New Zealand residential subdivision and development controls in the context of sustainable development : a thesis in fulfilment of course requirements for the Degree of Master of Resource and Environmental Planning at Massey University

Recent decades have seen an increased realisation by humanity that the resources of the Earth are not inexhaustible. International conferences have discussed ways in which the resources of the Earth can be better managed, giving rise to the term "sustainable development". Since 1991 New Zealand local authorities have been drafting new plans to achieve the 'sustainable management of resources'. However, with the population of New Zealand becoming increasingly urbanised, greater attention needs to be paid as to whether the ways in which urban areas develop are sustainable. A benchmark needs to be established, against which New Zealand planning controls can be compared to find out how effective those controls are in encouraging sustainability, and pinpoint those areas where improvement is needed. This research identifies those factors which are generally thought to be important in achieving more sustainable forms of residential subdivision and development, and investigates whether indeed the new Plans which are being developed incorporate provisions which are consistent with those factors. A series of indicators were developed, aimed principally at checking new plan provisions for their consistency with those factors which were thought to assist in bringing about more sustainable forms of residential subdivision and development. The reported research results found that experts in the field of sustainable development generally felt that sustainable residential subdivision and development avoided locating in areas of high ecological significance, hazards, or high soil value, promoted a more compact, energy-efficient urban form, made the most efficient use of infrastructure and minimised pollution, minimised the use of non-renewable resources, and helped reduce crime. New Zealand planning controls were generally found to be slightly more sustainable than unsustainable when measured on a continuum. While this may be seen as positive, the fact remains that, there is still much room for improvement. Some of the reasons for the gap between New Zealand residential subdivision and development controls and the ideals of sustainable development undoubtedly lie with the current legislation which tends to separate social, economic and environmental objectives. The Resource Management Act (under which plans controlling subdivision and development are formulated) focuses, principally, on the environment only. Sustainable development on the other hand, focuses on objectives associated with all three. Other factors hindering the development of controls which promote more sustainable forms of residential subdivision and development, are the relative lack of research into residential design aspects and indicators of sustainability which are appropriate to New Zealand conditions, and, the general lack of awareness and acceptance by the community of planning controls which could help improve sustainability

An adaptive grid algorithm for one-dimensional nonlinear equations

Richards' equation, which models the flow of liquid through unsaturated porous media, is highly nonlinear and difficult to solve. Step gradients in the field variables require the use of fine grids and small time step sizes. The numerical instabilities caused by the nonlinearities often require the use of iterative methods such as Picard or Newton interation. These difficulties result in large CPU requirements in solving Richards equation. With this in mind, adaptive and multigrid methods are investigated for use with nonlinear equations such as Richards' equation. Attention is focused on one-dimensional transient problems. To investigate the use of multigrid and adaptive grid methods, a series of problems are studied. First, a multigrid program is developed and used to solve an ordinary differential equation, demonstrating the efficiency with which low and high frequency errors are smoothed out. The multigrid algorithm and an adaptive grid algorithm is used to solve one-dimensional transient partial differential equations, such as the diffusive and convective-diffusion equations. The performance of these programs are compared to that of the Gauss-Seidel and tridiagonal methods. The adaptive and multigrid schemes outperformed the Gauss-Seidel algorithm, but were not as fast as the tridiagonal method. The adaptive grid scheme solved the problems slightly faster than the multigrid method. To solve nonlinear problems, Picard iterations are introduced into the adaptive grid and tridiagonal methods. Burgers' equation is used as a test problem for the two algorithms. Both methods obtain solutions of comparable accuracy for similar time increments. For the Burgers' equation, the adaptive grid method finds the solution approximately three times faster than the tridiagonal method. Finally, both schemes are used to solve the water content formulation of the Richards' equation. For this problem, the adaptive grid method obtains a more accurate solution in fewer work units and less computation time than required by the tridiagonal method. The performance of the adaptive grid method tends to degrade as the solution process proceeds in time, but still remains faster than the tridiagonal scheme

Suspect Spheres, Not Enumerated Powers: A Guide for Leaving the Lamppost

Despite longstanding orthodoxy, the Constitution’s enumeration of congressional powers does virtually nothing to limit federal lawmaking. That’s not because of some bizarrely persistent judicial failure to read the Constitution correctly. It’s because the enumeration of congressional powers is not a well-designed technology for limiting federal legislation. Rather than trying to make the enumeration do work that it will not do, decisionmakers should find better ways of thinking about what lawmaking should be done locally rather than nationally. This Article suggests such a rubric, one that asks not whether Congress has permission to do a certain thing but whether a certain kind of lawmaking is more prone to pathology at the national or the state level. That inquiry could identify “suspect spheres”: areas of policymaking where federal law calls for more justification than elsewhere. Federal legislation within suspect spheres would not necessarily be subject to judicial invalidation, but the judgment that legislation falls within a suspect sphere could underwrite softer forms of judicial resistance to nationalization. We illustrate the suspect-spheres model with a principle of federalism we call the corporate nondelegation doctrine, by which federal delegations of power to private corporations are to be treated skeptically. Early on, that principle animated Madison’s opposition to the Bank of the United States and much of the Jacksonian approach to federalism. It later underwrote the Supreme Court’s decision in Schechter Poultry. In the current century, the idea that the corporate nondelegation doctrine defines a suspect sphere helps explain otherwise puzzling judicial behaviors in federalism cases, including the presumption against preemption and the resistance to the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act. By illustrating the possibility of a suspect-sphere approach, we suggest a tool that might be useful at a time of destructively polarized national politics, when rubrics for allocating some polarizing issue spaces to state-level decisionmakers might help lower the national temperature

Roll-up of validation results to a target application.

Suites of experiments are preformed over a validation hierarchy to test computational simulation models for complex applications. Experiments within the hierarchy can be performed at different conditions and configurations than those for an intended application, with each experiment testing only part of the physics relevant for the application. The purpose of the present work is to develop methodology to roll-up validation results to an application, and to assess the impact the validation hierarchy design has on the roll-up results. The roll-up is accomplished through the development of a meta-model that relates validation measurements throughout a hierarchy to the desired response quantities for the target application. The meta-model is developed using the computation simulation models for the experiments and the application. The meta-model approach is applied to a series of example transport problems that represent complete and incomplete coverage of the physics of the target application by the validation experiments

Roll-up of validation results to a target application.

Suites of experiments are preformed over a validation hierarchy to test computational simulation models for complex applications. Experiments within the hierarchy can be performed at different conditions and configurations than those for an intended application, with each experiment testing only part of the physics relevant for the application. The purpose of the present work is to develop methodology to roll-up validation results to an application, and to assess the impact the validation hierarchy design has on the roll-up results. The roll-up is accomplished through the development of a meta-model that relates validation measurements throughout a hierarchy to the desired response quantities for the target application. The meta-model is developed using the computation simulation models for the experiments and the application. The meta-model approach is applied to a series of example transport problems that represent complete and incomplete coverage of the physics of the target application by the validation experiments

Calibration and evaluation of optical systems for full-field strain measurement

The design and testing of a reference material for the calibration of optical systems for strain measurement is described, together with the design and testing of a standardized test material that allows the evaluation and assessment of fitness for purpose of the most sophisticated optical system for strain measurement. A classification system for the steps in the measurement process is also proposed and allows the development of a unified approach to diagnostic testing of components or sub-systems in an optical system for strain measurement based on any optical technique. The results described arise from a European study known as SPOTS whose objectives were to begin to fill the gap caused by a lack of standards

Detection of the tau protein in human serum by a sensitive four-electrode electrochemical biosensor

This study presents a novel approach based on a four-electrode electrochemical biosensor for the detection of tau protein – one of the possible markers for the prediction of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The biosensor is based on the formation of stable antibody–antigen complexes on gold microband electrodes covered with a layer of a self-assembled monolayer and protein G. Antibodies were immobilized on the gold electrode surface in an optimal orientation by protein G interaction. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to analyze impedance change, which revealed a linear response with increasing tau concentrations. The assay is fast (<1 h for incubation and measurement) and very sensitive. The limit of quantification for the full-length 2N4R tau protein is 0.03 pM, a value unaltered when the assay was processed in bovine serum albumin or human serum. This technology could be adapted for the detection of other biomarkers to provide a multiple assay to identify AD progression in a point of care setting

Attentional modulation of the carry over of eye-movements between tasks

Task demands that influence scanning behaviour in one task can cause that behaviour to persist to a second unrelated task (carry over). This can also affect performance on a second task (e.g., hazard perception ratings), and has been attributed to a process of attentional bias that is modulated by top-down influences (Thompson & Crundall, 2011). In a series of experiments we explored how these top-down influences impact upon carry over. In all experiments, participants searched letters that were presented horizontally, vertically, or in a random array. They were then presented with a driving scene and rated the hazardousness of the scene. Carry over of eye-movements from the letter search to the scene was observed in all experiments. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that this carry over effect influenced hazard perception accuracy. The magnitude of carry over was correlated with task switching abilities, attentional conflicting, and attentional orienting (Experiment 1), and was affected by predictability of the primary task (Experiment 2). Furthermore, direct current stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and parietal areas affected the magnitude of the effect (Experiment 3). These results indicate that carry over is modulated by the specific ability to orient attention and disengage from this orientation. Over orienting leads to increased carry over and insufficient task switching is detrimental to task performance. As a result the current experiments provide evidence that the carry over effect is strongly influenced by attentional processes, namely orienting, inhibition, and task switching