https://sadil.ws/handle/123456789/2 2026-04-21T22:51:28Z https://sadil.ws/handle/123456789/4601 Covenant Keepers: A History of Samoan (LMS) Missionary Wives in the Western Pacific from 1839 to 1979 LATAI, Latu From 1839 to 1979, a period spanning 140 years, more than 600 Samoan missionary couples were sent out by the London Missionary Society to spread the Gospel to islands of the western Pacific. Although much has been written about the work of Samoan missionary husbands in the evangelisation of the western Pacific, very little is known of Samoan wives. Of the 600 or more of them who accompanied their husbands, more than half of their names were not even documented in mission archives. Yet they were trained and were even expected to perform in the mission field. Rather than any actual analysis, perceptions of them today, as in the past, are based on pervasive stereotypes founded on gender and racial hierarchy that marginalise them. Samoan missionary wives however were far more than mere “helpmeets” or assistants to their husbands. Despite the challenges of mission work, they were a crucial part of the movement to evangelise islands and places in the western Pacific. Moreover, they were articulate in their work and deeply committed to mission endeavour. This thesis examines Samoan missionary wives as a distinct group. It attempts to analyse their social and cultural backgrounds, their lives and work in the mission field, and their interactions with the local people they encountered. It concludes by considering whether they had a distinctive impact that distinguished them in the project of evangelisation in the Pacific. A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://sadil.ws/handle/123456789/4599 Dynamics of Agricultural Development in Prehistoric Samoa: The Case of Ofu Island Quintus, Seth Agricultural development is intimately tied to the environment and cultural practices, specifically socio-political change. Nowhere are these relationships more clear than on Polynesian islands. Many sequences of agricultural change have now been documented in the region, and their relationships with the environment and cultural change assessed. Most, if not all, of these identified sequences have been described as processes of intensification. Samoan agricultural systems, however, are vastly under researched archaeologically, creating a serious gap in archaeological knowledge of the archipelago. Land use practices in the archipelago are often thought to have been non-intensive, and the assumed prehistoric sequence, built using ethnographic analogy, has been utilized to argue that the process of intensification was not inevitable on all Polynesian high islands. To address this gap, and to determine the nature of agricultural development in the Samoan Archipelago, this thesis examines agricultural development on Ofu Island in the Manu’a Group of American Samoa. Archaeological research was carried out over the course of two field seasons at three locations on the island, two in the interior uplands (A’ofa and Tufu) and one of the coast (Ofu Village). Results of this field work were utilized to critically explore questions relating to agricultural development on Ofu, specifically how that development can be described and which factors influenced the development. These results suggest that agricultural intensification did occur on the island at some scales of analysis, but alternative processes, such as expansion and innovation, were of great importance. The development of production was impacted by multiple factors, including landscape evolution, the spatial variability of the environment, and socio-political change. This thesis documents how, on one small island, agricultural change resulted in complex socio-political negotiations beyond individual producers, which resulted in a small-scale political economy. This research contributes at three levels, the local, regional, and theoretical. At the local level, this research fills a serious gap by documenting an agricultural sequence in the Samoan archipelago. At the regional level, this research provides another case study as to the different factors that influence agricultural development in Polynesia. At the theoretical level, this research highlights the multiple paths of agricultural development. Agricultural development is a process imbedded in history, impacted by multiple factors, individuals, and groups A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z https://sadil.ws/handle/123456789/4594 Ua Aofia i Le Futiafu E Tasi : All Becomes One in the Basin of the Waterfall Murphy, Devin Perenise Matamata i Moana 110 pgs 2013-05-01T00:00:00Z https://sadil.ws/handle/123456789/3748 Foundations of Data Science1 Hopcroft, John; Kannan, Ravindran This book provides an introduction to the mathematical and algorithmic foundations of data science, including machine learning, high-dimensional geometry, and analysis of large networks. Topics include the counterintuitive nature of data in high dimensions, important linear algebraic techniques such as singular value decomposition, the theory of random walks and Markov chains, the fundamentals of and important algorithms for machine learning, algorithms and analysis for clustering, probabilistic models for large networks, representation learning including topic modelling and non-negative matrix factorization, wavelets and compressed sensing. Important probabilistic techniques are developed including the law of large numbers, tail inequalities, analysis of random projections, generalizat... 414 p. (PDF) 2011-04-01T00:00:00Z