An analysis of event management best practice

This research will investigate what makes a successful event, and the Waikato talent show will be adopted as a case study. The purpose of this research is to ensure the importance of event management. In addition, there will be many literature reviews in this research to support this topic and show different opinions. In order to obtain accurate results, this study uses questionnaires and interviews to collect information. Also, researchers will investigate the participation of 60 people, 60 people of different ages and genders, respectively. The researcher also will interview two people for further information. When the Waikato Chinese Students Association organizes events, good event management is essential. The selection of the geographic location of the event, the determination of the number of participants and the promotion measures are all very important components of organizing a successful event. After analysing the results of the questionnaire and the interview results, the Waikato Chinese Students Association will change their incident management based on these results. Finally, the study will provide Waikato Chinese Student Association with some advice to help their organization's activities become well

Coexistence of spin glass and ferroelectricity in highly ordered Bi2FeMnO6 epitaxial thin film

Highly ordered Bi2FeMnO6 epitaxial thin films have been successfully grown on SrTiO3 substrate. Both synchrotron X-ray reciprocal space mapping and high resolution transmission electron microscopy confirmed the alternative alignment of Fe and Mn along [111] direction of Bi2FeMnO6 films. Magnetic and ferroelectric properties of Bi2FeMnO6 films are characterized and analyzed. The room-temperature ferroelectricity is well kept in Bi2FeMnO6 film as expected. However, it is very interesting that Bi2FeMnO6 film exhibits a typical spin-glass behavior and very weak magnetism rather than a ferri/ferromagnetism as generally believed. Our first-principles calculations suggest a spin frustration model for Bi2FeMnO6, which can well explain the intriguing magnetic property of Bi2FeMnO6 film.Comment: Main text: 30 pages and 14 figure

Landscape-oriented transformation of urban streets by considering autonomous vehicles

The relevance of streets in the transition towards sustainable mobility cannot be overlooked; however, achieving sustainable urban street transformation remains challenging due to the complexity of existing transport systems and urban development's dependence on the given system. Autonomous vehicles (AVs), as a transformative technological innovation, present a significant opportunity to disrupt the current paradigm. The landscape perspective and its operational methods provide a possibility to formulate revised protocols for the transformation of urban streets. Taking these two views as its entry point, this thesis addresses the question of how to implement sustainable AV street transformation from a landscape perspective. The research employs the concept of three scenarios to systematically categorise and analyse current conceptual designs for AV streets, finding that these designs are insufficient for sustainable transformation. This insufficiency is attributed to their reliance on traditional masterplanning thinking and neglect of public value-based changes, among other factors. Consequently, the study explores the potential of the landscape perspective and its operational methods to address these shortcomings and achieve sustainable AV street transformation. Design approaches for dynamic planning, which can bridge the competing top-down planning and bottom-up design protocols, are interpreted, analysed, and adaptively applied to the context of AV street transformation. The study then outlines design strategies for AV street transformation, focusing on the aspects of who (actors involved), how (organisation of design actions), and when (time-based strategies). An experimental design is conducted in the Lokstallarna area of Malmö, Sweden, guided by the developed design strategies, resulting in a design framework to steer the transformation of AV streets. The findings of this thesis propose a new avenue for the sustainable transformation of AV streets and underscore the significance of design approaches from landscape architecture in shaping future urban streets

On the price of exact truthfulness in incentive-compatible online learning with bandit feedback: A regret lower bound for WSU-UX

In one view of the classical game of prediction with expert advice with binary outcomes, in each round, each expert maintains an adversarially chosen belief and honestly reports this belief. We consider a recently introduced, strategic variant of this problem with selfish (reputation-seeking) experts, where each expert strategically reports in order to maximize their expected future reputation based on their belief. In this work, our goal is to design an algorithm for the selfish experts problem that is incentive-compatible (IC, or \emph{truthful}), meaning each expert's best strategy is to report truthfully, while also ensuring the algorithm enjoys sublinear regret with respect to the expert with the best belief. Freeman et al. (2020) recently studied this problem in the full information and bandit settings and obtained truthful, no-regret algorithms by leveraging prior work on wagering mechanisms. While their results under full information match the minimax rate for the classical ("honest experts") problem, the best-known regret for their bandit algorithm WSU-UX is $O(T^{2/3})$, which does not match the minimax rate for the classical ("honest bandits") setting. It was unclear whether the higher regret was an artifact of their analysis or a limitation of WSU-UX. We show, via explicit construction of loss sequences, that the algorithm suffers a worst-case $\Omega(T^{2/3})$ lower bound. Left open is the possibility that a different IC algorithm obtains $O(\sqrt{T})$ regret. Yet, WSU-UX was a natural choice for such an algorithm owing to the limited design room for IC algorithms in this setting.Comment: Accepted to AISTATS 202

Fenton reagent reduces the level of arsenic in paddy rice grain

Hydroponic and pot experiments were conducted to examine the effects of Fenton reagent on paddy rice plant growing in arsenic-contaminated soils. Fenton reagent significantly reduced arsenic phytotoxicity, uptake by the plants and accumulation in rice grain. This is attributed to oxidation of As3+ to As5+ by hydroxyl radicals and immobilization of arsenate by reacting with precipitating Fe3+ to form practically insoluble compounds. Although this process enhanced the formation of Fe-enriched coatings on root surface, it appears that root plaque had limited effects on inhibiting As uptake since most of the young roots were not covered by iron plaque. It is more likely that As immobilization in the bulk soils play a major role in reducing As flux towards rhizosphere. The findings have implications for understanding As behavior in paddy field receiving rainwater-borne hydrogen peroxide and developing cost-effective techniques for reducing As level in rice grain produced from As-contaminated soil

Potential effects of rainwater-borne H2O2 on competitive degradation of herbicides and in the presence of humic acid

In a previous piece of work, we reported some preliminary experimental results showing that hydrogen peroxide at a concentration range frequently encountered in rainwater could lead to degradation of three common herbicides (diuron, butachlor and glyphosate). However, the work was limited to the observation on the effects of Fenton process on the individual herbicides. In field conditions, different types of herbicides along with other organic molecules may occur concurrently. It is unclear how different herbicides and various organic molecules compete for the available hydroxyl radical. In this study, further microcosm experiments were conducted to observe the changes in the herbicides in the scenarios where multiple herbicides or humic acid are present. The results show that humic acid impeded hydroxyl radical-driven degradation of the diuron and butachlor. However, humic acid had no significant effects on reducing glyphosate removal rate. Glyphosate could compete strongly with the humic acid for the available hydroxyl radical in the reaction systems. The reactivity of glyphosate with hydroxyl radical was much higher than those of diuron and butachlor due possibly to its relatively simpler chemical structure, as compared to either diuron or butachlor. Butachlor degradation was much weaker in the combined diuron and butachlor system than in the combined glyphosate and butachlor system. In the glyphosate-butachlor system, the opposite was observed. The findings have moved another step forward to understanding the potential role of rainwater-borne H2O2 in degrading herbicides in open water environments