What's On at UWA

Symmetry is one of the essential and most visible patterns that can be seen in nature. Starting from the left-right symmetry of the human body, all types of symmetry can be found in crystals, plants, animals and nature as a whole.

Similarly, principals of symmetry are also some of the fundamental and most useful tools in modern mathematical natural science that play a major role in theory and applications. As a consequence, it is not surprising that the desire to understand the origin of life, based on the genetic code, forces us to involve symmetry as a mathematical concept.

The genetic code can be seen as a key to biological self-organisation. All living organisms have the same molecular bases - an alphabet consisting of four letters (nitrogenous bases): adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Linearly ordered sequences of these bases contain the genetic information for synthesis of proteins in all forms of life. Thus, one of the most fascinating riddles of nature is to explain why the genetic code is as it is.

Genetic coding possesses noise immunity which is the fundamental feature that allows to pass on the genetic information from parents to their descendants. Hence, since the time of the discovery of the genetic code, scientists have tried to explain the noise immunity of the genetic information. In this talk we will discuss recent results in mathematical modelling of the genetic code with respect to noise immunity, in particular error-detection and error-correction.

Cheese and wine to follow in the Maths common room (5pm-6pm)

Mechanical stress modifies the electronic structure of solids, and resulting variations in static properties such as charge carrier effective masses are widely exploited in modern, solid-state electronic devices. I will show that radically different electromechanical properties can be observed in the space charge limited current regime of nanoscale devices or in the sub-threshold region of transistors. In particular, stress-induced changes to the capture and emission rates of deep defect centres can result in changes to the electrical properties which are orders of magnitude larger than the usual static electronic structure effects. In addition to discussing possible practical consequences of these observations, I will outline several experiments of interest for active spintronics in which mechanical stress can be used to significantly modify either defect or free charge carrier spin dynamics. In these cases I will describe how the ability to modify spin with stress is a novel manifestation of the spin-orbit interaction

There's a widespread belief that people who are good at maths can go into finance and become obscenely rich. This talk tries to put that in perspective by describing a common approach to algorithmic trading, and exploring some of the reasons why it's harder than it sounds.

Medical Physics is a highly interdisciplinary field at the intersection between physics and medicine and biology. Medical Physics is aiming at development of novel applications of physical processes and techniques in various areas of medicine and biology. Medical Physics had and continues to have profound impact by developing improved imaging and treatment technologies, and helping to advance our understanding of the complexity of the disease. The general trend in medicine towards personalized therapy, and emphasis on accelerated translational research is having a profound impact on medical physics as well. In the traditional stronghold for medical physicists – radiation therapy – the new reality is shaping in the form of biologically conformal and combination therapies, as well as advanced particle therapy approaches, such as proton and ion therapies. Rapid increase in faster and more informative multi-modality medical imaging is bringing a wealth of information that is being complemented with data obtained from genomic profiling and other biomarkers. Novel data analysis and data mining approaches are proving grounds for employment of various artificial intelligence methods that will help further improving clinical decision making for optimization of various therapies as well as better understanding of the disease properties and disease evolution, ultimately leading to improved clinical outcomes.

The transmission of high-precision frequency references between remote locations is crucial to a wide range of industrial and scientific applications including precision navigation, geodesy, radio astronomy, comparison of atomic timescales, and tests of General Relativity and variations in fundamental constants. However, over long distances the frequency and phase stability of the transmitted signals can be degraded by environmental disturbances, greatly limiting the science that can be done. Stabilization systems are necessary to compensate for the disturbances and improve the accuracy and precision of the transmitted signals. This talk will give an overview of work undertaken at UWA to develop actively stabilized frequency reference transfer systems to phase-synchronize the widely dispersed antennas of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, and to provide a high-precision reference to the Yarragadee Geodetic Observatory as part of UWA’s commitment to the European Space Agency’s Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES) mission.

Are you interested in studying health care or pursuing a career in the fast-growing and in-demand health industry? UWA is holding a Health Campus Open Day on Sunday 8 April for prospective students to find out all about the health related courses on offer in areas like medicine, biomedical engineering, sports science and psychology. You will be able to meet staff, current students and Alumni, listen to information sessions, participate in interactive activities, and discover pathways and career opportunities.

Fluid models are widely employed in many fields of science, ranging from astronomy and physics to biology and chemistry. The fundamental principle, and motivation, behind fluid models is to provide an effective macroscopic representation of the collective behaviour arising from a large number of microscopic events. Thus, the main advantage of fluid models is a reduction in complexity, while still capturing the essential characteristics of the macroscopic system. The difficulty in constructing fluid models from kinetic theory arises from the presence of the collision operator. A systematic treatment of the collisional effects in a plasma is presented to derive fluid models beyond the usual assumption of “thermal equilibrium”. Such extended models will greatly help model cold and moderate temperature plasmas, for example in the study of astrophysical phenomena or in industrial applications.

Despite Statistics being the traditional field for data analysis, people with formal statistical training form a relatively small segment of the Data Science community. Indeed, it is easy to conclude that the influence of Statistics on the field is waning: for instance, Python is slightly more likely than R to be stated as a requirement on Data Scientist job listings. Also, many of the recent exciting developments in Data Science have arisen from Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning – areas that would be considered to be outside the gamut of traditional Statistical Methodology. This talk covers some of the unfair perceptions around Statistics as well as possible threats to the Statistical community posed by recent developments in the Data Science industry. Finally, a number of ways that the Statistical community can adapt to these changes will be discussed.

Abstract: There is a striking connection between the zeroes of the Riemann zeta-function and the distribution of the primes. In this talk I shall mention some analytic properties of the zeta-function that when known explicitly enable one to estimate, very accurately, the size of the n-th prime number.

Gravitational waves (GWs) provide the excellent opportunity to test General Relativity in strong fields. In this talk, by comparing General Relativity and its alternative, the general screened modified gravity, we introduce the testing of gravity in solar system with PPN framework, in binary pulsars with PPK framework, and in GW bursts. In the last case, we introduce the model-dependent (waveforms of GWs in various alternative theories of gravity) and model-independent comparisons (by PPE framework, GW polarization, GW speed, time-dependence of G, parity symmetry etc.).

Research Impact Series Events:

Cosmos: Journey Through the Universe Thursday. 9 August, 18 October and 8 November 2018

Germaine Greer On Rape: Monday 3 September 2018

Raising the Bar Perth: 10 bars, 10 topics, 1 night only. Tuesday 11 September 2018

Achieving your Research Outcomes: Wednesday 17 - Thursday 18 October 2018

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is arguably the most powerful technique for the characterisation of materials structures at the micro-, nano- and sub-nanometer scales. Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS)is a TEM technique for composition and chemical environment or chemical bonding analysis. Image recording is critical for TEM study of materials. This presentation will focus on the newest development in the data acquisition and analysis of EELS and in camera technology. The new EELS technique enables the chemical bonding and electronic structural analysis for both light and heavy elements with very high energy resolution. The new TEM camera with ultra-high speed and detective quantum efficiency allows imaging beam-sensitive biomaterials and chemical materials with extremely low electron beam dose, which provides and effective solution to minimise structural degradation of the biomaterials and chemical materials during the TEM study process. Combination of state-of-art camera and EELS techniques offers an extremely powerful tool for the investigation of biomaterials and catalytic processes in nanoscale as well as the accurate quantitative elemental information.

Graphs (also called networks) with a high degree of symmetry are particularly nice objects to study mathematically. When studying the symmetries of a graph it is often useful to look at the local symmetries, that is, those that fix a particular vertex.  An important question then becomes whether or not we can bound the number of these local symmetries. After a gentle introduction to the area, I will outline some of the results in this direction and their consequences.

The McCusker Centre for Citizenship at UWA, in partnership with the Rotary Club of Perth, invite you to the 2018 Sir Wallace Kyle Oration.

The late Air Chief Marshall, Sir Wallace Kyle, was an Honorary Doctor of Laws at The University of Western Australia and Governor of Western Australia from 1975-1980.

The Sir Wallace Kyle Oration is given by distinguished speakers of international standing and outstanding leadership. The theme of the Oration is "Service Above Self", the motto of Rotary.

Professor Stanley's oration will highlight the leadership and contribution individual citizens can make to build a more equal and just world, with reference to her distinguished career.

This is a free public event but registration is required.

The fractional Laplacian is a nonlocal operator naturally arising in several branches of pure and applied mathematics. It presents intriguing features and possesses a great flexibility to a number of applications in physics, biology, numerics and finance. After briefly discussing the basics of this operator and some concrete applications, we will consider in some detail the case of nonlocal minimal surfaces.  In particular, the regularity of these objects seems to be a rather challenging topic. Nonlocal minimal surfaces also exhibit stickiness phenomena that are special for the nonlocal setting and have no classical counterpart.

For 30 years, Wolfram Research has been serving Educators and Researchers. In the past 10 years, we have introduced many award winning technology innovations like Wolfram|Alpha Pro, Wolfram SystemModeler, Wolfram Programming Lab, and Natural Language computation. Join Craig Bauling as he guides us through the capabilities of Mathematica. Craig will demonstrate the key features that are directly applicable for use in teaching and research. Topics of this technical talk include : * Natural Language Input ( http : // www.wolfram.com/broadcast/screencasts/free - form - input/ ) * Market Leading Statistical Analysis Functionality * Mathematica as a Symbolic and Numeric Computational Engine * Creating interactive models that encourage student participation and learning * Practical applications in Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, Finance, Biology, Economics and Mathematics * On - demand Chemical, Biological, Economic, Finance and Social data * Mathematica as a modern programming language

Prior knowledge of Mathematica is not required - new users are encouraged. Current users will benefit from seeing the many improvements and new features of Mathematica 11 (http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-11/). This is a great opportunity to get faculty and students not experienced with Mathematica to become involved and excited.

Interfacial mixing and transport are non-equilibrium processes coupling kinetic to macroscopic scales. They occur in fluids, plasmas and materials, over celestial events to atoms. Grasping their fundamentals can advance a broad range of disciplines in science, mathematics, and engineering. This work focuses on the long- standing classical problem of stability of a phase boundary - a fluid interface that has a mass flow across it. We briefly review the recent advances and challenges in theoretical and experimental studies, present our general theoretical framework directly linking microscopic interfacial transport to macroscopic flow fields, for both inertial and accelerated dynamics, discover new mechanisms of the interface stabilization and destabilization, and chart perspectives for future research.

Bio: Leigh received his PhD from Nottingham University in 1986 and held a series of postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Liverpool until 1995 when he moved to UWA. He was awarded an ARC Federation Fellowship in 2004 and was elected to the Australian Academy in 2009. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Behavioral Ecology, Editor of Advances in the Study of Behavior, and on the editorial board of Journal of Ethology.

Overview: Broadly my research focuses on the evolutionary process of sexual selection, and its effects on the evolution of animal form and function. Evolutionary theory is based on the fundamental assumption that organisms are constrained by a trade-off that limits the allocation of resources to different fitness enhancing traits. I will first give a general introduction to sexual selection, before briefly outline some theoretical models used to predict the evolution of male sexual traits in the face of allocation trade-offs. I will then provide some empirical studies that have sought to test these predictions.