Bits & Watts initiative (credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
Stanford University and DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory launched today an initiative called “Bits & Watts” aimed at integrating low-carbon, inexpensive energy sources, like wind and solar, into the electric grid.
The interdisciplinary initiative hopes to develop “smart” technology that will bring the grid into the 21st century while delivering reliable, efficient, affordable power to homes and businesses.
That means you’ll be able to feed extra power from a home solar
collector, for instance, into the grid — without throwing it off balance
and triggering potential outages.
The three U.S. power grids (credit: Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia)
A significant challenge. For starters, the U.S. electric grid is
actually two giant, continent-spanning networks, plus a third, smaller
network in Texas, that connect power sources and consumers via
transmission lines. Each network runs like a single machine, with all
its parts humming along at the same frequency, and their operators try
to avoid unexpected surges and drops in power that could set off a chain
reaction of disruptions and even wreck equipment or hurt people.
Remember the Northeast blackout of 2003,
the second largest in history? It knocked out power for an estimated 45
million people in eight U.S. states and 10 million people in the
Canadian province of Ontario, some for nearly a week.
“The
first challenge was to bring down the cost of wind, solar and other
forms of distributed power. The next challenge is to create an
integrated system. We must develop the right technologies, financial
incentives and investment atmosphere to take full advantage of the
lowering costs of clean energy.” — Steven Chu, a Stanford professor,
Nobel laureate, former U.S. Energy Secretary, and one of the founding
researchers of Bits & Watts. (credit: U.S. Department of Energy)
“Today’s electric grid is … an incredibly complex and finely balanced
ecosystem that’s designed to handle power flows in only one direction —
from centralized power plants to the consumer,” explained Arun
Majumdar, a Stanford professor of mechanical engineering who co-directs
both Bits & Watts and the university’s Precourt Institute for
Energy, which oversees the initiative.
“As we incorporate more low-carbon, highly variable sources like wind
and solar — including energy generated, stored and injected back into
the grid by individual consumers — we’ll need a whole new set of tools,
from computing and communications to controls and data sciences, to keep
the grid stable, efficient and secure and provide affordable
electricity.”
Coordination and integration of transmission and distribution systems (credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
The initiative also plans to develop market structures, regulatory
frameworks, business models and pricing mechanisms that are crucial for
making the grid run smoothly, working with industry and policymakers to
identify and solve problems that stand in the way of grid modernization.
Sila
Kiliccote, head of SLAC’s GISMo (Grid Integration, Systems and
Mobility) lab, and Stanford graduate student Gustavo Cezar look at a
computer dashboard showing how appliances, batteries, lighting and other
systems in a “home hub” network could be turned on and off in response
to energy prices, consumer preferences and demands on the grid. The lab
is part of the Bits & Watts initiative. (credit: SLAC National
Accelerator Laboratory)
Researchers will develop ways to use digital sensors and controls to
collect data from millions of sources, from rooftop solar panels to
electric car charging stations, wind farms, factory operations and
household appliances and thermostats, and provide the real-time feedback
grid operators need to seamlessly incorporate variable sources of
energy and automatically adjust power distribution to customers.
All of the grid-related software developed by Bits & Watts will
be open source, so it can be rapidly adopted by industry and
policymakers and used by other researchers.
Simulate the entire smart grid, from central power plants to networked home appliances (Virtual Megagrid).
Analyze data on electricity use, weather, geography, demographic
patterns, and other factors to get a clear understanding of customer
behavior via an easy-to-understand graphical interface (VISDOM).
Develop a “home hub” system that controls and monitors a home’s
appliances, heating and cooling and other electrical demands and can
switch them on and off in response to fluctuating electricity prices,
demands on the power grid, and the customer’s needs (Powernet).
Gather vast and growing sources of data from buildings, rooftop
solar modules, electric vehicles, utility equipment, energy markets and
so on, and analyze it in real time to dramatically improve the operation
and planning of the electricity grid (VADER). This project will
incorporate new data science tools such as machine learning, and
validate those tools using data from utilities and industry.
Create a unique data depository for the electricity ecosystem (DataCommons).
Through the Grid Modernization Initiative, initial Bits & Watts
projects are being funded for a combined $8.6 million from two DOE
programs, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and the
Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium; $2.2 million from the
California Energy Commission; and $1.6 million per year from industrial
members, including China State Grid, PG&E (Pacific Gas &
Electric), innogy SE (formerly RWE), Schneider Electric and Meidensha
Corp.
Polynesia is characterized by a small amount of land spread over a very large portion of the mid and southern Pacific Ocean. Most Polynesian islands and archipelagos, including the Hawaiian Islands and Samoa, are composed of volcanic islands built by hotspots. New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Ouvéa, the Polynesian outlier near New Caledonia, are the unsubmerged portions of the largely sunken continent of Zealandia.
Zealandia is believed to have mostly sunk 23 million years ago and
recently resurfaced geologically due to a change in the movements of the
Pacific Plate in relation to the Indo-Australian plate, which served to uplift the New Zealand portion. At first, the Pacific plate was subducted under the Australian plate. The Alpine Fault that traverses the South Island is currently a transform fault while the convergent plate boundary from the North Island northwards is called the Kermadec-Tonga Subduction Zone. The volcanism associated with this subduction zone is the origin of the Kermadec and Tongan island archipelagos.
Out of approximately 300,000 or 310,000 square kilometres (117,000 or 118,000 sq mi) of land, over 270,000 km2 (103,000 sq mi) are within New Zealand; the Hawaiian archipelago comprises about half the remainder. The Zealandia continent has approximately 3,600,000 km2
(1,400,000 sq mi) of continental shelf. The oldest rocks in the region
are found in New Zealand and are believed to be about 510 million years
old. The oldest Polynesian rocks outside of Zealandia are to be found in
the Hawaiian Emperor Seamount Chain and are 80 million years old.
Geographic area
Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian Triangle, although there are some islands that are inhabited by Polynesian people situated outside the Polynesian Triangle.
There are also small Polynesian settlements in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands, and in Vanuatu. An island group with strong Polynesian cultural traits outside of this great triangle is Rotuma, situated north of Fiji. The people of Rotuma have many common Polynesian traits but speak a non-Polynesian language. Some of the Lau Islands to the southeast of Fiji have strong historic and cultural links with Tonga.
However, in essence, Polynesia is a cultural term referring to one of the three parts of Oceania (the others being Micronesia and Melanesia).
Island groups
The
following are the islands and island groups, either nations or overseas
territories of former colonial powers, that are of native Polynesian
culture or where archaeological evidence indicates Polynesian settlement
in the past.[3] Some islands of Polynesian origin are outside the general triangle that geographically defines the region.
The Phoenix Islands and Line Islands, most of which are part of Kiribati, had no permanent settlements until European colonization, but are sometimes considered to be inside the Polynesian triangle[citation needed].
In pre-colonial times, Polynesian populations also existed in the Kermadec Islands, the Auckland Islands and Norfolk Island. However, when European explorers arrived, these islands were uninhabited.
There are three theories regarding the spread of humans across the Pacific to Polynesia. These are outlined well by Kayser et al. (2000)[11] and are as follows:
Express Train model: A recent (c. 3000–1000 BCE) expansion out of Taiwan, via the Philippines and eastern Indonesia and from the northwest ("Bird's Head") of New Guinea, on to Island Melanesia
by roughly 1400 BCE, reaching western Polynesian islands around 900
BCE. This theory is supported by the majority of current genetic, linguistic, and archaeological data.
Entangled Bank model: Emphasizes the long history of Austronesian
speakers' cultural and genetic interactions with indigenous Island
Southeast Asians and Melanesians along the way to becoming the first
Polynesians.
Slow Boat model: Similar to the express-train model but with a
longer hiatus in Melanesia along with admixture, both genetically,
culturally and linguistically with the local population. This is
supported by the Y-chromosome data of Kayser et al. (2000), which shows that all three haplotypes of Polynesian Y chromosomes can be traced back to Melanesia.[9]
In the archaeological record there are well-defined traces of this
expansion which allow the path it took to be followed and dated with
some certainty. It is thought that by roughly 1400 BCE,[12] "Lapita Peoples", so-named after their pottery tradition, appeared in the Bismarck Archipelago of northwest Melanesia. This culture is seen as having adapted and evolved through time and space since its emergence "Out of Taiwan". They had given up rice production, for instance, after encountering and adapting to breadfruit in the Bird's Head area of New Guinea.
The results of research at the Teouma Lapita site (Efate Island, Vanuatu) and the Talasiu Lapita site (near Nuku'alofa, Tonga) published in 2016 supports the Express Train model; although with the qualification that the migration bypassed New Guinea and Island Melanesia.
The conclusion from research published in 2016 is that the initial
population of those two sites appears to come directly from Taiwan or the northern Philippines and did not mix with the ‘AustraloPapuans’ of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.[13]
The preliminary analysis of skulls found at the Teouma and Talasiu
Lapita sites is that they lack Australian or Papuan affinities and
instead have affinities to mainland Asian populations.[14]
DNA analysis of modern Polynesians indicates that there has been
intermarriage resulting in a mixed Asian-Papuan ancestry of the
Polynesians. Research at the Teouma and Talasiu Lapita sites implies
that the migration and intermarriage, which resulted in the mixed
Asian-Papuan ancestry of the Polynesians,[9] occurred after the first initial migration to Vanuatu and Tonga.[13][15]
The most eastern site for Lapita archaeological remains recovered so far is at Mulifanua on Upolu.
The Mulifanua site, where 4,288 pottery shards have been found and
studied, has a "true" age of c. 1000 BCE based on C14 dating.[16] A 2010 study places the beginning of the human archaeological sequences of Polynesia in Tonga at 900 BCE.[17]
Within a mere three or four centuries, between 1300 and 900 BCE, the Lapita archaeological culture spread 6,000 km further to the east from the Bismarck Archipelago, until reaching as far as Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa which were first populated around 3,000 years ago as previously mentioned.[18]
A cultural divide began to develop between Fiji to the west, and the
distinctive Polynesian language and culture emerging on Tonga and Samoa
to the east. Where there was once faint evidence of uniquely shared
developments in Fijian and Polynesian speech, most of this is now called
"borrowing" and is thought to have occurred in those and later years
more than as a result of continuing unity of their earliest dialects on
those far-flung lands. Contacts were mediated especially through the
eastern Lau Islands of Fiji. This is where most Fijian-Polynesian linguistic interaction occurred.
Tiny populations may have been involved at first;[17][clarification needed]
although Professor Matisoo-Smith of the Otago study said that the
founding Māori population of New Zealand must have been in the hundreds,
much larger than previously thought.[19]
Culture
The Polynesians were matrilineal and matrilocalStone Age
societies upon arrival in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, after having been
through at least some time in the Bismarck Archipelago. The modern
Polynesians still show human genetic results of a Melanesian culture
which allowed indigenous men, but not women, to "marry in" – useful
evidence for matrilocality.[8][9][20][21]
Atholl Anderson wrote that analysis of mtDNA (female) and Y
chromosome (male) concluded that the ancestors of Polynesian women came
from Taiwan while those of Polynesian men came from New Guinea.
Subsequently, it was found that 96% of Polynesian mtDNA has an Asian
origin, as does one-third of Polynesian Y chromosomes; the remaining
two-thirds from New Guinea and nearby islands; this is consistent with
matrilocal residence patterns.[22]
Although matrilocality and matrilineality receded at some early
time, Polynesians and most other Austronesian speakers in the Pacific
Islands, were/are still highly "matricentric" in their traditional
jurisprudence.[20]
The Lapita pottery for which the general archaeological complex of the
earliest "Oceanic" Austronesian speakers in the Pacific Islands are
named also went away in Western Polynesia. Language, social life and material culture were very distinctly "Polynesian" by the time Eastern Polynesia was being settled after a "pause" of 1000 years or more in Western Polynesia.
The dating of the settlement of Eastern Polynesia, including Hawai'i, Easter Island, and New Zealand, is not agreed upon in every instance. Most recently, a 2010 study using meta-analysis of the most reliable radiocarbon dates
available suggested that the colonization of Eastern Polynesia
(including Hawaii and New Zealand) proceeded in two short episodes: in
the Society Islands from 1025 to 1120 AD and further afield from 1190 to 1290 AD,[23] with Easter Island being settled around 1200.[24][25] Other archeological models developed in recent decades, which are
challenged by that recent set of radiocarbon dating interpretations,
have pointed to dates of between 300 and 500 AD, or alternatively 800 AD
(as supported by Jared Diamond)
for the settlement of Easter Island, and similarly, a date of 500 AD
has been suggested for Hawaii. Linguistically, there is a very distinct
"East Polynesian" subgroup with many shared innovations not seen in
other Polynesian languages. The Marquesas dialects are perhaps the
source of the oldest Hawaiian speech which is overlaid by Tahitian
variety speech, as Hawaiian oral histories would suggest. The earliest
varieties of New Zealand Maori speech may have had multiple sources from
around central Eastern Polynesia as Maori oral histories would suggest.[citation needed]
Political history
Tonga 16th century–present
After a bloody civil war, political power in Tonga eventually fell under the Tu'i Kanokupolu dynasty in the 16th century.
In 1845 the ambitious young warrior, strategist, and orator Tāufaʻāhau
united Tonga into a more Western-style kingdom. He held the chiefly
title of Tuʻi Kanokupolu, but had been baptised with the name Jiaoji
("George") in 1831. In 1875, with the help of the missionary Shirley Waldemar Baker,
he declared Tonga a constitutional monarchy, formally adopted the
western royal style, emancipated the "serfs", enshrined a code of law,
land tenure, and freedom of the press, and limited the power of the
chiefs.
Tonga became a British-protected state under a Treaty of
Friendship on 18 May 1900, when European settlers and rival Tongan
chiefs tried to oust the second king. Within the British Empire, which
posted no higher permanent representative on Tonga than a British Consul
(1901–1970), Tonga formed part of the British Western Pacific Territories
(under a colonial High Commissioner, residing in Fiji) from 1901 until
1952. Despite being under the protectorate, Tonga retained its monarchy
without interruption.
On June 4, 1970 the Kingdom of Tonga received independence from the British protectorate.
Samoa Tui Manu'a and Malietoa–present
Samoa
has a long history of various ruling families, the oldest of which is
the Tui Manu'a, and the most recent of which is the Malietoa, until its
East-West division by Tripartite Convention (1899) subsequent annexation by the German Empire
and the United States. The German-controlled Western portion of Samoa
(consisting of the bulk of Samoan territory) was occupied by New Zealand
in WWI, and administered by it under a Class C League of Nations Mandate
until receiving independence on January 1, 1962. The new Independent
State of Samoa was not a monarchy, though the Malietoa title-holder
remained very influential. It officially ended, however with the death
of Malietoa Tanumafili II on May 11, 2007.
On October 28, 1835 members of the Ngāpuhi and surrounding Māori tribes (iwi)
issued a "declaration of independence", as a "confederation of tribes"
to resist potential French colonization efforts and to prevent the ships
and cargo of Māori merchants from being seized at foreign ports. They
received recognition from the British monarch in 1836. (See United Tribes of New Zealand, New Zealand Declaration of Independence, James Busby.)
In response to the actions of the colonial government, Māori
looked to form a monarchy inclusive of all Māori tribes in order to
reduce vulnerability to the British divide-and-conquer strategy. Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, high priest and chief of the Ngāti Mahuta tribe of the Waikato
iwi, was crowned as the Māori king in 1858. The king's territory
consisted primarily of the lands in the center of the North Island, and
the iwi constituted the most powerful non-signatories of the Treaty of
Waitangi, with Te Wherowhero also never having signed it.
All tribes were incorporated into rule under the colonial
government by the late 19th century. Although Māori were given the
privilege of being legally enfranchised subjects of the British Empire
under the Treaty, Māori culture and language (te reo Māori) were actively suppressed by the colonial government and by economic and social pressures from the Pakeha society. Efforts were made to preserve indigenous culture starting in the late 1950s and culminating in the Waitangi Tribunal's
interpretation of language and culture being included in the treasures
set to be preserved under the Treaty of Waitangi. Moving from a low
point of 15,000 speakers in the 1970s, there are now over 157,000 people
who have some proficiency in the standard Māori language according to
the 2006 census[27] in New Zealand, due in large part to government recognition and promotion of the language.
Fiji
The Lau islands were subject to periods of Tongan rulership and then
Fijian control until their eventual conquest by Seru Epenisa Cakobau of
the Kingdom of Fiji by 1871. In around 1855 a Tongan prince, Enele Ma'afu, proclaimed the Lau islands as his kingdom, and took the title Tui Lau.
Fiji had been ruled by numerous divided chieftains until Cakobau
unified the landmass. The Lapita culture, the ancestors of the
Polynesians, existed in Fiji from about 3500 BCE until they were
displaced by the Melanesians about a thousand years later. (Both Samoans
and subsequent Polynesian cultures adopted Melanesian painting and
tattoo methods.)
In 1873, Cakobau ceded a Fiji heavily indebted to foreign
creditors to the United Kingdom. It became independent on 10 October
1970 and a republic on 28 September 1987.
Cook Islands
The Cook Islands is made up of 15 islands comprising the Northern and
Southern groups. The islands are spread out across many kilometers of a
vast ocean. The largest of these islands is called Rarotonga, which is
also the political and economic capital of the nation.
The Cook Islands were formerly known as the Hervey Islands, but
this name refers only to the Northern Groups. It is unknown when this
name was changed to reflect the current name. It is thought that the
Cook Islands were settled in two periods: the Tahitian Period, when the
country was settled between 900 - 1300 AD. The second settlement, the
Maui Settlement, occurred in 1600 AD, when a large contingent from
Tahiti settled in Rarotonga, in the Takitumu district.
Cook Islanders are ethnically Polynesians or Eastern Polynesia.
They are culturally associated with Tahiti, Eastern Islands, NZ Maori
and Hawaii. Early in the 17th century, became the first race to settle
in New Zealand.
The reef islands and atolls of Tuvalu
are identified as being part of West Polynesia. During
pre-European-contact times there was frequent canoe voyaging between the
islands as Polynesian navigation skills are recognised to have allowed deliberate journeys on double-hull sailing canoes or outrigger canoes.[28] Eight of the nine islands of Tuvalu were inhabited; thus the name, Tuvalu, means "eight standing together" in Tuvaluan. The pattern of settlement that is believed to have occurred is that the Polynesians spread out from Samoa and Tonga into the Tuvaluan atolls, with Tuvalu providing a stepping stone for migration into the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia and Micronesia.[29][30][31]
Stories as to the ancestors of the Tuvaluans vary from island to island. On Niutao,[32]Funafuti and Vaitupu the founding ancestor is described as being from Samoa;[33][34] whereas on Nanumea the founding ancestor is described as being from Tonga.[33]
The extent of influence of the Tuʻi Tonga
line of Tongan kings, which originated in the 10th century, is
understood to have extended to some of the islands of Tuvalu in the 11th
to mid-13th century.[34] The oral history of Niutao
recalls that in the 15th century Tongan warriors were defeated in a
battle on the reef of Niutao. Tongan warriors also invaded Niutao later
in the 15th century and again were repelled. A third and fourth Tongan
invasion of Niutao occurred in the late 16th century, again with the
Tongans being defeated.[32]
Fishing was the primary source of protein, with the cuisine of Tuvalu
reflecting food that could be grown on low-lying atolls. Navigation
between the islands of Tuvalu was carried out using outrigger canoes.
The population levels of the low-lying islands of Tuvalu had to be
managed because of the effects of periodic droughts and the risk of
severe famine if the gardens were poisoned by salt from the storm-surge
of a tropical cyclone.
Links to the Americas
The sweet potato, called kūmara in Māori and kumar in Quechua,
is native to the Americas and was widespread in Polynesia when
Europeans first reached the Pacific. Remains of the plant in the Cook
Islands have been radiocarbon-dated to 1000, and current thinking is
that it was brought to central Polynesia c. 700 and spread across
Polynesia from there, possibly by Polynesians who had traveled to South
America and back.[35] Thor Heyerdahl
proposed in the mid-20th century that the Polynesians had migrated from
the northwest coast of Canada by large whale-hunting dugouts, and from
South America on balsa-log boats.[36][37] Many anthropologists have criticised Heyerdahl's theory, including Wade Davis in his book The Wayfinders.
Davis says that Heyerdahl "ignored the overwhelming body of linguistic,
ethnographic, and ethnobotanical evidence, augmented today by genetic
and archaeological data, indicating that he was patently wrong."[38]
Polynesia divides into two distinct cultural groups, East Polynesia
and West Polynesia. The culture of West Polynesia is conditioned to high
populations. It has strong institutions of marriage and well-developed
judicial, monetary and trading traditions. It comprises the groups of Tonga, Niue, Samoa and extends to the atolls of Tuvalu
to the north. The pattern of settlement that is believed to have
occurred is that the Polynesians spread out from the Samoan Islands into
the Tuvaluan atolls, with Tuvalu providing a stepping stone to migration into the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia and Micronesia.[29][30][31]
Eastern Polynesian cultures are highly adapted to smaller islands and atolls, principally the Cook Islands, Tahiti, the Tuamotus, the Marquesas, Hawaii, Rapa Nui and smaller central-pacific groups. The large islands of New Zealand were first settled by Eastern Polynesians who adapted their culture to a non-tropical environment.
Unlike Melanesia,
leaders were chosen in Polynesia based on their hereditary bloodline.
Samoa, however, had another system of government that combines elements
of heredity and real-world skills to choose leaders. This system is
called Fa'amatai.
According to Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones, "On Tahiti, for example,
the 35,000 Polynesians living there at the time of European discovery
were divided between high-status persons with full access to food and
other resources, and low-status persons with limited access."[39]
Carving from the ridgepole of a Māori house, ca 1840
Religion, farming, fishing, weather prediction, out-rigger canoe (similar to modern catamarans) construction and navigation
were highly developed skills because the population of an entire island
depended on them. Trading of both luxuries and mundane items was
important to all groups. Periodic droughts and subsequent famines often
led to war.[39] Many low-lying islands could suffer severe famine if their gardens were poisoned by the salt from the storm-surge of a tropical cyclone. In these cases fishing, the primary source of protein, would not ease loss of food energy. Navigators, in particular, were highly respected and each island maintained a house of navigation with a canoe-building area.
Settlements by the Polynesians were of two categories: the hamlet
and the village. The size of the island inhabited determined whether or
not a hamlet would be built. The larger volcanic
islands usually had hamlets because of the many zones that could be
divided across the island. Food and resources were more plentiful. These
settlements of four to five houses (usually with gardens) were
established so that there would be no overlap between the zones.
Villages, on the other hand, were built on the coasts of smaller islands
and consisted of thirty or more houses—in the case of atolls, on only
one of the group so that food cultivation was on the others. Usually
these villages were fortified with walls and palisades made of stone and
wood.[40]
However, New Zealand demonstrates the opposite: large volcanic islands with fortified villages.
As well as being great navigators, these people were artists and artisans
of great skill. Simple objects, such as fish-hooks would be
manufactured to exacting standards for different catches and decorated
even when the decoration was not part of the function. Stone and wooden
weapons were considered to be more powerful the better they were made
and decorated. In some island groups weaving was a strong part of the
culture and gifting woven articles was an ingrained practice. Dwellings
were imbued with character by the skill of their building. Body
decoration and jewelry is of an international standard to this day.
The religious attributes of Polynesians were common over the
whole Pacific region. While there are some differences in their spoken
languages they largely have the same explanation for the creation of the
earth and sky, for the gods that rule aspects of life and for the
religious practices of everyday life. People traveled thousands of miles
to celebrations that they all owned communally.
Beginning in the 1820s large numbers of missionaries worked in
the islands, converting many groups to Christianity. Polynesia, argues
Ian Breward, is now "one of the most strongly Christian regions in the
world....Christianity was rapidly and successfully incorporated into
Polynesian culture. War and slavery disappeared."[41]
Languages
Polynesian languages are all members of the family of Oceanic languages, a sub-branch of the Austronesian language family. Polynesian languages show a considerable degree of similarity. The vowels are generally the same—a, e, i, o, and u, pronounced as in Italian, Spanish, and German—and the consonants are always followed by a vowel. The languages of various island groups show changes in consonants. R and v are used in central and eastern Polynesia whereas l and v are used in western Polynesia. The glottal stop is increasingly represented by an inverted comma or ‘okina. In the Society Islands, the original Proto-Polynesian *k and *ng have merged as glottal stop; so the name for the ancestral homeland, deriving from Proto-Nuclear Polynesian *sawaiki,[42] becomes Havai'i. In New Zealand, where the original *w is used instead of v, the ancient home is Hawaiki. In the Cook Islands, where the glottal stop replaces the original *s (with a likely intermediate stage of *h), it is ‘Avaiki. In the Hawaiian islands, where the glottal stop replaces the original k, the largest island of the group is named Hawai‘i. In Samoa, where the original s is used instead of h, v replaces w, and the glottal stop replaces the original k, the largest island is called Savai'i.[1]
Economy
With
the exception of New Zealand, the majority of independent Polynesian
islands derive much of their income from foreign aid and remittances
from those who live in other countries. Some encourage their young
people to go where they can earn good money to remit to their
stay-at-home relatives. Many Polynesian locations, such as Easter Island, supplement this with tourism income. Some have more unusual sources of income, such as Tuvalu which marketed its '.tv' internet top-level domain name or the Cooks that relied on postage stamp sales.
After
several years of discussing a potential regional grouping, three
sovereign states (Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu) and five self-governing but
non-sovereign territories formally launched, in November 2011, the Polynesian Leaders Group,
intended to cooperate on a variety of issues including culture and
language, education, responses to climate change, and trade and
investment. It does not, however, constitute a political or monetary
union.[43][44][45]
Navigation
Polynesia comprised islands diffused throughout a triangular area
with sides of four thousand miles. The area from the Hawaiian Islands in
the north, to Easter Island in the east and to New Zealand in the south
were all settled by Polynesians.
Navigators traveled to small inhabited islands using only their own senses and knowledge passed by oral tradition
from navigator to apprentice. In order to locate directions at various
times of day and year, navigators in Eastern Polynesia memorized
important facts: the motion of specific stars, and where they would rise on the horizon of the ocean; weather;
times of travel; wildlife species (which congregate at particular
positions); directions of swells on the ocean, and how the crew would
feel their motion; colors of the sea and sky, especially how clouds
would cluster at the locations of some islands; and angles for
approaching harbors.
Polynesian (Hawaiian) navigators sailing multi-hulled canoe, ca 1781
A common fishing canoe va'a with outrigger in Savai'i island, Samoa, 2009
These wayfinding techniques, along with outriggercanoe construction methods, were kept as guild
secrets. Generally each island maintained a guild of navigators who had
very high status; in times of famine or difficulty these navigators
could trade for aid or evacuate people to neighboring islands. On his
first voyage of Pacific exploration Cook had the services of a
Polynesian navigator, Tupaia, who drew a hand-drawn chart of the islands within 3,200 km (2,000 mi) radius (to the north and west) of his home island of Ra'iatea. Tupaia had knowledge of 130 islands and named 74 on his chart.[46] Tupaia had navigated from Ra'iatea in short voyages to 13 islands. He
had not visited western Polynesia, as since his grandfather's time the
extent of voyaging by Raiateans has diminished to the islands of eastern
Polynesia. His grandfather and father had passed to Tupaia the
knowledge as to the location of the major islands of western Polynesia
and the navigation information necessary to voyage to Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.[47] As the Admiralty orders directed Cook to search for the “Great Southern Continent”,
Cook ignored Tupaia's chart and his skills as a navigator. To this day,
original traditional methods of Polynesian Navigation are still taught
in the Polynesian outlier of Taumako Island in the Solomon Islands.
From a single chicken bone recovered from the archaeological site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula,
Chile, a 2007 research report looking at radiocarbon dating and an
ancient DNA sequence indicate that Polynesian navigators may have
reached the Americas at least 100 years before Columbus (who arrived
1492 AD), introducing chickens to South America.[48][49] A later report looking at the same specimens concluded:
A published, apparently pre-Columbian, Chilean specimen and six
pre-European Polynesian specimens also cluster with the same
European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no
support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In
contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group
with an uncommon haplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may
represent a genetic signature of an early Polynesian dispersal. Modeling
of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean
archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian
chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient
DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from
archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.[50]
Knowledge of the traditional Polynesian methods of navigation were
largely lost after contact with and colonization by Europeans. This left
the problem of accounting for the presence of the Polynesians in such
isolated and scattered parts of the Pacific. By the late 19th century to
the early 20th century a more generous view of Polynesian navigation
had come into favor, perhaps creating a romantic picture of their
canoes, seamanship and navigational expertise.
In the mid to late 1960s, scholars began testing sailing and paddling experiments related to Polynesian navigation: David Lewis sailed his catamaran from Tahiti to New Zealand using stellar navigation without instruments and Ben Finney built a 40-foot replica of a Hawaiian double canoe "Nalehia" and tested it in Hawaii.[51]
Meanwhile, Micronesian ethnographic research in the Caroline Islands
revealed that traditional stellar navigational methods were still in
every day use. Recent re-creations of Polynesian voyaging have used
methods based largely on Micronesian methods and the teachings of a
Micronesian navigator, Mau Piailug.
It is probable that the Polynesian navigators employed a whole
range of techniques including use of the stars, the movement of ocean
currents and wave patterns, the air and sea interference patterns caused
by islands and atolls,
the flight of birds, the winds and the weather. Scientists think that
long-distance Polynesian voyaging followed the seasonal paths of birds.
There are some references in their oral traditions to the flight of
birds and some say that there were range marks onshore pointing to
distant islands in line with these flyways. One theory is that they would have taken a frigatebird
with them. These birds refuse to land on the water as their feathers
will become waterlogged making it impossible to fly. When the voyagers
thought they were close to land they may have released the bird, which
would either fly towards land or else return to the canoe. It is likely
that the Polynesians also used wave and swell formations to navigate. It
is thought that the Polynesian navigators may have measured the time it
took to sail between islands in "canoe-days’’ or a similar type of
expression.
Also, people of the Marshall Islands used special devices called stick charts,
showing the places and directions of swells and wave-breaks, with tiny
seashells affixed to them to mark the positions of islands along the
way. Materials for these maps were readily available on beaches, and
their making was simple; however, their effective use needed years and
years of study.
“If we were to draw energy from a typical AA battery based on
this design, it would last for a billion years." --- Sungsik Lee, PhD,
in the journal Science
Schematic
cross-section of an Indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) thin-film
transistor [inset: schematic illustrations of atomic structures for less
compensated (left) and more compensated (right) IGZO films,
respectively] (credit: Sungsik Lee and Arokia Nathan/Science)
Devices
based on a new ultra-low-power thin-film transistor design
by University of Cambridge engineers could function for months or even
years without a battery, by operating on scavenged energy from their
environment — ideal for the Internet of Things and for wearable or
implantable electronics.
The transistors can be produced at low temperatures and can be
printed on almost any material, such as glass, plastic, polyester
fabrics, and paper.
Similar to a computer in sleep mode, the new transistor harnesses a
tiny “leakage” of electrical current, known as “near-off-state current.”
This leak at the point of contact between the metal and semiconducting
components of a transistor, the “Schottky barrier,” is normally an
undesirable characteristic of all transistors.
The new design gets around one of the main issues preventing the
development of ultra-low-power transistors: the ability to produce them
at very small sizes. As transistors get smaller, their two electrodes
start to influence the behavior of one another, and the voltages spread,
causing the transistors to fail to function. By changing the design of
the transistors, the Cambridge researchers were able to use the Schottky
barriers to keep the electrodes independent from one another, so that
the transistors can be scaled down to very small geometries.*
The design also achieves a very high level of gain, or signal
amplification. The transistor’s operating voltage is less than one volt,
with power consumption below a billionth of a watt. This ultralow power
consumption makes them most suitable for applications where function
and longevity is more important than speed — as in the Internet of
Things.
“If we were to draw energy from a typical AA battery based on this
design, it would last for a billion years [ignoring chemical degradation
of the battery],” said Sungsik Lee, PhD, first author of the paper in
the journal Science.
* “To form a Schottky contact at the source/drain contact of the
IGZO TFT, we decreased the electron concentration of the IGZO film by
using a high oxygen-gas partial pressure against argon gas, i.e.,
Pox=O/(O2+ Ar), during the RF sputtering process, with subsequent
thermal annealing for a more reliable contact.” — Sungsik Lee and Arokia
Nathan/Science
Abstract of Subthreshold Schottky-barrier thin-film transistors with ultralow power and high intrinsic gain
The quest for low power becomes highly compelling in newly emerging
application areas related to wearable devices in the Internet of Things.
Here, we report on a Schottky-barrier indium-gallium-zinc-oxide
thin-film transistor operating in the deep subthreshold regime (i.e.,
near the OFF state) at low supply voltages (<1 a="" an="" and="" at="" by="" channel-length="" characteristics="" contacts="" current-voltage="" drain="" exhibited="" gain="" high="" independent="" infinite="" intrinsic="" it="" nanowatt="" of="" output="" power="" resistance.="" schottky-barrier="" source="" the="" transistor="" ultralow="" using="" virtually="" volt="" were="" with="">400) that was both
bias and geometry independent. The transistor reported here is useful
for sensor interface circuits in wearable devices where high current
sensitivity and ultralow power are vital for battery-less operation.
