Research Bank
Not a member yet
5195 research outputs found
Sort by
The backyard Internet of Things meets water conservation
No full text“Ko wai ahau I am water, I fall as rain on to the whenua – the land – to begin my journey from sky to sea. I bring life to everything I touch along the way. Plants, people, birds, and animals. Everything” Water care (n.d.).
Water is a precious resource, yet irrigation in New Zealand often uses a “just-in-case” approach, irrigating whenever water is available, even when plant demand is low (Srinivasan, 2017). Water is a precious resource, yet households in Aotearoa use more water every year, even when population growth is considered. Between 2016 and 2020, New Zealand used 11% more water (Water New Zealand, 2020).
This research project investigated how the IoT can empower home users to contribute to the much more significant environmental problem of water conservation and protection of New Zealand’s waterways and rivers. The research considers both the barriers to user adoption and the technology. A prototype solution was developed using information from the Internet, sensors, and a Raspberry Pi to ensure the right amount of water is applied to plants at the right time to ensure growth. Over a three-week experiment, the prototype Smart Watering System used 62% less water than a scheduled watering system and 73% less water than a gardener manually watering.This research answers the question, what factors contribute to the IoT's effective use to support Smart Watering Systems in New Zealand by considering the behavioural intention drivers of individuals
Deir-e No: Addressing modern communities’ identity crisis through the silk network revival
No full textThis research addresses the issue of placelessness, a global phenomenon caused by the rise of urbanisation and the demise of rural communities. It investigates connectivity through regional architecture in order to create a sense of belonging and ownership within the self, the community and the place. The investigation was carried out through the design of a new caravanserai (ancient hotel) along the ancient trading route of the Silk Road in central Iran. The proposed caravanserai, Deir-e No, lies between an abandoned and a restored caravanserai on the stretch of the Silk Road connecting the current capital city, Tehran, to the previous capital, Esfahan. The issue of placelessness is addressed by reconnecting with the ancient roots of Iran and designing a new bounded place, a modern caravanserai, which considers not only tradition but also the modern context. Design principles extracted from literature and case studies consider the place of tradition in contemporary architecture and embrace the use of local, sustainable materials and techniques, utilising a cohesive, bounded space containing other spaces, and incorporating multi-sensory design techniques. These include utilising light, sound, green space, the sky, fire, water, air movement and texture. Interactions with memory and the emotions are considered through generating an exchange system between the public, semi-public and private spaces. The ancient pattern of the Silk Road and its caravanserais is revitalised and integrated with appropriate modern techniques to establish a timeless pattern language benefitting both the people and the place. The spaces of the new caravanserai are influenced by the spaces of the 1700-year-old Deir-e Gachin Caravanserai ten kilometres to the north, responding to both physical and spiritual needs and desires. Furthermore, Deir-e No facilitates future revitalising of other ancient caravanserais by teaching people construction and agricultural knowledge in the workshop spaces provided. Deir-e No also contains spaces for teaching traditional crafts, galleries to exhibit them, cafés, shops, accommodation, and a bathing place that, in keeping with its traditions, will be used as a spa for gathering
The performance of a diverse cohort of civil engineering students at Unitec Institute of Technology (2015-2019)
No full textNot another prison: Towards a community-based treatment centre for women in the Philippines
Get PDFRESEARCH QUESTION
How can architecture encourage the rehabilitation and reintegration of women suffering from drug use and dependence in poor urban communities?
ABSTRACT
The Philippines is experiencing an epidemic of mass incarceration. One significant factor contributing to this increase is their ongoing war on drugs. While women remain a minority in the prison system, the gendered aspects of this issue require special attention. Women involved with illegal drugs face numerous stigmas and discrimination due to the moral perception associated with drugs. They are imprisoned in ill-equipped facilities that do not meet their gender-specific needs, thereby increasing their vulnerability to violence, abuse, and health issues. These issues may have an adverse effect on women's ability to access services and successfully reintegrate into society.
Additionally, society chastised women for forsaking their traditional gendered roles as passive, private individuals. Along with being stigmatised, having a criminal record makes finding opportunities more difficult once they are released. As a result, women's incarceration has the potential to have a devastating effect on their families and communities. While the penal system professes to prepare individuals for reintegration into their communities, society must be sensitised to accept persons deprived of liberty upon their return.
This research addresses the unique needs and vulnerabilities of a historically marginalised group in the Philippines and catalyses reforming the system of women’s rehabilitation. The aim is to develop an alternative architectural approach to addressing the inhumane and unequal treatment of women suffering from drug addiction in a poor urban community. The project ultimately proposes a community-based treatment facility in one of Manila’s most deprived urban environment. A community-based treatment centre that interacts with its surroundings and fosters safe treatment and reintegration for women.
SITE: Tondo Manila (Philippines
Exploring the value of adverse life experiences of social service and support workers
No full textSocial services provide support to benefit the community, collectively they are an intrinsic part of our culture. Numerous international studies have suggested that persons in helping professions such as health and social services have had more adverse experiences than the general population and that these experiences may have in part formed their vocational motivation. This is an area of little research in Aotearoa that I believed worthy of exploration given that I have worked in the sector for decades and had anecdotally identified a reoccurring theme amongst my colleagues and myself of adverse life experiences contributing to our vocational motivation.
The questions that guided this research inquiry were:
o To what extent are adverse life experiences perceived as an underlying motivator for the vocational choices of social service and support workers?
o To what extent are adverse life experiences perceived as contributing to advantageous attributes in social service and support workers?
o To what extent do social service and support workers perceive stigma and professional vulnerability exist as barriers to identifying adverse life experiences in the workplace?
The study was undertaken using a convergent parallel mixed method design. Mixed methods studies are often seen in health and social care research, as both quantitative and qualitative methods are thought to have complementary strengths when undertaken simultaneously, providing deeper insight into the experiences of research participants than either approach alone. Convergent design required both quantitative and qualitative elements to be analysed independently and then interpreted together, this layered approach further supported understanding the experiences of participants.
For the most part respondents commented in the first person when referring to adverse life experiences, suggesting a high incidence of adverse life experiences amongst respondents. Adverse life experiences were considered as influencing vocational choice by numerous respondents; however, it was clear barriers exist to identifying as having had adverse life experiences in the professional context due to fear of stigma and discrimination. Findings suggested there are issues relating to the collective understanding of what ‘recovery’ is that has implications for lived experience workers and those who identified as having had adverse life experiences.
I have recommended that further research is indicated as a means to advance understanding and acceptance of the relationship between adverse life experiences, post traumatic growth and helping professions in the cultural context of Aotearoa and our known societal issues.
The process of practitioner inquiry I believe has advanced my capacity to continue to evolve and develop and remain relevant to the sector and environments I work in. I envisage the enquiry process as having provided an enduring foundation to foster my growth and development on a continuum
Living furniture: Exploring sustainable solutions through furniture design
Get PDFRESEARCH QUESTION
How can the development and application of a design framework support the design and production of sustainable furniture in a New Zealand context?
ABSTRACT
This exegesis researches and compares the different sustainable methods and strategies in the context of furniture design in New Zealand. The benefits of sustainable solutions are well known, however, when it comes to designing meaningful products there is not one set guideline to mimic for maximum sustainable efficiency. I sought to further understand sustainable principles in the aspect of furniture design, to create meaningful products influenced by researching different sustainable strategies such as Emotional Durable Design, Cradle to Cradle and Design for Disassembly. I set about analyzing different designers’ methods and philosophies to grasp a stronger understanding and insight, and incorporate my own background, beliefs, and environment to develop my own family of artefacts with my new found aesthetic and mindset to sustainable design, producing a physical body of work with more meaning and purpose. When I put into practice the principles and guidelines of sustainability whilst forming the design of my furniture range, they, in effect, changed and shaped the ultimate form the pieces would finally take
Understanding the challenges of circular economy construction through full-scale prototyping
No full textApplying the Circular Economy paradigm in the built environment requires buildings to be designed for deconstruction and material recovery. Achieving circularity is complicated by the fact that requirements for deconstruction are at odds with most current mainstream construction techniques. The widespread adoption of single-use fixings, adhesives and composite materials mean that it is rarely economically or technically feasible to recover materials. To address this issue a highly modified structural timber framing solution has been designed that separates traditionally dependant layers of a buildings weather resistant envelope. As part of evaluating the viability of this modified framing solution a full-scale building prototype was constructed. The prototype adopted an entirely modular, prefabricated lightweight structural frame with provision for the reversible fixing of structural cavity battens, cladding, purlins and internal linings. Experimental thermally modified plywood cladding materials, using a bespoke concealed bracket, were also designed and deployed. The design-build process worked effectively to highlight limitations within the proposed circular building system, however it was observed that many of the issues found could have been identified using detailed BIM modelling (down to a fixing level)
Validity of retrospective patient reported assessment of pre-surgical hip pain and disability following hip arthroscopy
No full textPURPOSE:
The purpose of this study was to assess the validity of pre-surgery PROMS completed retrospectively 6 and 24 months after hip arthroscopy compared with prospective completion. Validity was judged in relation to preoperative test-retest reliability.
METHODS:
Three separate groups of hip arthroscopy patients were recruited. In two retrospective groups, patients who had undergone a hip arthroscopy and had completed preoperative PROM questionnaires were contacted 6 or 24 months after surgery and asked to recall their preoperative state. In a third test-retest group, patients completed prospective PROMs twice prior to surgery, 2–8 weeks apart. PROMs included Non-Arthritic Hip Score (NAH), Hip Disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome score (HOOS), International Hip Outcome Tool (IHOT- 12), and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for Medical Care, Feeling and Pain.
RESULTS:
In the 6-month, 24-month and test-retest groups, patient sample sizes were 52, 40 and 61, respectively. Retrospective 6- and 24-month and test-retest PROMs demonstrated ‘moderate’ to ‘very large’ correlations (ICC=0.42–0.79), except for 6-month VAS-Medical- Care and VAS-Feeling (‘small’) and 24-month VAS-Feeling (‘trivial’). PROMs for the 24- month group reduced, from prospective to retrospective, for NAH-Total (MD -4.10 [-7.93–- 0.27; (95%CI)]; p=0.03), HOOS Symptoms (-8.21 [-13.44–-2.97]; p=0.003), HOOS-Daily- Living (-7.53 [-12.71–-2.36]; p=0.005), HOOS-Sports (-6.49 [-12.97–0.00]; p=0.05), and HOOS-Short-Form (-5.16 [-9.83–-0.49]; p=0.03). Similar non-significant reductions were observed for 6-month retrospective PROMs, except for VAS-Feeling which increased retrospectively (7.47 [0.13–14.81]; p=0.05). Three test-retest PROMs also showed statistically significant reduction, with worse outcomes approaching surgery: HOOS-Daily- Living (-.3.87 [-7.73–0.00]; p=0.05), HOOS-Short-Form (-4.49 [-8.41–-0.53]; p=0.03), and IHOT-12-Total (-4.91 [-8.7–-1.23]; p=0.01).
CONCLUSION:
Correlations for retrospective versus prospective PROM scores spanned a similar range to test-retest correlations. Therefore, PROM scores relating to pre-surgery condition, but completed 6 or 24 months after surgery, showed agreement with PROM scores completed before surgery which were consistent with the day-to-day variability expected before surgery. This consistency supports the use of retrospective PROMs completed up to 2 years after hip arthroscopy
A CNN-based identification of honeybees' infection using augmentation
No full textRESEARCH QUESTIONS:
[Are standard images classified accurately using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) or transfer learning method?]
Can varroa destructor mite be identified correctly from a small number of low-quality honeybee images?
ABSTRACT:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions have been extensively explored and implemented in the apiculture industry. Designing an efficient system for continuous observation of bees for their health and activities has been a challenge and of great interest among researchers. Several studies manifest that AI-based solutions can accommodate the purpose of beehive monitoring. However, the systems constructed based on computer vision techniques are found to be incompetent with noisy and insufficient data. This research proposes a computer vision-based approach to classify bee images for infected or healthy bees, dealing with indistinct and inadequate image data. As a solution, image contrast enhancement and data augmentation methods are used to improve the quality and size of data, respectively. The foggy bee images are managed using the Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE), enhancing the image contrast to make it more understandable. The small dataset is augmented using an advanced method, Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networks (DCGAN), which is capable of generating new images resembling the real ones. We investigate the capability of DCGAN as an alternative to the conventional augmentation technique that uses the varied geometric transformation of the image. An optimized Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model is used to classify the augmented bee image data. Further, one of the transfer learning techniques, VGG16, is applied to compare the classifiers' performance on the same data sets. The effectiveness of the preprocessing method CLAHE and augmentation method DCGAN is assessed against original images and conventional augmentation methods. The classifiers CNN and VGG16 are compared alongside for their performance on non-augmented and augmented data sets. The investigations conducted on the given bee data sets delivered promising results. The CLAHE pre-processing method not only improved the image sharpness by 10% but also enhanced the CNN classi er's performance as compared to the original images. The optimized CNN's performance enhanced with conventional geometrically transformed augmented data. However, the classifier outperformed with added DCGAN generated synthetic images in the original data set providing up to 99.9% accuracy. Further, ne-tuned transfer learning classification model provided comparable accuracy alongside CNN with added efficiency building and executing the model. The success of this preliminary investigation paves the way to explore di erent variations of Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) to augment the image data together with enhancing its quality
Home away from home: A humanitarian project
No full textRESEARCH QUESTION
How can architecture improve living standards, and the quality of life, for children in Sri Lankan orphanages?
ABSTRACT
Orphans, because of their families tragic losses, lack of education and resources, and their consequent need for physical care, are in desperate need of help. Architecture has the capacity to address the challenges confronted by orphans and families with a variety of design methods and approaches.
Unfortunately, there are no model orphanages or childcare homes in Sri Lanka that can offer a safe, perennial environment for abandoned children. An innovative and thoughtful design that appeals to children, while serving as a refuge for their families is possible, but to begin with, a safe space for these vulnerable children to call home is essential. Because of the rising rate of homelessness, it is imperative to establish an up-to-date childcare facility in Sri Lanka.
The causes of neglected children, children without families and the deficiencies which exist in current facilities in Sri Lanka were investigated as a means of grasping this orphan crisis.
Through the lens of a village typology, it is possible to see how this proposed childcare facility would improve their lives and the economy through community means and thus decrease levels of poverty. This has been accomplished by analysing existing orphanage building projects as case studies, both locally and internationally.
The outcome of this investigation is a progressive, alternate model for an orphanage typology for Sri Lanka, which has been conceived via both a qualitative and quantitative research approach. Testing methods included analysing precedent studies through drawings and diagrams and utilising ideas developed by Geoffrey Bawa and Balkrishna Doshi as a starting point for further research.
The project aimed to define a design that complements the traditional Sri Lankan architectural context via vernacular design strategies and the implementation of a sustainable design approach