What's On at UWA

Come to a free talk and book signing by Tim Jarvis, one of the world’s leading explorers, as he describes his modern-day journey to retrace, for the first time ever, the legendary 1914 expedition of Sir Ernest Shackleton.

In early 1914, British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his team sailed for Antarctica, attempting to be the first to reach the South Pole. Instead of glory, Shackleton and his crew found themselves in an epic struggle for survival: a three-year odyssey on the ice and oceans of the Antarctic that endures as one of the world’s most famous tales of adventure, endurance, and leadership ever recorded.

In the winter of 2013, celebrated explorer Tim Jarvis, a veteran of multiple polar expeditions, set out to recreate Sir Ernest Shackleton’s treacherous voyage over sea and mountain, outfitted solely with authentic equipment – clothing, boots, food, and tools – from Shackleton’s time, a feat that has never been successfully accomplished.

Prof Singh has acted as principal investigator on numerous clinical trials of novel therapies in asthma and COPD, and has over 100 publications in peer reviewed journals. He is a member of the GOLD science committee.

Gender score is the cognitive judgement of the degree of masculinity or femininity of a face which is considered to be a continuum. Gender scores have long been used in psychological studies to understand the complex psychosocial relationships between people.

Perceptual scores for gender and attractiveness have been employed for quality assessment and planning of cosmetic facial surgery. Various neurological disorders have been linked to the facial structure in general and the facial gender perception in particular. While, subjective gender scoring by human raters has been a tool of choice for psychological studies for many years, the process is both time and resource consuming. This study investigates the geometric features used by the human cognitive system in perceiving the degree of masculinity/femininity of a 3D face. It then proposes a mathematical model that can mimic the human gender perception.

The results suggest that the human cognitive system employs a combination of Euclidean and geodesic distances between biologically significant landmarks of the face for gender scoring. It proposes a mathematical model that is able to automatically assign an objective gender score to a 3D face with a correlation of up to 0.895 with the human subjective scores.

Biography:-

Syed Zulqarnain Gilani

Syed Zulqarnain Gilani is a PhD scholar in the Computer Science & Software Engineering Department at UWA. His research topic is 3D Morphometric Face Analysis: Applications to Syndrome Delineation. Mr. Gilani did his MS in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan and secured the Presidents Gold Medal. Prior to joining UWA, he was an Assistant Professor in NUST. He is working with a multi-disciplinary team of scientists to find possible alternatives diagnosis of syndromes like Autism from 3D faces. His research interests include computer vision, 3D face analysis, pattern recognition and machine learning.

Faisal Shafait

Faisal Shafait is working as a Research Assistant Professor in the Computer Science & Software Engineering Department at The University of Western Australia. Formerly, he was a Senior Researcher at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Germany and a visiting researcher at Google, California. He received his Ph.D. in computer engineering with the highest distinction from Kaiserslautern University of Technology, Germany in 2008. His research interests include machine learning and pattern recognition with a special emphasis on applications in document image analysis. He has co-authored over 100 publications in international peer-reviewed conferences and journals in this area. He is an Editorial Board member of the International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition (IJDAR), and a Program Committee member of leading document analysis conferences including ICDAR, DAS, and ICFHR. He is also serving on the Leadership Board of IAPR’s Technical Committee on Computational Forensics (TC-6).

Professor Ajmal Mian

Professor Ajmal Mian completed his PhD from The University of Western Australia in 2006 with distinction and received the Australasian Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award from Computing Research and Education Association of Australasia. He received the prestigious Australian Postdoctoral and Australian Research Fellowships in 2008 and 2011 respectively. He received the UWA Outstanding Young Investigator Award in 2011 and the West Australian Early Career Scientist of the Year award in 2012. He has secured four Australian Research Councit grants worth over $2 Million. He is currently a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering at The University of Western Australia. His research interests include computer vision, 3D shape analysis, pattern recognition, machine learning, multimodal biometrics, and hyperspectral image analysis.

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

****All Welcome****

An 'On the Edge' public lecture by Paul Power, Chief Executive Officer of the Refugee Council of Australia.

For the past eight years, Paul Power has been actively engaged in debates about the direction of Australian and international refugee policy as Chief Executive Officer of the Refugee Council of Australia. He has been involved in the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, the regional umbrella body for NGOs involved in support to refugees, since its inception in 2008 and now serves on its steering committee. Paul will share his observations about the impacts of Australian policy on refugees across the Asia-Pacific region and look at what practical alternatives are available, even in a national political environment where both major parties seem unlikely to back away from their commitment to "stop the boats".

Cost: Free, but RSVP essential via http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/power

Although the polar regions are currently covered in ice and snow, life was very different at high latitudes under past warm climates millions of years ago – the polar regions were green. Fossil plants (leaves, wood, pollen, seeds and flowers) preserved in rocks from Antarctica show that the continent was once covered in lush green forests that flourished in warm humid climates, despite the extreme polar light regime of continuous summer sunlight and long dark winters. Antarctic plant fossils contain a rich store of palaeoclimate information about past polar environments and provide us with a window into life at high latitudes in our future warm world.

The Joseph Gentilli Memorial Lecture was established in 2005 to honour the memory and intellectual legacy of an influential and long-serving scholar. Joseph Gentilli (1912-2000) commenced teaching at UWA soon after arriving in Fremantle from Italy in 1939, and continued to be actively involved with the Department of Geography until 2000. During his long and distinguished career, Joseph Gentilli helped to bring about a comprehensive understanding of the climates of Australia. In addition to his many other contributions, he wrote about “the selective or “greenhouse” effect of the atmosphere” more than 50 years ago (A Geography of Climate, The University of Western Australia, 1952), and more than 30 years ago was calling for an understanding of how climate patterns were changing (Australian Climate Patterns, Nelson, 1972).

Cost: Free, but RSVP requested via http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/francis

We are seeking regular wine consumers to participate in a 1 hour focus group session. The sessions will last no longer than one hour. Participants will be reimbursed for their time with a token payment of a bottle of wine to cover the cost of their time participating.

A fascination with modes of thinking, the nature of creativity as well as the neuro-physiological basis of these have led me to pursue work within the domains of art and science throughout my adult life. My conviction, through my own experience, that the practices of art and science are varied dimensions of the same spectrum has driven my continuing engagement with art and science. This presentation will discuss some of the ways in which I have worked within art and science including collaborative partnerships with artists and scientists and some outcomes from these projects.

Janice Lally’s career combines art gallery and art museum directorship, management, research and curatorship with her work as an independent consultant and arts manager in the visual arts, crafts, design, public art and cultural heritage sectors in Australia, Berlin and Hong Kong since 1986. Her earlier career was as a research scientist working in biochemistry and molecular biology. She holds a MSc in Clinical Biochemistry from Flinders University. Her research at the Australian National University included Neurophysiology, Biochemistry and Zoology. Her work in molecular biology continued in Medicine and Biochemistry at UWA. Working in both the science and art arenas, she completed a BA Hons (Fine Art) at UWA and focused on full-time work in the arts. However, the passion for both domains continued. They came together again in 2003 in her PhD awarded by the University of Melbourne, Department of History and Philosophy of Science/Fine Arts for her thesis The Aboriginal Collection in the Berlin Museum of Ethnography. In 1990, as inaugural Public Art Manager for Arts South Australia, she was invited to establish the Public Art Program, which accrued national and international acclaim. Later, as Curator of Public Art for the City of Adelaide, she initiated a public art project, Sensing with Light, by John Tonkin, the interactive new media artist. This was commissioned in partnership with the Institute of Photonics and Advanced Sensing, University of Adelaide in 2010 and is now in final stages of production.

As Gallery Director and Curator at JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design, then as Curator at Flinders University Art Museum, both in SA, Janice curated and managed numerous exhibitions. This included national and international touring exhibitions such as Ritual of Tea for the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2002, which toured to Object Gallery, Sydney and Light Black (2003-4) that travelled to Japan and Taiwan. Prism: Contemporary Australian Art (2006)featuring 74 works involved 35 artists and 20 lenders, both public and private, was developed in partnership with the Bridgestone Museum of Art for the Ishibashi Foundation, Japan, for tour to Tokyo.

Janice invited contemporary artists to work with the Flinders University Art Museum collection and to collaborate with a neuroscientist and anatomist for the exhibition Identity: Portraits and Places- document or insight? (2007). Six major SA artists were also commissioned to produce new works relating to art and science for Not Absolute (2009). As inaugural Manager, Art for Public Places (1990-97) and Senior Project Officer (1997-2000) at Arts SA she prepared policy and guidelines to support public art projects and new initiatives including the SALA Monograph. Her current position as Curator of Public Programs at the UWA Museums - including the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery and Berndt Museum - enables her to work across disciplines, also collaborating with Campus Partners in the humanities and sciences. This brings together her interest in extending and communicating ideas through art and science. Janice served as a Board Member for four years for the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (2000-4) and is currently a member of the International Council of Museums, Museums Australia, Australian Experimental Art Foundation and Contemporary Art Centre of SA.

It is almost eighty years now since the original realisation that a majority of our universe consists of a type of matter that neither emits nor absorbs light. For this reason, we refer to it as "dark matter". Numerous astronomical observations have confirmed its existence, based on the gravitational pull that it exerts on luminous bodies (stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies...). And yet we remain ignorant about the exact nature of this mysterious source of mass. Over the last thirty years our interest has concentrated on looking for new types of "dark" fundamental particles. These are hoped to interact every so often with dedicated detectors, but not too often, or their existence would have already been revealed in the laboratory. In a world-wide effort, numerous teams of researchers are looking for these particles, using highly sophisticated detectors. Most of these experiments take place deep underground, in mines or tunnels that provide a quiet environment able to reduce interference from known particles. We will discuss the many challenges faced by these dark matter hunters, and the progress made over the past few decades. Infused by a good dose of optimism, it can be claimed that the discovery of these new particles may be near.

The GMA takes great pleasure in inviting you to our Annual Black Tie Dinner, our largest and most successful event, hosting more than 200 people from various backgrounds and industries. Join us for an evening with Peter Coleman, CEO & Managing Director of Woodside Energy Limited, as he shares his candid and revealing personal insights on leading an organisation at the heart of Australia’s resources boom, including rare and exclusive experiences on leadership and strategy. This prestigious and sought after dinner is the GMA’s most talked about event where you can connect and network with a highly selective group of alumni and current students.

$160 GMA Member/Partner $175 Non-Members

A public talk by Stephen Curry, Professor of Structural Biology, Imperial College London.

Just over a hundred years ago a narrow beam of X-rays was fired at a crystal for the very first time. The experiment, an early attempt to investigate the nature of this recently-discovered radiation, showed that it was wavelike and so constituted a new type of light. Although that was in itself a profound discovery, scientists realised immediately that the far more interesting outcome of the experiment was the revelation that X-rays could be used to ‘see’ the atomic structure of matter in three dimensions at a level of detail beyond the reach of even the most powerful microscopes. The technique of X-ray crystallography, first used to work out the atomic structure of simple crystals and minerals, has since been applied to the far more elaborate molecular structures found in chemistry and biology. It is arguably one of the greatest scientific advances of the 20th century. In this lecture Professor Curry will recount the curious origin of the technique (including its Australian roots), explain how it works and discuss how crystallography opened up an entirely new landscape for scientists to explore.

This lecture is part of the International Year of Crystallography lecture series at The University of Western Australia, sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Studies and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Cost: Free but RSVP required to http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/crystallography

The Seminar: A lot of evolutionary theory involves the concept of populations climbing towards peaks of higher fitness. Such theory has been written without taking into account that in most species there are two distinct classes of individuals — males and females — that influence the evolutionary process in a distinctly different way. I will talk about this, and try to shed some light on two quite broad questions: why do males exist, and what determines how they behave?

The Speaker: Hanna Kokko finished her PhD at Helsinki University in 1997. She has conducted postdoctoral work at the Universities of Cambridge and Glasgow, and obtained her first professorship at Helsinki University in 2004. For the last five years she has been a professor of evolutionary ecology and a Laureate Fellow at the Australian National University; later this year she will be back in Europe, as a professor of evolutionary ecology at the University of Zurich.

The development of executive functions and intelligence are of critical importance to success in many everyday tasks. From a neurological perspective, both of these processes are generally understood to be reliant upon frontal regions of the brain (particularly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). Intelligence has been hypothesised to develop through a process of differentiation during childhood and adolescence. That is, as a child develops, specific mental abilities become increasingly distinguishable from each other. However, no study has examined whether this differentiation hypothesis can be applied to the development of executive functions. This seminar will present a thesis examining the unity and diversity of three commonly theorised executive functions, inhibition, shifting, and working memory, in typically developing children. In addition, the development of one of these executive functions, inhibition, is examined from an electrophysiological perspective, as the varied developmental trajectories of different brain regions are thought to directly affect behavioural manifestations of executive functions. The results of these studies provide evidence of marked development of executive functions between the ages of 7 and 11 years from both behavioural and electrophysiological perspectives. However, it may be the case that behavioural changes only occur after neurological changes, providing potential support for the link between brain and behaviour in the executive functioning of children.

A public lecture by Dawn Freshwater, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, The University of Western Australia.

Models and theories around change management, structures and formulas, and guidelines to successful change are available in industrial quantities in the literature. What seems to be missing, in the context of how leaders facilitate and create opportunities for inclusive change to be managed successfully, is a reference to how to lead movement, which Prof Freshwater believes is a qualitatively different skill to that of managing change. Leaders who are willing to recognise the relative merits and limitations of a variety of approaches to achieve the same ends and to appreciate the co-existence of multiple truths have an opportunity to flourish and to lead the movement and change inclusively in this context. This presentation will highlight the importance of developing a dialogical approach to understanding leadership practices.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the IAS and the UWA Leadership Development for Women (LDW).

Cost: Free, however RSVP required. Book Online http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/freshwater

Bitcoin is a "virtual currency” made possible by the internet. One attraction for many is that the creation and use of Bitcoin as a currency is that is independent of any bank. But, is Bitcoin a valid currency or is it a speculative investment? Professor David Yermack provides an informed, unbiased perspective on this issue.

Professor Yermack is the Albert Fingerhut Professor of Finance and Business Transformation at New York University Stern School of Business and also Director, Pollack Center New York University School of Law.

CBSM aims to promote biological science in Western Australia by encouraging the interaction of scientists, students and industry representatives from all aspects of life science. The meeting is designed to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas and expertise to keep the life sciences in WA at the cutting edge. This annual meeting includes plenary presentations by national and international scientists and in 2014 will incorporate concurrent specialist symposia each with its own keynote speaker and session of local senior scientists. CBSM is also geared toward honours and postgraduate students and their development among their peers. Several sessions are set aside for student presentations and for many, it represents their first chance to present their work in a conference setting. In this way, CBSM offers a unique “snapshot” of what is happening in local biological science and now attracts more than 300 delegates every year, with more than 40 oral presentations, over 70 scientific posters and 30 trade booths.

Check us out at www.cbsmwa.org.au. Join us at the University Club, The University of Western Australia for CBSM 2014 on the 29th of August 2014.

The MBA & Postgrad Studies Expo enables you to compare courses from local and interstate universities, discussing in person details of postgraduate certificates, diplomas, masters and doctorates in all disciplines.

Meet UWA Business School staff and find out all about our postgraduate courses. These include: -Graduate Certificate in Business -Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation -Graduate Certificate in Social Impact -MBA Full Time -MBA Flexible -Master of Applied Finance -Master of Business Information Management -Master of Commerce -Master of Economics -Master of Human Resources and Employment Relations -Master of Marketing -Master of Professional Accounting

The Seminar: Although beauty is often said to be ‘in the eye of the beholder’, the past 30 years of research into human mate preferences has revealed that our judgments of physical attractiveness are not so subjective. Instead, sexual dimorphism in body composition and secondary sexual traits is argued to reveal aspects of health, fertility and competitive ability that determine men and women’s attractiveness. However, much of the evidence in support of this view comes from studies conducted among people in Western cultures, which represent only a thin slice of human cultural diversity. In this seminar, Barnaby will summarize some of his cross-cultural research on men and women’s preferences for body composition, body hair and beards. He will then discuss the degree to which cross-cultural research is complimented by behavioural eye-tracking research and experiments conducted on-line. Finally, he will describe some of his most recent research from Pacific island cultures in which he attempts to use islands as ‘natural laboratories’ to test predictions regarding how social and ecological factors influence women’s preferences for masculine traits in men.

The Speaker: Barnaby trained in social and physical anthropology but has broad interests that span behavioural psychology to evolutionary biology. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher in the Evolution and Ecology Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia. His research focuses on human behavioural ecology, particularly mate preferences, from an evolutionary perspective. He is primarily interested in the role of body composition and secondary sexual traits in determining male and female attractiveness judgments cross-culturally, including among indigenous cultures.

Prof. Jeff Tatum, of Victoria University of Wellington, is a 2014 Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens Visiting Professor.

It is well known that monumental architecture in Rome was a crucial medium for the exhibition of aristocratic prestige, not least by way of its enduring advertisement of the glorious achievements of splendid individuals and their families. It is less often observed that the actual construction and dedication of these monuments fell within the constitutional competence of the people and the senate, or that each body tended to respect the conventions, of religion and social practice, that regulated public building. This paper will examine the constitutional, religious, and political dimensions of monumental public building, out of which will emerge a clearer picture of how the aristocracy, in monumentalising its greatness, also affirmed the majesty of the Roman people. And by revisiting, among others the Theatre of Pompey and Caesar's forum, an attempt will be made to apply these ideological considerations in the hope of recovering the Romans' experience and reception of their monumental architecture.

A public lecture by Sasha Roseneil, Director of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, University of London and 2014 IAS Professor-at-Large.

We long to connect, to be close to another, yet we also want our own space, need to do our own thing. That a fundamental tension exists between intimacy and autonomy has long been recognised by psychoanalysis, and that this tension has intensified amidst the transformations in gender and sexuality of recent decades has been acknowledged by feminism. In this lecture, Sasha Roseneil will argue that these psychosocial dynamics of togetherness and apartness are vital to an understanding of the phenomenon that is known as “living apart together”.

Cost: Free, but RSVP required via http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/roseneil

The Mabo decision in 1992 was a decisive shift in the law as it had been previously understood. It effected the most significant shift in the balance of power between Aboriginal Australians and the settler society since 1788. Great lawyers playing many different roles, in Milirrpum and beyond, brought that about. Whether as counsel, judges, Royal commissioners, commissioners, Prime Ministers, Ministers, politicians or citizens they righted an absurd wrong and took Australia some way out of an age of racial discrimination. They found diverse ways to nudge Australian law into a new direction. The list of those involved is a roll of honour. Please RSVP to [email protected] or +61 8 6488 4268.