major NZ media company to publish an apology for their historically poor depiction of tangata whenua. This paper adds to that wealth of evidence using the automated methods of machine learning to examine coverage of Māori in NZ print media. Across roughly 800,000 sentences–spanning over two decades of coverage–this research investigates print media discourses involving Māori at a mass scale while demonstrating the applicability of such tools for further research. The results replicate a collection of existing findings at large-N scale, further documenting problematic discussions of violence, political representation, and culture, among several other concerns. The novel approach also hints at complex, obscure relationships embedded within problematic language in Aotearoa’s print media, identifying notions of division - both implied and otherwise - along with notable instances of resistance.

text: Covering tangata whenua in Aotearoa: a big data exploration of print media and Māori A large body of academic research documents harmful media coverage of indigenous populations across the globe. New Zealand is no exception. Aotearoa’s indigenous people, Māori, share similar damaging experiences, leading one major NZ media company to publish an apology for their historically poor depiction of tangata whenua. This paper adds to that wealth of evidence using the automated methods of machine learning to examine coverage of Māori in NZ print media. Across roughly 800,000 sentences–spanning over two decades of coverage–this research investigates print media discourses involving Māori at a mass scale while demonstrating the applicability of such tools for further research. The results replicate a collection of existing findings at large-N scale, further documenting problematic discussions of violence, political representation, and culture, among several other concerns. The novel approach also hints at complex, obscure relationships embedded within problematic language in Aotearoa’s print media, identifying notions of division - both implied and otherwise - along with notable instances of resistance.

year: 2022