Honoring and Maintaining a Dual Identity

My father taught at a church-affiliated college as a professor of philosophy. My mother, for much of my growing-up years, was a fifth-grade public school teacher. Although I was shaped by both of these models, and attracted to each, I initially came down on the side of elementary teaching. For close to 10 years I worked, mostly happily, with upper-elementary children in both public and private settings. Professionally, at least, I seemed to have much more to talk about with my mother. Having subsequently completed a doctorate in the history of education (including much formal and informal study of philosophy) and having taught now for 15 years at a small Christian liberal arts college, friends often point out how much my life resembles that of my father

A Comparison of Models for the Fulton-Macpherson Operads

In this thesis we explore the structure of the Fulton-Macpherson operads F_N by providing two new models for them. It is shown in work of Salvatore that these operads are cofibrant by claiming the existence of an isomorphism of operads from WF_N to F_N. Here, W is a functor which, for a large class of topological operads, produces cofibrant replacements. It would be satisfying to be able to write down explicitly what these isomorphisms are. Our new models are an attempt to move towards this. The building blocks of the first model appeared in the Ph.D. thesis of Daniel Singh but they were not assembled into an operad here. This model has a more algebraic feel than others in the literature which gives it technical advantages. We use this to demonstrate many of the well-known properties of the Fulton-Macpherson operads. In particular, we are able to write down explicit isomorphisms between F_1 and the Stasheff operad which we have not seen previously in the literature. This model is isomorphic to other models of the Fulton-Macpherson operads. The second model is a realisation of an operad in posets. This poset operad is built from combinatorial objects called chains of preorders. These objects encode maps from a finite set A to some Euclidean space R^N. In particular, we can impose restrictions to encode injective maps of this type. This model is equivalent up to homotopy to the Fulton-Macpherson operads in a way which we define. It is also homotopy equivalent to the Smith operads, another example of topological operads defined combinatorially. The main advantage of this model is that it has an obvious spine which may pave the way to writing down the desired isomorphisms from WF_N to F_N

Search, choice, and revealed preference

With complete information, choice of one option over another conveys preference. Yet when search is incomplete, this is not necessarily the case. It may instead reflect unawareness that a superior alternative was available. To separate these phenomena, we consider non-standard data on the evolution of provisional choices with contemplation time. We characterize precisely when the resulting data could have been generated by a general form of sequential search. We characterize also search that terminates based on a reservation utility stopping rule. We outline an experimental design that captures provisional choices in the pre-decision period.Revealed preference, search theory, stochastic choice

Design of a processor to support the teaching of computer systems

Teaching computer systems, including computer architecture, assembly language programming and operating system implementation, is a challenging occupation. At the University of Waikato this is made doubly true because we require all computer science and information systems students study this material at second year. The challenges of teaching difficult material to a wide range of students have driven us to find ways of making the material more accessible. The corner stone of our strategy for delivering this material is the design and implementation of a custom CPU that meets the needs of teaching. This paper describes our motivation and these needs. We present the CPU and board design and describe the implementation of the CPU in an FPGA. The paper also includes some reflections on the use of a real CPU rather than a simulation environment. We conclude with a discussion of how the CPU can be used for advanced classes in computer architecture and a description of the current status of the project

Four wheel drive tourism and economic development opportunities for remote areas

Desert areas account for around 70% of Australia’s landmass but are home to less than 3% of the population. The economies of many desert areas have been described as marginal or peripheral. Tourism is an important economic activity for desert destinations and one sector, four wheel drive tourism, has been gaining increasing attention. This paper examines the spending patterns of four wheel drive visitors to desert regions of the Northern Territory of Australia and compares them to non-four wheel drive leisure visitors for a five year period from 2000 to 2004. In addition to assessing the amount of expenditure (overall and per day), the research investigates whether there were differences in expenditure items and the dispersal of expenditure among destinations. This information can help inform decisions about levels of investment for attracting the four wheel drive market which might be justified, and the types of product opportunities that might arise from a growing market

Digital Occupation: Augmented Reality as Contested Space

An overview of the political potential of using Augmented Reality as a political act, contrasting the politics of occupying the material and virtual city