title: Using Motion Controllers in Virtual Conferencing

authors: Dean, Jesse Joseph Busch

subjects: Kinect

abstract: At the end of 2010 Microsoft released a new controller for the Xbox 360 called Kinect. Unlike ordinary video game controllers, the Kinect works by detecting the positions and movements of a user’s entire body using the data from a sophisticated camera that is able to detect the distance between itself and each of the points on the image it is capturing. The Kinect device is essentially a low-cost, widely available motion capture system. Because of this, almost immediately many individuals put the device to use in a wide variety applications beyond video games.

This thesis investigates one such use; specifically the area of virtual meetings. Virtual meetings are a means of holding a meeting between multiple individuals in multiple locations using the internet, akin to teleconferencing or video conferencing. The defining factor of virtual meetings is that they take place in a virtual world rendered with 3D graphics; with each participant in a meeting controlling a virtual representation of them self called an avatar.

Previous research into virtual reality in general has shown that there is the potential for people to feel highly immersed in virtual reality, experiencing a feeling of really ‘being there’. However, previous work looking at virtual meetings has found that existing interfaces for users to interact with virtual meeting software can interfere with this experience of ‘being there’. The same research has also identified other short comings with existing virtual meeting solutions.

This thesis investigates how the Kinect device can be used to overcome the limitations of exiting virtual meeting software and interfaces. It includes a detailed description of the design and development of a piece of software that was created to demonstrate the possible uses of the Kinect in this area. It also includes discussion of the results of real world testing using that software, evaluating the usefulness of the Kinect when applied to virtual meetings.

text: Using Motion Controllers in Virtual Conferencing At the end of 2010 Microsoft released a new controller for the Xbox 360 called Kinect. Unlike ordinary video game controllers, the Kinect works by detecting the positions and movements of a user’s entire body using the data from a sophisticated camera that is able to detect the distance between itself and each of the points on the image it is capturing. The Kinect device is essentially a low-cost, widely available motion capture system. Because of this, almost immediately many individuals put the device to use in a wide variety applications beyond video games.

This thesis investigates one such use; specifically the area of virtual meetings. Virtual meetings are a means of holding a meeting between multiple individuals in multiple locations using the internet, akin to teleconferencing or video conferencing. The defining factor of virtual meetings is that they take place in a virtual world rendered with 3D graphics; with each participant in a meeting controlling a virtual representation of them self called an avatar.

Previous research into virtual reality in general has shown that there is the potential for people to feel highly immersed in virtual reality, experiencing a feeling of really ‘being there’. However, previous work looking at virtual meetings has found that existing interfaces for users to interact with virtual meeting software can interfere with this experience of ‘being there’. The same research has also identified other short comings with existing virtual meeting solutions.

This thesis investigates how the Kinect device can be used to overcome the limitations of exiting virtual meeting software and interfaces. It includes a detailed description of the design and development of a piece of software that was created to demonstrate the possible uses of the Kinect in this area. It also includes discussion of the results of real world testing using that software, evaluating the usefulness of the Kinect when applied to virtual meetings.

year: 2012

title: Effects of catastrophic coastal landslides on the Te Angiangi Marine Reserve, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

authors: Macpherson, Diana Julie

subjects: Te Angiangi Marine Reserve

abstract: The Te Angiangi Marine Reserve protects 446 hectares of coastline considered to be representative of the nearshore marine environment of southern Hawke’s Bay. It was established in 1997, and since then has been an area where human foraging and fishing has been discouraged through legislation, mindful of the fact that it is known that poaching does occur. The aim of protection in a general sense is to facilitate natural ecosystem functioning through protection of species that can influence habitat character with the desired outcome being a hypothesised return to a more robust and ecologically natural state. However, the main purpose of a marine reserve under current law is for scientific study so that the response and recovery of important marine ecosystems and their component species’ can be studied and monitored after human predation stress has eased.

The Te Angiangi Marine Reserve was subjected to a large-scale sedimentation event in April 2011, when 650 mm of intense rain fell over a four day period in the Hawke's Bay region, which resulted in a significant amount of sediment being delivered to the coast through catastrophic coastal landslides. An accompanying trigger was a M4.5 earthquake centred only 10 km offshore from Pourerere at a depth of 20 km. The bounding hills in which the landslides occurred consist of soft, jointed, smectite clay-rich mudstone of the late Miocene Mapiri Formation. The joints enhance water penetration and the swelling (wetting) and shrinkage (drying) of the expandable smectite clay component. Spheroidal weathering releases variably sized joint blocks of mudstone which are very easily and effectively eroded further by the coastal hydrodynamic forces. In particular, persistent wave action at the coastline and over the intertidal platform releases the mainly fine and very fine sand, silt and clay sized particles which are readily dispersed offshore across and beyond the reserve. A subtidal sediment survey shows that the seabed in the reserve is dominated by fine and very fine sand and occasional reefs of bedrock mudstone with pronounced mud deposition occurring seaward of the marine reserve boundary at about 40 m depth.

The debris from the coastal landslides inundated the immediate intertidal platform adjacent to the hill side, which posed a serious threat to marine life both within and outside of the reserve. There was evidence of seagrass and marine organism mortality, especially in the upper intertidal zone. The occurrence of catastrophic scale landslide sedimentation across the interface of a coastal ecosystem comprising both protected and non protected habitats has provided a rare opportunity to examine the response and potential resilience of a marine reserve to a substantial physical disturbance event.

Internationally, empirical evidence for marine reserve resilience in the face of any form of disturbance is rare, particularly because most studies lack information prior to the event. Here, relevant intertidal data is available for the coastal region of interest, covering a number of years prior to the April 2011 storm events. The study is important since there are very few investigations which focus on the resilience of protected organisms to a physical disturbance that is relevant to examining likely increases in marine ecosystem stress associated with a changing climate. More extreme storms predicted under Climate Change modelling equate to more coastal sedimentation events. With the hypothesis that protection offered by a reserve allows biological interactions within the ecosystem to return to more balanced and natural states, the expectation is that an area under protection will have a better chance of recovery than one which may have important ecological imbalance. Hence the ecosystem within the Te Angiangi Marine Reserve will have a ‘stronger’ starting point for recovery.

Results from a preliminary intertidal survey of reserve and non-reserve organisms has indicated that reserve organisms are indeed showing hints of a resilience trend and reserve effect. This was unexpected given the relatively short time scale for this study (post sediment inundation) and also because the marine reserve covered a relatively small coastal area. Intertidal populations of paua (Haliotis spp.), kina (Evechinus chloroticus) and seagrass (Zostera capricorni) have generally indicated greater abundance and larger size in protected populations at Te Angiangi and adjacent areas, and a generally healthier reef platform compared with the non-reserve locations. The survey results provide an important contribution to the wider understanding of whether marine reserves increase the resilience of protected populations although the author hastens to add that further work is needed.

The current study attempts to interrelate both Earth science and Biological science components of investigation for the purpose of more comprehensively examining the response of a marine reserve to sedimentation. Ideas and interrelationships between a large-scale sedimentation event and the observed response of the intertidal paua, kina and seagrass populations within and outside of a marine reserve are postulated.

text: Effects of catastrophic coastal landslides on the Te Angiangi Marine Reserve, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand The Te Angiangi Marine Reserve protects 446 hectares of coastline considered to be representative of the nearshore marine environment of southern Hawke’s Bay. It was established in 1997, and since then has been an area where human foraging and fishing has been discouraged through legislation, mindful of the fact that it is known that poaching does occur. The aim of protection in a general sense is to facilitate natural ecosystem functioning through protection of species that can influence habitat character with the desired outcome being a hypothesised return to a more robust and ecologically natural state. However, the main purpose of a marine reserve under current law is for scientific study so that the response and recovery of important marine ecosystems and their component species’ can be studied and monitored after human predation stress has eased.

The Te Angiangi Marine Reserve was subjected to a large-scale sedimentation event in April 2011, when 650 mm of intense rain fell over a four day period in the Hawke's Bay region, which resulted in a significant amount of sediment being delivered to the coast through catastrophic coastal landslides. An accompanying trigger was a M4.5 earthquake centred only 10 km offshore from Pourerere at a depth of 20 km. The bounding hills in which the landslides occurred consist of soft, jointed, smectite clay-rich mudstone of the late Miocene Mapiri Formation. The joints enhance water penetration and the swelling (wetting) and shrinkage (drying) of the expandable smectite clay component. Spheroidal weathering releases variably sized joint blocks of mudstone which are very easily and effectively eroded further by the coastal hydrodynamic forces. In particular, persistent wave action at the coastline and over the intertidal platform releases the mainly fine and very fine sand, silt and clay sized particles which are readily dispersed offshore across and beyond the reserve. A subtidal sediment survey shows that the seabed in the reserve is dominated by fine and very fine sand and occasional reefs of bedrock mudstone with pronounced mud deposition occurring seaward of the marine reserve boundary at about 40 m depth.

The debris from the coastal landslides inundated the immediate intertidal platform adjacent to the hill side, which posed a serious threat to marine life both within and outside of the reserve. There was evidence of seagrass and marine organism mortality, especially in the upper intertidal zone. The occurrence of catastrophic scale landslide sedimentation across the interface of a coastal ecosystem comprising both protected and non protected habitats has provided a rare opportunity to examine the response and potential resilience of a marine reserve to a substantial physical disturbance event.

Internationally, empirical evidence for marine reserve resilience in the face of any form of disturbance is rare, particularly because most studies lack information prior to the event. Here, relevant intertidal data is available for the coastal region of interest, covering a number of years prior to the April 2011 storm events. The study is important since there are very few investigations which focus on the resilience of protected organisms to a physical disturbance that is relevant to examining likely increases in marine ecosystem stress associated with a changing climate. More extreme storms predicted under Climate Change modelling equate to more coastal sedimentation events. With the hypothesis that protection offered by a reserve allows biological interactions within the ecosystem to return to more balanced and natural states, the expectation is that an area under protection will have a better chance of recovery than one which may have important ecological imbalance. Hence the ecosystem within the Te Angiangi Marine Reserve will have a ‘stronger’ starting point for recovery.

Results from a preliminary intertidal survey of reserve and non-reserve organisms has indicated that reserve organisms are indeed showing hints of a resilience trend and reserve effect. This was unexpected given the relatively short time scale for this study (post sediment inundation) and also because the marine reserve covered a relatively small coastal area. Intertidal populations of paua (Haliotis spp.), kina (Evechinus chloroticus) and seagrass (Zostera capricorni) have generally indicated greater abundance and larger size in protected populations at Te Angiangi and adjacent areas, and a generally healthier reef platform compared with the non-reserve locations. The survey results provide an important contribution to the wider understanding of whether marine reserves increase the resilience of protected populations although the author hastens to add that further work is needed.

The current study attempts to interrelate both Earth science and Biological science components of investigation for the purpose of more comprehensively examining the response of a marine reserve to sedimentation. Ideas and interrelationships between a large-scale sedimentation event and the observed response of the intertidal paua, kina and seagrass populations within and outside of a marine reserve are postulated.

year: 2013

title: Level 2 Māori medium programmes: What are the perceptions of parents and students on this form of education?

authors: Hill, Richard Kenneth

subjects: Māori medium

abstract: Māori medium education provides a range of options for families wishing to educate their children through the indigenous language of Aotearoa New Zealand. Level 2 programmes with 51–80% Māori language instruction, can play an important role in supporting students and their Māori language development, yet little is known about these programmes. This project explored the experiences of whānau (families) and students of level 2 Māori medium programmes to gauge the contribution they make to the education of students. It found that this form of education attracts whānau with wide ranging aims and expectations, but offers highly satisfactory educational options for them. However, there are some tensions, particularly in regard to the part they play in lifting students’ Māori language skills. Ensuring graduates of level 2 programmes have a pathway to learn the Māori language beyond primary school was also a cause for concern.

text: Level 2 Māori medium programmes: What are the perceptions of parents and students on this form of education? Māori medium education provides a range of options for families wishing to educate their children through the indigenous language of Aotearoa New Zealand. Level 2 programmes with 51–80% Māori language instruction, can play an important role in supporting students and their Māori language development, yet little is known about these programmes. This project explored the experiences of whānau (families) and students of level 2 Māori medium programmes to gauge the contribution they make to the education of students. It found that this form of education attracts whānau with wide ranging aims and expectations, but offers highly satisfactory educational options for them. However, there are some tensions, particularly in regard to the part they play in lifting students’ Māori language skills. Ensuring graduates of level 2 programmes have a pathway to learn the Māori language beyond primary school was also a cause for concern.

year: 2017