title: Waste green plant material as a potential source of leaf protein

authors: Ng, Timothy Wei Choong

abstract: Global population is projected to increase by 3.1 billion people between 2000 and 2050. Global affluence will also increase during this period, causing demand for food and feed protein to more than double. Conventional protein sources will not be able to meet this additional demand without exacerbating already serious environmental problems. Alternative protein sources urgently needed to meet growing demand. One alternative is protein recovered from the leaf cells of leafy plants. Historically, leaf protein was recovered from alfalfa using an inefficient and uneconomic recovery process. It may be economically feasible to use an improved process to recover protein from waste green plant materials, such as garden waste and paunch grass. This research seeks to determine the protein content of these materials, which indicates their potential to be processed into animal feed.

text: Waste green plant material as a potential source of leaf protein Global population is projected to increase by 3.1 billion people between 2000 and 2050. Global affluence will also increase during this period, causing demand for food and feed protein to more than double. Conventional protein sources will not be able to meet this additional demand without exacerbating already serious environmental problems. Alternative protein sources urgently needed to meet growing demand. One alternative is protein recovered from the leaf cells of leafy plants. Historically, leaf protein was recovered from alfalfa using an inefficient and uneconomic recovery process. It may be economically feasible to use an improved process to recover protein from waste green plant materials, such as garden waste and paunch grass. This research seeks to determine the protein content of these materials, which indicates their potential to be processed into animal feed.

year: 2015

title: Enhanced spatial pyramid matching using log-polar-based image subdivision and representation

authors: Zhang, Edmond Yiwen

subjects: object categorization

abstract: This paper presents a new model for capturing spatial information for object categorization with bag-of-words (BOW). BOW models have recently become popular for the task of object recognition, owing to their good performance and simplicity. Much work has been proposed over the years to improve the BOW model, where the Spatial Pyramid Matching (SPM) technique is the most notable. We propose a new method to exploit spatial relationships between image features, based on binned log-polar grids. Our model works by partitioning the image into grids of different scales and orientations and computing histogram of local features within each grid. Experimental results show that our approach improves the results on three diverse datasets over the SPM technique.

text: Enhanced spatial pyramid matching using log-polar-based image subdivision and representation This paper presents a new model for capturing spatial information for object categorization with bag-of-words (BOW). BOW models have recently become popular for the task of object recognition, owing to their good performance and simplicity. Much work has been proposed over the years to improve the BOW model, where the Spatial Pyramid Matching (SPM) technique is the most notable. We propose a new method to exploit spatial relationships between image features, based on binned log-polar grids. Our model works by partitioning the image into grids of different scales and orientations and computing histogram of local features within each grid. Experimental results show that our approach improves the results on three diverse datasets over the SPM technique.

year: 2010

title: Lost in translation or lack of nuance? Perception of (near-)synonymy of common te reo Māori loanwords in New Zealand English

authors: Pohl, Alexander

abstract: Ongoing contact between languages and their speakers inevitably leads to a flow of words being borrowed from one language into another. Research in the field of language contact has established and documented the kinds of borrowed words that stick in their recipient language (Haspelmath 2009; Winford 2010). However, one question that has received comparatively less attention is how a newly adopted loanword relates to the structure of the existing lexicon it enters. In recent years, language contact research has thus seen a paradigm shift towards an onomasiological perspective (see Anderson et al. 2017; Crombez et al. 2022; Zenner et al. 2023). Within this approach, most studies looking at lexical variation between loanwords and their (near-)synonyms employ corpus linguistics methods (e.g. Onysko & Winter-Froemel 2011; Soares da Silva 2013). However, there is variation in how these corpus studies have investigated loanword meanings, and, to our knowledge, there has been almost no experimental research focussed specifically on the relationship between loanwords and their (near-)synonyms to date. This project presents a large-scale experimental approach from a case-study examining Māori loanwords borrowed into New Zealand English (NZE). NZE presents an unusual language contact situation because it involves a dominant language (NZE) receiving an exceptionally high amount of lexical material (words and phrases) from an Indigenous language: Māori. Further adding to the uniqueness of this contact situation is the fact that only a fraction of the population (<10%) speaks Māori fluently (Statistics New Zealand 2019). Nonetheless, Māori loanwords are ubiquitous, salient, and probably still increasing within the NZE lexicon (Macalister 2007; Trye et al. 2019). One important dimension of this set of borrowings are their semantic characteristics, which straddle three main classes of words: flora and fauna (mānuka ‘tea tree’), material culture (maunga ‘mountain’) and social culture (mana ‘power’).  Here, we report on a Qualtrics experiment devised to probe the perceived relationship between 60 Māori loanwords and their NZE equivalents, as ascertained from published sources. The synonymy judgements were elicited for pairs (e.g. whānau – family) using an analogue slider (ranging from 0 = non-synonymous to 100 = fully synonymous). Data was collected using a three-tiered questionnaire: 1) assessing synonymy of loanwords; 2) eliciting strategies for semantic assessments; and 3) collating background information about participants. Following cleaning and exclusions, the dataset showed a skew towards female participants, and for this reason, we focus our statistical analysis on the core sample containing (n = 170) young women (18-24 years). The results of the synonymy judgements analysis consist of qualitative inspections of box plots in relation to the semantic characteristics of Māori words in question, as well as sociodemographic variables of interest, specifically: years lived in Aotearoa NZ, and a composite score capturing exposure to and attitude towards Māori (TRMO). Preliminary findings suggest that many people think Māori loanwords are (highly) synonymous with NZE lexical alternatives. Our regression analyses exhibit evidence that years lived in Aotearoa NZ (p = 0.0054) and TRMO (p = 8.26e-10) can predict knowledge of Māori words. No statistically significant evidence was found for any predictors regarding the scores of the synonymy judgements; instead, we found that the random effects account for most of the variation. This is indicative of idiosyncratic loanword behaviour, in line with situations where variation is in-flux. These findings will be complemented by qualitative analyses of comments provided by participants in the open answer section (2). The talk will conclude with a summary of contributions to the general understanding of loanword meanings and contact-induced lexical change.

text: Lost in translation or lack of nuance? Perception of (near-)synonymy of common te reo Māori loanwords in New Zealand English Ongoing contact between languages and their speakers inevitably leads to a flow of words being borrowed from one language into another. Research in the field of language contact has established and documented the kinds of borrowed words that stick in their recipient language (Haspelmath 2009; Winford 2010). However, one question that has received comparatively less attention is how a newly adopted loanword relates to the structure of the existing lexicon it enters. In recent years, language contact research has thus seen a paradigm shift towards an onomasiological perspective (see Anderson et al. 2017; Crombez et al. 2022; Zenner et al. 2023). Within this approach, most studies looking at lexical variation between loanwords and their (near-)synonyms employ corpus linguistics methods (e.g. Onysko & Winter-Froemel 2011; Soares da Silva 2013). However, there is variation in how these corpus studies have investigated loanword meanings, and, to our knowledge, there has been almost no experimental research focussed specifically on the relationship between loanwords and their (near-)synonyms to date. This project presents a large-scale experimental approach from a case-study examining Māori loanwords borrowed into New Zealand English (NZE). NZE presents an unusual language contact situation because it involves a dominant language (NZE) receiving an exceptionally high amount of lexical material (words and phrases) from an Indigenous language: Māori. Further adding to the uniqueness of this contact situation is the fact that only a fraction of the population (<10%) speaks Māori fluently (Statistics New Zealand 2019). Nonetheless, Māori loanwords are ubiquitous, salient, and probably still increasing within the NZE lexicon (Macalister 2007; Trye et al. 2019). One important dimension of this set of borrowings are their semantic characteristics, which straddle three main classes of words: flora and fauna (mānuka ‘tea tree’), material culture (maunga ‘mountain’) and social culture (mana ‘power’).  Here, we report on a Qualtrics experiment devised to probe the perceived relationship between 60 Māori loanwords and their NZE equivalents, as ascertained from published sources. The synonymy judgements were elicited for pairs (e.g. whānau – family) using an analogue slider (ranging from 0 = non-synonymous to 100 = fully synonymous). Data was collected using a three-tiered questionnaire: 1) assessing synonymy of loanwords; 2) eliciting strategies for semantic assessments; and 3) collating background information about participants. Following cleaning and exclusions, the dataset showed a skew towards female participants, and for this reason, we focus our statistical analysis on the core sample containing (n = 170) young women (18-24 years). The results of the synonymy judgements analysis consist of qualitative inspections of box plots in relation to the semantic characteristics of Māori words in question, as well as sociodemographic variables of interest, specifically: years lived in Aotearoa NZ, and a composite score capturing exposure to and attitude towards Māori (TRMO). Preliminary findings suggest that many people think Māori loanwords are (highly) synonymous with NZE lexical alternatives. Our regression analyses exhibit evidence that years lived in Aotearoa NZ (p = 0.0054) and TRMO (p = 8.26e-10) can predict knowledge of Māori words. No statistically significant evidence was found for any predictors regarding the scores of the synonymy judgements; instead, we found that the random effects account for most of the variation. This is indicative of idiosyncratic loanword behaviour, in line with situations where variation is in-flux. These findings will be complemented by qualitative analyses of comments provided by participants in the open answer section (2). The talk will conclude with a summary of contributions to the general understanding of loanword meanings and contact-induced lexical change.

year: 2024