title: Supporting Remote Collaboration through Structured Activity Logging

authors: Bouamrane, Matt-Mouley

subjects: computer science

abstract: This paper describes an integrated architecture for online collaborative multimedia (audio and text) meetings which supports the recording of participants' audio exchanges, automatic metadata generation and logging of users editing interaction and also information derived from the use of group awareness widgets (gesturing) for post-meeting processing and access. We propose a formal model for timestamping generation and manipulation of textual artefacts. Post-meeting processing of the interaction information highlight the usefulness of such histories in terms of tracking information that would be normally lost in usual collaborative editing settings. The potential applications of such automatic interaction history generation range from group interaction quantitative analysis, cooperation modelling, and multimedia meeting mining.

text: Supporting Remote Collaboration through Structured Activity Logging This paper describes an integrated architecture for online collaborative multimedia (audio and text) meetings which supports the recording of participants' audio exchanges, automatic metadata generation and logging of users editing interaction and also information derived from the use of group awareness widgets (gesturing) for post-meeting processing and access. We propose a formal model for timestamping generation and manipulation of textual artefacts. Post-meeting processing of the interaction information highlight the usefulness of such histories in terms of tracking information that would be normally lost in usual collaborative editing settings. The potential applications of such automatic interaction history generation range from group interaction quantitative analysis, cooperation modelling, and multimedia meeting mining.

year: 2005

title: Soil chronosequences and bacterial communities of the Central Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica

authors: Scarrow, Joshua William

subjects: Antarctica

abstract: The Beardmore Glacier region of the Central Transantarctic Mountains (CTAM), approximately 600 km south of the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV), has been studied to a much lesser extent than the accessible MDV and other regions of the continent. The CTAM were visited in the 2010/2011 austral summer, and two concurrent studies undertaken; these are presented in the form of manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals, as a thesis by publication.
Soil chronosequences in three of the largest ice-free areas (Ong Valley, Mount Achernar, and the Dominion Range), at altitudes above 1600 m along the polar plateau margin, were examined. Transects perpendicular to the current ice edge reveal a gradual increase in soil depth (from 2 cm to > 80 cm to underlying ice), weathering, horizonation, salt content, and a decrease in pH; all of these factors are consistent with increased soil development since time of deglaciation. Such fine scale variation in soil properties, previously overlooked in the CTAM region, cannot be mapped by Soil Taxonomy subgroups, as commonly utilised in Antarctic soil mapping. Patterns of soil thickness, clast abundance and soil chemistry all indicate a bi-modal form of soil development. It is proposed that the soil profile deepens by addition of englacial debris to the subsoil via the sublimation of underlying ice, and the weathering of supraglacial clasts at the soil surface.
The molecular characterization of bacterial communities in CTAM soils is the southernmost culture-independent soil survey to date. Community fingerprinting (ARISA) and 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing demonstrated significantly different bacterial communities between eight discrete CTAM locations (5 at low altitude near the Ross Ice Shelf coast, 3 near the polar plateau > 1600 m). Abiotic environmental variables, especially those related to long-term exposure of soils to the atmosphere, correlate well with inter-site community variation. Mount Howe, the southernmost soil on the planet (87° S), harbours an extremely low biomass bacterial community, of a fundamentally different composition to all other sites. It appears that observed DNA sequences at Mount Howe are the result of atmospherically deposited bacteria, the soil being unable to support edaphic life due to extreme local climatic conditions.￼
These two studies extend previous knowledge of soil development and distribution, and microbial ecology, to the southernmost extent possible. These observations may serve as important baseline data for monitoring of this fragile system in the face of future and ongoing environmental changes.

text: Soil chronosequences and bacterial communities of the Central Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctica The Beardmore Glacier region of the Central Transantarctic Mountains (CTAM), approximately 600 km south of the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV), has been studied to a much lesser extent than the accessible MDV and other regions of the continent. The CTAM were visited in the 2010/2011 austral summer, and two concurrent studies undertaken; these are presented in the form of manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals, as a thesis by publication.
Soil chronosequences in three of the largest ice-free areas (Ong Valley, Mount Achernar, and the Dominion Range), at altitudes above 1600 m along the polar plateau margin, were examined. Transects perpendicular to the current ice edge reveal a gradual increase in soil depth (from 2 cm to > 80 cm to underlying ice), weathering, horizonation, salt content, and a decrease in pH; all of these factors are consistent with increased soil development since time of deglaciation. Such fine scale variation in soil properties, previously overlooked in the CTAM region, cannot be mapped by Soil Taxonomy subgroups, as commonly utilised in Antarctic soil mapping. Patterns of soil thickness, clast abundance and soil chemistry all indicate a bi-modal form of soil development. It is proposed that the soil profile deepens by addition of englacial debris to the subsoil via the sublimation of underlying ice, and the weathering of supraglacial clasts at the soil surface.
The molecular characterization of bacterial communities in CTAM soils is the southernmost culture-independent soil survey to date. Community fingerprinting (ARISA) and 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing demonstrated significantly different bacterial communities between eight discrete CTAM locations (5 at low altitude near the Ross Ice Shelf coast, 3 near the polar plateau > 1600 m). Abiotic environmental variables, especially those related to long-term exposure of soils to the atmosphere, correlate well with inter-site community variation. Mount Howe, the southernmost soil on the planet (87° S), harbours an extremely low biomass bacterial community, of a fundamentally different composition to all other sites. It appears that observed DNA sequences at Mount Howe are the result of atmospherically deposited bacteria, the soil being unable to support edaphic life due to extreme local climatic conditions.￼
These two studies extend previous knowledge of soil development and distribution, and microbial ecology, to the southernmost extent possible. These observations may serve as important baseline data for monitoring of this fragile system in the face of future and ongoing environmental changes.

year: 2013

title: Foresight in hindsight: Visions of the future from Julius Vogel, Āpirana Ngata, Truby King, and Ettie Rout, 1889-1923

authors: Lemberg, Nicola Johanna

subjects: history

abstract: This thesis examines seven future-focused texts authored by four New Zealanders: Julius Vogel, Āpirana Ngata, Truby King, and Ettie Rout. ‘The future’ is a neglected lens for historical research and this thesis explores the value of such an approach, using New Zealand society from the 1880s and to the 1920s as a case study. A methodological combination of textual analysis, biography, and historical contexts, including consideration of print culture, allows for nuanced examination of depictions of the future, and suggests such connections are vital to fully understanding histories of the future. This research serves as a framework to inform further exploration of historical future imaginings, either in New Zealand or in other geographic or temporal contexts.

From Vogel’s novel Anno Domini 2000 (1889) to Ngata’s 1892 essay The Past and Future of the Maori to King’s and Rout’s twentieth-century guidebooks on the care of babies and the use of contraception, the four authors utilize various textual forms to communicate their imagined future, and commonly frame their ideas within concepts of utopia and dystopia. This thesis compares the futures depicted by male and female authors, and those emerging from Māori and Pākehā cultural contexts. It examines futures envisioned by politicians, community leaders, and ostracized individuals. Shaped by preoccupations with empire, gender, and identity, these future-focused texts highlight relationships between national and global spaces. This in turn allows for a fresh exploration of New Zealand’s past, and especially the country’s colonial histories.

text: Foresight in hindsight: Visions of the future from Julius Vogel, Āpirana Ngata, Truby King, and Ettie Rout, 1889-1923 This thesis examines seven future-focused texts authored by four New Zealanders: Julius Vogel, Āpirana Ngata, Truby King, and Ettie Rout. ‘The future’ is a neglected lens for historical research and this thesis explores the value of such an approach, using New Zealand society from the 1880s and to the 1920s as a case study. A methodological combination of textual analysis, biography, and historical contexts, including consideration of print culture, allows for nuanced examination of depictions of the future, and suggests such connections are vital to fully understanding histories of the future. This research serves as a framework to inform further exploration of historical future imaginings, either in New Zealand or in other geographic or temporal contexts.

From Vogel’s novel Anno Domini 2000 (1889) to Ngata’s 1892 essay The Past and Future of the Maori to King’s and Rout’s twentieth-century guidebooks on the care of babies and the use of contraception, the four authors utilize various textual forms to communicate their imagined future, and commonly frame their ideas within concepts of utopia and dystopia. This thesis compares the futures depicted by male and female authors, and those emerging from Māori and Pākehā cultural contexts. It examines futures envisioned by politicians, community leaders, and ostracized individuals. Shaped by preoccupations with empire, gender, and identity, these future-focused texts highlight relationships between national and global spaces. This in turn allows for a fresh exploration of New Zealand’s past, and especially the country’s colonial histories.

year: 2024