title: Generalised Nonblocking

authors: Malik, Robi

subjects: computer science

abstract: This paper studies the nonblocking check used in supervisory control of discrete event systems and its limitations. Different examples with different liveness requirements are discussed. It is shown that the standard nonblocking check can be used to specify most requirements of interest, but that it lacks expressive power in a few cases. A generalised nonblocking check is proposed to overcome the weakness, and its relationship to standard nonblocking is explored. Results suggest that generalised nonblocking, while having the same useful properties with respect to synthesis and compositional verification, can provide for more concise problem representations in some cases.

text: Generalised Nonblocking This paper studies the nonblocking check used in supervisory control of discrete event systems and its limitations. Different examples with different liveness requirements are discussed. It is shown that the standard nonblocking check can be used to specify most requirements of interest, but that it lacks expressive power in a few cases. A generalised nonblocking check is proposed to overcome the weakness, and its relationship to standard nonblocking is explored. Results suggest that generalised nonblocking, while having the same useful properties with respect to synthesis and compositional verification, can provide for more concise problem representations in some cases.

year: 2008

title: Grazing and feeding management to reduce urinary nitrogen excretion and enteric methane emissions while maintaining or increasing milk production

authors: Garrett, Konagh

abstract: Rising global population is driving the requirement for more sustainable food production. Although, pastoral milk production efficiency has improved to meet demand, the intensification of practices has simultaneously increased environmental footprint by increasing methane (CH₄) emissions and urinary nitrogen (UN) excretion. Therefore, design and evaluation of practical on farm mitigation methods are required. The objective of this thesis was to explore strategic feeding managements during early and late lactation, with the aim of reducing methanogenesis and UN excretion, while maintaining milk production.
For the purpose and objective of this work, the mechanistic and dynamic dairy cow model, MINDY (Gregorini et al., 2013, 2015, in press) was used. 
The first modelling experiment evaluated the effect of altering herbage allowance (HA) on dry matter intake (DMI), milk solids (MS), UN, and CH₄ production. As expected, greater HA increased DMI and MS production at a diminishing rate. Increased HA heightened consumption of fermentable carbohydrates and N containing compounds, resulting in greater emissions of both CH₄ and UN. However, with increased HA the emission intensity (g kg MS⁻¹) and CH₄ yield (g CH₄ kgDM⁻¹) declined. The results from this experiment agree with other studies and was used as a basis to add additional strategic feeding management in the following experiments.
The second experiment examined altering the time of herbage allocation to reduce methanogenesis and UN excretion while maintaining MS production. The treatments were a factorial arrangement of HA (as the first experiment) and time of pasture allocation either after the morning (AM) or afternoon (PM) milking. The PM treatments on average had a greater DMI (1.9 and 1.7%) and MS yield (2.3 and 0.7%) as compared to AM, in EL and LL respectively. The PM treatments also produced 5.1 and 3.6% more CH4 and 4.7 and 7.8% less UN in EL and LL, respectively. Altering the time of HA is a simple and cost-effective management practice to reduce the environmental footprint of productive grazing dairy cows.
Finally, supplementation strategies were evaluated on top of experiment two’s treatments by the addition of either maize silage (MZ), maize grain (MG), or barley grain (BG) fed either prior to AM, PM, or each milking. When allocated BG, MZ, and MG in the PM rather than the AM cows respectively consumed 0.2, 8.9, and 1.2% more DM in EL and 4.0, 11.0, and 2.5% more DM in LL. Consequently, PM allocation of BG, MZ, and MG resulted in production of 0.2, 2.2, and 0.3 % more MS in EL, and 1.7, 3.6, and 1.0 % greater in LL. Similarly, the PM supplement allocation on average excreted less UN and emitted more CH₄. However, the weak positive relationship between CH₄ and UN indicates potential to simultaneously reduce their production by altering the time of herbage and supplement allocation. 
Grazing and feeding management tools are inexpensive and easily integrated into practice yet aid in reaching both mitigation and production goals. Further empirical research is required to understand their usage under competitive grazing and use in conjunction with other mitigation techniques.

text: Grazing and feeding management to reduce urinary nitrogen excretion and enteric methane emissions while maintaining or increasing milk production Rising global population is driving the requirement for more sustainable food production. Although, pastoral milk production efficiency has improved to meet demand, the intensification of practices has simultaneously increased environmental footprint by increasing methane (CH₄) emissions and urinary nitrogen (UN) excretion. Therefore, design and evaluation of practical on farm mitigation methods are required. The objective of this thesis was to explore strategic feeding managements during early and late lactation, with the aim of reducing methanogenesis and UN excretion, while maintaining milk production.
For the purpose and objective of this work, the mechanistic and dynamic dairy cow model, MINDY (Gregorini et al., 2013, 2015, in press) was used. 
The first modelling experiment evaluated the effect of altering herbage allowance (HA) on dry matter intake (DMI), milk solids (MS), UN, and CH₄ production. As expected, greater HA increased DMI and MS production at a diminishing rate. Increased HA heightened consumption of fermentable carbohydrates and N containing compounds, resulting in greater emissions of both CH₄ and UN. However, with increased HA the emission intensity (g kg MS⁻¹) and CH₄ yield (g CH₄ kgDM⁻¹) declined. The results from this experiment agree with other studies and was used as a basis to add additional strategic feeding management in the following experiments.
The second experiment examined altering the time of herbage allocation to reduce methanogenesis and UN excretion while maintaining MS production. The treatments were a factorial arrangement of HA (as the first experiment) and time of pasture allocation either after the morning (AM) or afternoon (PM) milking. The PM treatments on average had a greater DMI (1.9 and 1.7%) and MS yield (2.3 and 0.7%) as compared to AM, in EL and LL respectively. The PM treatments also produced 5.1 and 3.6% more CH4 and 4.7 and 7.8% less UN in EL and LL, respectively. Altering the time of HA is a simple and cost-effective management practice to reduce the environmental footprint of productive grazing dairy cows.
Finally, supplementation strategies were evaluated on top of experiment two’s treatments by the addition of either maize silage (MZ), maize grain (MG), or barley grain (BG) fed either prior to AM, PM, or each milking. When allocated BG, MZ, and MG in the PM rather than the AM cows respectively consumed 0.2, 8.9, and 1.2% more DM in EL and 4.0, 11.0, and 2.5% more DM in LL. Consequently, PM allocation of BG, MZ, and MG resulted in production of 0.2, 2.2, and 0.3 % more MS in EL, and 1.7, 3.6, and 1.0 % greater in LL. Similarly, the PM supplement allocation on average excreted less UN and emitted more CH₄. However, the weak positive relationship between CH₄ and UN indicates potential to simultaneously reduce their production by altering the time of herbage and supplement allocation. 
Grazing and feeding management tools are inexpensive and easily integrated into practice yet aid in reaching both mitigation and production goals. Further empirical research is required to understand their usage under competitive grazing and use in conjunction with other mitigation techniques.

year: 2018

title: The Effects of a Shared Reading Intervention on the English Reading Skills of Year One Students in a Level Two Māori-medium Educational Context

authors: Te Arihi, Kylie

subjects: English Reading Skills

abstract: One of the biggest challenges confronting literacy education in Aotearoa  New Zealand is accommodating the differences in English reading-related variables at school entry to produce equitable outcomes in later reading achievement (Wilkinson, Freebody, & Elkins, 2000).  English-medium schools in Aotearoa struggle to negotiate effective literacy practices that validate and cater for the cognitive, cultural, and linguistic differences children bring to the process of learning to read in English.  Whereas, the role of English reading instruction in Māori-medium schools has been an under-researched and controversial issue.  How to accommodate for these differences to achieve equitable English reading outcomes in a year 1 level 2 Māori-medium context is the theme that this research seeks to explore.
	This Masters thesis reports on a shared reading intervention that explicitly teaches phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge to examine its effects on the English reading skills of year 1 students in a level 2 Māori-medium setting.  The research implemented a Kaupapa Māori framework and used interviews, surveys, reliable literacy measures, and research-based literacy instruction to explore reading acquisition for this particular cohort.  Thus, the purposes of the study were (a) to glean an in-depth understanding of the literacy and language practices that potentially shaped the participants English reading–related variables, (b) to examine the range of English reading-related skills for this cohort, and (c) to determine the effects of the intervention on their English reading skills.
	Eight students were divided and matched with a pair according to their reported pre-test phonemic awareness and alphabet knowledge scores, and then randomly assigned to either an intervention (n = 4) or treatment control (n = 4) group.  The intervention programme was carried out over a six week period and comprised 12, 30 minute lessons that integrated phonological and alphabetic based decoding skills within the shared reading approach.  The duration of the treatment control programme was also carried out over a six week period and comprised 12, 30 minutes lessons that integrated semantic, syntactic, and visual graphophonic sources of information to recognise words.  The results indicated the breadth and depth of English reading skills in year 1 level 2 Māori-medium contexts are diverse and the children had a positive attitude and sense of efficacy towards reading.  A comparison of the test results between the intervention and treatment control group demonstrated that a shared reading intervention that focused explicitly on phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge is effective in raising letter-naming knowledge, pseudoword decoding, phonemic awareness, and invented spelling.  The results are discussed in light of theoretical assumptions about reading acquisition that underlie word-base and text-base approaches to word recognition.
	Overall, this study supports the development and reform of training and professional development opportunities in phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge to better support, inform, and educate Aotearoa reading teachers.  This study contributes to the knowledge of English reading acquisition that validate the depth and breadth of early cognitive and linguistic differences to increase equitable English reading outcomes in level 2 Māori-medium contexts.

text: The Effects of a Shared Reading Intervention on the English Reading Skills of Year One Students in a Level Two Māori-medium Educational Context One of the biggest challenges confronting literacy education in Aotearoa  New Zealand is accommodating the differences in English reading-related variables at school entry to produce equitable outcomes in later reading achievement (Wilkinson, Freebody, & Elkins, 2000).  English-medium schools in Aotearoa struggle to negotiate effective literacy practices that validate and cater for the cognitive, cultural, and linguistic differences children bring to the process of learning to read in English.  Whereas, the role of English reading instruction in Māori-medium schools has been an under-researched and controversial issue.  How to accommodate for these differences to achieve equitable English reading outcomes in a year 1 level 2 Māori-medium context is the theme that this research seeks to explore.
	This Masters thesis reports on a shared reading intervention that explicitly teaches phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge to examine its effects on the English reading skills of year 1 students in a level 2 Māori-medium setting.  The research implemented a Kaupapa Māori framework and used interviews, surveys, reliable literacy measures, and research-based literacy instruction to explore reading acquisition for this particular cohort.  Thus, the purposes of the study were (a) to glean an in-depth understanding of the literacy and language practices that potentially shaped the participants English reading–related variables, (b) to examine the range of English reading-related skills for this cohort, and (c) to determine the effects of the intervention on their English reading skills.
	Eight students were divided and matched with a pair according to their reported pre-test phonemic awareness and alphabet knowledge scores, and then randomly assigned to either an intervention (n = 4) or treatment control (n = 4) group.  The intervention programme was carried out over a six week period and comprised 12, 30 minute lessons that integrated phonological and alphabetic based decoding skills within the shared reading approach.  The duration of the treatment control programme was also carried out over a six week period and comprised 12, 30 minutes lessons that integrated semantic, syntactic, and visual graphophonic sources of information to recognise words.  The results indicated the breadth and depth of English reading skills in year 1 level 2 Māori-medium contexts are diverse and the children had a positive attitude and sense of efficacy towards reading.  A comparison of the test results between the intervention and treatment control group demonstrated that a shared reading intervention that focused explicitly on phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge is effective in raising letter-naming knowledge, pseudoword decoding, phonemic awareness, and invented spelling.  The results are discussed in light of theoretical assumptions about reading acquisition that underlie word-base and text-base approaches to word recognition.
	Overall, this study supports the development and reform of training and professional development opportunities in phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge to better support, inform, and educate Aotearoa reading teachers.  This study contributes to the knowledge of English reading acquisition that validate the depth and breadth of early cognitive and linguistic differences to increase equitable English reading outcomes in level 2 Māori-medium contexts.

year: 2014