Rural land subdivision and suburbanisation in the peri-urban area, Kairanga County (1970-1980) : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Geography at Massey University

After briefly outlining the patterns and processes of rural land subdivision and suburbanisation in other parts of New Zealand, the thesis examines the rural land subdivision regulations and policies throughout the country. The development of a number of small size farmlets in the peri-urban areas has been an indicator of urban expansion in parts of the country. This study is based upon the Kairanga County, a rural area surrounding the city of Palmerston North. In the introduction the county is described as it relates to the rural land subdivision situation. The study of size of holding refers to those farmlets with an area of 20 hectares or less. It was found that most dwellings in the study area which had been built in the 1970s were concentrated upon 'subdivision' land. These farmlets or holdings also illustrated the patterns of change in land use and land holdings. There has been an increase in the number of dwellings in the rural area of the county, especially in 'subdivision' areas, with an average of more than sixteen houses per year. A small percentage of rural 'subdivision' landowners work full-time on their holdings but most of them are employed in non-farming occupations and only carry on part-time farming activities on their lands. There are 61 percent of all those employed in the county engaged in the non-farming occupations. It was found that there are more 'potential' subdivisions than 'actual' subdivisions both in terms of total area and of total numbers of holdings. Most small holdings tend to be located closer to the Palmerston North Urban Area. The total number of holdings has increased because larger holdings have been subdivided into smaller-sized holdings. The area of 'subdivision' land in holdings of 20 hectares or less represents 23 percent of the total occupied land in the county. The land use patterns of 'subdivision' land have changed with a greater variety of land uses and farming types. There was an average of at least two separate types of land use or farming on each holding. Some 5,003 hectares of land in the county has been legally subdivided for smaller farmlets each with an area of 20 hectares or less. When these farmlets become 'actual' subdivisions most of them would be in part for residential use and eventually add to the peri-urban area around Palmerston North City. Finally it was concluded that the pattern and process of suburbanisation of Kairanga County will continue as long as 'potential' subdivision land is available for settlement

Characterization of Infrared Dark Clouds -- NH3_3 Observations of an Absorption-contrast Selected IRDC Sample

Despite increasing research in massive star formation, little is known about its earliest stages. Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) are cold, dense and massive enough to harbour the sites of future high-mass star formation. But up to now, mainly small samples have been observed and analysed. To understand the physical conditions during the early stages of high-mass star formation, it is necessary to learn more about the physical conditions and stability in relatively unevolved IRDCs. Thus, for characterising IRDCs studies of large samples are needed. We investigate a complete sample of 218 northern hemisphere high-contrast IRDCs using the ammonia (1,1)- and (2,2)-inversion transitions. We detected ammonia (1,1)-inversion transition lines in 109 of our IRDC candidates. Using the data we were able to study the physical conditions within the star-forming regions statistically. We compared them with the conditions in more evolved regions which have been observed in the same fashion as our sample sources. Our results show that IRDCs have, on average, rotation temperatures of 15 K, are turbulent (with line width FWHMs around 2 km s$^{-1}$), have ammonia column densities on the order of $10^{14}$ cm$^{-2}$ and molecular hydrogen column densities on the order of $10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$. Their virial masses are between 100 and a few 1000 M$_\odot$. The comparison of bulk kinetic and potential energies indicate that the sources are close to virial equilibrium. IRDCs are on average cooler and less turbulent than a comparison sample of high-mass protostellar objects, and have lower ammonia column densities. Virial parameters indicate that the majority of IRDCs are currently stable, but are expected to collapse in the future.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, 7 tables. Paper accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Classifiers With a Reject Option for Early Time-Series Classification

Early classification of time-series data in a dynamic environment is a challenging problem of great importance in signal processing. This paper proposes a classifier architecture with a reject option capable of online decision making without the need to wait for the entire time series signal to be present. The main idea is to classify an odor/gas signal with an acceptable accuracy as early as possible. Instead of using posterior probability of a classifier, the proposed method uses the "agreement" of an ensemble to decide whether to accept or reject the candidate label. The introduced algorithm is applied to the bio-chemistry problem of odor classification to build a novel Electronic-Nose called Forefront-Nose. Experimental results on wind tunnel test-bed facility confirms the robustness of the forefront-nose compared to the standard classifiers from both earliness and recognition perspectives

Comparison of the scintillation noise above different observatories measured with MASS instruments

Scintillation noise is a major limitation of ground base photometric precision. An extensive dataset of stellar scintillation collected at 11 astronomical sites world-wide with MASS instruments was used to estimate the scintillation noise of large telescopes in the case of fast photometry and traditional long-exposure regime. Statistical distributions of the corresponding parameters are given. The scintillation noise is mostly determined by turbulence and wind in the upper atmosphere and comparable at all sites, with slightly smaller values at Mauna Kea and largest noise at Tolonchar in Chile. We show that the classical Young's formula under-estimates the scintillation noise.The temporal variations of the scintillation noise are also similar at all sites, showing short-term variability at time scales of 1 -- 2 hours and slower variations, including marked seasonal trends (stronger scintillation and less clear sky during local winter). Some correlation was found between nearby observatories.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 14 pages, 11 figure

IMPLEMENTASI APLIKASI ONE STOP PET CARE BERBASIS WEBSITE UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KUALITAS PELAYANAN PADA CHIRA PET CARE

Pet care merupakan tempat yang menyediakan layanan untuk kesehatan hewan peliharaan. Dewasa ini usaha pet care semakin berkembang. Di Indonesia banyak yang mendirikan usaha pet care, salah satunya adalah Chira Pet Care. Chira Pet Care menjual hewan peliharaan serta menyediakan layanan kesehatan untuk hewan peliharaan. Beberapa kendala yang dihadapi dalam pelayanan di Chira Pet Care diantaranya masih menggunakan proses manual untuk menyimpan data transaksi. Proses tersebut memiliki kelemahan rawan hilang dan sulitnya mencari data yang dicari ketika data sudah menumpuk dan belum adanya penerapan basis data transaksi yang dapat menyebabkan pencatatan yang tidak akurat. Chira Pet Care membutuhkan suatu sistem informasi untuk membantu dalam mengolah data serta menyimpan data-data transaksi sehingga tidak perlu lagi menulis dalam buku. Banyak kelemahan ketika masih menulis dalam buku, misalnya buku hilang maka semua data-data transaksi pun ikut hilang. Oleh karena itu, diperlukan pembuatan sistem informasi berbasis komputer agar bisa mengolah data dengan efektif dan efisien