Autonomous control of a humanoid soccer robot : development of tools and strategies using colour vision : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Mechatronics at Massey University

Humanoid robots research has been an ongoing area of development for researchers due to the benefits that humanoid robots present, whether for entertainment or industrial purposes because of their ability to move around in a human environment, mimic human movement and being aesthetically pleasing. The RoboCup is a competition designed to further the development of robotics, with the humanoid league being the forefront of the competition. A design for the robot platform to compete at an international level in the RoboCup competition will be developed. Along with the platform, tools are created to allow the robot to function autonomously, effectively and efficiently in this environment, primarily using colour vision as its main sensory input. By using a 'point and follow' approach to the robot control a simplistic A.I. was formed which enables the robot to complete the basic functionality of a striker of the ball. Mathematical models are then presented for the comparison of stereoscopic versus monoscopic vision, with the expansion on why monoscopic vision was chosen, due to the environment of the competition being known. A monoscopic depth perception mathematical model and algorithm is then developed, along with a ball trajectory algorithm to allow the robot to calculate a moving balls trajectory and react according to its motion path. Finally through analysis of the implementation of the constructed tools for the chosen platform, details on their effectiveness and their drawbacks are discussed

From cognitive capability to social reform? Shifting perceptions of learning in immersive virtual worlds

Learning in immersive virtual worlds (simulations and virtual worlds such as Second Life) could become a central learning approach in many curricula, but the socio‐political impact of virtual world learning on higher education remains under‐researched. Much of the recent research into learning in immersive virtual worlds centres around games and gaming and is largely underpinned by cognitive learning theories that focus on linearity, problem‐solving and the importance of attaining the ‘right answer’ or game plan. Most research to date has been undertaken into students’ experiences of virtual learning environments, discussion forums and perspectives about what and how online learning has been implemented. This article reviews the literature relating to learning in immersive virtual worlds, and suggests that there needs to be a reconsideration of what ‘learning’ means in such spaces

The use of the conservation estate in the settlement of Treaty of Waitangi claims : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Ecology/Zoology at Massey University

The effect of the Treaty of Waitangi on New Zealand's conservation estate through the settlement of Treaty of Waitangi claims, and the Department of Conservation's requirement under the Conservation Act 1987 to have regard for the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi is introduced. The importance of the Treaty of Waitangi Settlement process and the controversy surrounding the role of the conservation estate in this process is also discussed. A background to the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process is presented and three major land claims and their resulting settlements are examined as case studies. These are the Tainui-Waikato raupatu claim, the Whakatohea claim, and the Ngai Tahu claim. The potential impact of each of these settlements on the ownership and management of New Zealand's conservation estate is discussed and compared with the impact of the Department of Conservation's current commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi through it's Kaupapa Atawhai Strategy on the management of the conservation estate. It was found that the settlement of Treaty of Waitangi claims has had little impact on New Zealand's conservation estate. Only very small areas of the conservation estate have had ownership transferred to claimants, and the area of land managed by the Department of Conservation has increased as a result of Treaty settlements. Treaty of Waitangi settlements have also had little impact on the management of New Zealand's conservation estate, as many of the redress instruments included in settlements are similar to the objectives and policies included in the Departments of Conservation's Kaupapa Atawhai Strategy. Future Treaty of Waitangi settlements are also unlikely to have a significant impact on New Zealand's conservation estate, and are likely to become more effective through improved consultation with the public and conservation interest groups and the closer involvement of the Department of Conservation's Kaupapa Atawhai section in the settlement process

A low-cost hyperspectral scanner for natural imaging and the study of animal colour vision above and under water

Hyperspectral imaging is a widely used technology for industrial and scientific purposes, but the high cost and large size of commercial setups have made them impractical for most basic research. Here, we designed and implemented a fully open source and low-cost hyperspectral scanner based on a commercial spectrometer coupled to custom optical, mechanical and electronic components. We demonstrate our scanner's utility for natural imaging in both terrestrial and underwater environments. Our design provides sub-nm spectral resolution between 350-950 nm, including the UV part of the light spectrum which has been mostly absent from commercial solutions and previous natural imaging studies. By comparing the full light spectra from natural scenes to the spectral sensitivity of animals, we show how our system can be used to identify subtle variations in chromatic details detectable by different species. In addition, we have created an open access database for hyperspectral datasets collected from natural scenes in the UK and India. Together with comprehensive online build- and use-instructions, our setup provides an inexpensive and customisable solution to gather and share hyperspectral imaging data

Escrow: A large-scale web vulnerability assessment tool

The reliance on Web applications has increased rapidly over the years. At the same time, the quantity and impact of application security vulnerabilities have grown as well. Amongst these vulnerabilities, SQL Injection has been classified as the most common, dangerous and prevalent web application flaw. In this paper, we propose Escrow, a large-scale SQL Injection detection tool with an exploitation module that is light-weight, fast and platform-independent. Escrow uses a custom search implementation together with a static code analysis module to find potential target web applications. Additionally, it provides a simple to use graphical user interface (GUI) to navigate through a vulnerable remote database. Escrow is implementation-agnostic, i.e. It can perform analysis on any web application regardless of the server-side implementation (PHP, ASP, etc.). Using our tool, we discovered that it is indeed possible to identify and exploit at least 100 databases per 100 minutes, without prior knowledge of their underlying implementation. We observed that for each query sent, we can scan and detect dozens of vulnerable web applications in a short space of time, while providing a means for exploitation. Finally, we provide recommendations for developers to defend against SQL injection and emphasise the need for proactive assessment and defensive coding practices

Can an ethical revival of prudence within prudential regulation tackle corporate psychopathy?

The view that corporate psychopathy played a significant role in causing the global financial crisis, although insightful, paints a reductionist picture of what we present as the broader issue. Our broader issue is the tendency for psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism to cluster psychologically and culturally as ‘dark leadership’ within global financial institutions. Strong evidence for their co-intensification across society and in corporations ought to alarm financial regulators. We argue that an ‘ethical revival’ of prudence within prudential regulation ought to be included in any package of solutions. Referencing research on moral muteness and the role of language in framing thoughts and behaviours, we recommend that regulators define prudence in an explicitly normative sense, an approach that may be further strengthened by drawing upon a widely appealing ethic of intergenerational care. An ethical revival of prudence, we argue, would allow the core problems of greed and myopia highlighted by corporate psychopathy theory to be addressed in a politically sensitive manner which recognises the pitfalls of regulating directly against corporate psychopathy. Furthermore, it would provide a viable conceptual framework to guide regulators along the treacherous path to more intrusive cultural regulation

Neighborhood Dynamics and Price Effects of Superfund Site Clean-Up

This report uses census data to analyze the price effects of superfund site clean-up, inclusive of both direct price effects and indirect effects through clean-up's effect on neighborhood demographic transitions and reinvestment in the housing stock. FRC Report 11

Editorial

Frances Bell and Rhona Sharpe became co-editors of ALT-J in September 2007, experiencing generous support from the previous team of editors, Grainne Conole, Martin Oliver and Jane Seale, during the handover period. With the support of the Editorial Board and ALT's new Director of Development, Mark van Harmelen and Publications Officer, Louise Ryan, we have a great opportunity to build on the many strengths introduced at ALT-J by the previous editors. My first venture was to commission a special issue on Learning and Teaching in Immersive Virtual Worlds, with Maggi Savin-Baden and Robert Ward as co-editors. Projects in immersive virtual worlds were proliferating, raising questions about the opportunities for learning offered by these new spaces, and how students and academics would respond to them. There was a place for the publication of early findings, and theories to guide and inform ongoing research. Are immersive virtual worlds 'disruptive technologies' (Bower and Christensen 1995) in education? To answer this question, we need to pay close attention to their use in new applications, rather than in re-creations of traditional learning activities online. Learning and teaching in Immersive Virtual Worlds This special issue comprises a number of exciting initiatives and developments that begin to put issues of learning in immersive virtual worlds centre stage. Although learning through specific types of serious games has been popular for some years, the pedagogical value of immersive worlds is currently not only inchoate but also under-researched. Whilst several of the articles here are not based on empirical research, what they do offer is new ways of considering the pedagogical purposes of using these kinds of digital spaces. The difficulty with the perception of immersive virtual worlds is that there is often a sense that they are seen as being dislocated from physical spaces, and yet they are not. Web spaces are largely viewed as necessarily freer locations where there is a sense that it is both possible and desirable to 'do things differently'. The consequence is that digital pedagogies tend to be, or at least feel, less ordered than much of face-to-face learning, forcing a reconsideration of how learning spaces in digital contexts are to be constituted (for further discussion on this see Savin-Baden 2007). Immersive virtual worlds demand that we confront the possibility of new types of visuality, literacy, pedagogy, representations of knowledge, communication and embodiment. Thus, as Pelletier has argued, “technologies are systems of cultural transmission, creating new contexts within which existing social interests express themselves” (2005, 12). Yet there remain conflicts about whether “pedagogy must lead the technology”, a stance Cousin (2005) believes has become something of a mantra. Although this position would seem plausible and convincing to adopt, it denies the difficulties inherent in putting technology in the lead. It seems that many of the difficulties about the reflexive relationship between pedagogy and technology stem from a failure to ask what might appear to be some straightforward questions, such as: * What do we mean by pedagogy in immersive virtual worlds? * For what is the learning technology to be used? * Is it learning technology, teaching technology, technology to enhance teaching and learning, or something else? * What is the relationship between the type of pedagogy to be adopted and the type of pedagogy currently being used? Cousin (2005) also points out that technology is not just lying there waiting for pedagogues to put to good use - but it might be that that is how some innovators see the situation. Knowledge to go, knowledge on the move is embodied by open source systems and in particular Web 2.0 technologies, with their emphasis on user-generated content. Yet what remains problematic is students' engagement with immersive worlds: there seems to be a marked contrast between how such spaces are used by students within the university and what they do outside formal learning environments. We hope that through this special issue some of the queries and questions raised here will promote engagement in ongoing debates that begin to move forward both the arguments and practices, in interesting and innovative ways. References 1. Bower, J. L. andChristensen, C. M. (1995) Disruptive technologies: Catching the wave. Harvard Business Review pp. 43-53. 2. Cousin, G. Land, R. and Bayne, S. (eds) (2005) Learning from cyberspace. Education in cyberspace pp. 117-129. RoutledgeFalmer , Abingdon. 3. Pelletier, C. Land, R. andBayne, S. (eds) (2005) New technologies, new identities: The university in the informational age. Education in cyberspace pp. 11-25. RoutledgeFalmer , Abingdon. 4. Savin-Baden, M. Learning spaces. Creating opportunities for knowledge creation in academic life McGraw Hill , Maidenhead

Global Contests in the Production of Business Knowledge :

Drawing on institutional theory, the global production of business research is analysed by examining the system of written outputs using one of the largest databases of journal papers ever assembled, covering over 65,000 articles produced by more than 54,000 authors from over 8,000 different institutions across the period 1992-2005. We begin by pointing out how the US business schools pioneered the modern institutional system of undertaking and disseminating research that involves the intertwining of and university business schools and journals. While Wharton and Harvard are still the leading universities globally, their crowns are slipping, together with the position of the US generally. We observe the greatest challenges to the existing order as coming from European and Asian institutions that have either copied, or been inspired to innovate by adapting, the US system. London Business School, Erasmus, INSEAD and Tilburg are threatening to topple leading US universities in the undertaking of research, and other European and Asian institutions are close behind.