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Postgraduate Projects |
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Enobong Bassey, graduated with a Master of Science degree in Petroleum
Engineering, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, after obtaining his Bachelor of
Science degree in Chemical Engineering. He will be developing a novel set of
chemical sensors or “e-nose” in short, for analysing grapevine and wine taste
for a wider project called “Eno-Humans”. The aim is to building models to
analyse and predict climate change effects in weather conditions and on wine
quality.
Project: Characterisation of Chemical Sensor Device for Logging and
Analysing Viticulture Data
Enobong is investigating into developing a novel set of chemical sensors or
“e-nose” in short, for analysing grapevine and wine taste for a wider project
called “Eno-Humans” that is aimed at building models to analyse and predict
climate change effects in weather conditions and on wine quality.
email: enobongbassey@yahoo.com
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Isaac Nti, graduated with a Master of Science in Geomatics, University of
Applied Sciences, Karlsruhe, Germany. He is a lecturer in the Department of
Computer Engineering, University of Ghana, Legon.
Project: Modeling,Simulating and Visualising the Evolution of Physical
Landscape.
Isaac is looking at contemporary physical landscape visualization and simulation
models deployed for environmental impact analysis in Geoinformatics and will
develop a novel generic framework for a software tool to visualise future
evolution of a given landscape. The software will use past and present scenarios
of the landscape to facilitate micro-management decision making processes. It
would as well serve as tool in the Eno-Humans project for modeling changes in
microclimatic conditions within vineyards. Current methods are inadequate in
obtaining sufficient in depth understanding of the effects of climate change in
the local ecosystem of vineyards.
email: inti@aut.ac.nz |
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Peter Sumich is a Chartered
Accountant with a background in Information Systems, Technology Transfer and
Financial Systems. Currently, he is Finance & Planning Manager for the Faculty
of Design & Creative Technologies and Innovation & Enterprises at AUT
University. He is also a contractor for the New Zealand Institute of Chartered
Accountants (NZICA). Peter has a Masters in Commerce with Honours in Management
Science and Information Systems and has worked across a number of industries
including multinationals, public and private companies, academia and charitable
trusts. In 2003 Peter was Auckland Young Chartered Accountant of the Year. He
has always maintained strong academic and commercial links. Peter has
represented New Zealand in sailing and performing arts.
Project: Using Econometric Modelling and Simulation Technology to Improve
Yield Forecasting and Financial Planning in Vineyards and for the Wine Industry.
Businesses are constantly trying to find better information or ways of reporting
information to improve decision making in the short and long-term. The
credibility of data and information always come into question when the
information systems are not integrated and there are material ‘gaps’ between
operational and financial systems. The ultimate aim of this project is to
measure the financial impact of using environmental data, advanced simulation
technologies and econometric modelling to assist in better decisions making.
More accurate yield predictions in vineyards should lead to improved
productivity and improved financial returns on investments. This could be
replicated from the micro to the macro level. The framework, modelling and
simulation technology should be generic for all crop industries. However, this
project will focus on the wine industry as a pilot due to its huge growth.
Growers are asking for more reliable and relevant management/financial systems,
information and controls.
email:
psumich@aut.ac.nz |
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Cristian Lorenzo Vidal Silva is a computer engineer and
has a Master in Computer Sciences. He is currently lecturing in University of
Talca, Chile.
Project: Formal Modelling
in Spatio-Temporal Information System
To use and extend some software engineering formal methods for analysis and
design spatio-temporal information systems, and applying that in some study
cases. It includes evaluation of the performance and the flexibility using the
proposed extensions in some traditional and current software engineering
approaches such as waterfall and extreme programming. It’s an idea to work with
actual object oriented formal methods, design tools and development tools, such
as Object-Z, JML, UML and RUBY.
email: cristianvidal@udec.cl |
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Sara Zandi, Sara is a research officer in the Centre. She has a
BSc in Computer and Information Sciences. She is undertaking MPhil degree
research in the GRC. Her research topic
relates to Geoinformatics and Geospatial Database Processing. She is also engaged in
database and web monitoring application development currently underway at GRC.
She mostly works with the GRC's real time database (design and development) and
also the web monitoring application interface for the various monitoring
projects of the GRC.
Project: A Special-purpose
Navigation Instrument for Geospatial Database Processing
A navigation instrument in geospatial data processing is a set of computer
programs that combine as an integrated software tool (instrument) for a specific
purpose. In this case, the instrument will be used to navigate a large set of
climatologically, atmospheric, plant and soil data relating to environmental
influences on grape growing and wine production. The project is two-fold. First,
is to develop a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) that can store
geometry data as well as non-GIS data such as quantitative and qualitative data.
In other words, an n-dimensional data model covering (two-dimensional geography
plus a time dimension) is needed to enable the dependency relationships to be
associated logically in a database schema. Second is how to process and extract
information from that database using a query based application. The current
database only works with simple data types, such as INTEGER values which are not
good enough for this type of application. Special purpose software will bring
together locational data from different sensor stations and thus provide an
integral component for the management and analysis of the logged data. In
addition, this software can be developed to provide access that is intuitive and
representational for users’ of spatial data and its analysis without them having
to be experts in a GIS language. Data can be observed in different time periods
or manipulated in various ways in order to build crop management scenarios that
are environmental influence oriented.
email: szandi@aut.ac.nz |
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Postgraduate Researchers to be arrived in 2010 |
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Ozair Ahmed Khan, United Arab Emirates
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Wiafe
Owusu-Banahene from the University of Ghana will be undertaking PhD
studies at AUT University in August 2010. He will be researching techniques for
visualising environmental influence factors in viticulture.
Project: Visualisation Techniques for Modelling Environmental Influences
in Viticulture
Wiafe is looking at data depiction techniques and enhancements generally applied
to modelling environmental influence factors in viticulture. He is interested in
deploying 1) clustering techniques applied to analysing multivariate data sets
with standard pixel representation practices and 2) dependency relationship
visualisation methodologies with self-organising map (SOM) techniques. Thus, the
two main sets of approaches being investigated through this project are;
Artificial neural net (ANN) based and Non ANN based but used in complimentary to
each other sets. By integrating techniques from both sets Wiafe will ultimately
develop a single system to enhance the visualization of environmental influence
factors in viticulture especially for use in assessing any environmental impact
with novel data visualisation techniques for decision making and in determining
“what makes a good year for wine”. The system would facilitate visualisation
techniques over a distributed system, such as the Internet, and provide
functions with user interface useful to both experts and novices.
email:
banahene@ug.edu.gh |
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Geoinformatics Research Centre |
web admin:akbar@aut.ac.nz |