title: Does artificial intelligence modelling have anything to offer traditional management of freshwater food resources?

authors: Death, Russell G.

abstract: Management of freshwater systems and the ecosystem services they provide has become a multi-stakeholder activity. This requires information on resources and how to manage them to be disseminated to a wide range of users. While artificial intelligence modelling can provide a powerful tool in managing and understanding resources and their drivers, they can be confusing to many users. In this study, we explored the potential use of two alternative modelling approaches (Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) and Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN)) for managing three species of freshwater mahinga kai species-kākahi or kaeo (freshwater mussel), koura (freshwater crayfish) and tuna (freshwater eel). While the BBN model I sbetter for stakeholder communication, the BRT produced more accurate models for all species. However, variables identified as being important for predicting abundance and biomass of these species were often environmental parameters that cannot be managed to improve yield. The artificial intelligence modelling does provide some accurate linkages between the target species and their environmental drivers. Nevertheless, translating these relationships into management plans remains challenging. The models are clearly not a panacea for better resource management, but provide one more tool that might assist multi-stakeholder understanding of how best to manage freshwater resources.

text: Does artificial intelligence modelling have anything to offer traditional management of freshwater food resources? Management of freshwater systems and the ecosystem services they provide has become a multi-stakeholder activity. This requires information on resources and how to manage them to be disseminated to a wide range of users. While artificial intelligence modelling can provide a powerful tool in managing and understanding resources and their drivers, they can be confusing to many users. In this study, we explored the potential use of two alternative modelling approaches (Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) and Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN)) for managing three species of freshwater mahinga kai species-kākahi or kaeo (freshwater mussel), koura (freshwater crayfish) and tuna (freshwater eel). While the BBN model I sbetter for stakeholder communication, the BRT produced more accurate models for all species. However, variables identified as being important for predicting abundance and biomass of these species were often environmental parameters that cannot be managed to improve yield. The artificial intelligence modelling does provide some accurate linkages between the target species and their environmental drivers. Nevertheless, translating these relationships into management plans remains challenging. The models are clearly not a panacea for better resource management, but provide one more tool that might assist multi-stakeholder understanding of how best to manage freshwater resources.

year: 2017

title: Accelerating success and promoting equity through the ako (note 1): Critical contexts for change

authors: Berryman, Mere

abstract: Achieving equity and excellence for all young people remains the major challenge of education systems across the world. This paper contends that equity and excellence for students currently underserved by our system needs transformative school reform. In response, we outline the ako: critical contexts for change. This model has been applied across five dimensions for transformative reform within Kia Eke Panuku (Note 2). This paper focuses on how this model can be understood and applied alongside curriculum implementation. We draw evidence from wider research of the impact on improving student achievement when individual aspects of the ako: critical contexts for change have been applied. We have found that when all three contexts are applied simultaneously and spread throughout the school, pedagogical reform can be accelerated, even for those students most underserved.

text: Accelerating success and promoting equity through the ako (note 1): Critical contexts for change Achieving equity and excellence for all young people remains the major challenge of education systems across the world. This paper contends that equity and excellence for students currently underserved by our system needs transformative school reform. In response, we outline the ako: critical contexts for change. This model has been applied across five dimensions for transformative reform within Kia Eke Panuku (Note 2). This paper focuses on how this model can be understood and applied alongside curriculum implementation. We draw evidence from wider research of the impact on improving student achievement when individual aspects of the ako: critical contexts for change have been applied. We have found that when all three contexts are applied simultaneously and spread throughout the school, pedagogical reform can be accelerated, even for those students most underserved.

year: 2017

title: The Trolley Problem: A virtue-ethical perspective

authors: van Zyl, Liezl

subjects: applied virtue ethics

abstract: The main reason why virtue ethicists have avoided  the Trolley Debate is that it is, in a sense, "none of our business." The thought experiments are set up to test our intuitions about moral principles (e.g. is the principle, "Do not kill an innocent person" always more stringent than "Rescue people in danger"?) Virtue ethics rejects moral principles and instead focuses the attention on cultivating and exercising the virtues, and asking, "What would a virtuous person do in the circumstances?" To apply this approach to the Bystander and Footbridge cases we have to begin by considering more realistic versions of the two cases, where the available options are not stipulated at the outset. This allows us to see that there is an important difference between the two cases. In Bystander, it requires some quick thinking to realise that he has the option of turning the trolley. Given that he has very little time to make the decision a virtuous person's instincts could prompt him to turn the trolley in an attempt to save the five, or to refrain from doing so in order not to harm the one. In time, and as a benevolent person, he will probably come to believe that turning the trolley was the best thing to do. By contrast, in Footbridge, it will simply not occur to a virtuous person to use someone as a trolleystop. If someone asked him later on, "Why didn't you just push the big man onto the track?" he will reject this suggestion as an impossibility: "No ways!", for it is against the nature of a virtuous person to view and use others as objects.

text: The Trolley Problem: A virtue-ethical perspective The main reason why virtue ethicists have avoided  the Trolley Debate is that it is, in a sense, "none of our business." The thought experiments are set up to test our intuitions about moral principles (e.g. is the principle, "Do not kill an innocent person" always more stringent than "Rescue people in danger"?) Virtue ethics rejects moral principles and instead focuses the attention on cultivating and exercising the virtues, and asking, "What would a virtuous person do in the circumstances?" To apply this approach to the Bystander and Footbridge cases we have to begin by considering more realistic versions of the two cases, where the available options are not stipulated at the outset. This allows us to see that there is an important difference between the two cases. In Bystander, it requires some quick thinking to realise that he has the option of turning the trolley. Given that he has very little time to make the decision a virtuous person's instincts could prompt him to turn the trolley in an attempt to save the five, or to refrain from doing so in order not to harm the one. In time, and as a benevolent person, he will probably come to believe that turning the trolley was the best thing to do. By contrast, in Footbridge, it will simply not occur to a virtuous person to use someone as a trolleystop. If someone asked him later on, "Why didn't you just push the big man onto the track?" he will reject this suggestion as an impossibility: "No ways!", for it is against the nature of a virtuous person to view and use others as objects.

year: 2022