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The Role of Overarching Goals in Infants’ Developing Mental State Attributions: The Transition from Teleological to Mentalistic Representation
No full textAs adults, we can consider the motivations behind the actions of others, such as what their overarching goals might be and whether these are driven by mental states such as desires. But how does this ability develop? In this thesis, I present a series of five experiments that aimed to explore infants’ understanding of overarching goals and whether this understanding is related to their understanding of others’ diverse desires. In Experiments 1-4, we presented 10- to 12-month-old infants with an actor selectively reaching for one of two functional objects, either a cup or a spoon. In Experiment 1 (N=16), when this selective reach was made in isolation, infants attributed a specific object goal to her. In Experiment 2 (N=16), this selective reach was made in the presence of an overarching goal context and infants did not attribute a specific object goal once the context was removed. Experiments 3 (N=16) and 4 (N=16) demonstrated that the effect of an overarching goal also depended on the actor’s visual access and experience with the objects. Together, these results suggest that by the first birthday, infants can attribute overarching goals and expect these overarching goals to constrain specific object goals. In Experiment 5, (N=60), we wanted to explore whether an understanding of overarching goals is related to an understanding of diverse desires, and whether this relationship is facilitated by parental language. Across four tasks, we found that 18- to 21-month-olds were not able to consider the mental states of others when inferring which object an actor was asking for. Additionally, we found that parents’ use of goal-directed language was related to their child’s vocabulary, such that infants with lower productive vocabularies had parents who used more goal-directed language. We also found a similar relation when comparing parental speech to infants’ task performance, such that parents whose infants got fewer trials correct tended to use more desire and goal-directed language. We believe these results suggest that parents may use desire and goal-directed language to compensate or scaffold their child’s understanding of goals and desires, specifically when their child does not show competence in related tasks. Overall, I suggest that an exposure to repeated behaviours through the form of overarching goals may facilitate the development of early theory of mind, and that parental language is one way in which a child’s environment may scaffold this process.</p
Machine Learning Techniques for Modelling Shellfish Harvest Assessments
No full textMussel farming is a major industry in New Zealand that is currently growing fast. With the expansion of the industry, it has become important to allow the required processes to scale efficiently, which can be aided through the automation of tasks. One of these processes is harvest assessments, which are currently done manually by trained individual workers who generally rely on their domain knowledge to perform the assessments rather than following a fixed standard. A solution to the above issue is to use modern machine learning and computer vision techniques to build a model to automate the process.such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs), which can be trained to perform tasks such as detecting mussels in images.We propose using CNNs as the basis of a mobile phone based application that can perform these harvest assessments automatically, using the CNN to perform instance segmentation to extract information about the mussels from an image.The lack of a mussel dataset labeled for training instance segmentation models requires the development of a new dataset.This dataset contains a training dataset of 137 images, a validation dataset of 180 images, and a test dataset of 8 images with 6-8 mussels in each image.The training dataset is also augmented using cropping, rotation, and flipping in order to increase the size of the dataset to 1096 images.Three convolutional neural network based real-time techniques are investigated, YOLACT, CenterMask, and BlendMask, as well as Mask R-CNN. Mask R-CNN has the highest Mean Average Precision (AP) of 68.16 with a frame rate of 0.10 fps. YOLACT has a final AP at 62.43 with a frame rate of 0.39 fps. CenterMask has the second highest final AP of 63.66 with a frame rate of 0.28 fps. BlendMask has the lowest final AP at 60.89, with a frame rate of 0.35 fps.By mixing the images in our dataset and redistributing them in order to decrease homogeneity, the AP for each of the algorithms increases, with Mask R-CNN's AP increasing to 91.21 on the original test dataset and 81.44 on the new test dataset, YOLACT's increasing to 84.76 on the original test dataset and 68.51 on the new test dataset, CenterMask's increasing to 92.06 and 80.39, and BlendMask's increasing to 80.27 and 78.65.To explore the applicability of the CNN methods in the real world, we also investigate deploying the algorithms onto a mobile phone to test the frame rate on our intended platform.Although it is too challenging to export the real-time algorithms to the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) format, we successfully deploy Mask R-CNN to a mobile phone. The experiments show Mask R-CNN had an inference time of 14.6 seconds, or a frame rate of approximately 0.06 fps.However, by using the quantisation tools built into ONNX to reduce the model weights to a UInt8 format, the inference time is reduced by 38%, i.e. 9.0 seconds, or 0.11 fps. Though none of the techniques ran at real-time when testing them on the laptop CPU, the inference time for all three real-time methods was below 4 seconds. With the ability to run inferences on multiple mussels at a time, a non-real-time application using these techniques would still decrease the time taken to perform harvest assessments. There is also a significant decrease in inference time by using quantisation on Mask R-CNN.Although further improvements on deployment of the real-time algorithms need to be made in the future, this is a significant step towards using modern techniques to achieve automated mussel assessments.</p
Campaign Expenditure Effects on Electoral Results in the New Zealand Local Government Sector
No full textPolitical scientists around the world have long had an interest in understanding campaign finance as it pertains to influencing voters in democratically held elections. In New Zealand, campaign finance has received some attention at the level of central government (where only 120 seats in our parliament are contested), but it has received no attention for local government elections where there are many hundreds of mayoral and councillor positions contested every three years in council elections throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. A review of literature was undertaken which grounds the work in the substantial overseas research into campaign finance effects as observed and reported in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Oceania.This study collected data from 1970 electoral candidates in the 2022 New Zealand local government elections. Some demographic and political data has been reported including gender of candidates, the presence of Māori wards, the presence of partisan groupings endorsing candidates and summaries of the different council types (city, district, regional) and positions contested (mayor and councillor). A split of marketing collateral used in the 2022 elections is also reported and is broken down into traditional media, collateral such as brochures and hoardings, social media, events and other stimuli used.The second and more substantive aspect of the thesis involves the use of quantitative statistical methods to look for possible relationships between campaign donations, campaign expenditure, incumbency and electoral results achieved in the elections. The data was collected from all councils in New Zealand except one giving a robust basis for an analysis free from sampling error. It was possible because of the legal requirement for all candidates to file a donation and expenses return within 6 weeks of the poll result being declared.Results show that campaign donations are a minor part of the New Zealand local government electoral landscape, only 12% of candidates received any external donations towards their election campaign. The study showed there to be a robust relationship between campaign expenditure and both vote share and being elected, a phenomenon in keeping with many different jurisdictions reported in campaign finance literature around the world. On the much-studied topic of incumbency, local government candidates on average enjoy a significant advantage although some outliers and “against the trend” observations were present in the data.This study helps round out our understanding of local government democracy issues which have historically been focussed on participatory aspects such as gender, ethnicity and age. Having a good understanding of campaign finance issues will help regulators make decisions about the need (or lack of it) to further adjust rules about how much money candidates can solicit for campaigning via way of donations, and also the limits they face in terms of campaign expenditure to get themselves elected. </p
Testing An Earthquake Early Warning Algorithm For New Zealand
No full textEarthquake early warning systems (EEW) are valuable tools for minimising the impact of seismic events on communities and infrastructure. While some countries, like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico, and the United States, have successfully implemented EEW systems, New Zealand has yet to establish a national EEW system. This thesis explores and evaluates a potential EEW algorithm for a national EEW system for New Zealand.PLUM (Propagation of Local Undamped Motion) is a ground motion based EEW algorithm that offers several advantages over point source and finite fault EEW algorithms due to its robustness, speed, and simplicity. It does not rely on an earthquake source model, making it less computationally expensive. The PLUM algorithm has been successfully implemented in Japan and tested using United States West Coast data.To evaluate the PLUM algorithm's performance and usability in the New Zealand context, it is necessary to test it using a range of earthquakes that could happen over the next century. Because there is insufficient recorded data from past damaging earthquakes, we used a 220000-year-long physics-based synthetic earthquake catalogue of New Zealand and generated synthetic seismograms using a ground motion simulator. We also analysed the latency of the current New Zealand GeoNet sensor network since the latency reduces the warning time of alerts.We focused our evaluation on the Canterbury and Wellington regions. The Canterbury region has experienced several damaging earthquakes in the past 15 years, and a dense network of seismic instruments monitors part of it. The Wellington region is affected by a very complex set of faults, is considered very earthquake-prone and has a population centre adjacent to Cook Strait. The algorithm was tested for the Canterbury and Wellington regions in terms of alert correctness and timeliness, algorithm configuration settings, and the impact of some sensor failures.The results showed that the PLUM algorithm works well in highly populated areas of Canterbury, but not as effectively in some southern parts of Wellington, due to the lack of stations in Cook Strait to provide warnings for earthquakes centred south of Wellington. However, it does not perform well in rural areas of either region because the sensor density is too low, even with an increased warning radius. For the highly populated areas of Canterbury, PLUM could provide Correct Timely Alerts (warning time > 0 sec) for more than 90% of the expected shakings in a 100-year interval. Sparsely populated regions with a low density of sensors received fewer Correct Timely Alerts. The most populated areas of Wellington could also receive more than 70% Correct Timely Alerts. However, PLUM also generated a large number of precautionary alerts (an alert is received, but only weak shaking is felt), which would need to be addressed. The results suggested an appropriate choice of PLUM warning radius in the New Zealand context would be more than the original 30 km radius designed for the Japan context. The analysis also demonstrates the robustness of the algorithm under simulated sensor or communication breakdowns, particularly in regions with high sensor density.The thesis shows that PLUM could be a valuable component of a New Zealand EEW system, and the results will be beneficial for designing future earthquake early warning systems for New Zealand. The testing framework in the thesis would also be useful for testing the suitability of earthquake early warning algorithms using synthetic earthquake catalogues.</p
He Kākano nō Rangiātea: Indigenising and spiritualising public administration - Wairua in the context of the public service
No full textThe Māori concept of wairua, commonly associated but not synonymous with ‘spirit’ and ‘spirituality’, is often acknowledged as the most important dimension of being human. Yet it is hardly understood in global-Western public administration systems, like in Aotearoa New Zealand, which are based predominantly on bureaucratic Weberian conventions that favour impersonal and calculative reason over human emotion and intuition. Nevertheless, there is a growing body of research highlighting the many benefits of genuinely incorporating spirituality and Indigenous ways, to which spirituality is central, into the public service. Inspired by the idea that wairua could help realise a more humane and effective public administration system in Aotearoa, this study builds on this research and addresses the glaring knowledge gap on wairua, and practices consciously focussed on wairua, in the public sector context.Three wairua-centred/conscious approaches were purposely selected as case studies to ascertain what a wairua-centred/conscious approach was understood to be, the effects, and potential enablers or constraints to authentically incorporating a wairua way of working in the public sector. The study employed a wairua-centric kaupapa Māori methodology with an interpretivist twist. A framework of initial expectations, drawn primarily from the spirituality, Indigenous, humanistic and public administration literatures, was constructed as a reference point for examining the three cases. The case information was interpreted thematically and iteratively using abductive reasoning and lived experience. Twelve key features of a wairua-centred/conscious approach were shared across all cases, four of which were not captured by the framework but were factors that largely distinguished a wairua-centred/conscious approach from other approaches. The profound and transformative effects of a wairua-centred/conscious practice were not adequately reflected in the framework either, but the enablers and constraints identified in the study were generally consistent with, and built on, what had been initially anticipated. Unsurprisingly, systems and structures were the primary enablers or constraints to authentically accommodating wairua-centred/conscious approaches in public administration, with the main constraint being the secular-orientated Western-based system and conventions. The study concluded that wairua and wairua-centred/conscious approaches could contribute to more humane and effective public policy and service responses, but substantive changes to the existing system were required to accommodate a wairua way of working, and empower public servants to bring spirit and heart to their work. In this regard, a ‘new’ public administration system has been proposed – one that is grounded in, and legitimated by, its local Indigenous context. Further action for advancing this aspiration, based on Indigenous relational practices, has also been conveyed.The study demonstrates through its research methodology, novel thesis structure and theoretical propositions for the future of public administration that tensions between Indigenous and Western-based paradigms can be reconciled to achieve an ‘enhanced outcome’ through a purposeful privileging of Indigenous worldviews. This privileging is required to overcome the inherent cultural biases within the existing system, ensure the authenticity and efficacy of Indigenous paradigms, and create a synergy between the two systems that benefits ‘all’. While focussed on Aotearoa, the study’s findings and conclusions are also of international relevance, and could usefully inform the public administration systems, practice and scholarship of other jurisdictions. Significantly, this study is a reminder that all of life is divine and connected, and that every human as – kākano nō Rangiātea – has within them the potential and means to live in integrity and with compassion toward others.</p
Real-Time Raytracer for Translucent Materials
No full textFor this work, I have developed an interactive path tracer with first-class support for physically-based rendering of translucent materials. The software implements a fully GPU-driven raytracing pipeline with DirectX Raytracing, synthesising several compute-based algorithms to render non-local subsurface scattering effects based on a blue noise surface sampling model[2,8,9]. The pipeline is easily extendable with additional material models and exposes a clean API, hiding complex device interfacing and resource management while mirroring low-level hardware raytracing features. In this thesis, I will first review the relevant theoretical background and provide an overview of DirectX 12 and DirectX Raytracing. I then provide a detailed description of the raytracing system and its implementation details. Finally, I share my results demonstrating the wide range of material properties and appearances that are supported by the software and give ideas for its future development.</p
From coping with dying to coping with organizational change: the bricolage of the change curve’s evolution
No full textPurpose
We construct an intellectual history of the change curve, a well-known model for understanding how employees respond to change, from the accepted origin point of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of dying model. We analyse how her model evolved from providing insight into how people cope with dying to how people cope with organizational change.
Design/methodology/approach
We mapped the evolution of Kübler-Ross’ model from its original context of psychiatry to organizational change management. We identified and analysed adaptations of the model in scholarly and practitioner literature, and assessed the implications of this evolution.
Findings
We identify three phases of the evolution of Kübler-Ross’ model – originators, transitioners and translators. These adaptations exemplify bricolage, where disparate theoretical elements are assembled based on their ability to serve the needs and interests of those developing the model.
Practical implications
We encourage practitioners to reflect critically on the strengths and limitations of the change curve. The model is relatable and offers a useful lens for exploring people’s emotional responses to change. However, it presents a universal and linear view of emotional responses, and a narrow interpretation of resistance to change. We suggest how managers might assist employees to cope with organizational change in a way more in keeping with Kübler-Ross’ original insights.
Originality/value
This is the first analysis of the evolution of Kübler-Ross’ model of dying into a well-established change management tool using the lens of bricolage. It contributes to growing interest in exploring the origins and evolution of influential management ideas
From Miserable Pedagogies to Anthropocene Intelligence for Universities in the Meta-Crisis
No full textAbstract
As the planet confronts an interconnected meta-crisis linked to natural, political, social, and psychological challenges, there are some pedagogical tendencies that should be challenged within university education. Drawing on the philosophical literature of the Ecological University, this article uses an eco-philosophical framework for considering mainstream university pedagogy. We emphasise that the increasing mental health challenges of so many young people at university is both a symptom and a feature of the meta-crisis and a key consideration for how we might respond as university educators. We argue that many of the existing neoliberal and liberal tendencies in university can be interpreted as “Miserable Pedagogies” — which typically fail to engage with the meta-crisis as a threat to the planet’s psychological, social, political, or natural ecosystems. We suggest that our “pedagogies of misery” need to be disrupted and radically contested with an ecological world-view we describe as “Anthropocene Intelligence.” After setting out the key features of Anthropocene Intelligence, we consider how an alternative teaching approach, used by one of the authors, reflects such an ecological worldview and potentially provides a basis for more meaningful and active ways of being and learning on this finite planet
The Place of History in British Criminology: 20th‐Century Developments
No full textABSTRACTWhile the relevance of historical research and analysis for the development of a critical criminology in the United States in the 1970s has recently received some attention by historical criminologists, the place of history in British criminology—and British critical criminology in particular—remains a largely unexplored area of academic inquiry. This article fills this gap in the history of historical criminology by reviewing the uses of history in British criminology before and after the emergence of critical criminology in the 1970s. The article first reviews the precritical uses of history found in the writings of the key figures responsible for the establishment of academic criminology in Britain in the mid‐20th century, namely, Leon Radzinowicz, Hermann Mannheim, and Max Grünhut. These scholars made a valuable contribution to the historical study of crime but the criminological zeitgeist of their time prevented them from outlining a manifesto for a historical criminology. The article then proceeds to show that the critique of ahistorical criminology instigated by critical criminologists in Britain during the 1970s was born out of attempts to historicize the sociology of deviance. Lastly, the article goes on to argue that the new criminology envisioned by Ian Taylor, Paul Walton, and Jock Young was instrumental in advancing a conception of critical criminology that is indistinguishable from a fully historical criminology
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