title: Keeper of the light

authors: Ramsbottom, Kay Margaret

subjects: Mary Jane Bennett

abstract: Keeper of the Light is an historical novel based on the true story of Mary Jane Hebden, a country gentleman’s daughter, who in 1839 at the age of 22 sails to New Zealand on the emigrant ship Duke of Roxburgh. There she is reunited with her fiancé George Bennett, a seedsman, who left on the Cuba two months earlier.
	It is a time of change in Britain. A youthful Queen Victoria has just come to the throne, and the combined works of Jane Austen have recently been published under her own name for the first time. The poor are suffering terrible financial hardship from loss of work caused by the Industrial Revolution, and the rising cost of food due to the Corn Laws. The New Zealand Land Company and the British Government have their eyes on the distant prize of New Zealand, and it is a race to see who will get there first.
	Against this background, a young English woman sets out on a 13,000 mile voyage halfway around the world in order to wed the man she loves. A journey that sees her running away from her home in Yorkshire, and ends with her taking on a man’s job in New Zealand in order to support her family.
	In Britannia, the fledging colony of the New Zealand Land Company, the ordinary lives of Mary and George – marriage, birth, work and death – are interspersed with extraordinary events like earthquakes, fire and floods. News to and from ‘home’ must travel by ship, and takes three to six months to arrive, if it arrives at all.
	A unforeseen change in circumstances forces Mary to take on a job as keeper of the temporary lighthouse at Pencarrow, the isolated headland at the entrance to Wellington harbour. She and her family live in a two-room cottage that is ‘neither wind- nor water-proof’ with a smoky lantern in the window that must be tended all night. Access is by boat, and the nearest town an eight-mile walk away along a rocky beach.
	The cottage is replaced with New Zealand’s first permanent lighthouse four years later, and Mrs Bennett becomes Head Keeper, the first – and only – female lighthouse keeper in New Zealand’s history. She must maintain her position in the face of opposition from the Assistant keeper, William Lyall, who complains to the authorities that he can’t manage with only a woman’s help.
	In all, Mary Jane Bennett held the position of Keeper of the Light at Pencarrow Head for ten years. Her part in New Zealand’s history deserves to be celebrated, and yet like many historical achievements by women, it remains little known, even in the country of her birth and in her adopted home. This novel sets out to tell her story in her own words, in a fictionalised re-telling of actual events.

text: Keeper of the light Keeper of the Light is an historical novel based on the true story of Mary Jane Hebden, a country gentleman’s daughter, who in 1839 at the age of 22 sails to New Zealand on the emigrant ship Duke of Roxburgh. There she is reunited with her fiancé George Bennett, a seedsman, who left on the Cuba two months earlier.
	It is a time of change in Britain. A youthful Queen Victoria has just come to the throne, and the combined works of Jane Austen have recently been published under her own name for the first time. The poor are suffering terrible financial hardship from loss of work caused by the Industrial Revolution, and the rising cost of food due to the Corn Laws. The New Zealand Land Company and the British Government have their eyes on the distant prize of New Zealand, and it is a race to see who will get there first.
	Against this background, a young English woman sets out on a 13,000 mile voyage halfway around the world in order to wed the man she loves. A journey that sees her running away from her home in Yorkshire, and ends with her taking on a man’s job in New Zealand in order to support her family.
	In Britannia, the fledging colony of the New Zealand Land Company, the ordinary lives of Mary and George – marriage, birth, work and death – are interspersed with extraordinary events like earthquakes, fire and floods. News to and from ‘home’ must travel by ship, and takes three to six months to arrive, if it arrives at all.
	A unforeseen change in circumstances forces Mary to take on a job as keeper of the temporary lighthouse at Pencarrow, the isolated headland at the entrance to Wellington harbour. She and her family live in a two-room cottage that is ‘neither wind- nor water-proof’ with a smoky lantern in the window that must be tended all night. Access is by boat, and the nearest town an eight-mile walk away along a rocky beach.
	The cottage is replaced with New Zealand’s first permanent lighthouse four years later, and Mrs Bennett becomes Head Keeper, the first – and only – female lighthouse keeper in New Zealand’s history. She must maintain her position in the face of opposition from the Assistant keeper, William Lyall, who complains to the authorities that he can’t manage with only a woman’s help.
	In all, Mary Jane Bennett held the position of Keeper of the Light at Pencarrow Head for ten years. Her part in New Zealand’s history deserves to be celebrated, and yet like many historical achievements by women, it remains little known, even in the country of her birth and in her adopted home. This novel sets out to tell her story in her own words, in a fictionalised re-telling of actual events.

year: 2022

title: On calibration of nested dichotomies

authors: Leathart, Tim

subjects: computer science

abstract: Nested dichotomies (NDs) are used as a method of transforming a multiclass classification problem into a series of binary problems. A tree structure is induced that recursively splits the set of classes into subsets, and a binary classification model learns to discriminate between the two subsets of classes at each node. In this paper, we demonstrate that these NDs typically exhibit poor probability calibration, even when the binary base models are well-calibrated. We also show that this problem is exacerbated when the binary models are poorly calibrated. We discuss the effectiveness of different calibration strategies and show that accuracy and log-loss can be significantly improved by calibrating both the internal base models and the full ND structure, especially when the number of classes is high.

text: On calibration of nested dichotomies Nested dichotomies (NDs) are used as a method of transforming a multiclass classification problem into a series of binary problems. A tree structure is induced that recursively splits the set of classes into subsets, and a binary classification model learns to discriminate between the two subsets of classes at each node. In this paper, we demonstrate that these NDs typically exhibit poor probability calibration, even when the binary base models are well-calibrated. We also show that this problem is exacerbated when the binary models are poorly calibrated. We discuss the effectiveness of different calibration strategies and show that accuracy and log-loss can be significantly improved by calibrating both the internal base models and the full ND structure, especially when the number of classes is high.

year: 2019

title: Viruses without vaccines, or valuing indigenous research? The tensions of introducing Western research assessment practices into an indigenous university

authors: Bruce Ferguson, Pip

abstract: Over my past twenty-five years of educational practice, I have striven to develop a better understanding of indigenous ways of being and doing (in New Zealand’s case, this involves the values and knowledge of Māori). I have done this by visiting and occasionally staying on marae (Māori gathering-places); by reading relevant literature; by engaging in conversations with knowledgeable scholars and by researching the impact of Western practices on indigenous peoples.

In 2003 I managed a research team for Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, a Māori tertiary institution with branches across the country. Our Tertiary Education Commission had just introduced a variation of the English RAE, called the Performance-Based Research Fund, through which government research funds would henceforth be distributed. In collaboration with Māori colleagues, we chose to enter this process, believing that Māori research would be recognised and funded by our participation.

While this proved to be the case, there were significant examples of values clashes, such as the requirement for people to ‘boast’ of their research achievements in a context where such boasting is anathema; to claim ownership of knowledge where tradition often indicates that knowledge is not the property of individuals; and worst, at one point I found myself accused by my Māori manager of introducing ‘viruses without vaccines’. By this he meant Westernised ideas and practices which appeared to be benevolent but in fact were toxic (the idea derives from white settlers who apparently gave native Americans blankets permeated with a virus, causing thousands to die).

In this paper I will explore tensions of operating cross-culturally, and whether/how we can protect people from unintended toxic consequences of intended benevolent actions.

text: Viruses without vaccines, or valuing indigenous research? The tensions of introducing Western research assessment practices into an indigenous university Over my past twenty-five years of educational practice, I have striven to develop a better understanding of indigenous ways of being and doing (in New Zealand’s case, this involves the values and knowledge of Māori). I have done this by visiting and occasionally staying on marae (Māori gathering-places); by reading relevant literature; by engaging in conversations with knowledgeable scholars and by researching the impact of Western practices on indigenous peoples.

In 2003 I managed a research team for Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, a Māori tertiary institution with branches across the country. Our Tertiary Education Commission had just introduced a variation of the English RAE, called the Performance-Based Research Fund, through which government research funds would henceforth be distributed. In collaboration with Māori colleagues, we chose to enter this process, believing that Māori research would be recognised and funded by our participation.

While this proved to be the case, there were significant examples of values clashes, such as the requirement for people to ‘boast’ of their research achievements in a context where such boasting is anathema; to claim ownership of knowledge where tradition often indicates that knowledge is not the property of individuals; and worst, at one point I found myself accused by my Māori manager of introducing ‘viruses without vaccines’. By this he meant Westernised ideas and practices which appeared to be benevolent but in fact were toxic (the idea derives from white settlers who apparently gave native Americans blankets permeated with a virus, causing thousands to die).

In this paper I will explore tensions of operating cross-culturally, and whether/how we can protect people from unintended toxic consequences of intended benevolent actions.

year: 2012