Some responses of Eryngium vesiculosum Labill to light intensity, daylength and nitrogen : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Horticultural Science in Plant Science at Massey University

Eryngium vesiculosum Labill. is a plant commonly found in sandy coastal flat in New Zealand. Some preliminary observations (pers comm. Veale) had suggested that flowering in this species might be controlled by the external environment especially with respect to daylength. Normally the mature plant has oblong and dissected leaves but in the shade the leaves tend to have less dissection and this change in leaf form serves as a useful feature for morphological investigations. Another interesting feature of the plant is that it produces runners like the strawberry plant. The plant also produces daughter plants on the runners and lateral branches. The production of these organs, which enables a large family of homogenous plants to be raised rapidly by vegetative propagation is another feature which would make this plant useful experimental material. The object of this study is to obtain some information on the effects of light intensity, daylength and nitrogen on flowering, leaf morphology and anatomy and plant growth. Much work has been carried out on the effects of the three external factors used in this study on many plant species but none on E. vesiculosum. Because of the absence of such information on this plant, the review of literature includes other plant species thus making it more voluminous than otherwise would be. For obvious reasons the review has been limited to present only the salient responses of some plant species to light intensity, daylength and nitrogen. [FROM INTRODUCTION

Oral History Interview with Leong Kwong Sin: Conceptualising SMU

This is an abridged version of the original interview. Please contact the Library at [email protected] for access to the full version of the transcript and/or audio recording.</p

ANALYZING BIG DATA WITH DECISION TREES

ANALYZING BIG DATA WITH DECISION TREE

Programmable logic controller based variable speed drives for educational trainer

The PLC based motor control system is the key area of concerned to relate PLC to the real industrial environment. However, there is no PLC based industrial motor control trainer available in the Automation lab of Politeknik Kota Kinabalu for the practical purposes. This has initiated the need to develop a research and product on the title of “Programmable Logic Controller Based Variable Speed Drives For Educational Trainer”. This research focused on VSD controlled by PLC conventional programming and Fuzzy Logic based PLC programming. A prototype “Two Conveyors Packaging System” has been constructed. This application is to synchronize two conveyors so that parts and packaging boxes are positioned correctly, regardless of the part and package box positions and the speed of conveyor. Several PLC programs were developed individually for sectionals of the prototype application; the input devices photoelectric part sensors (P004A), motor encoders E1 and E2 (P004B) and output device is VSD for box conveyor M2 (P004E). All these programs can work independently; subsequently to be combined to control the whole prototype application with additional PLC program on conventional basis, and fuzzy logic basis (P004C and P004D). These step by step programming methods contributed to the 10 experiments procedures to achieve the objective to construct the educational trainer procedures. As a conclusion, this research has achieved the objectives to construct the educational trainer procedures to implement PLC conventional and fuzzy logic based programming to control a motor driven by VSD, based on the concept of Prototype Two Conveyor Packaging System

How Might Different Cultural Worldviews Affect Collaborative Inhibition

Collaborative inhibition is a phenomenon whereby a group of people who collaborate (collaborative group) recall less information than a group of people who recall information individually (nominal group). However, collaborative groups make fewer intrusions, or mistakes, than the nominal groups. The current research investigated whether cultural worldviews, individualism and collectivism, can influence collaborative inhibition and the number of intrusions made. Ninety participants were pre-screened through Individualism-Collectivism (IC) measure by Triandis et al. (1986). Participants were then assigned into either individualistic group or collectivistic group based on their scores. Within each group, participants were randomly paired into either collaborative dyads or nominal dyads and then completed a word list recall task. Twenty-six participants were excluded because they either refused to continue the experiment or their scores in the IC measure were insufficient to reflect their cultural worldviews. Two significant differences: 1) nominal dyads make more intrusions than collaborative dyads, which is consistent with the findings of previous research, and 2) contrary to the hypothesis, Individualistic Collaborative Group recalled more words than Individualistic Nominal Group, whereas Collectivistic Collaborative Group recalled fewer words than Collectivistic Nominal Group. This unexpected interaction could be explained by two reasons: 1) Collectivists are shy in interacting with strangers, whereas Individualists are not, and 2) Collectivism encourages face-saving behavior, while Individualism promotes achievement

Erasure Coding for Real-Time Streaming

We consider a real-time streaming system where messages are created sequentially at the source, and are encoded for transmission to the receiver over a packet erasure link. Each message must subsequently be decoded at the receiver within a given delay from its creation time. The goal is to construct an erasure correction code that achieves the maximum message size when all messages must be decoded by their respective deadlines under a specified set of erasure patterns (erasure model). We present an explicit intrasession code construction that is asymptotically optimal under erasure models containing a limited number of erasures per coding window, per sliding window, and containing erasure bursts of a limited length.Comment: Extended version of a conference paper in the IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), July 2012. 12 pages, 3 figure

Exploring the effects of outdoor activities and connectedness with nature on cognitive styles and creativity : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Listed in 2017 Dean's List of Exceptional ThesesThe natural environment’s potential to improve education, work, and lifestyles is receiving increasing attention by policy makers and practitioners. Psychological research has demonstrated that stress reduction, attention restoration, and increased creativity can result from exposure to nature. Such evidence notwithstanding, the precise psychological mechanisms explaining these effects remain unclear. This thesis provides a systematic examination of how contact with nature might affect humans. Four studies were conducted. Study 1 reports two meta-analyses (N = 10701, k = 100) involving: (i) 66 studies using preand post-test designs, and (ii) 32 experimental studies that include a control group. Although outdoor activities have been found overall to affect personal and social outcomes positively, there has been limited research into the effects on cognitive variables of exposure to outdoor environments. To address this gap in the literature, I aim to investigate whether contact with nature (in two dimensions–the psychological attachment to nature and the physical exposure to it) is associated with processes related to creativity (i.e., cognitive styles and divergent thinking creativity). Study 2 (N = 138) tests the relationship between connectedness with nature and cognitive styles and reports a significant positive association between connectedness with nature and both innovative and holistic thinking styles. Building on this finding, Study 3 (N = 185) not only replicates the results of Study 2 by controlling for wellbeing processes, but includes a new creativity test to examine the link between connectedness with nature and creative processes (connectedness with nature is found to be positively linked with divergent-thinking creativity). As these three studies employ cross-sectional data where causality cannot be inferred, the last study involves an experimental design. Study 4 (N = 93) manipulates active versus passive engagement with nature and examines the mediating impact of connectedness with nature on the link between outdoor activities and divergentthinking creativity. Some theoretical explanations as to how nature might affect our creativity are proposed. Potential limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed. The findings are intended to provide supporting evidence for the relationship between nature and creativity, and hopefully inform educational pedagogy and lifestyle choices likely to enhance creativity

Preleukemia: one name, many meanings.

Definition of preleukemia has evolved. It was first used to describe the myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) with a propensity to progress to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Individuals with germline mutations of either RUNX1, CEBPA, or GATA2 can also be called as preleukemic because they have a markedly increased incidence of evolution into AML. Also, alkylating chemotherapy or radiation can cause MDS/preleukemia, which nearly always progress to AML. More recently, investigators noted that AML patients who achieved complete morphological remission after chemotherapy often have clonal hematopoiesis predominantly marked by either DNMT3A, TET2 or IDH1/2 mutations, which were also present at diagnosis of AML. This preleukemic clone represents involvement of an early hematopoietic stem cells, which is resistant to standard therapy. The same clonal hematopoietic mutations have been identified in older 'normal' individuals who have a modest increased risk of developing frank AML. These individuals have occasionally been said, probably inappropriately, to have a preleukemia clone. Our evolving understanding of the term preleukemia has occurred by advancing technology including studies of X chromosome inactivation, cytogenetics and more recently deep nucleotide sequencing