Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Cross-examination on trial: Facilitating accurate testimony from child witnesses
Recipient(s): Dr RA Zajac | PI | University of Otago
Prof RM Henaghan | AI | University of Otago
Prof MB Powell | AI | Deakin University
Public Summary: As more and more child witnesses take the stand, researchers have devoted increasing attention to children’s ability to testify in a legal system created by adults, for adults. Although numerous countries – including New Zealand – have reformed the way that they elicit primary evidence from children, cross-examination, during which the opposing lawyer attempts to discredit the child, has been largely ignored. Cross-examination is often described as a “how not to” of child interviewing because it typically involves linguistically complex, leading and confrontational questions. Our research is unique in that, as well as studying the questions asked during courtroom cross-examinations, we have also studied children’s responses. Furthermore, we have taken cross-examination questions into the laboratory to test their effect on the accuracy of children’s eyewitness testimony. We have now repeatedly shown that children experience considerable difficulty remaining accurate when cross-examined. Because cross-examination is unlikely to undergo substantial reform, we have developed a brief preparation intervention that shows great promise as a means to facilitate reliable and accurate testimony. We propose a series of laboratory studies to establish the conditions under which our intervention is most successful, followed by a field study to pilot the intervention with child witnesses in criminal trials.
Total Awarded: $692,694
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr RA Zajac
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 10-UOO-101
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Cultivating chamber music in Beethoven's Vienna: a study in socio-musicology
Recipient(s): Dr NR November | PI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: How did Viennese chamber music ca. 1800 function as social practice? This first in-depth contextual study of chamber music in Beethoven's Vienna will offer new insights into unduly neglected repertoire, under-studied private music making and a social milieu that is far more complex than scholars have recognised. The study focuses on a crucial period of social and musical change during and after the Napoleonic wars, when previously 'private' music started to be publically performed and published. Multi-layered musical analyses will explore how this chamber music could provide an interactive, flexible and 'safe' medium in which to try out, renegotiate and even enact social and aesthetic ideas. The study will probe key interactions within and between human agents (audiences, composers, critics, dedicatees, patrons, performers, publishers) and non-human agents (e.g. musical editions, genres, venues), which were central to establishing chamber music's larger social roles. The result of this research will be a monograph, and five allied critical editions of chamber music by popular and significant composers from Beethoven's Vienna who are now little known. Together, these publications will yield fresh understanding of how Viennese chamber music helped to foster education, entertainment and sociability in an era of invasion, surveillance and censorship.
Total Awarded: $580,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr NR November
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 15-UOA-308
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Cutting proteins not calories to make fat mice thin
Recipient(s): Dr K Mountjoy | PI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: A promising way to treat or prevent obesity is to activate the melanocortin system. While large pharmaceutical companies have unsuccessfully targeted a melanocortin receptor, we propose an alternate approach that targets the natural melanocortin hormone responsible for body weight regulation. The family of melanocortin hormones are derived from a large precursor protein called pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC), found in the brain and in the periphery. Special enzymes chop-up POMC to form melanocortin hormones, according to the body's requirement. Recently, we developed a genetically engineered mouse that makes all melanocortin hormones except ACTH1-13. Remarkably, the ACTH1-13 null knockin mouse develops severe obesity but otherwise appears normal, indicating that ACTH1-13 is the single most important melanocortin hormone regulating body weight. We will now characterise the effects of a lack of ACTH1-13 on weight gain and glucose regulation. To confirm these effects, we will give the mice ACTH1-13 or a natural variant that is slightly chemically altered, called alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH). This will enable identification of the correct melanocortin hormone, and its target for weight control. The training opportunities offered are unique to NZ as we are the only ones to have developed this model.
Total Awarded: $756,522
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr K Mountjoy
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 10-UOA-180
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2013
Title: DAD2, a hormone receptor that hydrolyses its ligand
Recipient(s): Dr KC Snowden | PI | Plant & Food Research Institute of New Zealand
Dr BJ Janssen | PI | Plant & Food Research Institute of New Zealand
Dr RSM Drummond | AI | Plant & Food Research Institute of New Zealand
Dr C Hamiaux | AI | Plant & Food Research Institute of New Zealand
Public Summary: Plants modulate their growth and development in response to internal and external signals using hormones. The most recently discovered plant hormone is a small class of compounds known collectively as strigolactones. Strigolactones regulate the growth of branches and senescence of leaves, and stimulate associations of plants with symbiotic fungi. Parasitic weeds also exploit these compounds to detect host plants.
We have used petunia to generate genetic, physiological and protein structural data suggesting that the DAD2 protein is a receptor for strigolactones. Our proposed research will determine how the DAD2 protein is able to perceive strigolactones by characterising the role of catalysis and conformational change in DAD2 protein function. We will also attempt to solve the structure of DAD2 in complex with its signal transduction partner PhMAX2A, giving us a detailed picture of strigolactone perception in plants.
This research will allow us to elucidate a key step in a novel hormone signalling pathway that is central to many important developmental, physiological and ecological processes in plants. A detailed picture of strigolactone perception will provide fundamental information that could be used to improve plant architecture and interactions with beneficial mycorrhizal fungi or parasitic weeds.
Total Awarded: $765,217
Duration: 3
Host: Plant and Food Research
Contact Person: Dr KC Snowden
Panel: CMP
Project ID: 13-PAF-006
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Dalits in the history of Partition in eastern India
Recipient(s): Prof S Bandyopadhyay | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr A Basu Raychaudhury | AI | Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group
Public Summary: The partition of India in 1947 unleashed unimaginable violence and triggered perhaps the greatest exodus of people in human history. Among those refugees were thousands of dalit or low-caste Hindus who fled from East Pakistan to West Bengal between 1947 and 1951. While the extant historical literature mentions their arrival and their plight, their distinctive identity got lost in this discussion and was incorporated into the wider ‘refugee’ identity. Their independent voices as a result remain inaudible in these narratives of partition. By using oral history methods and archival research this project will seek to restore the voices of the dalits in the history of partition in eastern India. It will explore if partition had any impact on caste relations in general and dalit identity politics in particular in postcolonial West Bengal. In view of the recent global scholarly and public interest in issues of citizenship, displaced persons and indigenous people in the history of nations, this project will offer an important case study of the effects of trauma on a historically oppressed subaltern group seeking their location within an emerging nation-space.
Total Awarded: $573,675
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Prof S Bandyopadhyay
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 11-VUW-002
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2011
Title: Dating the prehistory of Southern China and Southeast Asia
Recipient(s): Prof CF Higham | PI | University of Otago
Dr TF Higham | AI | University of Oxford
Dr F Petchey | AI | University of Waikato
Public Summary: The prehistorian’s task to return extinct human societies from oblivion has always confronted the dilemma of measuring time. Southeast Asia and Southern China is a region central to identifying how civilizations emerged ultimately from bands of hunters and gatherers. Yet the essential chronological scaffolding has not been defined because previous radiocarbon methods have been flawed. This proposal will lay the foundations for an accurate overall chronology that charts the major transitions: the Neolithic revolution, the adoption of bronze casting, development of complex chiefdoms and finally, the origins of the civilizations. It has been made possible by a radiocarbon dating revolution that is only now opening unprecedented possibilities for the archaeologist. It involves the ultrafiltration pre-treatment of samples of bone, linked to the Bayesian analysis of the resulting determinations. Where formerly, prehistorians were hamstrung by dates with a wide margin of error at best, it is now possible to track cultural changes with almost a generational precision. Having defined the chronological sequence, we will deploy Bayesian analyses to explore in detail the social organization within key sites, thereby establishing a new benchmark in the pursuit of the past in one of the world’s most dynamic regions.
Total Awarded: $711,304
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Prof CF Higham
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 11-UOO-022
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Deciphering the role of peroxiredoxins in the cellular response to oxidative stress
Recipient(s): Dr MB Hampton | PI | University of Otago
Prof CC Winterbourn | PI | University of Otago
Dr PM Chumakov | AI | Lerner Research Institute
Dr TJ Jönsson | AI | Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Dr WT Lowther | AI | Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Dr AV Peskin | AI | University of Otago
Public Summary: Peroxiredoxins are antioxidant proteins that scavenge peroxides. They also appear to mediate the global response of cells to oxidative stress by acting as peroxide sensors. Signal transduction pathways are characterised by protein-protein interactions. Peroxiredoxins act at the interface between small diffusible oxidants and conventional signalling pathways by dramatic structural transformation following oxidation. To uncover the details of this new signalling paradigm we will combine our expertise in peroxiredoxin biochemistry with international experts in the structural and molecular biology of peroxiredoxins and determine how oxidation, phosphorylation and C-terminal cleavage affect the kinetics of peroxiredoxin and their interactions with other cellular proteins.
Total Awarded: $760,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Dr MB Hampton
Panel: CMP
Project ID: 08-UOO-054
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Deconstructing the neuroendocrine requirements for puberty onset and ovulation
Recipient(s): Associate Professor GM Anderson | PI | University of Otago
Dr MC Evans | AI | University of Otago
Public Summary: The timing of puberty and subsequent ovulatory cycles requires exquisite coordination of genes, hormones and brain circuitry. Several neuronal pathways have been identified as being involved, but exactly how they affect reproductive activity is poorly understood. Firstly, we will first characterise the role of three different populations of neurons located at the base of the brain (termed AgRP, RFRP and GALP neurons) in controlling puberty onset and ovulation. This will be accomplished using newly developed mouse models which enable the activity of individual neuronal circuits to be activated or silenced at will. Second, we will determine how these neurons are regulated by the hormones estradiol and leptin, which provide feedback from the gonads and information about nutrient availability. To do this, we will ‘knock out’ the receptors for these hormones from the selected neuronal populations and comprehensively assess puberty onset and a range of fertility measures. Lastly, we will determine the site of action of RFRP neuropeptides by knocking out their receptor from potential target cells. Understanding how these circuits shape reproductive activity will contribute to the development of new treatments for human infertility and suboptimal breeding in animal production systems.
Total Awarded: $960,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Associate Professor GM Anderson
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 17-UOO-127
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Deep Fault Drilling Project: Physical properties and ambient conditions within the active Alpine Fault plate boundary in central South Island, New Zealand
Recipient(s): Dr R Sutherland | PI | GNS Science
Dr J Townend | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr SC Cox | AI | GNS Science
Assoc Prof TRH Davies | AI | University of Canterbury
Prof P Malin | AI | The University of Auckland
Prof DJ Prior | AI | University of Liverpool
Prof DR Schmitt | AI | University of Alberta
Dr VG Toy | AI | University of Otago
Public Summary: Determining what temperatures, stresses, and chemical conditions prevail within active faults is fundamental to understanding how faults evolve and produce earthquakes. The Alpine Fault’s geometry, rapid and precisely-known slip rates, well-studied surface exposures, and >40 years of intensive research make it a site of global importance for research into the mechanics and evolution of large faults and the conditions under which earthquakes occur. Unlike many other major faults, however, the Alpine Fault has not produced large earthquakes in historic times, providing an opportunity to study a major fault late in the cycle of stress accumulation ahead of a future earthquake.
As part of a multi-year programme to investigate the Alpine Fault’s structure, mechanics, and evolution, we will drill to a depth of 1.5 km to measure and see beyond the shallow signals caused by landscape, groundwater and climatic processes. Using rock and fluid samples, geophysical and hydraulic data, and by establishing a long-term observatory inside the fault zone, we will provide new insights into how large faults operate. This will be the first deep borehole investigation of the Alpine Fault, New Zealand's most famous and possibly most hazardous fault, and a globally significant target for fault zone studies.
Total Awarded: $800,000
Duration: 3
Host: GNS Science
Contact Person: Dr R Sutherland
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 10-GNS-011
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Deep learning without the headache: computationally efficient extraction of features from data with many correlated variables
Recipient(s): Associate Professor E Frank | PI | University of Waikato
Professor BM Pfahringer | AI | University of Waikato
Public Summary: Deep learning has taken the world by storm because of its record-breaking accuracy on challenging classification problems from computer vision, speech recognition, and natural language processing. A commonality of these fields is the prevalence of nonlinear relationships hidden in high-dimensional data with many highly correlated variables. Deep learning tackles this by training neural networks consisting of several layers of interconnected units, where intermediate layers transform the data into higher-level features. However, they are difficult and time-consuming to train successfully, requiring significant expertise and substantial computing resources. In contrast, learning algorithms that construct ensembles of decision trees are very easy to use and are amongst the most efficient algorithms to train. They are known as the best 'off-the-shelf' method for standard low-dimensional classification problems, but are unable to yield state-of-the-art performance on the problems where deep learning excels. Our hypothesis is that the very basic splitting functions used in standard tree ensembles are unable to extract robust abstract features from high-dimensional, highly correlated data. The goal of this project is to enable deep learning with ensembles of decision trees by employing more sophisticated, nonlinear, multivariate splitting functions in conjunction with multiple-instance learning techniques.
Total Awarded: $410,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Waikato
Contact Person: Associate Professor E Frank
Panel: MIS
Project ID: 15-UOW-094