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Semi-blind source separation for unmanned aerial vehicle audition
No full textThis paper presents a semi-blind source separation (BSS) method tailored for sound source enhancement for audio recording systems mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This method capitalises on recordings of UAV ego-noise to supervise the independent low-rank matrix analysis (ILRMA) algorithm. Through the integration of spatial and noise source supervisors, ILRMA is transformed from a blind to a semi-blind method, substantially enhancing sound source separation performance in UAV settings. The spatial supervisor effectively addresses the global permutation problem in BSS within input signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) ranges of 0 to -30 dB. Concurrently, the noise source supervisor leverages the UAV's dominant ego-noise to predetermine the BSS solution for noise components, leading to improved performance. Comprehensive tests using generated and recorded target signals demonstrate significant performance improvements, including an 18 dB increase in source-to-distortion ratio, a 20 dB increase in signal-to-noise ratio, a 0.22 score improvement in short-time objective intelligibility, and a 0.5 dB improvement in cepstral distance
Centrifuge test determination of wharf responses due to spatially and temporally varying interactions between wharf piles and liquefied soil
No full textDamage to wharf piles in liquefied soil has been observed in many strong earthquakes. A good understanding of soil-pile interactions is essential. Most previous studies ignored the variation in the interactions between piles and interpile soil. In addition, for wharves, the interactions vary with the development of pore water pressure under waterfront conditions. In this work, a centrifuge test was used to analyse the wharf response to soil-pile interactions, including spatial location and temporal characteristics of the wharf response. To investigate the varying shear resistance considering spatiality and time, the soil shear stress and strain at different vertical and lateral locations were divided into phases depending on the development of pore water pressure. Soil acceleration in the time and frequency domains, accompanied by pore water pressure accumulation, was examined. The response of the pile and deck, which varies in accordance with the soil behaviour, has also been systematically investigated. The impact of nonuniform soil liquefaction on pile-soil interactions was examined. The results show that the deformation of interpile soil was impeded by piles, resulting in alternating shear contraction to dilation after rapid accumulation of pore water pressure. This phenomenon decreases the acceleration amplitude of interpile soil in the time domain and frequency domain. The frequency bandwidth of the soil response was narrowed by pore water pressure build-up, and it was also affected by the extent of liquefaction. Amplification is produced in shallow-depth soil because the bandwidth overlaps the predominant bandwidth of the soil response. Significant changes in the soil shear response induce pronounced variations in the pile response
The Verification-Value Paradox: A Normative Critique of Gen AI Use in Legal Practice
No full textIt is often claimed that machine learning-based generative AI products will drastically streamline and reduce the cost of legal practice. This enthusiasm assumes lawyers can effectively manage AI’s risks. Cases in Australia and elsewhere in which lawyers have been reprimanded for submitting inaccurate AI-generated content to courts suggest this paradigm must be revisited. This paper argues that a new paradigm is needed to evaluate AI use in practice, given (a) AI’s disconnection from reality and its lack of transparency, and (b) lawyers’ paramount duties like honesty, integrity, and not to mislead the court. It presents an alternative model of AI use in practice that more holistically reflects these features (the verification-value paradox). That paradox suggests increases in efficiency from AI use in legal practice will be met by a correspondingly greater imperative to manually verify any outputs of that use, rendering the net value of AI use often negligible to lawyers. The paper then sets out the paradox’s implications for legal practice and legal education, including for AI use but also the values that the paradox suggests should undergird legal practice: fidelity to the truth and civic responsibility
Associations of geospatial measures of greenspace with adolescent moderate-to-vigorous physical activity: A systematic review
No full textGreenspace has been linked to adolescent health and well-being outcomes, with physical activity potential pathway for achieving benefits. Robust evidence is needed to inform policymaking and environmental interventions. The aim of this systematic literature review is to identify, summarise, and evaluate studies on the associations between geospatial measures of greenspace (i.e., using geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS)) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) among adolescents. We followed the PRISMA statement guidelines. Five databases were searched using relevant keywords for articles published from 1980 onwards. Studies were imported to Covidence for duplicate screening, data extraction and quality assessment. Harvest plots were used to visually summarise and examine patterns in relationships between greenspace and adolescent MVPA. Fourteen articles met the inclusion criteria and provided sufficient data to extract associations of greenspace with adolescent MVPA. Seven articles reported positive relationships between greenspace and adolescent MVPA, five reported no significant associations, and two reported inconsistent results. All studies that measure actual greenspace exposure using GPS showed significant positive correlation with adolescents’ MVPA. While positive associations between greenspace and MVPA among adolescents were found in over half (64 %) of the studies included in this review, the number of studies specifically targeting this age group is limited. Exploring which features of greenspace encourage MVPA across different groups and examining the actual use of greenspace is needed. Addressing these gaps will provide more comprehensive evidence to inform policies and environmental strategies aimed at enhancing adolescent health and well-being
Feedback Literacy: A naïve attempt to advance constructivism
No full textEducational feedback is an informational response to a performance or a product. It can range from an oral comment in class to a contribution made by a student to a formal summative grade at the end of any learning program. Much research has described characteristics of effective feedback giving. However, recent work, especially in higher education, has suggested that this straightforward model is seriously deficient because it is based on mechanical, technological methods founded on behaviourist models of education. In this perspective piece, I take issue with that critique.
Advocates of feedback literacy advocate for constructivist student-centred arguments to downplay the role of the teacher as expert or feedback as transmitted information. Instead, feedback literacy focuses on students’ long-term learning and autonomy. Their stance is that feedback is for learning which means what matters is not the composition of the feedback message, but rather how learners access, use, and benefit from their own internal evaluative judgment feedback and make use of peer feedback.
My critique is informed by the proven inadequacy of postmodern deconstruction of feedback into teaching and learning. Novices do not have the skill to accurately evaluate their own processes and products, their peer evaluation is threatened by human relationships, and the nature of human memory. I conclude that while we want students to be active users of feedback from their teachers, we cannot achieve that by embracing well-meant but untenable redefinitions of feedback
New age model for Onepoto maar, Auckland, New Zealand, based on a revised tephrochronology of the lake sediment sequence
No full textTephrochronology has proven to be a reliable dating tool in the context of northern New Zealand lakes due to the numerous volcanic centres on the North Island that have repeatedly erupted during the late Quaternary. The widely-distributed tephras often have distinctive geochemical compositions with many of these tephra layers preserved in the sediments that infill maar lakes in the Auckland Volcanic Field (AVF). Here, we present a revised age model for the Onepoto Maar lake sediment sequence, using 14 rhyolitic, seven basaltic, and two andesitic tephra layers with assigned ages as markers. These were integrated with bulk organic matter and pollen-derived radiocarbon ages to establish the new age-depth model. Improvement of the age model for the pre-45 ka section of the Onepoto record was based on the usage of tephras with refined ages: Eg2, Eg4, and Eg10 (Taranaki Maunga-sourced) and AVF D, AVF C, AVF B, and 90 AVF (AVF-sourced). The correlation of the Onepoto tephra horizons to the recently refined, multi-method derived, age model of the Ōrākei maar tephra sequence has improved the robustness of the new Onepoto age model. Consequently, this approach has enabled development of reliable age assignations for tephra layers contained in the Onepoto sediments beyond the limit of 14C dating. Accurate chronologies for lake sediment sequences, such as the one presented here, are vital for paleoenvironmental research. Thus, the revised Onepoto age model improves upon previous models for our study site, offering more robust age control for regional paleoclimate studies covering the last two glacial cycles. It will also allow the extension of the existing high-resolution paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic records developed from the AVF maar lakes beyond MIS 5e to at least late MIS 7
Optimising pre-disaster evacuation strategies using shared autonomous vehicles: A dynamic and stochastic approach
No full textClassical mass evacuation strategies from disasters often rely on static planning and manual operations, which struggle to handle the uncertainty and time-critical nature of large-scale disasters. This study aims to develop a dynamic and intelligent evacuation strategy using Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAVs) to improve the efficiency and equity of emergency transport for populations without private vehicles. We propose a Transformer-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning with Branch and Bound (TB-DRL) approach to address the SAV Evacuation Dispatching Problem under uncertain demand, traffic, and SAVs availability. The TB-DRL’s multi-head attention layers learn spatiotemporal correlations between demand nodes and SAV locations, while the hierarchical mask progressively prunes infeasible or low-value actions, shortening decision time without compromising optimality. Based on Auckland’s 345 km road graph and 38,993 residents dataset, the results show that TB-DRL lowers total evacuation cost by 8.53 %-27.45 % in dynamic tests and by up to 18.55 % and 16.19 % in static and dynamic city-scale scenarios, while keeping the mean route-cost gap below 1.7 %. Pareto analysis demonstrates that TB-DRL can shift smoothly between cost-driven and demand-driven objectives, while sensitivity experiments across assembly node locations, random SAV’s state and congestion levels confirm the robustness of the strategy to uncertain evacuation scenarios. The simulation based on real population data shows that using more SAVs helps reduce congestion in the later evacuation stage. However, their empty return trips can create local congestion. When SAVs handle 60 % of the evacuation tasks, the total evacuation time and efficiency improve most significantly
Deconstructing the Dichotomy: Rethinking the 'Capital' in Woke Capitalism
No full textConcepts of shareholder vs stakeholder, and by extension wokeness and capitalism, are often presented
as mutually exclusive. This chapter explores how both could be addressed in exploring a less superficial
engagement with social engagement with a refined focus on capital. The chapter seeks to deconstruct
dichotomies between opposing views and evaluates the tensions between woke agendas and shareholder
revanchism. In exploring Carroll’s Pyramid of CSR and directors’ duties the chapter examines
economic responsibility and corporate altruism. The chapter advocates for a revaluation of the focus
on capital and its current terminal status. It, therefore, calls for a balanced approach in how directors
pursue profit and discharge their fiduciary obligations. It explores this through advancing the view that profit should be considered circular and not terminal. The idea of circular profit challenges the terminal thinking of profit maximization as an extrinsic output. As tensions continue to develop, a broader understanding of long-term profitability and a shift away from myopic decision making needs to be achieved
Justified Hesitation: Constructive Trusts Over Copyright in Australia after Game Meats v Farm Transparency International
No full textIn August 2025, the Full Federal Court ruled that copyright in footage of a meat production company’s premises and practices, surreptitiously obtained by animal rights activists, was held on constructive trust for that company. This meant that the activists could not legitimately publish or license that footage, even though the filmmaker is the ‘author’ under copyright law. It also meant the activists were required to transfer the copyright in the footage to the meat production company. This paper suggests four reasons why this finding may be premature: the tentative nature of previous High Court obiter that ‘opened the door’ to a constructive trust being recognised over copyright, copyright’s distinct features and aims, the availability of other remedies, and the tension of the Court’s approach with the moral rights authors have under copyright law. This analysis suggests there is good reason for courts to be hesitant to apply a constructive trust over copyright in the future