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Search Marsden awards 2008–2017

Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017

Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2011

Title: Onscreen indigeneity: the case of Maori Television

Recipient(s): Dr JT Smith | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr SM Abel | PI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: What does Maori Television mean for Indigenous politico-cultural revitalisation and New Zealand nationhood in a global context? Launched in 2004, Maori Television has attracted a broad audience while having a specific mandate to revitalise Maori language and culture. Seven years after its emergence, the broadcaster’s significance remains under-researched. This project develops a new conceptual framework—onscreen Indigeneity—to consider a) the competing demands made upon the broadcaster to fulfil Indigenous, national as well as global mandates, and b) the multiple impacts (on Indigenous identity, narratives of nationhood and interaction with global media) that result from such a refracted mandate. The tensions and dynamics between the needs of a specific Indigenous group and a more general appeal to national culture in a global context form the basis of our investigations. Our mobile framework, “Onscreen Indigeneity” examines the aesthetic, institutional and industrial dimensions of an emerging form of television culture and the ways in which these “onscreen” practices interact and engage with the more embedded knowledge systems of Indigenous communities. The project offers the first New Zealand-developed theory of Indigenous television culture and addresses three main concerns: Indigenous representations, contemporary notions of nationhood and Maori Television’s global dimensions.

Total Awarded: $669,565

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Dr JT Smith

Panel: HUM

Project ID: 11-VUW-061


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2016

Title: Opening Nature's vaults: speleothem archives of volcanic eruptions

Recipient(s): Professor JA Baker | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr SJ Barker | AI | The University of Auckland
Dr J Hellstrom | AI | University of Melbourne
Professor PW Williams | AI | The University of Auckland
Professor CJN Wilson | AI | Victoria University of Wellington

Public Summary: Some of Earth's most abrupt and extreme episodes of environmental change are considered to have resulted from large volcanic eruptions. These include those ~250 million years ago at the Permo–Triassic boundary when >95% of all species became extinct. Moreover, volcanic eruptions have triggered nearly all of Earth’s coldest years and decades during the past 2,500 years. However, beyond the historic and more recently instrumented records, the impacts of eruptions remain speculative and controversial.

We will identify the chemical fingerprints of volcanic eruptions in stalagmites (speleothems) from New Zealand caves, and verify that these are indeed volcanic in origin by conducting controlled laboratory experiments. We will accurately date these eruptions (whether from NZ or elsewhere on Earth) to unprecedented precision with enhanced methods. We will draw on arguably the world’s best archive of Southern Hemisphere speleothems collected in close proximity to the most active region of explosive Quaternary volcanism on Earth. Having identified volcanic spikes we will then, in the same archive, geochemically quantify the magnitude and longevity of regional and global post-eruptive environmental changes. This research will yield fundamental advances in identifying and quantifying environmental changes from local and global volcanic eruptions of varying sizes and magma compositions.

Total Awarded: $870,000

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Professor JA Baker

Panel: ESA

Project ID: 16-UOA-333


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2014

Title: Optical micro-elastography and biomechanics of the lung alveolar tissue

Recipient(s): Professor M Tawhai | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor PMF Nielsen | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr AR Clark | AI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: We will enhance understanding of lung mechanics by quantifying the stress-strain behaviour of alveoli during early maturity and senescence. This will be achieved by integrating novel instrumentation for applying controlled 3D displacement fields, and the measurement of force, with real-time micro-imaging and structure-based computational models of alveolar tissue. Our new approach will allow us to explain how progressive decline in whole lung mechanics with age relates to changes in the lung microstructure. Our outcomes will guide the development of new diagnostic methods to distinguish age from lung disease, and techniques for assessing lung tissue integrity in response to therapy.

Total Awarded: $765,000

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Professor M Tawhai

Panel: EIS

Project ID: 14-UOA-308


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2017

Title: Optical Nano-Machines to Study Single-Molecules

Recipient(s): Dr E Avci | PI | Massey University Manawatu
Professor S Aoyagi | AI | Kansai University
Professor MAK Williams | AI | Massey University Manawatu

Public Summary: Optical Tweezers (OT) utilize highly focused laser beams to provide advanced micromanipulation methods that allow the unravelling of fundamental biological processes at the single-molecule level. However, presently OT have a rather limited force range, and potential issues with local heating and photo-toxicity. We propose using a state-of-the-art laser printing technology (two photon polymerization) to manufacture a novel nano-mechanism, which will eliminate the drawbacks of current OT techniques. Recently we have shown the feasibility of the manufacture and optical control of such small scale mechanisms using a two-photon polymerization method.

Developing such tiny machines will open new avenues, not only for studying single molecules, but also for the analysis and manipulation of bio-particles from the nano to micro-scales (molecule-organelle-cell) for in vitro and in vivo applications. The proposed research has the potential to make OT more versatile, less invasive and, in addition, allow the application of significantly larger forces, effectively revolutionising how mechano-biology experiments are carried out with OT.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University Manawatu

Contact Person: Dr E Avci

Panel: EIS

Project ID: 17-MAU-135


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2016

Title: Optical Network-on-Chips (ONoCs): Architectures and Routing Algorithms for Ultra High-Throughput and Energy-Efficient On-Chip Communications

Recipient(s): Dr YC Chen | PI | University of Otago
Professor H Gu | AI | Xidian University
Dr H Zhang | AI | University of Otago

Public Summary: Nowadays microprocessor development has moved into a new era of many-core on-chip design, with tens or even hundreds of cores fitting within a single processor chip to speed up computing. However, conventional electrical interconnect for inter-core communication is limited by both bandwidth and power density, which creates a performance bottleneck for microchips in modern computer systems - from smartphones to supercomputers, and to large-scale data centers. Optical Network-on-Chip (ONoC), a silicon-based optical interconnection among cores at the chip level, overcomes the limitations of conventional electrical interconnects by supporting greater bandwidth with less energy consumption, and opens the door to bandwidth- and power-hungry applications such as big data analysis and general artificial intelligence. However, existing ONoC designs do not fully take the advantages of optical communication to maximize performance and save energy. This project will develop scalable architectures by introducing software-defined networking concept to ONoCs, and design efficient routing and wavelength assignment algorithms specific for ONoCs, aiming to achieve >10 fold increase on on-chip communication throughput and >5 fold reduction on energy consumption. This project will advance the state-of-the-art theories and techniques for on-chip processor design, and will foster new knowledge into computer networking/architecture, high performance/green computing, and network embedding theory.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Dr YC Chen

Panel: MIS

Project ID: 16-UOO-164


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Optical properties of metallic nano-particles for ultra-sensitive molecule detection

Recipient(s): Dr EC Le Ru | PI | Victoria University of Wellington

Public Summary: Metallic nano-particles are increasingly used in a variety of emerging optical methods aiming at dramatically improving the sensitivity of devices for molecule detection and identification. A thorough understanding of their optical properties is therefore required. This project aims to address this need by developing a theoretical and numerical framework in which these electromagnetic properties can be efficiently computed and studied. This will then be applied to cases of interest to nano-particle-based ultra-sensitive spectroscopy and will facilitate a better design and optimization of particle shape, size and composition for fundamental studies and applications.

Total Awarded: $266,667

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Dr EC Le Ru

Panel: PSE

Project ID: 09-VUW-071


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Optimal chemical and physical conditions for the origin of RNA life forms

Recipient(s): Professor GB Jameson | PI | Massey University
Dr PJB Edwards | AI | Massey University
Associate Professor GR Hedwig | AI | Massey University
Dr S Narayanaswamy | AI | Industrial Research Ltd
Professor D Penny | AI | Massey University
Professor JL Tallon | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr MR Waterland | AI | Massey University

Public Summary: What are the chemical and physical requirements for the evolution of the RNA-based life-forms that preceded DNA and proteins? The popular view that life began at high temperatures near chemically and energy rich 'black smokers' lacks experimental validation. In this project we aim to provide the first chemical and physical studies examining the role of extreme pressure and high temperature on chemical and physical stability of RNA and its constituents to challenge the hypothesis that high pressure and molecular crowding of cellular soups offset the destabilising effects of high temperature on RNA and its constituent nucleotides?

Total Awarded: $764,444

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Professor GB Jameson

Panel: EEB

Project ID: 09-MAU-140


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Optimal task scheduling on parallel systems

Recipient(s): Dr O Sinnen | PI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: Physical limits allow performance improvements in new computers only by using multiple processors concurrently. With multiple processors, however, the performance growth is not automatic anymore and can only be achieved when the processors are employed efficiently. Crucial for this is the scheduling of the tasks onto the processors, which is a fundamental unsolved problem, as the solution time grows exponentially with the number of tasks. Today, heuristics are employed that produce good, but not optimal schedules. This project will develop a novel method that solves the scheduling problem optimally for small to medium sized problems.

Total Awarded: $266,667

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Dr O Sinnen

Panel: MIS

Project ID: 09-UOA-099


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2015

Title: Out of the mouths of babes: interviewing children in forensic contexts

Recipient(s): Professor H Hayne | PI | University of Otago
Dr EC Macleod | AI | University of Otago
Dr J Gross | AI | University of Otago
Dr TG Patterson | AI | University of Otago

Public Summary: In a number of high-profile trials involving allegations of child abuse, convictions were overturned because of the way that children were questioned. The empirical legacy of these trials is that we now understand much more about the best way to interview children in legal settings. Despite this increased understanding, untested interview procedures are still commonly used to collect and present children's testimony, here and overseas. In a series of empirical studies, we will test the effect of these procedures on the content and accuracy of children's reports and on jurors' decisions. The findings will maximise the chances that professionals obtain complete and accurate accounts in cases involving children and shed new light on the way in which a child's testimony should be presented in Court. The findings will also make an important contribution to the New Zealand criminal justice system and in other parts of the world in cases involving child witnesses.

Total Awarded: $742,000

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Professor H Hayne

Panel: EHB

Project ID: 15-UOO-061


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2012

Title: Overcoming anxiety: the neuroendocrine strategy of new mothers

Recipient(s): Dr GM Anderson | PI | University of Otago
Prof DR Grattan | AI | University of Otago

Public Summary: Attenuation of anxiety during pregnancy and lactation in response to elevated levels of the hormone prolactin helps prevent programming of later-life diseases, and allows the mother to focus on nurturing dependent offspring. How this is achieved is unknown. The recently-discovered neuropeptide RFRP-3 is a potent stimulant of the stress axis, and during lactation prolactin acts on RFRP-3 neurons to suppress their output. We will use neuroanatomical techniques, combined with a new conditionally transgenic mouse line in which prolactin receptors are deleted specifically from RFRP-3 neurons, to characterise how these cells communicate the anxiolytic effects of prolactin to the stress axis.

Total Awarded: $847,826

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Dr GM Anderson

Panel: BMS

Project ID: 12-UOO-029


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