UC Research Repository
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The UC Research Repository collects, stores and makes available original research from postgraduate students, researchers and academics based at the University of Canterbury.
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Recent Submissions
Trust and trustworthiness while exchanging virtual items in shared augmented reality.
(2024) Ritter, Marko
This thesis is split into nine chapters, which contain the following contents:
Chapter 2. The Background chapter collects relevant insights from scientific literature
as they concern this thesis.
Chapter 3. Roleplay as an experimental method will be explored. Because Fantasy
storytelling is an unconventional choice for a scientific work, so reasoning
will be provided there as well.
Chapter 4. A Pre-Trial was conducted to substantiate that the chosen narrative
does in fact model the intended variables.
Chapter 5. The Design and Development of the AR-prototype is described in
detail. This follows the principles of an established design process called
"Double Diamond".
Chapter 6. The hypotheses, the design, the quantitative measurements, and procedures
of the User Study is outlined.
Chapter 7. Results presents the data collected during the user study and evaluate
them by statistical means.
Chapter 8. The Discussion chapter will interpret the findings and attempt to answer
the research question. It will discuss the findings’ limitations and how they
relate to the scientific literature.
Chapter 9. The Conclusion chapter gives a broad summary of the findings.
Daddy long legs : a scale and speed up virtual reality locomotion technique for medium-scale scenarios.
(2024) Zhao, Yue
This study investigates the effectiveness of a novel natural walking-based locomotion
technique, "Daddy Long Legs," for navigating medium-scale virtual scenarios. While real
walking remains ideal for such scenarios, prolonged use can become physically demanding
and inefficient. Conversely, artificial locomotion methods often induce disorientation or
fatigue that comes from abrupt viewpoint changes or repeated gestures.
Drawing inspiration from previous research on Seven-League Boots and Ground-Level
Scaling, both with documented advantages and limitations, this study proposes a combined
approach. We believed that their strengths and weaknesses could be effectively balanced
through careful design, but there has been a lack of comprehensive study in this area.
A user study involving 24 participants was conducted, in which they were required to
perform a series of walking tasks within a medium-scale virtual garden. Furthermore, they
did a Pre-Experiment Questionnaire and Post-Experiment Questionnaires, along with a brief
one-on-one interview that specifically addressed their feelings and preferences regarding all
the methods. Results indicate that Daddy Long Legs outperformed Seven-League Boots in
all aspects. Notably, Ground-Level Scaling yielded the most natural walking behaviour,
received the most positive feedback, and emerged as the preferred method.
A Private Universe: What does spirituality mean and is appropriate support being provided for people in hospital?
(2024) Woodhouse, Colin
In New Zealand, The Ministry of Health has a contract with the Inter-church Council for Hospital Chaplaincy (ICHC) to provide religious, pastoral, and spiritual support in all of the public hospitals. The ICHC is a Christian only organisation managed by a panel of 9 churches. All of the salaried chaplains are practicing Christians, many of them ordained ministers. All of the trained volunteers helping the chaplains are practicing Christians too. This is in contrast with the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) NHS where each hospital trust has control over its own chaplaincy budget. This puts the trusts in a position to employ the chaplains they feel they need to in order to provide appropriate religious, pastoral, and spiritual support for the service users.
I knew that there was a consistently increasing proportion of non-religious people in Aotearoa/New Zealand but there had been no changes in the chaplaincy service since its inception. Spirituality is seen as a significant part of holistic health care both in the Māori health model Te Whāre Tapa Whā (Durie 1984 ) and by the World Health Organisation (Dhar 2014 ) . This importance of spiritual care made me wonder how can a hospital or the Ministry of Health claim to be providing holistic care without offering adequate and appropriate religious, pastoral, or spiritual support to the majority of the population?
Land use change in and around Aotearoa New Zealand’s braided rivers
(2024) Calkin, Aimee
This thesis examines the issue of land use change in and around Aotearoa New Zealand’s braided rivers between 1990 and 2020. It develops and tests a method to ask: whether and how land use changed in and around New Zealand’s braided rivers; and whether there are geographic patterns in the land use change?
The analysis of this research finds land use has changed across New Zealand’s braided rivers and has changed the most in Canterbury of the South Island and in rivers with more gravel area. Land use has changed the least across the North Island’s regions and Southland. The rivers in these latter areas have a reduced gravel content compared to Canterbury rivers.
This thesis concludes by looking into the future of legislative change to the definition of braided rivers in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Women on the walls : representations of female saints and biblical figures in English wall paintings, 1100-1400.
(2020) Comeau, Jane
Paintings on the walls of English medieval churches were a vital aspect of conveying religious thought to a diverse and often uneducated audience. Representations of women within these paintings were carefully tailored to convey certain messages to their specific audiences and provide vital insight into medieval perceptions of women, both lay and saintly. This dissertation examines surviving paintings of St Margaret, St Katherine and Eve to explore how their images functioned in this uniquely public context. Wall paintings of the two female saints are compared to their depictions in the circulating hagiographical literature. Although they faithfully represent the narratives found there, violence and drama is overemphasised, in order to discourage laywomen from identifying too strongly with these figures of transgression. There are far fewer surviving paintings of Eve, and so this dissertation presents case studies of these scant remains, including a series of twelfth-century images found at St Botolph’s church in Hardham. Competing medieval ideas of Eve’s sinfulness are found to be reflected in these paintings. Additionally, their positioning within the various churches in which they appear offer important insights into how the image of Eve was employed to reinforce theological lessons, provide guidance and function as a symbol. This dissertation concludes that representations of women in wall paintings were complex and often contradictory, but that they were uniquely shaped by their role in the public sphere of medieval life. Women in wall paintings functioned not necessarily as moral figures presenting a cautionary tale or lessons on how to live, but as tools of the Church and the societal elite.