What's On at UWA

The School of Psychological Science showcases some of its research and its real-world implications. With presentations on face recognition, misinformation and fake news, disaster preparedness, the challenges of automation, treatment of anxiety, and healthy ageing.

Ruby is a NAO robot, NAO is the world’s leading and most widely used humanoid robot for education, healthcare, and research. NAO is 58cm tall, autonomous, and fully programmable robot that can walk, talk and listen. Meet Ruby, see what she can do and explore the problem solving required when coding and opportunities to use Robots in learning and teaching.

Many have seen her guiding and touring through the Futures Observatory and now after more work from our Computer Science students we have enabled more of her functionality and designed new code for her better interact with humans. Some of her new abilities include:

THE RED BALL: Explore with Ruby the problem solving required to manoeuvre obstacles using her feet sensors and cameras located on her body. Then work with her to interact and play with a red ball aiming to shoot a goal, and hearing her interactivity as she recognises either a hit or miss.

WHO AM I: Have a conversation with Ruby as she learns to recognise your face and has a personalised conversation with you. Demonstrating her facial recognition technology and ability to transform a conversation with her artificial intelligence you can engage with the future of soft skills that all artificial intelligent robots will possess.

SIMON SAYS: Watch Ruby follow instructions you give her as she replicates the movements spoken. By interacting in this way, you can see her 25 degrees of freedom and dexterity from her fingers, showing humanoid movements a robot can perform that you have never seen before!

We will have some of our students present during these events to talk about the challenges and successes they had in the project and their foray into a career in coding and robotics.

Register for this event via the Eventbrite link listed below.

In this seminar, Dr. Glenn Savage will draw upon an emerging body of research on ‘policy assemblage’ within the fields of policy sociology, anthropology and critical geography, to consider how an assemblage analytic might help researchers better understand national schooling reforms in an era marked by increasingly transnational policy mobilities. He will begin by outlining core foundations of an assemblage analytic that make it generative for analysing complex policy formations. He will then use the development of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) as an illustrative case, to show how this particular national reform has evolved from complex and uneven interactions between diverse policy ideas, practices, actors and organisations. He will argue that while reforms like the APST claim to be national in form and scope, ‘the national’ is better understood as a disjunctive and phantom-like assemblage of heterogeneous parts, which reflect strong transnational traits and impulses. This has implications for researchers seeking to understand national schooling policies in unitary and federal systems alike, especially in an era in which standards-based reforms are touted globally as policy solutions to a host of apparent dilemmas in schooling policy and beyond. Bio: Dr. Glenn C. Savage is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Sociology of Education at the University of Western Australia. His current research examines how schooling policies in federal systems are mediated by transnational flows of policy ideas and practices. He currently holds an Australian Research Council ‘Discovery Early Career Researcher Award’ (DECRA) titled ‘National schooling reform and the reshaping of Australian federalism’ (2016-2019).

Now in its third season, Fridays@Five is the ideal way to kick-start your weekend! Each session offers a unique musical experience to delight all music lovers, from young artist led concerts to informal musical drinks on the famous grassy knoll, behind the scenes workshops to lectures and masterclasses. Join us each week for a delightful musical surprise!

Presented as part of UWA research Week

Adam Pinto: Smalley Arranged

Join Adam Pinto and special guest artists in performances, and detailed discussion of performance practice and rehearsal techniques. The afternoon will be focussed on performances and arrangements related to Roger Smalley's award winning composition, his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

Free entry - no bookings required.

Aurasma is an augmented reality platform which could potentially change the way you interact with the real world. Recent UWA TechNode surveys at UWA indicate that most students have a mobile device. Given this, Aurasma opens up opportunities in an instructional and educational manner, as the need for more detailed information exists in a physical space or document where a mobile device with wifi is available. For example, once pointed at printed documents, static physical places, or objects with augmented markers, mobile devices can discover information such as videos, animations, weblinks or 3D objects that are woven into the fabric of the real world by using Aurasma.

This hands-on workshop will take 45 minutes. You will get the opportunity to experience augmented reality examples as a learner using the Aurasma App and also create a basic AR experience using the Aurasma App. We will also demonstrate the Basic Free Aurasma Studio platform that enables you to create more complex auras with more functionality.

Register for this event via the Eventbrite link listed below.

A public lecture by Professor Han Baltussen, the Walter Watson Hughes Professor of Classics, University of Adelaide and UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Fellow.

In this lecture Professor Baltussen will explore the rich repertoire of grief experiences from antiquity in an attempt to understand how humans have coped with loss and bereavement since the beginnings of Western literature.

If grief is a universal marker of humanity, these ancient experiences should resonate with us today. Given the renewed interest in the process of mourning, privately and publicly, it is also worthwhile considering whether the ancient coping strategies have any lessons to offer, in particular through the power of words (written or spoken). Modern bereavement advice tends to allow for a great variety of approaches, from rational evaluation to creative expression. Professor Baltussen will ask whether ancient grief practices could contribute anything to this emerging area of the ‘healing arts’.

With Associate Professor Clarissa Ball, Discipline Chair, History of Art, UWA School of Design, Director, UWA Institute of Advanced Studies.

The recent removal of Confederate statues in the United States has resulted in extraordinary acts of violence, heightened racial tensions and death. Debate continues to rage about whether or not the removal of public statues is akin to erasing the past and “changing history”, as President Trump put it. Is Trump right, or is the truth far more complex?

Closer to home, debate is mounting about Australia’s colonial monuments. Stan Grant’s statement that the inscription on the statue of James Cook in Sydney’s Hyde Park “maintains a damaging myth” has been met with astonishing claims. One commentator has gone so far as to liken Grant’s questioning of the statue’s plaque and its doctrine of discovery to the cultural destruction of the Taliban Left.

Join us for this Talking Allowed to consider what it is about statues that render them the focus of struggle and to explore some of the complexities that surround their removal or modification.

‘Talking Allowed’ is a new series of presentations offered by the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies and the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery.

On the second Tuesday of every month, a UWA academic will give a short presentation on a topic of current relevance to the arts and culture before inviting the audience to participate in discussion and debate.

‘Talking Allowed’ is designed to be thought-provoking, challenging, stimulating and engaging. Come along and join the dialogue on matters that are of great importance to our society.

“If the Devil says to you “Do not drink”, you should reply to him “On this occasion I shall drink and what is more, I shall drink a generous amount.” (Martin Luther). To Martin Luther and most of his contemporaries the devil was a theological and material reality – to be confronted every day and by everybody. This paper will trace Luther’s view of the Devil and the supernatural and place it in the context of the world views of his time.

Jacqueline Van Gent is a Professor of History and Chief Investigator ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, 1100-1800. Her work explores (i) emotions, conversions and missions, (ii) affective strategies of early modern Europeans in the acquisition, exchange and display of colonial objects, and (iii) the role of emotions in early ethnographic texts and collections. Her most recent publication with Professor Susan Broomhall is Dynastic Colonialism: Gender, Materiality and the Early Modern House of Orange-Nassau (Routledge, 2016).

About this Series

On the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, this UWA Institute of Advanced Studies – Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies Lecture Series reconsiders the legacy of Martin Luther, who in 1517 published Ninety-Five Theses criticising the Church’s sale of indulgences. From diverse historical perspectives, UWA researchers tackle key issues regarding Luther’s life, his thought, and his significance for the momentous changes that Europe underwent during his lifetime.

http://www.mems.arts.uwa.edu.au/

To celebrate Confucius Institute Day and the 30th anniversary of the Sister State relationship between Western Australia and Zhejiang Province, the Confucius Institute at UWA presents a very special performance by the Zhejiang Art Academy - one of China’s most highly regarded performance institutions and a training ground for China’s future stars.

This contemporary performance will feature spectacular dance, exceptional music and traditional Chinese instruments, drawing from centuries of Chinese history and folklore.

There will also be a surprise take on one of our Australian rock classics.

This is the Academy’s first visit to Australia and is exclusive to Perth.

Tickets $10 Adult/ $5 Concession / $25 Family

Book at http://www.ticketswa.com/event/zhejiang-art-academy

About the talk

No one likes being taxed, but the first settlers of the Swan River Colony felt that taxation was doubly unfair. Not only had they moved to the other side of the globe to avoid such a heavy burden in the motherland, they weren’t yet making any money in their new ventures.

But the early government was broke, and governments have never been backward in demanding cash from their citizens. As a result, some settlers pointed to the United States and warned that either the new taxes had to go or they would demand proper representation in the Legislative Council. Failing to do either of these things, it was darkly hinted, would result in revolution.

This talk examines the perilous financial situation in early Perth, the lack of real cash, and the unsuccessful attempt to found a local bank to provide paper money. When there aren’t enough coins to go around, things get very difficult indeed, and the Swan River Colony found this out the hard way.

Why did this come about? How did the government and the settlers respond? And why wasn’t there a revolution leading to an independent and fully democratic Western Australia? Just some of the questions which can be answered through a light-hearted look at the economic history of our State.

About the Speaker

After studying history at Cambridge University, Eddie drifted around a number of jobs including archaeologist, journalist and lecturer. Eventually he tried to settle into being a permanent student in London, before marrying a lass from Donnybrook and relocating to WA. He first worked for the State Heritage Office before deciding to branch out as an independent historical consultant, mainly so he didn’t have to get dressed so early in the morning.

Eddie finds Perth’s history an untapped source of material, with so many untold stories. He enjoys digging through the archives for the scandalous, the quirky, and those tales overlooked by more conventional history books. These unconventional stories are usually told through his blog, dodgyperth.com, but Eddie likes to slip the occasional one into a more orthodox heritage report.

Members: Free, Guests: $5 donation

Ruby is a NAO robot, NAO is the world’s leading and most widely used humanoid robot for education, healthcare, and research. NAO is 58cm tall, autonomous, and fully programmable robot that can walk, talk and listen. Meet Ruby, see what she can do and explore the problem solving required when coding and opportunities to use Robots in learning and teaching.

Many have seen her guiding and touring through the Futures Observatory and now after more work from our Computer Science students we have enabled more of her functionality and designed new code for her better interact with humans. Some of her new abilities include:

THE RED BALL: Explore with Ruby the problem solving required to manoeuvre obstacles using her feet sensors and cameras located on her body. Then work with her to interact and play with a red ball aiming to shoot a goal, and hearing her interactivity as she recognises either a hit or miss.

WHO AM I: Have a conversation with Ruby as she learns to recognise your face and has a personalised conversation with you. Demonstrating her facial recognition technology and ability to transform a conversation with her artificial intelligence you can engage with the future of soft skills that all artificial intelligent robots will possess.

SIMON SAYS: Watch Ruby follow instructions you give her as she replicates the movements spoken. By interacting in this way, you can see her 25 degrees of freedom and dexterity from her fingers, showing humanoid movements a robot can perform that you have never seen before!

We will have some of our students present during these events to talk about the challenges and successes they had in the project and their foray into a career in coding and robotics.

Register for this event via the Eventbrite link listed below.

The exceptional ability of young emerging artists and their passion for music will always create an extraordinary experience for concertgoers. In 2017 four outstanding orchestral and choral concerts will feature Western Australia’s finest young musicians.

Main Stage: Innovation

Roger Smalley has been described as one of the most distinctive composers of the post-second world war generation and was a well-loved faculty member of the UWA School of Music. In this special concert James Ledger steps in front of the UWA Symphony Orchestra to conduct Smalley’s Piano Concerto, alongside one of Mozart’s earlier intimate symphonies.

Williams: Escapades (soloist: Erin Royer)

Smalley: Piano Concerto 1984-5 (soloist: Adam Pinto)

Mozart: Symphony No. 29

Tickets - trybooking.com/OWRG Standard $25 Concession $20 Friends of the UWA School of Music $18

For most of the last 65,000 years of human occupation, sea level has been lower than present but we know very little about this submerged landscape. This project links with ongoing work in the Dampier Archipelago, and uses cutting edge marine and aerial survey techniques to identify potential marine sites in this region. Work to date however - and the focus of this talk - largely concentrates on developing methods of recording and analysis from one of the world’s rare submarine midden sites in Denmark.

This seminar for ECRs will cover:

A) Introduction to Scholarly Publishing • Origins of publishing and changes in publishing dynamics • Tips and tools to help you navigate the journal publishing process

B) How to get published? (Editors panel discussion around below topics) • What Editors look for in an article • The peer review process • Authorship and ethics

C) How to get your papers noticed? • Ways to get your published paper noticed • Using metrics to choose the right journal to publish

The workshop is FREE and includes lunch.

Register by 8 September here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/65XTGD3

A pesantren is a type of indigenous Islamic boarding school common across Indonesia. Traditionally, the main objectives of pesantren were to preserve religious teaching over generations as well as to cultivate morality within their students or disciples. Pesantren, which are commonly hierarchical, are characterized by top-down decision-making and veneration of the leaders, orthodox teachers called kiai. The continuation of pesantren depends on the kiai’s leadership. Globalization and modernization have obliged some kiai to innovate and incorporate modern education into their pesantren. While the demand for moral and religious teachings is increasing as a result of Islamization, pesantren are often criticized for not providing employment skills and social problem-solving capacities among their students. This challenges contemporary kiai to integrate modern schooling approaches into pesantren. This presentation introduces my doctoral research, which focuses on the dynamics of kiai leadership in negotiating pesantren tradition and social pressure for innovation by comparing with a traditional pesantren with two pesantren famous for their innovative and socially useful training. The traditional pesantren preserves over a hundred years of tradition and refuses any support from the government. By contrast, the first innovative pesantren focuses on leadership development, economic empowerment, and rehabilitation of criminals. The second innovative pesantren teaches concern for the environment, women’s empowerment, and interfaith tolerance. This research will addresses two key questions: how have innovative pesantren changed, and how have kiai in innovative pesantren developed their ideas? This study uses nine months of ethnographic fieldwork in the three pesantren. The analysis will work inductively within a case study framework.

Indigenous knowledge is an important basis for farming and survival in many parts of the world, particularly in Indigenous communities of the developing world. Indigenous knowledge and practices have a dual role in dealing with the problems of climate change. First, they help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture (i.e. climate mitigation) and, second, they prepare people to adjust to the impacts of climate change (i.e. adaptation). The Tharu, an Indigenous people in Nepal, have been largely dependent upon agriculture for centuries. Their farming system is still traditional and subsistence-oriented, whilst gradually being influenced by modern agriculture. There is a knowledge gap in regard to Indigenous knowledge among the Tharu regarding climate change. Therefore, the central question of this study is: how do Indigenous knowledge and practices contribute to resilience in agriculture? The study will also assess the vulnerability of the Tharu to climate impacts and their adaptation strategies to reduce associated risks, particularly in agriculture. Fieldwork will be carried out in two contrasting hazard-prone villages, subject to periodic floods and droughts respectively, in Bardiya district of Western Nepal. The study will use various participatory tools to collect ethnographic information supported by quantitative data collected by administering a household survey. This study will identify adaptation practices, their effectiveness and pathways to resilient agriculture that can be used to improve the livelihoods of the local farmers such as the Tharu.

Biography Buddhi Chaudhary is a development worker who has worked both for government and NGOs in Nepal since 2000. Before starting his PhD at UWA, Buddhi was a Humphrey Fellow at UC Davis. He believes in encouraging the heart, leading to strength and horizontal management.

PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA: A STUDY OF A NEW VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE This research explores the institutionalisation of participatory governance within the state bureaucracy in Indonesia. In particular, this study will evaluate the extent to which the Village Law No. 6/2014 and its policy derivatives (government regulations, ministerial regulations, and district regulations) have improved the quality of governance and the livelihoods of the poor in several villages in District Banyumas (Central Java) and Ngada (Eastern Nusa Tenggara). This research is important because according to previous studies, institutionalization of participatory governance principles into the state bureaucracy is almost impossible as it goes against the interest of politicians, capitalists and bureaucrats, and even some of the villagers themselves. What is more, the participatory approach is implemented in a time when the Indonesian state leans toward a somewhat “strong state”; a contrast that for some people may look contradictory. This study will be a qualitative research project that uses interviews, observation, and document and policy analysis as data collection methods. Additional secondary data will also be collected from such sources as the World Bank and analysed with basic statistical methods. Bio: Muhammad Syukri is Social Researcher at The SMERU Research Institute, in Jakarta, Indonesia. He has an educational background in law (Bachelor) and sociology (Master). Before joining the PhD program at UWA, he did several studies related to village governance, participatory development, livelihood, and poverty reduction.

Ruby is a NAO robot, NAO is the world’s leading and most widely used humanoid robot for education, healthcare, and research. NAO is 58cm tall, autonomous, and fully programmable robot that can walk, talk and listen. Meet Ruby, see what she can do and explore the problem solving required when coding and opportunities to use Robots in learning and teaching.

Many have seen her guiding and touring through the Futures Observatory and now after more work from our Computer Science students we have enabled more of her functionality and designed new code for her better interact with humans. Some of her new abilities include:

THE RED BALL: Explore with Ruby the problem solving required to manoeuvre obstacles using her feet sensors and cameras located on her body. Then work with her to interact and play with a red ball aiming to shoot a goal, and hearing her interactivity as she recognises either a hit or miss.

WHO AM I: Have a conversation with Ruby as she learns to recognise your face and has a personalised conversation with you. Demonstrating her facial recognition technology and ability to transform a conversation with her artificial intelligence you can engage with the future of soft skills that all artificial intelligent robots will possess.

SIMON SAYS: Watch Ruby follow instructions you give her as she replicates the movements spoken. By interacting in this way, you can see her 25 degrees of freedom and dexterity from her fingers, showing humanoid movements a robot can perform that you have never seen before!

We will have some of our students present during these events to talk about the challenges and successes they had in the project and their foray into a career in coding and robotics.

Register for this event via the Eventbrite link listed below.

Are you aware of the mobile test creation tool which is compatible with the Blackboard Learn App? If not attend this demonstration using Blackboard’s Mobile Compatible Test as a feature for students to easily complete tests and surveys using their mobile devices.

There are many great applications for this feature, such as, completing Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) while on a field trip, or encouraging students to complete a quick survey on a peer activity, or inviting students to upload diagrams as evidence of their formative assessment.

Using current samples from a number of UWA LMS units, Learning Technologist Ezrina Fewings will inform attendees on how to create a Blackboard Mobile Compatible Test app and developing preloaded feedback as well as providing advice on generating a workflow using the Blackboard Learn App.

Register for this event via the Eventbrite link listed below.

A public lecture by Professor Vic Adamowicz, Vice Dean, Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences, and Professor, Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta.

This case study will illustrate some of the challenges of endangered species recovery, focussing on caribou in Alberta, Canada, and the threats they face from the oil sands industry.

In any jurisdiction involved in resource extraction there are concerns about the environmental impacts of the extractive activities, including impacts on natural systems, human health, scenery, recreational enjoyment, and other “ecosystem services”. Caribou have been listed as threatened in Canada for sometime, but strategies for their protection are complex and could have significant impacts on forestry and energy sectors. Issues of the development of recovery goals, the economic costs and benefits of caribou recovery, the importance of the timing of recovery, and the policy options that can help achieve recovery at least cost, will be addressed.

Economic analysis has been used to identify options and strategies for reducing adverse impacts and reducing the requirement for costly recovery to maintain the species.

The Rio Tinto Lecture at UWA is part of the Rio Tinto-UWA Education Partnership, established in 2013.

This event is sponsored by Rio Tinto, UWA Faculty of Science, and the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies.

Unfortunately this event has been cancelled.

We have unfortunately had to postpone our public lecture for extenuated circumstances. We are looking forward to organising another time soon to share our research findings.

-----------------

Fish and sharks ... marine parks and our oceans - come share a research journey across Australia’s top end.

Please join the University of Western Australia Marine Futures team at the WA Maritime Museum, Peter Hughs Drive, Victoria Quay, Fremantle to share their findings after four months of research on the motor yacht Pangaea. This free public lecture begins at 6pm on Tuesday 19th September and will showcase recent expedition highlights, followed by an opportunity to discuss the research with team members from 7.15pm in the Museum Cafe.