Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Versatile and Efficient Anomaly Detection for Fog Computing Applications
Recipient(s): Dr XZ Zhang | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor Z Salcic | AI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: Anomaly detection aims to identify unusual but informative patterns from data and is therefore the most adopted data analytics technique for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Although fog computing, which sits between IoT devices and cloud, can provide considerable infrastructural resources, it is still a challenge to perform effective and efficient detection on IoT streams due to their big data nature. A potentially promising solution is to exploit a recently proposed forest-isolation model that reduces the detection time by two orders of magnitude. However, the lack of theoretical understanding of this model severely restricts its use to only a few anomaly types. This project aims to understand the effectiveness of the forest-isolation model for streaming data with the use of the similarity hashing technique that can significantly reduce the complexity of similarity computation, and accordingly develop a scalable and universally applicable detection framework. The success of the project will contribute new fundamental knowledge to both the theory and the practice of streaming data anomaly detection, and stimulate a new research direction that uses similarity hashing for machine learning tasks. The project will also lead to the adoption of our approaches to various applications such as remote healthcare and smart manufacturing.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr XZ Zhang
Panel: MIS
Project ID: 17-UOA-248
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Videogame classification: Assessing the experience of play
Recipient(s): Dr GR Schott | PI | University of Waikato
Prof FI Mäyrä | AI | University of Tampere
Dr L Nacke | AI | Blekinge Institute of Technology
Public Summary: If films were classified on the basis of their soundtrack alone its likely that most people would consider this unrepresentative of the full experience subsequently offered to audiences once films are released. Yet, a scenario comparable to this is currently operating when interactive games are being classified. With the same assessment criteria developed for linear mediums (film, television & literature), also being applied to the rating of games, the unique experiential properties of games are left unaccounted for. In doing so, there is also a failure to accurately predict how games are going to be encountered and used (both positively and negatively) once they enter society and culture. Games are a complex and hybrid medium, at once a ‘text’ that can be read, and an activity that demand players participate in the construction of its structure – these qualities demand new theorisation, applied research and progressive legislation. This project will employ a comprehensive and progressive multi-method approach to determine for the first time, the precise and full nature of the impact games exert during play. This will produce a new model of media reception/use that aims to directly inform the practices of New Zealand’s censorship office.
Total Awarded: $352,174
Duration: 3
Host: University of Waikato
Contact Person: Dr GR Schott
Panel: HUM
Project ID: 10-UOW-024
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Volcanoes can make waves too: a new understanding of tsunamis generated by volcanic eruptions
Recipient(s): Dr EM Lane | PI | NIWA - The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd
Dr WL Power | PI | GNS Science
Dr PV Nomikou | AI | University of Athens
Dr S Popinet | AI | Université Pierre et Marie Curie
Dr CN Whittaker | AI | The University of Auckland
Professor JDL White | AI | University of Otago
Public Summary: The tsunamis generated by the 1883 eruption of Krakatau killed more than 36,000 people up to 800 kilometres from the crater. Although neither as common, nor as powerful, as earthquake-generated tsunamis, volcanic tsunamis cause destruction much further away than the actual eruption - tsunamis have causes 25% of all deaths during historical volcanic eruptions. Yet we still only have a basic understanding of the processes involved. Discrete explosions, growth and pulsation of erupting columns and pyroclastic flows can all displace water and cause tsunamis. What factors are most important in determining the size of the tsunami an eruption causes? How do the substances involved (gases, liquids and particles) interact: their rheologies, temperatures and phases? Combining wave flume experiments (submarine eruptions and hot flows entering the water) with state-of-the-art computer modelling of multi-phase and granular flows, we will determine key elements of the fascinating processes involved in volcanoes generating tsunamis. This is much more than an historical curiosity. New Zealand is surrounded by potential volcanic tsunami sources – countless lake-filled calderas such as Lake Taupo, Auckland’s coastal volcanic field and the Kermadec Arc of submarine volcanoes stretching to the north-west. Which of these have the potential to cause dangerous tsunamis?
Total Awarded: $858,000
Duration: 3
Host: NIWA
Contact Person: Dr EM Lane
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 17-NIW-017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Waking up can be hard to do: unravelling the dynamics of sleep inertia
Recipient(s): Dr TL Signal | PI | Massey University
Dr T Balkin | AI | Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
Prof PH Gander | AI | Massey University
Public Summary: How the brain transitions in and out of sleep remains a fundamental unsolved mystery of neurobiology. On awakening, consciousness returns before full waking function. The poor performance and grogginess experienced in this transitional period is know as sleep inertia. Two studies will be conducted that systematically manipulate the factors affecting the magnitude and time course of sleep inertia after short periods of sleep at different times of the day and night. The proposed research will significantly advance basic scientific understanding of dynamics of sleep inertia and is directly relevant to the issue of workplace napping in safety critical settings.
Total Awarded: $266,667
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University
Contact Person: Dr TL Signal
Panel: EHB
Project ID: 08-MAU-108
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: War and peace in the Nursery: How do young children negotiate conflict to establish belonging and well-being in a multi-ethnic NZ early childhood centre?
Recipient(s): Professor MC Dalli | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor M Meyerhoff | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Public Summary: Peer conflict now starts earlier than ever before. By the age of 2, 65% of NZ children are interacting with peers in group-based early childhood (EC) settings. In multi-ethnic EC settings, conflict can express children’s agentic drive to establish feelings of belonging and well-being. Conflict is relational work. In learning to negotiate it – with or without adult intervention – children (re)produce social organisation, establish hierarchy and create culture. They learn about their identity. How this functions at a linguistic and embodied level is not yet understood. Using qualitative methods from phenomenology, grounded theory, and interactional sociolinguistics, our interdisciplinary team will investigate how conflict is negotiated by 2-5 year olds in a multi-ethnic EC setting. We explore the impact which conflict and conflict negotiations have on the relationships within the early learning community and how language and embodied actions are used to manage conflict and establish a sense of belonging and well-being. Our work will build up understandings of belonging and well-being that are grounded in empirical and contextual observations of naturally-arising conflicts and conflict negotiations in early childhood.
Total Awarded: $735,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Professor MC Dalli
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 16-VUW-053
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Was collapse inevitable on Easter Island (Rapa Nui): reconstructing a civilisation's failure
Recipient(s): Dr WT Baisden | PI | GNS Science
Dr M Horrocks | PI | Microfossil Research
Dr AK Aufdenkampe | AI | Stroud Water Research Center
Prof J Flenley | AI | Massey University
Public Summary: In 'Collapse', Jared Diamond highlights the spectacular and mysterious collapse of civilization on Easter Island. Diamond outlines a number of factors leading to success or failure of civilisations. We have identified that one of these factors -- fragile soils -- allows us to hypothesize that Easter Islanders would have overshot the carrying capacity of their landscape, reaching maximum population as soil nutrient depletion caused declining crop yields. We propose isotope, biomarker and DNA approaches to reconstruct the biogeochemistry of collapse and thereby test whether the timing of nutrient depletion can answer the question, 'Why did they cut down the last tree?'
Within craters where settlement occurred, we will obtain carefully located cores to precisely resolve the timing of changes in plant, animal and human populations, as well as fertility. We will examine microfossils, nitrogen isotopes, the DNA of native forest species, and sterol biomarkers derived from humans, animals (feces) and plant tissues. Starch microfossils from surrounding soils will define the extent of cropping. Collectively, the analyses will enable biogeochemical modelling.
Total Awarded: $684,444
Duration: 3
Host: GNS Science
Contact Person: Dr WT Baisden
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 08-GNS-017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Water in spinel: a robust hygrometer for the Earth and Planetary Sciences
Recipient(s): Associate Professor GF Zellmer | PI | Massey University Manawatu
Dr S Jégo | AI | University of Orleans
Professor BJ Wood | AI | University of Oxford
Professor H Yurimoto | AI | University of Hokkaido (HokuDai)
Public Summary: The amount and distribution of water trapped within minerals influence the dynamics of the Earth and other planetary bodies, including convective processes within their interiors. Water also controls the melting behaviour of rocks, and thus has a profound impact on the genesis of magmas. In turn, water dissolved in magmas determines their viscosity, crystallisation behaviour, and volume expansion during ascent at the onset of volcanic eruptions.
Estimating the water content of minerals and magmas (hygrometry) is thus of critical importance in the Earth and Planetary Sciences. However, existing hygrometers are often compromised by hydrogen diffusion, or by the lack of constraints on physical or chemical boundary conditions.
We have recently discovered water in spinels, a group of oxide minerals that are abundant in many rocks. Preliminary data indicate that hydrogen diffusion is minimal. We will quantify the water content in spinels and the parameters that influence water uptake into their crystal structures. This will allow us to develop a robust hygrometer, through which we will determine magmatic water cycles through space and time on Earth, and provide opportunities for investigating the water budgets of the Earth, Mars, Moon, and other planetary objects to advance our knowledge of planetary dynamics.
Total Awarded: $832,000
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University Manawatu
Contact Person: Associate Professor GF Zellmer
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 17-MAU-007
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Water purification using a green science approach
Recipient(s): Professor LJ Wright | PI | The University of Auckland
Associate Professor DA Patterson | AI | University of Bath
Professor TJ Collins | AI | Carnegie Mellon University
Professor V Chen | AI | University of Sydney
Public Summary: NOTE. This summary contains sensitive confidential information and will be released when the contract is completed.
Total Awarded: $810,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Professor LJ Wright
Panel: EIS
Project ID: 15-UOA-152
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2012
Title: Waves in ice: will an increase in Southern Ocean storms have an impact on Antarctic sea-ice?
Recipient(s): Dr AL Kohout | PI | NIWA - The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd
Dr R Gorman | AI | NIWA - The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd
Dr M Williams | AI | NIWA - The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd
Public Summary: Antarctic sea-ice is a key driver in the climate system. There is rising concern about the effects of increased storm activity in the Southern Ocean on Antarctic sea-ice extent. An increase in storms will lead to stronger winds and more powerful waves. Wave energy in a field of sea-ice can weaken the ice and break it into smaller floes. A sea of broken floes is more susceptible to dynamic and thermodynamic influences and has the potential to affect sea-ice extent. We hypothesize that increased storm activity in the Southern Ocean will increase wave presence in sea-ice. This hypothesis will be tested by incorporating an ice component into an operational wind-wave model. The model will be validated against Antarctic waves-in-ice observations. Our operational wave model will be used to simulate Southern Ocean storms and make predictions on the presence of waves in sea-ice. Our findings will be invaluable to the waves-in-ice community and will enable the investigation of the effects of increased wave presence on sea-ice extent through the application of floe break-up, dynamic and thermodynamic theory.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
Contact Person: Dr AL Kohout
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 12-NIW-008
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Welfare capital and the new welfare state: A comparative study of privately financed welfare services in the Anglophone world
Recipient(s): Dr T Baker | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor EJ McCann | AI | Simon Fraser University
Public Summary: New models of privately financed welfare services are putting investors and profit-making at the centre of formerly public welfare service provision. The recent international growth of privately financed welfare services means that one of the basic logics of the modern welfare state—that welfare services should be publicly financed and not left to the market—is being overturned. Despite the scope of this change and its far-reaching implications, fundamental questions continue to go unanswered. At a time when private investment—or ‘welfare capital’—appears to be defining a new welfare state, this project will generate foundational insights into this change and its implications. How and why have privately financed welfare services come about? What changes, challenges, and implications are unfolding as a result? The proposed project addresses these questions by investigating the growth of privately financed welfare service models, and their impact on welfare politics, policy, and practice. The project involves comprehensive analysis of documentary materials, intensive interviews with 80 key informants—including politicians, investment bankers, philanthropists, social service managers, and program evaluators—and participant observation of key sites of knowledge exchange and program delivery.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr T Baker
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 16-UOA-030