Reprints, international markets and local literary taste: New empiricism and Australian literature

Taking a cue from Franco Moretti's research, my article applies statistical methods to probe the history of publishing Australian novels both locally and internationally. By temporarily suspending our discipline's preoccupation with close readings and canonical judgements, I aim to demonstrate how the computational analysis of large-scale publication data about Australian novels can also provoke alternative kinds of, and responses to, Australian literary history

Taking creative license: It's not an easy thing meeting your maker

Creators do not just 'create' or 'act' -- they are privileged agents, points of origin, sources of innovation and transformation. Within religious systems, creators can exist in an extra-discursive real beyond nature and culture, functioning as the origin of the word and being. They can be supernatural, existing outside nature to influence earthly events via strange powers. They can also be 'supra' natural -- above nature -- capable of acts that both break and establish laws to which the created are subject. Yet, these types of creators only seem to exist through the cultural economies which allow their representation. Their roles and personas can differ with the production, combination and utilisation of selected characterisations: in other words, creators are created

GPU-based Image Analysis on Mobile Devices

With the rapid advances in mobile technology many mobile devices are capable of capturing high quality images and video with their embedded camera. This paper investigates techniques for real-time processing of the resulting images, particularly on-device utilizing a graphical processing unit. Issues and limitations of image processing on mobile devices are discussed, and the performance of graphical processing units on a range of devices measured through a programmable shader implementation of Canny edge detection.Comment: Proceedings of Image and Vision Computing New Zealand 201

Stochastic Volatility Filtering with Intractable Likelihoods

This paper is concerned with particle filtering for $\alpha$-stable stochastic volatility models. The $\alpha$-stable distribution provides a flexible framework for modeling asymmetry and heavy tails, which is useful when modeling financial returns. An issue with this distributional assumption is the lack of a closed form for the probability density function. To estimate the volatility of financial returns in this setting, we develop a novel auxiliary particle filter. The algorithm we develop can be easily applied to any hidden Markov model for which the likelihood function is intractable or computationally expensive. The approximate target distribution of our auxiliary filter is based on the idea of approximate Bayesian computation (ABC). ABC methods allow for inference on posterior quantities in situations when the likelihood of the underlying model is not available in closed form, but simulating samples from it is possible. The ABC auxiliary particle filter (ABC-APF) that we propose provides not only a good alternative to state estimation in stochastic volatility models, but it also improves on the existing ABC literature. It allows for more flexibility in state estimation while improving on the accuracy through better proposal distributions in cases when the optimal importance density of the filter is unavailable in closed form. We assess the performance of the ABC-APF on a simulated dataset from the $\alpha$-stable stochastic volatility model and compare it to other currently existing ABC filters

Second Corinthians: St. Paul’s political displacement from Corinth and his rhetoric of return

St. Paul’s tumultuous intermediate visit and subsequent absence is now commonplace in Corinthian research. Yet, little progress has been made in identifying the form of social interaction involved in this event and thus its impact upon the interpretation of 2 Corinthians. What form of antique social interaction best describes a situation in which a leader exits a community in response to communal hostility only to face a series of judgments including the erasure of his political legitimacy and withdrawal of support, all of which is found in a letter, 2 Corinthians, that aims to achieve Paul’s reconciliation with and return to his ἐκκλησία in Corinth? This thesis, employing a relevance-theoretic orientation, seeks to locate the macro-exigencies of strife and absence and the macro-aims of reconciliation and return within the ancient Mediterranean world in order to become familiar with the phenomena attendant to such exigencies and aims, for which is supplied the etic descriptor, political displacement. Sensitivity to the phenomena attendant to reconciliation and return and consistent with the exigencies of strife and absence indicates that Paul’s intermediate visit and subsequent absence functioned as an identifiable occasion of political displacement, a conclusion which supplies considerable explanatory power. Guided by relevance- theoretic principles, this thesis inquires as to what persuasive strategies Paul employed in light of an updated socio-historical background. That background material supplies a highly relevant contextual parameter for the interpretation of three narratives of apostolic ordeal (2 Cor 1:8–11; 2:12–13, 7:5–16; 11:30–33) and Paul’s final appeal for an amicable return (13:1–10). I conclude that one path by which Paul aimed to overturn the judgments emerging from the intermediate visit involved the appropriation of displacement tropes interwoven with Paul’s Christological logic. In this way, Paul aimed both to reverse the judgments against him emerging from the intermediate visit and undermine the evaluative structure of his detractors who viewed him as impotent, illegitimate, and displaced

Exploratory Research into the Resilience of Farming Systems during Periods of Hardship

This paper investigates the management strategies and responses used by New Zealand sheep and beef farmers to ensure resilience during periods of hardship. Using two, farm level surveys conducted in 1986 and 2010, some aspects of resilient farming systems were identified. Despite apparent hardship current farmers seemed more willing to take risks, with many more borrowing to invest in on farm developments than those in 1986. The main similarity between time periods was the greatest response to economic changes being the adoption of a low input policy. This result was quite significant, as conventional farmers are generally believed to resort to other strategies or responses.Resilience, New Zealand, indicators, sustainable agriculture, strategies, Agribusiness, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics,

A study of the use of vibration and stress wave sensing for the detection of bearing failure

Results from an experimental study of vibrations and stress waves emitted from ball bearings are presented. Fatique tests were run with both high quality bearings and man faulted bearings, all of one size. Tests were instrumented with different sensors to detect the noises from 10 Hz to 1 MHz. Frequency spectrum plots are presented. The modulation characteristics of the ultrasonic noises were analyzed, and acoustic emission type measurements were conducted. Results are presented which show that there are usable acoustic signal levels even beyond 500 KHz. These signal levels are modulated by a low frequency carrier which is a function of the stress loading and acoustic transmissibility. The results were correlated to fault size in the bearings. The correlation shows that the sensor used for signals from 100 KHz to 1 MHz gave the best sensitivity and detected the generation of very small spalls or pits

Skilled delivery care in Indonesia

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