Mahi Tahi

Mahi Tahi is an exhibition by Ying Wang in collaboration with Joe Citizens Waka project. It documents the process of creation and the multi disciplinary approach that the project has

Sporting

Sporting was an exhibition held at Demo at Auckland. The exhibition featured the artists Christina Read Danielle Foster Jack Hadley Joshua Harris-Harding Lucy Meyle Kate Russell Hannah Valentine and was hosted by Whitecliff

In Bright Brief Moments

'In bright brief moments' is a group exhibition of artists investigating ideas of self-hood and the formation of identity. Speaking in an interview about her essay collection 'Can You Tolerate This?', writer Ashleigh Young explains “your sense of self can, in bright brief moments, seem heightened.” Weaving personal histories with re-telling other's stories, Young's essays create a complex and varied way to consider identity and attempts to find moments of clarity amid uncertainty. In these ideas, the painting and photography practices of Danielle Foster, Helen Dowling, Bronwyn Jones, Gerry Parke, and Roberta Thornley find common ground and acknowledge the multiplicities of a complex and even contradictory self-hood

Metal-Microbe Interactions in Silver Bow Creek

This project studies the relationship between microbes and both metals and metalloids in Silver Bow Creek. Biotic manganese nodule formation in Silver Bow Creek was identified through previous studies. The formation of these nodules is of interest to Silver Bow Creek restoration since heavy metals can bind to the nodules and potentially lower contaminants of concern. The goals of this study were to identify the organism(s) involved in the formation of manganese nodules and to identify how the nodules were formed using proteomic analyses. In addition, water chemistry data was used to study relationships between several elements in the creek and the potential effect these factors have on the microbial life. A combination of microbial culturing and LC-MS was used in an attempt to isolate the microbes involved with nodule formation and identify the proteins produced by the microbes. Currently, this work is attempting to isolate a microbe in the creek and analyze metagenomic data to predict the proteins used in the formation of the nodules. Once the microbe has been isolated or the proteins predicted, proteomic analyses with LC-MS can proceed. This work, in its current phase, has implications upon the interactions of microbial communities with contaminants of concern in Silver Bow Creek

Spectral dimensionality reduction for HMMs

Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) can be accurately approximated using co-occurrence frequencies of pairs and triples of observations by using a fast spectral method in contrast to the usual slow methods like EM or Gibbs sampling. We provide a new spectral method which significantly reduces the number of model parameters that need to be estimated, and generates a sample complexity that does not depend on the size of the observation vocabulary. We present an elementary proof giving bounds on the relative accuracy of probability estimates from our model. (Correlaries show our bounds can be weakened to provide either L1 bounds or KL bounds which provide easier direct comparisons to previous work.) Our theorem uses conditions that are checkable from the data, instead of putting conditions on the unobservable Markov transition matrix

Effects of urbanisation and landscape heterogeneity mediated by feeding guild and body size in a community of coprophilous beetles

Although the impacts of urbanisation on biodiversity are well studied, the precise response of some invertebrate groups remains poorly known. Dung-associated beetles are little studied in an urban context, especially in temperate regions. We considered how landscape heterogeneity, assessed at three spatial scales (250, 500 and 1000 metre radius), mediates the community composition of coprophilous beetles on a broad urban gradient. Beetles were sampled using simple dung-baited traps, placed at 48 sites stratified across three distance bands around a large urban centre in England. The most urban sites hosted the lowest abundance of saprophagous beetles, with a lower mean body length relative to the least urban sites. Predicted overall species richness and the richness of saprophagous species were also lowest at the most urban sites. Ordination analyses followed by variation partitioning revealed that landscape heterogeneity across the urban gradient explained a small but significant proportion of community composition. Heterogeneity data for a 500-metre radius around each site provided the best fit with beetle community data. Larger saprophagous species were associated with lower amounts of manmade surface and improved grassland. Some individual species, particularly predators, appeared to be positively associated with urban or urban fringe sites. This study is probably the first to examine the response of the whole coprophilous beetle community to urbanisation. Our results suggest that the response of this community to urbanisation matches expectations based on other taxonomic groups, whilst emphasising the complex nature of this response, with some smaller-bodied species potentially benefitting from urbanisation

Solo - Projection Mapping

Projection Artists Luke McConnell and Jordan Foster will project a multicoloured lightshow onto the clockface, roof and walls of St Peter’s Cathedral. Wintec Tutors McConnell & Foster plan to transform the Hamilton night skyscape this Christmas with their projection work entitled ‘SOLO’. Solo is a piece designed to complement the Victoria street Christmas revellers taking in the sights of the Garden Place Christmas tree and the Trees at the Meteor art exhibition. One seamless image across the surface of the building by linking three powerful 7k projectors. The animation will interact with the forms of the building with a particular focus on the clock tower - which should be visible from quite a distance. The projected animation invites the viewer to think about the connections that we make during this busy Christmas season. Hamiltonians too get caught up on the silly season and rarely get a chance to stop and think. ‘Solo’ will encourage people to think about how they can better connect with others in their community. The animation will run for about 5 minutes and will loop over the evening