What's On at UWA

Dr Shelley Gorman from Telethon Institute for Child Health Research will give a talk on "UVR-induced vitamin D: essential for immunoregulation?" in the Microbiology & Immunology Seminar room, Friday, 11 May 2012 at 09.00am. Vitamin D is synthesised in the skin after exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) found in sunlight, and can suppress immunity in a similar manner to UVR. Our studies show that topically-applied vitamin D can increase the suppressive activity of regulatory T cells through interleukin-2 and skin-derived dendritic cell mechanisms. However, the role of vitamin post-UVR in suppressing immunity has not been determined and I will discuss our recent findings, which indicate that UV-induced vitamin D may not be essential for immunoregulation.

Abstract: The disadvantage suffered by Aboriginal people in this country remains a high priority for all. An assumed major barrier to addressing the needs of Aboriginal people are cultural differences. Difference between groups, whether they be groups based on race, gender, age, location, etc., should be considered, but only after considering commonalities between groups. Sadly, differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people have been put ahead of commonalities, much to the detriment of the Aboriginal people. Further, the significance of any differences are sometimes exaggerated or distorted. Political correctness has contributed to this situation. The best contributions that researchers, educators, leaders, etc., can make when addressing the needs of Aboriginal people is to view them as people first, and Aboriginal second.

Biography: Anthony Dillon is a researcher and lecturer at The University of Western Sydney, as well as the University of Sydney. He identifies as an Aboriginal Australian. Originally from Queensland, he has lived in Sydney for the past 8 years. He has a doctorate in the behavioural sciences (psychology) and is actively involved in Indigenous affairs. Anthony has previously taught many Indigenous students and taught on Indigenous health issues.

Professor Pattison will review the impact of significant curriculum change at the University of Melbourne, with a particular focus on students’ experiences of new undergraduate and graduate courses. She will describe how students have reacted to new courses and reported on their experiences, and reflect on the broader impacts of the new curriculum on the educational mission of the University, including social inclusion priorities. Professor Pattison will also point to: some lessons learned along the way; what the University of Melbourne believe they have achieved; and what they see as ongoing challenges.

Biography: Professor Pip Pattison is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) and a Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. As Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Melbourne, Pip is responsible for the implementation of the Melbourne Model curriculum at undergraduate and graduate level, including embedding of graduate attributes. She leads development of the University's learning and teaching strategy, and works closely with the University's Academic Board by providing management oversight of the University’s quality assurance of learning and teaching and related systems and policies.

A public lecture by Associate Professor David Glance, Director, UWA Centre for Software Practice.

From July 2012, Australians will be able to register for their own Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR). The PCEHR will potentially allow consumers to have access to a summary of their medical information including medications, medical history, information about allergies and adverse drug reactions and letters and documents. In contrast to a summary record like the PCEHR, the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services Council (KAMSC), in collaboration with The University of Western Australia, is using a web-based electronic health record called MMEx for 22,000 mostly Aboriginal people in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The difference between this approach and the PCEHR is that everyone is working off the same record. Practitioners have to work collaboratively, because their changes are immediately seen by everyone involved in the care of the patient. It is very unlikely that the PCEHR will revolutionise health care in Australia any more than its equivalent did in the United Kingdom. From an e-health perspective, this will only come from a single shared electronic health record with clinical protocols and governance that allow health providers to collaborate with a patient in managing their health and wellbeing.

Cost: Free, no RSVP required.

Although the risk of developing dementia increases with age – in most people with dementia, symptoms first appear after age 60. Dementia is not a part of normal aging. It is caused by a fatal disease that affects the brain. Dementia is an irreversible, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills. International Health and dementia expert Professor Passmore will reveal the causes of brain degeneration in dementia.

A public lecture by Peter Passmore, Professor of Ageing and Geriatric Medicine, Queen’s University Belfast.

Once considered a rare disorder, dementia is now seen as a major public health problem that is seriously affecting thousands of older Australians and their families.

Although the risk of developing dementia increases with age – in most people with dementia, symptoms first appear after age 60. Dementia is not a part of normal aging. It is caused by a fatal disease that affects the brain. Dementia is an irreversible, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills. International Health and dementia expert Professor Passmore will reveal the causes of brain degeneration in dementia.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Studies and the WA Centre for Health and Ageing and is free and open to the public.

Cost: Free, no RSVP required.

Robert Humphries1, Tom Long1, Katrina Walton2 and David Allen3 Water Corporation of Western Australia1, Chemistry Centre of Western Australia2, MBS Environmental3

Most Australian water utilities strive to direct stabilized wastewater sludges, or biosolids, to beneficial uses. However, the “solutions” to the problems of biosolids utilization are often expensive, inefficient in terms of transport distances, and unstable because of constantly changing perceptions regarding the health risks and environmental safety of biosolids.

This Water Corporation project has determined the social, environmental, technical and economic feasibility of converting annual pastures on grey acid sands in the nutrient-enriched Ellen Brook catchment into perennial-plant based farming systems by using a combined soil conditioner /slow-release fertiliser based on a blend of lime-amended biosolids, or LAB with clay. The new product is called Lime-amended BioClay®, or LaBC®.

LaBC® corrects soil acidity, soil water repellence and significantly improves soil water holding capacity. It also provides a valuable source of organic matter, slow release nutrients and trace elements to improve soil biology and reduce leaching losses of nutrients – a major issue with conventional soluble fertilisers.

There are many benefits from using LaBC® on acid sands. These include reducing excessive nutrient loads to groundwater and surface waters, facilitating economically and environmentally beneficial land use change, and converting a business problem into a valuable resource.

The research phase of the work is complete, and community acceptance of LaBC® is growing, with farmers impatient to use the product.



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

****All Welcome****

Our free information sessions will give you a head-start on making your child's Year 10 or 11 experience a positive one.

You'll hear about UWA's new course structure, how you can help your child choose their upper-school subjects and important dates to keep in mind.

UWA Admissions staff will be available to answer any queries following the presentation.

A public lecture by Dr Ron Kikinis, Director, Surgical Planning Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

For the last decade, Professor Kikinis has focused on creating a software platform to make it easier to translate engineering prototypes for image post-processing into diagnostics and surgical treatment. In his talk, Professor Kikinis will discuss current state-of-the-art tools and recent progress from a personal perspective.

Cost: Free, no RSVP required.

Join the Winthrop Singers bright and early to celebrate the Feast of The Ascension.

William Byrd: Mass for Four Voices

Reading: Matthew 5: 38-48

Motet: Philips, Ascendit Deus

2011 Flora Bunning Memorial prize winners Riley Skevington, Elena Phatak, Eunise Cheng and Jeremy Huynh present and exciting program for string quartet, featuring Schubert's "Death and the Maiden"

Visiting Scholar Professor Emeritus Timothy Earle, from Northwestern University, Illinois, and supported by the Society of Antiquaries of London presents a seminar bringing together case studies from his many years of research in the Pacific.

The development of chiefdoms was a political act, concerning the elemental powers derived from the political economy, from warrior might, and from religious ideology. Three prehistoric cases from the Pacific (the Lapita, Vanuatu, and Hawai’i) are used to construct a model of how chiefs come to power. The necessary conditions for their emergence rested on an ability to control specific economic bottlenecks, such as a long-distance trade, complicated technologies, or highly productive lands. Resources, including both subsistence foods and prestige goods, could then be mobilized to support the chiefly strategies that involved their power specialists, who included land managers, captains, warriors, and priests.

Our free information sessions will give you a head-start on making your child's Year 10 or 11 experience a positive one.

You'll hear about UWA's new course structure, how you can help your child choose their upper-school subjects and important dates to keep in mind.

UWA Admissions staff will be available to answer any queries following the presentation.

Ms Alexandra Debowski will give a talk on "The development of a tetracycline-based gene regulation system to study H. pylori pathogenesis and persistence" in the Microbiology & Immunology Seminar room, Friday, 18 May 2012 at 09.00am. A limited number of genetic tools are available to study Helicobacter pylori pathogenesis. In particular, gene expression systems, that allow the regulation of bacterial genes during an infection are lacking. Such a genetic tool is of particular importance to study the functional role and temporal requirements of H. pylori virulence determinants as infection is persistent and clinical diseases develop after many years of chronic inflammation and epithelial damage. This study describes the development of a chromosomal H. pylori gene regulation system based on tetracyclines for the control of gene expression, both in vitro and in vivo.

This talk,will highlight recent efforts from our lab to increase the translational potential of cognitive bias modification by improving understanding of how it works, and determining how it compares to other established treatments.

The immune system can be seen as the metaphorical factor of applied performance, which makes the latter artistic practice more than simply social work. Transposed into a functional nomenclature, the immune system makes a larger body stay healthy by encountering visitors (pathogens) by way of recollection, accommodation, identification, discrimination, protection, and aggression. But it may also learn to live with strangers, ad interim, even if it doesn’t quite know who they are. This captures the current challenges of contemporary applied performance very well.

Applied performance is used when social crises require extraordinary management beyond simple solutions. Such conflicts often subsist on deep structural and implicit behavioural attitudes between two parties in situations of, i.e., racism, bullying, gender discord, postcolonial disputes, ecological predicaments, and so forth. Applied performance is often initiated by a third party, e.g., extension workers in non-governmental organizations, who approach conflicts with an equally cooperative and critical mind towards the host culture, but also those who choose to participate in projects.

Amanda Newall is Senior Lecturer in sculpture at Royal Institute of Arts (Kungliga Konsthögskolan) in Stockholm, Sweden. She is also conducting a doctoral project at Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts, London. She has taught sculpture, socially engaged art, curatorship, professional practice and new media at Auckland University, Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts (UK), and has exhibited numerous international shows.

Ola Johansson is Guest Professor in artistic research at Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts (Stockholms dramatiska högskola). His books on community theatre and performance art are paralleled by creative work in intercultural performance, documentary film, devising, and applied performance. He has taught devising and applied performance in the UK, Sweden and India. Johansson’s have published two books, Community Theatre and AIDS (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and Performance and Philosophy: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Performing Arts (Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag, 2008).

The flourishing vocal program at UWA's School of Music presents an exciting program of music by UWA Senior vocal students.

What happens when you have a show needing a chorus of men and five major male leads, but only five men and not a tenor in sight, too many women who are all suitable to sing the two major women leads, no budget, no sets, no props, a bare music auditorium and a grand piano?

Answer. UWA Vocal Students condensed version of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado. Arguably the most popular Gilbert & Sullivan opera of all time, this is a Mikado with a difference. Watch as the Mikado never appears. Be stunned at the multi-personalities of Yum Yum, Nanki Poo, as you've never seen him before, Pooh Bah from Glasgow, and Katisha "the cougar". Be amazed at how great the men's chorus sounds ... with women. Look out for the next Lord High Executioner - will it be you? Witty dialogue, new narration, stunning music, and fresh and eager young voices. Why haven't you booked your seat already? A Mikado not to be missed.

Artistic Director Andrew Foote Accompanist and Coach Caroline Badnall

Price - Unreserved Tickets at door Standard: $15 Concession: 10 Students: Free

RSVP by Monday 14 May 2012 (by phone only - 9384 6166) Cost: UWAHS members Free, non-members $5.00

FOUR FOUNDATION PROFESSORS Panel presentation of ‘thumb-nail’ profiles: 1. Professor A. D. Ross - Dr. John Robins 2. Professor H. E. Whitfeld - Winthrop Professor John Melville-Jones 3. Professor E. O. G. Shann - Dr. Pamela Statham Drew (read by Dr. Joan Pope) 4. Professor W. J. Dakin - Dr. Brenton Knott

Eight professorial staff were appointed during 1912 and arrived at the new University of Western Australia at Irwin Street in Perth ready to commence classes in March 1913. The UWA Historical Society is delighted to take this opportunity to re-introduce these pioneering figures, and plans another panel later in the year to acknowledge Professors N. T. Wilsmore, W. G. Woolnough, J. W. Paterson and W. L. Murdoch.

Their disciplines were shared between three Faculties and in addition to their teaching duties most served, on a rotational basis, as Vice-Chancellor.

You may care to bring your own picnic afternoon tea to enjoy in the grounds or on the verandah. The Reid Library café is open until 4pm, or the UWA Club café is open until 5pm.

A public lecture by Ann Hunter, Lecturer/Law Coordinator, School of Indigenous Studies, UWA.

The lecture will examine the approach taken by British and colonial governments towards Aboriginal people in the formative years of the Swan River Colony. The colonial and British government pronounced that Aboriginal people were to be regarded as British subjects with similar rights to those of the colonists under British law. Dr Hunter’s lecture will demonstrate that this was not the case. She will examine how legalistic style devices, policies and actions such as outlawry were employed to deny Aboriginal people their rights, particularly Noongar people on whose land the colonial invasion first occurred.

Cost: Free, no RSVP required.