What's On at UWA

Western Mining Services (WMS) and the Centre for Exploration Targeting (CET) have combined to offer a senior-level exploration management course on February 28 – March 3, 2011 on the campus of The University of Western Australia in Perth. The Director of the CET, Professor McCuaig, was so overwhelmed with the positive feedback from participants in the 2010 course that the CET and WMS have decided that the Senior Exploration Management Course will become an annual event. This four-day training course covers the principles and practices of effective exploration management. The course curriculum covers the spectrum of mineral exploration business issues that typically confront senior exploration managers. Participants will leave with a better understanding of:

Mineral exploration at the strategic scale – the roles of greenfields and brownfields exploration in development and implementation of corporate operating and growth strategies; Designing and managing exploration programs and portfolios; The importance of group structure, program design, process discipline and effective people management in achieving exploration group objectives; Opportunity generation including the exploration search space concept, targeting science and the application of targeting models; and How to conduct new opportunity due diligence, build and negotiate land and minerals access transactions, and manage non-technical risks to achieve enhanced project economics and maintain the necessary licenses to operate exploration projects in varied risk environments.

The course format utilises both lecture and workshop and stresses interactive thinking and problem solving. Participants will work in teams to design solutions to exploration management challenges and will present their results to the broader group.

The University of Western Australia is proud to announce the Year of Mathematics 2011, a celebration of mathematics and the powerful role that it plays in our everyday lives.

Central to the program of events is the MathWest Workshop, where over two days, members of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) Executive Committee, Ingrid Daubechies (Duke University, US), László Lovász ( Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary) Christine Rousseau (Université de Montréal, Canada) John Toland (University of Bath, UK) Marcelo Viana (Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicad, Brazil) and Wendelin Werner (Université Paris-Sud 11, France) will impart their research expertise to us through insightful lectures.

There will also be a forum entitled Mathematics: how a nation plans for the future - the Spanish, Indian and Chinese experience which will be chaired by Nalini Joshi (University of Sydney) and will include presentations from Manuel de León (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain), Yinming Long (Nankai University, China), Vasudevan Srinivas(Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India).

Timetable and registration are available at www.maths.uwa.edu.au/community/year-of-maths/mathwest-workshop-2011/_nocache

Lung diseases affect one in five people worldwide. They carry a high mortality and have a devastating effect on a normally active lifestyle. Australians, like most people in developed countries, are experiencing an increased incidence of many lung diseases including asthma and smoking related diseases. Most of these diseases are treated inadequately and cannot currently be cured. The lungs are also damaged by exposure to inhaled agents such as asbestos and nanoparticles in the atmosphere. This is a major concern for public health in Western Australia with the incidence of asbestosis and mesothelioma set to peak over the next decade.

Professor Laurent is a leading researcher into the basic mechanisms of lung diseases and will discuss key recent advances in the field of lung research. This will include mechanisms of common lung diseases such as asthma and smoking related diseases as well as rarer diseases such as asbestosis.

This is a free public lecture, no RSVP required.

Come along for a sunset poetry reading in the Convocation Pavilion on Whitfeld Court at UWA. Poets include:

Amanda Joy, Belowsky Poet, Vivienne Glance, Jan Napier, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Dosh Luckwell, Tristan Parr, Gabrielle Everall, Sue Clennell, Andrew Burke and Afief Ismail

Pantomime is a traditional British parody of well known fairytales and stories, which UWA PantoSoc has shamelessly converted to an M15+ parody of anything and everything. Although we started out focusing on fairytales, we quickly realised that this was our last chance to fulill our own dreams by choosing classic stories such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings to portray our message that … wait, we don’t really have one, other than life should be fun, and making a complete fool of yourself on stage is character building. Tutorial presentations suddenly seem much less daunting when you’ve pranced around in only your underwear in front of 200 people …

Panto is audience interactive, so if you come along to our shows, don’t forget to join in with the common cat calls and comments such as ‘he’s behind you!’ and ‘oh no he isn’t!’.

This event is for the auditions of our Semester One 2011 pantomime show, titled 'Scooby Doo Origins: The Legend of the Frumious Bandersnatch'. Anyone can audition - even those who are not UWA students - and everyone who auditions is guaranteed a speaking role.

Auditions are on Thursday 3rd March and Friday 4th March at 7pm in the Sue Boyd room (near Guild Village).

2011's season of free Friday lunchtime meditation sessions begins this week! Whether you seek to learn meditation or you are a long-time practitioner, this is a good place to be at the end of each week, where you de-stress and practise to develop greater clarity and composure in life.

All are welcomed.

Dates: Fridays, Mar 4, 11, 18, 25 & April 1 Time: 1.10 – 1.45pm

A 20-20 cricket game being played between the VC’s XI and the John Inverarity XI.

Included in the remit of the University Librarian and Director (Information Management) is the requirement to raise information technology to be a strategic enabler in support of UWA’s strategic goal of becoming a top-50 ranked university in the world by 2050, and the anticipated changes required to support the new courses structure 2012. This presentation summarises Information Services’ Business / Investment Programme, which was submitted to the VC in December 2010 and which was approved for implementation by the VC’s Advisory Group in February 2011.

About the Speaker

Dr Mary Davies is an experienced information scientist and IT professional, specialising in the exploitation of IT systems and information management to support corporate goals, with experience across the public, private and not for profit sectors.

She is an honours graduate, with post-graduate qualifications in librarianship and an MSc in Managing Information Technology. She also possesses a PhD in information science.

Her major interests are: customer focus (information / data / support requirements); performance management and service improvement (SLDs / KPIs / ITIL / ROI / benchmarking); strategy development; and research, teaching and learning support. She has led structural, organisational and cultural change in a number of academic institutions, delivering cost-effective and customer-focussed quality services. She came to UWA from King’s College London in the UK, where she was Deputy CIO and Director of Research & Learning Support.

Parking is available in Myer Street and Park Way, accessible from Fairway

Members: FreeNon Members: $5 donation

This presentation summarises Information Services’ Business / Investment Programme, which was submitted to the VC in December 2010 and which was approved for implementation by the VC’s Advisory Group in February 2011. Cost $5

Professor Laurent is an alumni of the University of Western Australia. He is currently the Director of the Centre for Respiratory Research at University College London and leads a team of scientists and physicians conducting research into basic aspects of lung inflammation and repair.

A free public lecture by Henning Omre, Professor in Statistics, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim.

Probability was originally ’the theory of gambling’ – later, the theory was developed to assess the uncertainty in outcomes of future randomized experiments. Can the theory be applied to mapping of geological properties and characteristics, which are undoubtly deterministic – created millions of years ago?

When assessing complex subsurface phenomena at great depths – like petroleum reservoirs – one has to rely on many sources of information: basic sedimentary understanding; basic physical flow relations; observations along well paths; reflection data from seismic surveys; and the production history of fluids. Is there a fundamental law for combining various pieces of information associated with uncertainty?

Probabilistic statements about subsurface phenomena are difficult to interpret. Are there general guidelines for which maps to generate? Several examples from spatial and spatio-temporal modelling of petroleum reservoirs will be presented in this lecture. The solutions are based on methodologies resulting from the discussions of the questions posed above.

Cost: Free. No RSVP required.

This year the CMCA will be leading a WA-based consortium applying for funding through ARC LIEF to provide advanced X-ray micro-CT capabilities for local researchers mainly in the physical and geo-sciences.

To provide more information on the capabilities of the latest generation micro-CT instruments, Richard Trett (Xradia) will discuss the principles of X-ray CT and the unique architecture of Xradia X-ray Microscopes.

Richard will look at how this equipment relates to existing technologies and complementary characterisation techniques. Extensive examples of the use of CT in the area of earth and materials science will be used to illustrate the exciting opportunities that CT brings to these fields. There will also be examples of in-situ experimentation and high resolution work in larger samples.

The proposed micro-CT capabilities will complement CMCA's live-animal micro-CT due to be online by May 2011, and existing CSIRO and UWA facilities. All those interested in the Centre's plans to acquire micro-CT capabilities are encouraged to attend.

Roz Savage, environmental campaigner and solo ocean rower, last year became the first woman to row solo across the Pacific. Coupled with her solo row across the Atlantic in 2005-6, she has rowed over 11,000 miles. From Perth she will embark on her greatest challenge, that of rowing solo from Fremantle to Mumbai, some 5,000 nautical miles. She will present a multi-media presentation followed by questions and answers on Thursday, March 10th at 5.30pm at the UWA Boat Shed, Hackett Drive, Crawley. Suggested donation: $10

UWA Cuba Venezuela Solidarity Club invites you to a film screening: SOUTH OF the BORDER, a film by Oliver Stone.

There’s a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn’t know it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements while interviewing seven of its elected presidents, including Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Nestor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raúl Castro (Cuba).

Entry: $10 waged / $5 students (includes slice of pizza and a drink)

We live in a rapidly changing world. War and global warming mean that thousands of people worldwide are constantly crossing state boundaries or becoming stateless. Some have been stateless for generations. Australians are used to seeing the victims of the latest war or environmental tragedy on their television screens. We know all about refugees arriving on boats. But there are other situations in the world we are much less aware of. The works in this show explore what happens beyond official accounts.

This exhibition presents the work of five Australian artists whose oeuvre has taken them beyond our domestic boundaries and local concerns. These works constitute a ‘reconnaissance’, a survey of other places and events. They are observations and fact finding of events beyond the boundaries, hidden from news cameras. The works tease out the meanings of the symbols of state power and offer a critique of the institutions of state power across the world stage.

In Korban Lumpur, a recent video work by Susan Norrie and David Mackenzie, the artists have documented the devastating environmental and human tragedy caused by gas and oil drilling in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia. Rarely reported in the mainstream media, the artists will discuss the impact this disaster has had on the local landscape and community, and their reasons for making the film.

Dr Rainer Haas is Professor at the Ludwig Maximilians-University (LMU), München and Head of the Helicobacter pylori Research Unit at the Max von Pettenkofer Institute. Professor Haas is an expert in the field of bacterial virulence mechanisms and has a distinguished record of international achievement spanning 20 years.

During his career Professor Haas and his group initiated and performed a number of important projects related to H. pylori diagnosis, vaccine development and the identification and characterization of major bacterial virulence factors. A major emphasis was given to the characterization of two significant virulence factors of H. pylori, the cag-Type IV secretion system (cag-T4SS), located on the cag-pathogenicity island (cag-PAI), and the vacuolating cytotoxin (VacA). Professor Haas was a pioneer in the identification and molecular characterization of both virulence factors.

SymbioricA Friday Seminar > A Reflection on Visceral

Date: Friday 11th March 2011

Speakers: Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr, Guy Ben-Ary, Tanya Visosevic et al

Location: SymbioticA Room 228, Level 2 , School of Anatomy and Human Biology, UWA

SymbioticA and Science Gallery, Dublin recently collaborated for an international event exploring when science and art collides in Visceral: The Living Art Experiment.

The exhibition explored and provoked questions about scientific truths, what constitutes living and the ethical and artistic implications of life manipulation. The exhibition also marked ten years of intensive and challenging work carried out at SymbioticA.

Curated by SymbioticA’s Director Oron Catts and SymbioticA’s leading researcher Dr Ionat Zurr, Visceral brought together more than a decade of work developed through SymbioticA’s residency program.

For the first Friday Seminar of 2011, we will take a look back at the now completed exhibition, view videos and images taken during the exhibition and its accompanying symposium and artist talks, and discuss Visceral and the interesting issues surrounding it.

For More information visit: http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/activities/seminars http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/activities/exhibitions/visceral http://www.sciencegallery.com/visceral

Astrofest 2011 will take place on Saturday March 12th at Curtin Stadium on the Curtin University campus in Bentley.

A celebration of astronomy, science and the amazing West Australian night sky, this family friendly event will provide a fun, free and engaging educational experience for all.

With activities, displays and telescopes of all shapes and sizes, Astrofest 2011 is sure to get people of all ages and backgrounds switched on to astronomy and science.

Participants will have the opportunity to meet with local astronomers and scientists, hear indigenous interpretations of the night sky presented by Aboriginal Elder Dr Noel Nannup, and experience an AstroArt exhibition featuring the work of WA astrophotographers and artists.

On March 12th the Sun will set just after 6:30pm, with Mercury and Jupiter not far behind. The waxing crescent Moon will be less than a week old, presenting spectacular views of the terminator and craters. To the South will be the Southern Cross, The Jewel Box Open Cluster, Omega Centauri, a globular cluster and our galactic neighbours the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Saturn will also rise just before 8pm.

Before the sun sets, Astrofest will start at 5:00pm with displays, information booths 'space domes' and activities. Night sky observing will get underway at about 7pm.

Astrofest is coordinated by the 'Astronomy WA' collective, The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Scitech and the WA branch of the Australian Science Communicators (ASC-WA).

Over the past few years Bob Birch has travelled regularly to the West Bank, using his camera to document the people and events that he has encountered there. In this candid conversation with long-time friend and exhibition curator Dr Annette Pedersen, Bob discusses some of his experiences in the region, and reflects upon his role as artist and activist.