Ngāti Tāwhaki ki Ngāpūtahi: A View on Enabling Their Social Architecture

Socially Responsible Architecture is the way in which an architect practices architecture, but more so the way in which they relate and integrate their clients. This thesis explores the nature of a socially responsible architecture through a series of social interactions with the people of Ngāti Tāwhaki ki Ngāpūtahi. Aiming to understand what are the most appropriate design decisions for their architecture and their hapū's future. This thesis is chronologically taught by real people (the clients of the project) and the lessons learnt through my social interaction with these clients are attributed to the main contention of this thesis, Social Architecture. The design decision-making process for a newly proposed marae at Ngāpūtahi, in Te Urewera, is the means to which I understand how this process differs from mainstream or conventional architectural practice. The means to which I understand what the most appropriate way of practicing this architecture is through an understanding of Kaupapa Māori theory but more so understanding my clients through the relationships that I have formed with them. Within this thesis the nature of these relationships and the way in which they originated are explored. It is an exploration into not only the nature of this architectural project but also an exploration into how my contentions about the nature of this socially responsible architecture developed. Thus a personal insight into how my learning developed throughout the process

Investigations into some important fish larvae in the south east Atlantic in relation to the hydrological environment

Includes bibliographies at end of chapters.The following objectives are covered in the study: (i) the description of the seasonal hydrological changes in the survey area and a comparison between years. (ii) an examination of the seasonal distribution and abundance of the larval stages in relation to hydrological conditions. (iii) the determination of the preferential temperature and salinity ranges for the larvae. (iv) an examination of seasonal shift in location and intensity of spawning from the geographic distribution, abundance and size composition of the larvae. (v) the establishment of dispersal trends of developing larvae from the spawning grounds. (vi) the provision of information on the identity and development of important fish eggs and larvae. (vii) the determination of diurnal changes in abundance and size composition of various larval species. The results reported are regarded as scientifically significant in view of the paucity of basic information on the early life history of any fish species off South West Africa. Many aspects such as identity, development, distribution, abundance, hydrological affinities, diurnal variation and dispersal are given for the first time. The findings make a positive contribution not only to knowledge of the early stages and biology of the species but also provide an insight into the general ecology of fish larvae in what is probably the most productive and lucrative fishing grounds in the South East Atlantic

Control techniques for mechatronic assisted surgery

The treatment response for traumatic head injured patients can be improved by using an autonomous robotic system to perform basic, time-critical emergency neurosurgery, reducing costs and saving lives. In this thesis, a concept for a neurosurgical robotic system is proposed to perform three specific emergency neurosurgical procedures; they are the placement of an intracranial pressure monitor, external ventricular drainage, and the evacuation of chronic subdural haematoma. The control methods for this system are investigated following a curiosity led approach. Individual problems are interpreted in the widest sense and solutions posed that are general in nature. Three main contributions result from this approach: 1) a clinical evidence based review of surgical robotics and a methodology to assist in their evaluation, 2) a new controller for soft-grasping of objects, and 3) new propositions and theorems for chatter suppression sliding mode controllers. These contributions directly assist in the design of the control system of the neurosurgical robot and, more broadly, impact other areas outside the narrow con nes of the target application. A methodology for applied research in surgical robotics is proposed. The methodology sets out a hierarchy of criteria consisting of three tiers, with the most important being the bottom tier and the least being the top tier. It is argued that a robotic system must adhere to these criteria in order to achieve acceptability. Recent commercial systems are reviewed against these criteria, and are found to conform up to at least the bottom and intermediate tiers. However, the lack of conformity to the criteria in the top tier, combined with the inability to conclusively prove increased clinical benefit, particularly symptomatic benefit, is shown to be hampering the potential of surgical robotics in gaining wide establishment. A control scheme for soft-grasping objects is presented. Grasping a soft or fragile object requires the use of minimum contact force to prevent damage or deformation. Without precise knowledge of object parameters, real-time feedback control must be used to regulate the contact force and prevent slip. Moreover, the controller must be designed to have good performance characteristics to rapidly modulate the fingertip contact force in response to a slip event. A fuzzy sliding mode controller combined with a disturbance observer is proposed for contact force control and slip prevention. The robustness of the controller is evaluated through both simulation and experiment. The control scheme was found to be effective and robust to parameter uncertainty. When tested on a real system, however, chattering phenomena, well known to sliding mode research, was induced by the unmodelled suboptimal components of the system (filtering, backlash, and time delays). This reduced the controller performance. The problem of chattering and potential solutions are explored. Real systems using sliding mode controllers, such as the control scheme for soft-grasping, have a tendency to chatter at high frequencies. This is caused by the sliding mode controller interacting with un-modelled parasitic dynamics at the actuator-input and sensor-output of the plant. As a result, new chatter-suppression sliding mode controllers have been developed, which introduce new parameters into the system. However, the effect any particular choice of parameters has on system performance is unclear, and this can make tuning the parameters to meet a set of performance criteria di cult. In this thesis, common chatter-suppression sliding mode control strategies are surveyed and simple design and estimation methods are proposed. The estimation methods predict convergence, chattering amplitude, settling time, and maximum output bounds (overshoot) using harmonic linearizations and invariant ellipsoid sets

Red Ink : open source financial analytics for people & communities

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.Red Ink is an open source social-financial web-service that enables people to share, aggregate, analyze, visualize and publish their financial transactions as individuals and ad-hoc groups, through data sharing campaigns. Virtual and geographic communities of financial data sharers can form on Red Ink to create new sources of information for self-knowledge and understanding of complex personal, community, economic, environmental, and civic concerns and how to better coordinate their solutions. Red Ink posits that just like volunteering time or donating money, personal financial data is itself an asset that people can share to gain group leverage. Further, in the hands of everyday people, the data and tools of corporate scale consumer analysis will be reborn to serve larger and more personally meaningful goals.by Ryan O'Toole.S.M