Open Journal Systems at the Victoria University of Wellington Library
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Learning to Use Money through Reinforcement Learning
Get PDFMoney, in its various forms, has played a pivotal role in shaping civilisations throughout human history. By facilitating cooperation among strangers, currencies have enabled monumental advancements in trade, settlement, and migration that surpassed the limitations of barter systems and other early exchange mechanisms. But despite its benefits and ubiquitous nature, it remains a mystery how humans learned to use these mediums of exchange in the first place. This project explored the origins of money through reinforcement learning, chosen for its resemblance to human learning processes. Two multi-agent Q-learning models were designed, developed, and experimented on, drawing from recent research into safe swapping behaviours. The first model, or the “swapping model”, examines whether a population of agents can naturally learn the behaviours necessary to perform safe swaps with strangers in discrete meetings. The second model, or the “token model”, builds on this by investigating learned agent behaviours when inherently worthless yet persistent tokens are introduced in a continuous stream of meetings. With the versatility to represent a diverse range of swapping scenarios and interactions, these models provide valuable insights into the motivations behind money’s use and the fundamental requirements for a population to adopt such behaviours
Student Planner Project
No full textTime management for students is a significant challenge for students. Evidence indicates that without adequate tools or support, many students struggle with time management, leading to increased procrastination, increased workloads, missed deadlines, and poorer academic outcomes. While mobile time management apps exist, they often present steep learning curves and demand significant time investments to be effective. The Student Planner App project addressed these barriers by developing a mobile app featuring a calendar-based heat map to provide an intuitive visualisation of a student's workload. This visualisation highlights areas of increased workload and thus provides feedback on students' time management across their courses to provide them with proactive time-management opportunities. Additionally, the app utilises gamification principles to enhance student engagement with the application and their studies. The app's design allows the potential for seamless integration with academic platforms to automate configuration and minimise the effort required to use the app. Therefore, the Student Planner App project can enhance student academic achievement and mental well-being by offering an intuitive solution to student time management challenges. An empirical assessment of the Student Planner Project is in progress to evaluate its effectiveness. Potential avenues for future development involve expanding the application's gamification features, such as adding level progression, unique items, and experience points to enhance user engagement further
Steer Clear: Analysis of New Zealand's Motor Vehicle Add-On Insurance Industry
Get PDFThis article considers the current state of the motor vehicle add-on insurance industry in New Zealand in the light of the Commerce Commission's 2021 review of motor vehicle financing and add-ons. It suggests the current way the industry functions does not promote competition and facilitates several issues detrimental to consumers. The issues are the inadequacy of consumer awareness and understanding of add-on products (brought about by an insufficiency of information), a point of sales advantage enjoyed by providers of primary products, and an unsuitable dealer incentive system. These issues are producing negative consumer outcomes, as demonstrated by quantitative and qualitative industry evidence. The article considers how comparable jurisdictions, namely Australia and the United Kingdom, have corrected similar issues to increase consumer protection within their equivalent industries. It advocates similar industry reform for New Zealand. Industry reform should act in a preventative way to eliminate the creation of issues, as this best protects consumers. The primary reform that is recommended is the adoption of an industry-wide deferred sales model for add-on products
We All Got A Story: Creating space for empathy through participatory action research
Get PDFThis paper introduces the stories of individuals impacted by the criminal legal system, revealing a pattern amongst diverse voices. Our findings are based on research aimed to document the experiences of an urban midwestern community with over-prosecution and to identify potential prosecutorial reforms. Relying on a Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework, community researchers worked together to collect data first-hand among system-impacted individuals while respecting existing community relations. Although PAR allowed us to avoid some of the pitfalls of traditional research, we experienced much of our work as a balancing act between engaging the community on the one hand and respecting their boundaries and vulnerabilities on the other. As we reflect on these chal-lenges of our work, we offer a story-poem that combines different narratives into a cohesive statement about systemic oppression and societal neglect, thus both humanizing and empowering marginalized voices
The Dilemma of Digital Colonialism unmasking facial recognition technology and data sovereignty in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textLaw enforcement agencies have become increasingly reliant upon facial recognition technology (FRT) as a powerful surveillance tool in the fight against crime. Developing at an unprecedented rate, FRT has exceeded the incremental pace of law and policy. This has resulted in unregulated over-surveillance, triggering questions about police misconduct and ethnic discrimination. In Aotearoa New Zealand, targeted surveillance and the emergence of FRT have reignited concerns over inherent colonialist practices, dismissive of obligations to te Tiriti o Waitangi and Māori rights. They have also provided for a new wave of discussion on how future policy might incorporate Māori data sovereignty. While a highly valuable policing tool, its lack of regulation, technological accuracy and potential racial bias have led some countries, including Aotearoa New Zealand, to impose a moratorium on FRT use in law enforcement. Policymakers must now look at how to dismantle what is fast becoming an age of digital colonialism
Te Rito o Te Harakeke: Decolonising Child Protection Law in Aotearoa New Zealand
Get PDFIt is now firmly established that the overrepresentation of tamariki Māori within the Aotearoa New Zealand child protection system is largely a consequence of colonisation. However, at least as far as the Crown is concerned, the contention that decolonisation is a necessary step in reversing those trends remains a more controversial issue. Drawing on my doctoral research into this topic, this article argues that the child protection system must be decolonised, and that efforts towards reform which do not prioritise decolonisation are likely to perpetuate long-standing harms. The article has four goals. First, I examine why decolonisation provides the best framework through which to enact child protection system reform. Secondly, I identify three overarching themes within the current legal framework, but argue that the presence of these themes does not mean they are all given equal weight. Thirdly, I outline a theory of reform I have termed "kaupapa Māori legal theory", which seeks to enable legislative change based on tikanga Māori in a way which pays heed to the risks of doing so from a Māori perspective. Finally, I apply that theory to child protection law, identifying six tikanga principles which could provide the basis of a decolonised system: mana, rangatiratanga, wānanga, whānau, whakapapa and whanaungatanga
The Role of Summary Judgment in Commercial Law
Get PDFThis article considers the historical development of the summary judgment procedure, both in England and in New Zealand, for the purpose of highlighting the commercial imperatives underlying the procedure's genesis. It goes on to discuss the modern role played by summary judgment, by reference to two recent decisions that illustrate the tensions associated with expanding the procedure's scope into previously unheralded areas of the law. It concludes that commercial parties should rigorously consider whether their dispute is capable of being determined by summary judgment, but that this should not be understood as lessening the standard required to be met before judgment will be granted
Gaylene’s Take: Her Life in New Zealand Film
Get PDFThree mothers dominate filmmaker Gaylene Preston’s new autobiography. One is Tui her mother, the person in the family who coped (“she is very strong in me. I have to fight her off constantly but she travels with me always.”); another is her mother’s mother Elsie (“she had a very personal relationship with Jesus.”); then there is Gaylene herself as mother to Chelsie (“my best ambassador.”), and towards the end the mother to her own mother suffering with dementia
Improve education provision in Aotearoa New Zealand: By building assessment and learning capability
Get PDFCurrently the focus of education provision in Aotearoa New Zealand is on successful school achievement in specified learning areas and provision of guidance for Kaiako. Yet, the real purpose of education is ako – to collectively equip ākonga with knowledge, skills, values, and capabilities for lifelong learning. Without clarity on the ‘why’ – the purpose for education – people in the system flounder in knowing what to teach, when, or how. This commentary proposes building assessment and learning capability to provide clarity on these important questions and thereby enable the education system to celebrate ākonga diversity and agency through life wide and lifelong learning
A Tale of Two Codes – The Peregrinations of a Penal Code
Get PDFTony Smith was an early contributor to this review. It is fitting therefore that a long and distinguished career in the criminal law be celebrated now in a special issue of the same journal. In the following picaresque-like account a colleague and former student join to celebrate the career of Professor Tony Smith. This article considers two criminal law codes – where they came from and the influence of each beyond its country of origin. The two codes referred to in this article are the Queensland Criminal Code Act 1899 prepared by Sir Samuel Griffith and the draft English Criminal Code 1880 prepared by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen
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