Critical success factors in land development in New Zealand: Part 1

This research aimed to investigate the critical factors that contribute to the success of residential land development in New Zealand. The methodology employed involved reviewing the literature to determine those factors earlier identified as critical by international researchers and then comparing those to critical factors identified in a survey of property development teams active in New Zealand. In the interests of brevity the findings are reported in two papers. This paper focuses on factors associated with the site itself. A second paper focuses on factors relating to the development team. The findings include the concept of “success” is centered on profitability, timeframes and budgets. There was a greater focus on the due diligence phase, at the expense of the site selection phase, compared with earlier research. There were also fewer options available for financing property development in the New Zealand context. The development legislation was generally seen as appropriate but its application was felt to be inconsistent and the source of much of the risk in a property development. While the critical factors identified were similar to those found in the literature, there was a much greater reliance on experience to manage their impact than on the more formal approaches employed in other countries

Financial reporting on corporate real estate: a study of the annual reports of non-investment companies listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZSE)

Corporate Real Estate (CRE) is a significant asset, which has been shown to add value to businesses if it is efficiently and effectively managed. Globalisation of capital markets, advancements in technology and the current economic condition have again increased the awareness of the importance of CRE’s contribution. In order to be successful businesses need CRE to create and maintain their competitive edge in the marketplace. Advancement in terms of Corporate Real Estate Asset Management (CREAM) and the positive attitude shift of executives towards corporate real estate (CRE) have been made possible through research into the contribution CRE makes to a business’s bottom line. The objective of this study is to describe the financial reporting practices of companies (excluding investment companies) listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZSE) in order to reveal the current attitudes of management towards CRE. The results showed that information chaos exists behind the façade of the Balance Sheet, revealing that management have a surface level attitude and lack a real focus towards CRE assets. In New Zealand and overseas there is minimal literature that this study could build upon. The methodology involved an exploratory study of the 2008 annual reports; the results formed a snap shot of the current reporting practices of CRE and revealed the current attitudes of management in entities towards CRE

Power, discourse and participation in nature conflicts: the case of turf cutters in the governance of Ireland's raised bog designations

This paper explores how participatory processes and the politics of contestation and resistance converge to influence changes in discourses and institutional structures underpinning the implementation of the EU Habitats Directive in Ireland. It highlights the potential of environmental partnership processes to disrupt the usual scalar hierarchy for regulation. The focus is specifically on the designation of raised bogs and the role of power relations and legitimacy discourses in participatory governance processes established by government. In particular this paper critiques the participatory governance process and attempts to legitimise the enforcement of the Habitats Directive in the face of resistance by the TCCA (Turf Cutters and Contractors Association). Whilst the purpose of the designation is to protect unique habitats, another effect has been to prohibit the traditional right to cut turf on Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). The rationale behind the designation and the mechanisms by which this process has been mediated has been highly contested, with the TCCA claiming the scope inherent in the Directive to consider the de-classification of SACs to have been inadequately addressed by government. The paper concludes with a Foucauldian critique of regulatory authority, legitimacy discourses and agency in the application of participatory processes underpinning environmental regulatio

Synergy between face alignment and tracking via Discriminative Global Consensus Optimization

An open question in facial landmark localization in video is whether one should perform tracking or tracking-by-detection (i.e. face alignment). Tracking produces fittings of high accuracy but is prone to drifting. Tracking-by-detection is drift-free but results in low accuracy fittings. To provide a solution to this problem, we describe the very first, to the best of our knowledge, synergistic approach between detection (face alignment) and tracking which completely eliminates drifting from face tracking, and does not merely perform tracking-by-detection. Our first main contribution is to show that one can achieve this synergy between detection and tracking using a principled optimization framework based on the theory of Global Variable Consensus Optimization using ADMM; Our second contribution is to show how the proposed analytic framework can be integrated within state-of-the-art discriminative methods for face alignment and tracking based on cascaded regression and deeply learned features. Overall, we call our method Discriminative Global Consensus Model (DGCM). Our third contribution is to show that DGCM achieves large performance improvement over the currently best performing face tracking methods on the most challenging category of the 300-VW dataset

Detecting cow behaviours associated with parturition using computer vision

Monitoring of dairy cows and their calf during parturition is essential in determining if there are any associated problems for mother and offspring. This is a critical period in the productive life of the mother and offspring. A difficult and assisted calving can impact on the subsequent milk production, health and fertility of a cow, and its potential survival. Furthermore, an alert to the need for any assistance would enhance animal and stockperson wellbeing. Manual monitoring of animal behaviour from images has been used for decades, but is very labour intensive. Recent technological advances in the field of Computer Vision based on the technique of Deep Learning have emerged, which now makes automated monitoring of surveillance video feeds feasible. The benefits of using image analysis compared to other monitoring systems is that image analysis relies upon neither transponder attachments, nor invasive tools and may provide more information at a relatively low cost. Image analysis can also detect and track the calf, which is not possible using other monitoring methods. Using cameras to monitor animals is commonly used, however, automated detection of behaviours is new especially for livestock. Using the latest state-of-the-art techniques in Computer Vision, and in particular the ground-breaking technique of Deep Learning, this thesis develops a vision-based model to detect the progress of parturition in dairy cows. A large-scale dataset of cow behaviour annotations was created, which included over 46 individual cow calvings and is approximately 690 hours of video footage with over 2.5k of video clips, each between 3-10 seconds. The model was trained on seven different behaviours, which included standing, walking, shuffle, lying, eating, drinking, and contractions while lying. The developed network correctly classified the seven behaviours with an accuracy of between 80 to 95%. The accuracy in predicting contractions while lying down was 83%, which in itself can be an early warning calving alert, as all cows start contractions one to two hours before giving birth. The performance of the model developed was also comparable to methods for human action classification using the Kinetics dataset

Top managers & information systems: ‘Crossing the Rubicon’!

In reviewing the influence of information systems on today’s organisations, it becomes evident that top managers play a critical role in their inevitable success or failure. Yet, despite these systems strategic relevance many studies reveal a dichotomous relationship between ‘management’ and ‘information systems’, a relationship kept polarised by organisational myths resulting in the emergence of differing community perspectives. Such division is borne out in the increasingly high rates of information systems failure within practice. As strategic stewards of the organisation, top managers are noted to play a vital role in supporting information systems. Support is said to be a multifaceted concept requiring both thought and action. This paper in reviewing the information systems management literature attempts to unravel the mystery that has shrouded this topic over the past five decades. The journey seeks to provide top managers with a roadmap before Crossing the Rubicon to support the introduction of information systems

Shattered dreams – inner city revitalisation, gentrification and the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011

The major earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 brought to an abrupt end a process of adaptive reuse, revitalisation and gentrification that was underway in the early 20th century laneways and buildings located in the south eastern corner of the Christchurch Central Business District. Up until then, this location was seen as an exemplar of how mixed use could contribute to making the central city an attractive and viable alternative to the suburban living experience predominant in New Zealand. This thesis is the result of a comprehensive case study of this “Lichfield Lanes” area, which involved in depth interviews with business owners, observation of public meetings and examination of documents and the revitalisation research literature. Findings were that many of the factors seen to make this location successful pre-earthquakes mirror the results of similar research in other cities. These factors include: the importance of building upon historic architecture and the eclectic spaces this creates; a wide variety of uses generating street life; affordable rental levels; plus the dangers of uniformity of use brought about by focussing on business types that pay the most rent. Also critical is co-operation between businesses to create and effectively market and manage an identifiable precinct that has a coherent style and ambience that differentiates the location from competing suburban malls. In relation to the latter, a significant finding of this project was that the hospitality and retail businesses key to the success of Lichfield Lanes were not typical and could be described as quirky, bohemian, chaotic, relatively low rent, owner operated and appealing to the economically important “Creative Class” identified by Richard Florida (2002) and others. In turn, success for many of these businesses can be characterised as including psychological and social returns rather than simply conventional economic benefits. This has important implications for inner city revitalisation, as it contrasts with the traditional focus of local authorities and property developers on physical aspects and tenant profitability as measures of success. This leads on to an important conclusion from this research, which is that an almost completely inverted strategy from that applied to suburban mall development, may be most appropriate for successful inner city revitalisation. It also highlights a disconnection between the focus and processes of regulatory authorities and the outcomes and processes most acceptable to the people likely to frequent the central city. Developers are often caught in the middle of this conflicted situation. Another finding was early commitment by businesses to rebuild the case study area in the same style, but over time this waned as delay, demolition, insurance problems, political and planning uncertainty plus other issues made participation by the original owners and tenants impossible or uneconomic. In conclusion, the focus of inner city revitalisation is too often on buildings rather than the people that use them and what they now desire from the central city