title: An Interactive Community Microgrid Model to aid Design Exploration

authors: Clow, Liam Thomas

subjects: Microgrid

abstract: This dissertation presents a novel approach to microgrid design and exploration through the development of an innovative software application. The primary objective of this research is to empower users to configure and simulate community microgrids, offering multiple time-frame insights into performance metrics, statistical analyses, and pertinent factors aligned with their specific configurations. In collaboration with Ahuora under their third Aim, a key focus is on optimizing factory process heat management while experimenting with renewable energy sources to effectively mitigate overall power consumption. The application developed for this thesis focuses on representing these assets accurately, facilitating the setup/internal optimization of these assets, and allowing the users to tailor the configuration to explore consequences and effects of their changes.
Employing a multidisciplinary methodology, the study seeks to integrate Digital Twin technology tenets, Object-Oriented Programming, Polymorphism, Data Modelling and Visualization, and Complex Power Calculations to formulate a robust and user-friendly software interface. Furthermore, meticulous GUI design and advanced graphing techniques ensure data visualization is both informative and intuitive.
This research culminates in a comprehensive demonstration of the software's capabilities, successfully showcasing its efficacy in meeting outlined objectives. By affording users the ability to dynamically shape and assess microgrid configurations, this study advances the field of sustainable energy management and underscores the potential for optimized factory operations within a renewable energy framework.

text: An Interactive Community Microgrid Model to aid Design Exploration This dissertation presents a novel approach to microgrid design and exploration through the development of an innovative software application. The primary objective of this research is to empower users to configure and simulate community microgrids, offering multiple time-frame insights into performance metrics, statistical analyses, and pertinent factors aligned with their specific configurations. In collaboration with Ahuora under their third Aim, a key focus is on optimizing factory process heat management while experimenting with renewable energy sources to effectively mitigate overall power consumption. The application developed for this thesis focuses on representing these assets accurately, facilitating the setup/internal optimization of these assets, and allowing the users to tailor the configuration to explore consequences and effects of their changes.
Employing a multidisciplinary methodology, the study seeks to integrate Digital Twin technology tenets, Object-Oriented Programming, Polymorphism, Data Modelling and Visualization, and Complex Power Calculations to formulate a robust and user-friendly software interface. Furthermore, meticulous GUI design and advanced graphing techniques ensure data visualization is both informative and intuitive.
This research culminates in a comprehensive demonstration of the software's capabilities, successfully showcasing its efficacy in meeting outlined objectives. By affording users the ability to dynamically shape and assess microgrid configurations, this study advances the field of sustainable energy management and underscores the potential for optimized factory operations within a renewable energy framework.

year: 2024

title: The Challenge to Fijian Methodism - the vanua, identity, ethnicity and change

authors: Degei, Sekove. Bigitibau

subjects: Fijian Methodism

abstract: Christianity is the dominant religion in the Fiji islands today. However, this was not the case in the early eighteen hundreds. Back then, the Fijians had lived a life and culture of their own that was not known to the world. This all changed when different groups of Europeans started to arrive in the early eighteen hundreds.  Of these, the group that had the most influence on the Fijians was the English Wesleyan missionaries. The result of their evangelism was the establishment of the Methodist church in 1835.  This church is the dominant denomination in Christian Fiji and has been closely meshed with concepts of Fijian identity. However, the church's dominance is being challenged, partly because of the entwining of concepts of church and the vanua (land, people). Additionally the arrival of other, new denominations with their different ideologies has also affected the standing and influence of the Methodists.

In this thesis the way in which the missionaries had introduced themselves to the Fijians and how they influenced and converted them to Christianity are outlined.  This was not a one-way affair, where only the missionaries' ways of living and ideologies were involved.  They first had to accept the structure and some of the customs of the vanua before their mission could proceed. It was found that the influence and ideologies brought by the missionaries was incorporated into the vanua ideologies and has formed the basis of what became the Fijian way of life. When Fiji became a colony of Britain in 1874, the incorporation of the vanua and Methodist Christian ideologies and structure was well established. 

However, all these views, and the previously accepted local views of Fijian culture, have changed in response to the challenges from the new denominations.  The effect of these new approaches and ideologies on the vanua and the Methodists in Fiji is discussed. The outcome of this on-going situation is not yet clear.

text: The Challenge to Fijian Methodism - the vanua, identity, ethnicity and change Christianity is the dominant religion in the Fiji islands today. However, this was not the case in the early eighteen hundreds. Back then, the Fijians had lived a life and culture of their own that was not known to the world. This all changed when different groups of Europeans started to arrive in the early eighteen hundreds.  Of these, the group that had the most influence on the Fijians was the English Wesleyan missionaries. The result of their evangelism was the establishment of the Methodist church in 1835.  This church is the dominant denomination in Christian Fiji and has been closely meshed with concepts of Fijian identity. However, the church's dominance is being challenged, partly because of the entwining of concepts of church and the vanua (land, people). Additionally the arrival of other, new denominations with their different ideologies has also affected the standing and influence of the Methodists.

In this thesis the way in which the missionaries had introduced themselves to the Fijians and how they influenced and converted them to Christianity are outlined.  This was not a one-way affair, where only the missionaries' ways of living and ideologies were involved.  They first had to accept the structure and some of the customs of the vanua before their mission could proceed. It was found that the influence and ideologies brought by the missionaries was incorporated into the vanua ideologies and has formed the basis of what became the Fijian way of life. When Fiji became a colony of Britain in 1874, the incorporation of the vanua and Methodist Christian ideologies and structure was well established. 

However, all these views, and the previously accepted local views of Fijian culture, have changed in response to the challenges from the new denominations.  The effect of these new approaches and ideologies on the vanua and the Methodists in Fiji is discussed. The outcome of this on-going situation is not yet clear.

year: 2007

title: Worlded object and its presentation: A Māori philosophy of language

authors: Mika, Carl Te Hira

abstract: In an era concerned with the survival of Indigenous languages, language as a general phenomenon needs to be thought of as thoroughly connected to one’s worldview. In this article, I propose a different conception of language that sides more with what I call ‘the worlding of things’ than linguistics. To foreshadow my speculations on language, I consider the possibility that, within the representation of one entity in perception, there exist all other entities. An entity is hence ‘worlded’—a key aspect of the term ‘whakapapa’. I then turn to think about language as a general phenomenon for Mäori, and its complex ability to world an entity even as it adumbrates that thing’s backdrop. I consider the verb ‘to be’ in that light, arguing that Mäori identify language as a sort of gathering of entities rather than an instrument for singling out one thing as thoroughly and separably evident. This article is therefore as much about the full participation of the world as it is about language; it also aims to counter the belief that language is merely a conveyor of ideas.

text: Worlded object and its presentation: A Māori philosophy of language In an era concerned with the survival of Indigenous languages, language as a general phenomenon needs to be thought of as thoroughly connected to one’s worldview. In this article, I propose a different conception of language that sides more with what I call ‘the worlding of things’ than linguistics. To foreshadow my speculations on language, I consider the possibility that, within the representation of one entity in perception, there exist all other entities. An entity is hence ‘worlded’—a key aspect of the term ‘whakapapa’. I then turn to think about language as a general phenomenon for Mäori, and its complex ability to world an entity even as it adumbrates that thing’s backdrop. I consider the verb ‘to be’ in that light, arguing that Mäori identify language as a sort of gathering of entities rather than an instrument for singling out one thing as thoroughly and separably evident. This article is therefore as much about the full participation of the world as it is about language; it also aims to counter the belief that language is merely a conveyor of ideas.

year: 2016