title: Exploring children’s perspectives: Multiple ways of seeing and knowing the child

authors: Peters, Sally

subjects: Young children

abstract: This article focuses on human development in the early years, and the challenges for teachers and researchers in seeking to explore young children’s perspectives. The current interest in listening to children’s voices sits within competing developmental discourses about infants, toddlers and young children, which emphasise both their capability and confidence as well as their immaturity, especially with regard to oral language. Their “voice” can be heard and seen differently by teachers, researchers and families, who filter it according to their own perspectives and their image of the child. Drawing on a range of contemporary New Zealand studies, we discuss some key issues such as whether children need speech to have a voice? And in what ways can we gather children’s perspectives in research and education? To explore children’s perspectives and hear their voices requires skilled and flexible researchers and teachers, who watch and listen carefully whilst being mindful of their filtering/interpretive gazes. This takes time and patience and requires multiple ways of gathering data in order that the child is heard authentically.

text: Exploring children’s perspectives: Multiple ways of seeing and knowing the child This article focuses on human development in the early years, and the challenges for teachers and researchers in seeking to explore young children’s perspectives. The current interest in listening to children’s voices sits within competing developmental discourses about infants, toddlers and young children, which emphasise both their capability and confidence as well as their immaturity, especially with regard to oral language. Their “voice” can be heard and seen differently by teachers, researchers and families, who filter it according to their own perspectives and their image of the child. Drawing on a range of contemporary New Zealand studies, we discuss some key issues such as whether children need speech to have a voice? And in what ways can we gather children’s perspectives in research and education? To explore children’s perspectives and hear their voices requires skilled and flexible researchers and teachers, who watch and listen carefully whilst being mindful of their filtering/interpretive gazes. This takes time and patience and requires multiple ways of gathering data in order that the child is heard authentically.

year: 2015

title: Adaptive feature thresholding for off-line signature verification

authors: Larkins, Robert L.

subjects: computer science

abstract: This paper introduces Adaptive Feature Thresholding (AFT) which is a novel method of person-dependent off-line signature verification. AFT enhances how a simple image feature of a signature is converted to a binary feature vector by significantly improving its representation in relation to the training signatures. The similarity between signatures is then easily computed from their corresponding binary feature vectors. AFT was tested on the CEDAR and GPDS benchmark datasets, with classification using either a manual or an automatic variant. On the CEDAR dataset we achieved a classification accuracy of 92% for manual and 90% for automatic, while on the GPDS dataset we achieved over 87% and 85% respectively. For both datasets AFT is less complex and requires fewer images features than the existing state of the art methods, while achieving competitive results.

text: Adaptive feature thresholding for off-line signature verification This paper introduces Adaptive Feature Thresholding (AFT) which is a novel method of person-dependent off-line signature verification. AFT enhances how a simple image feature of a signature is converted to a binary feature vector by significantly improving its representation in relation to the training signatures. The similarity between signatures is then easily computed from their corresponding binary feature vectors. AFT was tested on the CEDAR and GPDS benchmark datasets, with classification using either a manual or an automatic variant. On the CEDAR dataset we achieved a classification accuracy of 92% for manual and 90% for automatic, while on the GPDS dataset we achieved over 87% and 85% respectively. For both datasets AFT is less complex and requires fewer images features than the existing state of the art methods, while achieving competitive results.

year: 2008

title: “This is not us”: But actually, it is. Talking about when to raise the issue of colonisation.

authors: Waitoki, Waikaremoana

abstract: This paper is a commentary on some of the responses to the public narrative of the events after the March 15th Christchurch attack. Several colleagues had publicly and privately, offered their views on the Government’s and media outlets use of terms such as ‘unprecedented’, ‘our loss of innocence’ and ‘our darkest day’. A fiery and empassioned exchange of words emerged on social media about the statement: ‘This is not us’. By exposing the counternarrative to these emotion laden terms, a shady past, and invisible present was revealed. However, the timing of the talk about colonisation also seemed out of step with the need for sensitivity. This paper also explores the role of White supremacy and causal racism in New Zealand. A personal I/we/us narrative style is used throughout the paper to describe how Muslim and Maori lives intersected prior to, and after the attack. The timeline of events is primarily 1 week, and up to 6 weeks post the attack.

text: “This is not us”: But actually, it is. Talking about when to raise the issue of colonisation. This paper is a commentary on some of the responses to the public narrative of the events after the March 15th Christchurch attack. Several colleagues had publicly and privately, offered their views on the Government’s and media outlets use of terms such as ‘unprecedented’, ‘our loss of innocence’ and ‘our darkest day’. A fiery and empassioned exchange of words emerged on social media about the statement: ‘This is not us’. By exposing the counternarrative to these emotion laden terms, a shady past, and invisible present was revealed. However, the timing of the talk about colonisation also seemed out of step with the need for sensitivity. This paper also explores the role of White supremacy and causal racism in New Zealand. A personal I/we/us narrative style is used throughout the paper to describe how Muslim and Maori lives intersected prior to, and after the attack. The timeline of events is primarily 1 week, and up to 6 weeks post the attack.

year: 2019