What's On at UWA

The course is designed for people with knowledge of basic statistics who want to learn more about designing and analysing experiments.

It will cover material ranging from a review of simple one-way ANOVA, to more complex designs and analyses including crossed and nested factors with fixed and random effects.

The course is hosted by the Centre for Applied Statistics and we offer discounted rate fees to UWA Graduate Research Students.

Fee information is available on our website http://www.cas.maths.uwa.edu.au/courses. Please register online.

SEM is used widely by researchers to test complex relationships among observed (measured) and latent (unobserved) variables. This course will introduce you to SEM and also covers issues relating to model specification, identification and estimation, assessing model fit (goodness-of-fit criteria), and dealing with problem data.

The course is hosted by the Centre for Applied Statistics and we offer discounted rate fees to UWA Graduate Research Students.

Fee information is available on our website http://www.cas.maths.uwa.edu.au/courses. Please register online.

The course is designed as a comprehensive coverage of applied SEM techniques using the Mplus statistical software package. Mplus offers a general modelling framework that allows both the modelling of cross-sectional and longitudinal data using observed variables that are a combination of continuous and categorical variables.

The course is hosted by the Centre for Applied Statistics and we offer discounted rate fees to UWA Graduate Research Students.

Fee information is available on our website http://www.cas.maths.uwa.edu.au/courses. Please register online.

The aim of this course is to introduce you to basic statistics. It will cover descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations); data exploration; basic categorical data analysis; simple linear regression and basic analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Subsidised rates are available for UWA Graduate Research Students.

Please register online.

You are invited to an informal Open Day at the UWA Turf Research Facility to see how different water allocations, in combination with wetting-agents, have influenced the development of dry-patch. A brief presentation will commence at 10:15am sharp. Please remember to wear sturdy footwear, as the site is very sandy. RSVP appreciated

You are invited to join us mark the 100th anniversary of the first meeting of the University of Western Australia’s Convocation.

The First meeting was held on March 4th 1913 in St George’s Hall, Hay St near the corner of Irwin Street. The historic façade including the portico, steps and tall white columns were restored when the new Perth District Court was constructed behind it at 500 Hay Street. To celebrate the Centenary of this meeting, a photo-shoot of 100 'graduates' will take place on the steps of the façade at 10am on Monday March 4th 2013.

The UWA Historical Society would be delighted if you could join us.

If you have academic robes, please bring them. If not please come anyway, as having just a few robed members will provide the ‘flavour’. Balloons for a joint release will be provided.

Monday March 4th is a public Holiday (Labour Day). There should be nearby street parking available and there is a public parking station across the road at King’s Hotel.

The UWA Centum will be there

UWA Enviro Fest aims to empower UWA students and staff to reduce their environmental impact, and increase their appreciation of the natural environment.

Each year Enviro Fest provides opportunities to indulge your interest in the natural environment and learn more about sustainable initiatives on campus. From gardening workshops, to live animal demonstrations to public discussions of important environmental issues, there’s something for all staff, students and their children. If you'd like to get involved with the Enviro Fest event, by holding an sustainability-related information stall or educational activity contact UWA Sustainable Development or the Guild's Event Manager.

With the added benefit of being held in common lunch hour, Enviro Fest '13 promises to be one of the year's biggest, most diverse, exciting, and unique events.

An increase in human activities in river catchments is resulting in increased muddiness of estuaries in many regions of the world. This increased muddiness has management implications, such as -increased turbidity and decreased quality of life for the human population, -storing pollutants (e.g. heavy metals) for decades to centuries and then liberating them when the mud is eroded or dredged, -changing some coasts from sandy to muddy, which is a significant and usually permanent environmental change -modifying the net nutrient budgets of estuaries - transferring seaward the occurrence of Harmful Algae Blooms if the light regime becomes the limiting factor in the estuary In recent decades, much of the knowledge of fine sediment (mud) dynamics, and its modelling, came from the engineering community. Modelling mud dynamics by engineers seemed so ‘simple’, the belief was that mud was just a messy fluid and that its behaviour could be modelled by adding a few equations for erosion and deposition to models calibrated in laboratory experiments with the belief that the models could then easily be ‘fine-tuned’ against some field data for the collection of which ingenious probes were designed. Experience has shown that these engineering models are unable to reproduce much of the field observations for muddy estuaries. A reason for this failure is that these models largely neglect the biology and chemistry, which has a major influence in controlling: • the settling of mud flocs • the resuspension of settled mud • the dewatering (consolidation) • the patchiness • the nutrient dynamics • the fluidization of mud by waves • the dynamics of tidal creeks

Pollutants in turn can modify these biological feedback processes and lead to another trajectory for the ecosystem health of estuaries. We quantify, using the LOICZ estuarine nutrient budget model modified for mud, the role of mud in the nutrient dynamics. Mud and muddy waters must be studied as a living body, not just a messy fluid as originally seen by engineers. This highlights research priorities to advance the knowledge of mud dynamics by quantifying the physics-biology links.

Unfortunately this event has been cancelled.

Due to unforeseen circumstances the presenter is no longer available to deliver this course.

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This course aims to provide you with an introduction to the facilities available in MS Excel from a statistical point of view. As well as an introduction to Excel, spreadsheet functions and graphics, it concentrates on performing basic statistical methods, producing charts and tables, and discusses the limitations of Excel when it comes to more complex statistical analysis.

Discount fees are available to UWA Postgraduate Research Students.

Book your financial advice appointment on campus at the University of Western Australia with a Unisuper Financial Advisor.Whichever type of advice you choose, your first appointment with UniSuper Advice is complimentary. If you wish to proceed, a fixed quote will be provided at the conclusion of the meeting.Contact Unisuper to make an Appointment

Building on the theme of the UWA Future Farm 2050 Project

The biggest issue facing humanity: how to feed 9 billion people in 2050 without destroying the planet. What science and technology is needed to meet this challenge?

Time: 1:00pm – 5:15pm followed by refreshments

Cost $40 + GST - RSVP for catering purposes by 2 April 2013 purchase tickets online at http://www.ioa.uwa.edu.au/industry-forum/

****************Program**************

1.00pm Welcome: W/Professor Kadambot Siddique, AM FTSE, Hackett Professor of Agriculture Chair, Director,The UWA Institute of Agriculture (IOA), UWA

1.10pm Why are we here?: Mr Graham Laitt, Managing Director, Milne Agrigroup Pty Ltd

1.28pm Future Food and Health: W/Professor Peter Leedman, Deputy Director, Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR)

1:40pm Food Security or Food Quality for Australia?: Professor William Erskine, Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture (CLIMA), UWA

1.53pm CGE animal food production: W/Professor Graeme Martin, Head, School of Animal Biology, Deputy Director,Chair of Animal Science, The UWA Institute of Agriculture

2.05pm Farming and Biodiversity: Mr Chris Curnow, Program Manager – Southwest Australia Land Manager Engagement WWF-Australia

2.17pm Energy Independence: W/Professor Dongke Zhang, Director, UWA Centre for Energy

2.30pm Valuing Water: Asst/Professor Nik Callow, School of Earth and Environment, UWA

2.43pm Soils alive and productive: W/Professor Andrew Whiteley, School of Earth and Environment, UWA

2.55pm Afternoon Tea

3:22pm Food provenance: W/Professor John Watling, Centre for Forensic Science, UWA

3:35pm Instant monitoring of food quality: W/Professor Laurie Faraone, School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, UWA 3.48pm People/Rural Communities: Professor Matthew Tonts, Head, School of Earth and Environment, UWA

4:00pm Farmhouse Design for the Regions: Asst/Professor Patrick Beale, Chair of Architecture, School of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, UWA

4.12pm Rural Enterprises: W/Professor Tim Mazzarol, UWA Business School

4.25pm Financial World View

4.38pm The Oxford Example and US Examples: Dr Annie Kerr, 3E Farming; Catherine Marriott, Influential Women,2012 WA RIRDC Rural Women’s Award recipient and the National Runner-up

4.50pm Summing Up and Discussion: W/Professor Peter Davies, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research)

5:10pm Refreshments

This presentation combines the Retirement Planning seminar with an additional presentation from a Centrelink representative. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from both UniSuper and Centrelink experts on key retirement planning and Centrelink issues. Members wishing to attend the seminar must register with UniSuper refer web site link.

In this lecture, internationally renowned and highly cited plant scientist, Prof Rana Munns, will show how the combination of fundamental plant biology and targeted plant breeding can produce significant outcomes for crop production in saline soils.

Saline soils restrict plant growth in a large proportion of the Australian wheat belt. Plants exclude most of the salt from the water they take up from a saline soil, but with time it can build up to high concentrations in older leaves, and kill them. This reduces the supply of carbohydrates to the growing leaves or developing grain.

In a search for genes that reduce the rate of sodium accumulation in leaves, Prof Munns and her team discovered novel genes for controlling sodium transport in an ancestral wheat, crossed them into modern durum wheat, and showed that one of them increased yield in saline soils in farmers’ fields by 25%.

This event is sponsored under the 'Hector and Andrew Stewart Memorial Lecture'.

This event is open to both new and more seasoned staff who would like to gain a wider perspective on the joys and challenges of supervision from an Education perspective.

Topics include: Supervising at a distance/Supervising international students; and Balancing the fine line between supervision and intervention.

BYO lunch, tea and coffee will be provided.

The metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) as applied to the plant sciences, aims to provide a general synthesis for the structure and functioning of plants from organelles to ecosystems. MTE builds from simple assumptions of individual metabolism to make predictions about phenomena across a wide range of scales, from individual plant structure and function to community dynamics and global nutrient cycles.

The Graduate Education Officers will outline the UWA rules on formatting your thesis as a series of papers. The advantages and disadvantages of this format will also be discussed.

Ground Support 2013 will provide a forum for local and international mining and engineering professionals to exchange experiences and lessons learnt in the areas of rock support and reinforcement, including mining and civil engineering applications. This symposium will bring together the top academics, operator and technology developers to share information about innovative ground support strategies, processes and products to help maintain a safe workplace, and a costefficient operation.

My Seminar deals with two Aurecon Projects on opposite ends of the African Continent that might appear widely divergent, but which are actually closely related within the domain of IWRM.   Nile Basin DSS:   Aurecon is the lead consultant on Pilot Studies on the development and establishment of the NB-DSS, the primary objective of which is to ensure that the NB-DSS becomes a reliable and sustainable software system. This entails demonstrating and showcasing the NB-DSS capabilities within the context of transboundary, integrated water resource planning and management in the Nile Basin.

Aurecon and its multi-disciplinary team of experts are intricately involved with all aspects of the project, including hydrological and system analyses, the quantification of environmental, social and economic impacts associated with large-scale water resource developments, advanced multi-criteria analysis across various pilot case areas and extensive training of NB-DSS representatives from all of the Nile riparian countries. These include, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.   Western Cape Water Reconciliation Strategy:    This long-term Project involves a review of the rising future water requirements within the supply area of the Western Cape Bulk Water Resources System, which supplies water to more than three million people in the Greater Cape Town Region (photo below). The Project further continuously evaluates a wide range of soft and hard options for meeting these increasing demands.

Further to the Reconciliation Strategy with its Action Plan, the Project identifies the most favourable intervention options and recommends a programme of feasibility studies and other investigations to improve the operation and planning of the system, and to ensure that the necessary infrastructure or other interventions were implemented timeously so as to reconcile the supplies with the future demands.

The reconciliation study also involves scenario planning of alternative development options and the development of a Reconciliation Planning Support Tool (RPST) which enables the ranking of alternative water resource and water demand intervention options.

SHORT BIO:

André holds BSc, BEng and MEng degrees from the University of Stellenbosch and a PhD in engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. He is currently a Technical Director in the Cape Town Office of Aurecon, a global consulting firm, as well as the Water Resources Management Leader globally in Aurecon. He has 39 years of Water Sector experience in academic, research and consulting roles.

In the latter part of his career he was a full-time and later part-time Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources at Stellenbosch University. During recent years he has been deeply involved in strategic water resources management projects related to bulk infrastructure planning and design, institutional development and policy implementation support, optimisation of the operation of multi-purpose water resources schemes; and flood and drought management. His research focus has encompassed various themes in hydrological, hydrodynamic and water resources systems modelling and related decision support tools, as well as design flood hydrology. He has produced more than 50 papers, publications and research reports.

PS* This seminar is free and open to the public & no RSVP required.

****All Welcome****

A cross-disciplinary forum.

The importance of water and its impact on society will continue to be one of the key challenges for future generations struggling with droughts, floods and the availability of clean drinking water. The need for cross-disciplinary strategies to deal with the global, financial, ecological and societal issues is the focus of this panel, which will explore the social transformations needed to support water sensitive cities, including community attitudes and behavioural change, governance and economic assessment practices, management systems and technological innovations. Developing a richer understanding of the underpinning social norms and behaviours will, along with scientific research, provide guidance on the reform of institutional rules and economic and regulatory frameworks for water sensitive decisions, policies and practices. The ultimate goal is to deliver policy tools and practical guidance that will facilitate the adoption of appropriate new technologies and social, institutional, regulatory and economic reforms that are mutually reinforcing, flexible and adaptable to different social scales and contexts.

This Forum is sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Studies, the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities, the Centre for the Study of Social Change and the Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy at The University of Western Australia.

Cost: Free, but RSVP essential. To register a place visit http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/water-and-society-forum

Through the UWA Health & Rehabiliation Clinic a variety of Clinical Pilates options are now available to staff and general public!

Clinical Pilates is a form of physical exercise that focuses on posture, balance, control, strength, flexibility, and breathing. It incorporates mat and equipment based exercises to optimise function, improve fitness and aid the management or rehabilitation following pain or injury. Using the experitse of Physiotherapy and Exercise Physiology trained staff to tailor exercises, Clinical Pilates is able to ensure optimal gains whilst minimising risk of injury or aggravation.

Initial assessment may be required prior to starting classes. Sessions are available Mon-Fri at various times between 6am-6pm. Private Health Rebates May Apply.