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Amara
(The University of Waikato, 2026) Bojesen-Trepka, Guy Holton; Chidgey, Catherine; Slaughter, Tracey
Amara is a satirical reimagining of the Jesus story told from a God's-eye perspective. It lightly probes the myth of the virgin birth, miracles, Christianity’s departure from the teachings of Jesus, the notion of an omnipotent God, and what might happen if a Gen Z Messiah arrived in the age of DNA testing and rolling news. In an Australian relocation of the biblical Annunciation, Mary, soon to marry Joseph, becomes pregnant while claiming to be a virgin. Joseph tries to identify the father by collecting genetic samples from neighbours in the same apartment block. When this proves unsuccessful, and after being threatened by an antagonistic angel, Joseph abandons his search and accepts a bizarre alternative explanation: that Mary conceived while sunning her perineum on their balcony. Amara is born in a barn on 1 January 2000. Three girls, children of refugees, turn up with gifts after dreaming of her birth and become part of the family. A Catholic priest and a dogmatic parishioner become aware of a possible incarnation. While Joe is receptive to the priest's interest, Mary rebuffs his attempts to become involved, determined to protect Amara and give her a normal life. Joe and Mary have a second child, Joshua, and life is mostly suburban normal. As she grows, Amara reveals herself to be an extraordinary child, with an unusually close relationship with God. When Amara is ten, she disarms a knife-wielding man with a history of mental illness – an act that inexplicably restores his sanity. A journalist is assigned the story, and her investigation uncovers possible earlier miracles. The ensuing media interest prompts the return of the priest, parishioner and angel and makes normal life impossible for the family. A Catholic bishop sees an opportunity to deflect public attention from the growing scandal of institutional child abuse and offers sanctuary to the family at a retreat in the countryside. The submitted manuscript represents the first stage of a larger narrative following Amara from birth into adulthood.
Multi-grasp classification for the control of robot hands employing transformers and lightmyography signals
(IEEE, 2023) Godoy, Ricardo V.; Guan, Bonnie; Dwivedi, Anany; Shahmohammadi, Mojtaba; Owen, Mahonri; Liarokapis, Minas
The increasing use of smart technical devices in our everyday lives has necessitated the use of muscle-machine interfaces (MuMI) that are intuitive and that can facilitate immersive interactions with these devices. The most common method to develop MuMIs is using Electromyography (EMG) based signals. However, due to several drawbacks of EMG-based interfaces, alternative methods to develop MuMI are being explored. In our previous work, we presented a new MuMI called Lightmyography (LMG), which achieved outstanding results compared to a classic EMG-based interface in a five-gesture classification task. In this study, we extend our previous work experimentally validating the efficiency of the LMG armband in classifying thirty-two different gestures from six participants using a deep learning technique called Temporal Multi-Channel Vision Transformers (TMC-ViT). The efficiency of the proposed model was assessed using accuracy. Moreover, two different undersampling techniques are compared. The proposed thirty-two-gesture classifiers achieve accuracies as high as 92%. Finally, we employ the LMG interface in the real-time control of a robotic hand using ten different gestures, successfully reproducing several grasp types from taxonomy grasps presented in the literature.
Towards prosperity? Rural transformation in post-colonial Vanuatu
(The University of Waikato, 1993) Tapari, Budai; Cleary, Mark C.; Campbell, John; Bedford, Richard
This thesis examines the question of progress towards “prosperity” with particular reference to cash-generating activities of households in Nerenigman on Mota Lava in the Banks/Torres Local Government Region and the Longana area in East Ambae of the Ambae/Maewo Local Government Region. The assessment and comparison of post-colonial rural change in these areas is based on detailed anthropological research, and geographic and demographic theses published in the early 1980s by Rodman (1981) and Campbell (1985). These studies, together with results obtained from the 1979 population census, provide a baseline from which an examination of aspects of change in rural communities during the 1980s is conducted. The two areas were chosen as case studies to examine whether “balanced” rural development and prosperity had been achieved by the early 1990s. Rural villagers’ participation in cash-earning activities has meant that their subsistence mode of production has been modified and a path towards market-oriented farming established. Rural villagers in the study areas want development as measured in both tangible and intangible terms. In the study areas, this aspiration was evident through their participation in the capitalist economy. The presence of physical infrastructure such as schools, health centres, water supply systems and other capital assets villagers used for promoting development purposes, indicated their changing aspirations for Western-type consumer goods and services. In addition to the provision of the above services, the presence of commercial institutions such as co-operative stores, trade stores, commercial centres and banks were examples of facilities which were regarded as important for facilitating development. The villager’s access to these services has paved the way for their deepening integration into the modern cash economy. The evidence from this study suggests that opportunities for households to diversify and extend their sources of cash incomes on Mota Lava have been very limited since the independence of Vanuatu in 1980. There was little evidence that material living standards had improved much on the island. By comparison, the Longana area has shown evidence of increased levels of prosperity. There has been a significant change in the structure of the agricultural economy, from heavy dependence on copra in the 1980s to kava and livestock production which had become important sources of income by the early 1990s. While cultural values remain important attributes of ni-Vanuatu assessments of prosperity, most villagers expressed a real desire to participate in the capitalist system and to share some of the material benefits of that participation in the early 1990s. This study of cash-generating activities of households in the study areas serves to underline the nature and direction of change, which increasingly involves the integration of rural villagers into a capitalist economy.
Regulation of tissue insulin-like growth factor-1 production in the post-natal sheep through the growth hormone axis
(The University of Waikato, 1993) Hua, Ke Min.; Molan, Peter C.
Somatic growth represents the outcome of interactions between the genetic potential of an individual to grow and environmental factors, prominent amongst these is nutrition. GH, the IGFs, and their respective receptors appear to play important and interrelated roles in co-ordinating these interactions, and as such they are considered one hormonal system ‘GH axis’ which controls normal post-natal growth. A large number of external and internal stimuli impinge on the GH axis. Experiments in this thesis were conducted to address whether nutritional status (a powerful external stimulus) or GH (a prominent internal stimulus) treatment differentially alters tissue and plasma IGF-1 immunoreactivity, tissue IGF-1 mRNA and plasma IGFBPs. GH stimulation of IGF-1 in the liver and other tissues and the associated response of circulating IGFBPs was measured with a view to investigating IGF-1 production in both hepatic and extra-hepatic tissue and its regulatory control through the GH axis. This would provide an insight into the relative contribution or importance of local versus hepatic production of IGF-1 in post-natal sheep. To achieve the objectives in this study, methods of IGF-1 tissue extraction were developed and evaluated in the experiments presented in this thesis to provide an efficient extraction of IGF-1 and reliable removal of IGFBP for measurement of IGF-1 by RIA in various tissues in sheep that were fed or fasted, with or without administration of exogenous GH. To monitor changes at transcriptional step, levels of IGF-1 mRNA in tissues were measured using in-situ hybridisation. Responsiveness of circulating IGFBPs to administration of GH was investigated by IGF-1 ligand blot analysis. Administration of exogenous GH significantly elevated IGF-1 levels in liver, kidney, heart, spleen and muscle. The rise in tissue (except muscle) levels of IGF-1 preceded that in plasma, suggesting that IGF-1 derived from multiple tissues contributes to plasma concentrations of the growth factor. GH stimulated IGF-1 mRNA in both hepatic and extra-hepatic tissues. The elevated levels of tissue IGF-1 and GH-dependent IGF-1 mRNA in both hepatic and extra-hepatic tissues indicate production of IGF-1 in the liver and other tissues. The response of muscle IGF-1 to administration of GH followed the rise in plasma IGF-1. This may indicate a late response in local production of IGF-1 in the muscle or may reflect the influence of changes in IGF-1 plasma concentration, implicating a possible endocrine role for IGF-1 in the muscle, although the relative contribution or importance of local versus plasma-origin IGF-1 is not certain in this tissue. Data in this thesis demonstrated that GH not only stimulates IGF-1 production but also plays a pivotal role in regulation of circulating levels and tissue availability of IGF-1 (ie. tissue distribution of IGF-1) by affecting both IGF-1 and its binding proteins either directly or indirectly. Fasting depressed plasma and tissue levels of IGF-1. The degree of the depression in IGF-1 levels varied between tissues. Levels of IGF-1 mRNA in liver were positively correlated with concentrations of liver IGF-1 in animals that were well fed with or without GH treatment, but not in those that were fasted or fasted and treated with GH. This indicates that GH regulation of IGF-1 production in liver is, to a large extent, dependent on nutritional status. Nutrition therefore plays a critical role in the regulation of IGF-1 production in the sheep. The current study has also provided a way to estimate total organ content of IGF-1 and the response of this parameter to GH treatment. The GH-induced increase in total liver IGF-1 is 4-fold more than the corresponding increase in kidney, 13-fold more than that in heart and 30-fold more than that in spleen. These results support the traditional concept that liver is a major contributor of circulating IGF-1, although the data in this study suggested that IGF-1 is synthesised in multiple tissues in the sheep. In conclusion, the results of the present study are compatible with the concept of both local and classic central production of IGF-1 under the influence of GH, and therefore do not exclude either an autocrine/paracrine or an endocrine mechanism of IGF-1 action. The relative importance or contribution of each may be related to a tissue-specific fashion of IGF-1 gene expression which is differentially regulated by GH, nutrition and numerous other factors.
Radiocarbon dating the prehistory of New Zealand
(The University of Waikato, 1993) Higham, Thomas F.G.; Mackay, Kenneth M.; Hogg, Alan G.; Hendy, Chris H.
The impact of radiocarbon dating upon chronological studies of New Zealand’s prehistory has been limited for several reasons. A long standing tradition of investigating archaeology as ethnology, based on the rich sources of ethnographic data has lessened the apparent need for chronological control. Second, there has been an element of consensus regarding the date of discovery by initial human settlement due to the establishment of a chronology based on tribal traditions. There has been a failure by some archaeologists adequately to implement radiocarbon dating programmes and scientific dating effectively as a research tool. The most important reason, however, is the short span of prehistoric occupation. This dissertation addresses a number of issues affecting accurate radiocarbon dating of New Zealand prehistoric material with particular reference to errors which restrict the application of high precision dating. Such errors come from three principal sources - during field collection of the samples, in the measurement of the radioactivity of the sample in the laboratory and in the variation in the amounts of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere and the measurement of the half-life. Field errors are common in New Zealand and often reflect post-depositional migration and erosion, and bioturbation and a failure to understand the site’s stratigraphy. Errors due to the misreporting of radiocarbon dates and failure to adequately interpret them have also been common. Accuracy, reproducibility and precision are analysed in the University of Waikato laboratory. Close statistical agreement is shown in the results obtained from the laboratory’s IAEA standard set of measurements. A laboratory error multiplier is calculated using 11 repeat dates of the IAEA C3 standard. Spectral shifts identified in certain standard and sample spectra is investigated and the external standard is found to be artificially influencing the position of the end point of successive spectra. The significance of this upon calculated radiocarbon dates is shown to be insignificant and reproducibility in count rate is maintained even with end point shifts of up to 7 channels. The three main sample types used in New Zealand archaeological are considered for their contribution to radiocarbon errors. All possess intrinsic problems. Moa eggshell carbonate samples from sites in Otago and Hawkes Bay are investigated for accuracy. These are the first moa eggshell samples dated from cultural contexts. The material is appropriate for the radiocarbon technique, dating the prehistoric event closely and resistant to contamination. The only drawback is its irregular presence in sites. Contamination in shell and charcoal samples is investigated. Charcoal from Shag Mouth, Pleasant River and Killermont sites is used in a series of physical and chemical pretreatments. It is largely free of contamination with the exception of the Pleasant River site, where adsorption by young carbonates has occurred. All samples possess errors due to rootlet intrusion, although these are negligible in their error. Shell dating is investigated extensively. Hard water effects are considered at North Otago sites. Dates of modem shell limestone regions at Shag Mouth and Pleasant River are compared with those from near Dunedin. No significant differences are identified. Differences are found, however, in prehistoric dates of shell of a variety of species. The major influencing variables are the immediate environment and the type of shellfish species selected for dating. Shellfish from estuaries which are regularly flushed with tidal waters are likely to give more accurate dates than those which have larger riverine inputs and barrier spits blocking tidal encroachment Shellfish obtain their carbon from a variety of sources. The proportion of carbon obtained from metabolic carbon and dissolved inorganic carbon utilised in their shell carbonate varies, so their radiocarbon uptake may vary. In an estuary, within which resources from a number of areas are collected, this variety may be manifested in different radiocarbon dates from different shellfish species. Models for accurate dating using charcoal and shell in the light of different environmental situations are described. Radiocarbon dates measured in the dissertation are considered in their contexts and sites and the initial colonisation of Murihiku is reviewed. A model of rapid colonisation and the short-term occupation of coastal, estuarine sites is presented on the basis of radiocarbon and archaeological variables. Further avenues of research are then examined.