What's On at UWA

Be transported away from the everyday with our exciting line-up of Thursday 1.10pm, free lunchtime concerts. This year's revamped Lunchtime Concert series features the best of our students in solo and small ensemble performance.

Dr Peter Buzzacott, BA, MPH, PhD, is a research associate at the School of Sports Science, Exercise and Health at the University of Western Australia. His area of specialty is environmental injury epidemiology, particularly diving injury risk factors but also high altitude and tissue super-saturation. When not researching diving injuries Dr Buzzacott is an active technical diver. Dr Buzzacott will describe the epidemiology of injury in recreational scuba diving, coincident with the release of the latest volume in the Karger “Science and Medicine in Sport” series of peer-reviewed, edited epidemiology books. Orders for the book may be made after the presentation.

Jointly hosted by the Chaplain Rev Dr Ian Robinson and the Uniting Church Social Justice Board. Dan Mori is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps. Mori was appointed by the United States Department of Defense to represent David Hicks in November 2003. He handled Hicks’ case through to its conclusion. In June 2007 Mori was presented with an honorary membership of the Australian Bar Association for his defence of David Hicks. In October 2007, he was awarded a civil justice award from the Australian Lawyers Alliance as “recognition by the legal profession of unsung heroes who, despite personal risk or sacrifice, have fought to preserve individual rights, human dignity or safety”. He has recently moved to Australia to work with the Shine Lawyers National Social Justice Project.

"Gladstone and the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland: An Overview"

Professor Oliver Rafferty SJ, the 2012 St Thomas More College Chair of Jesuit Studies, will present the final in a series of six lectures on nineteenth century Irish history.

The Chair of Jesuit Studies is jointly recognised by the the University of Western Australia and the University of Notre Dame Australia, and aims to bring a leading academic from the worldwide Jesuit community to Perth each year.

Professor Rafferty is visiting from Heythrop College, University of London, where he specialises in Irish and Ecclesiastical history.

Prof Charitha Pattiaratchi (UWA) WAIMOS Infrastructure in the Kimberley

West Australian Integrated Marine Observation System (WAIMOS) is a node of the Integrated Marine Observation System (IMOS) and with recent co-investment from the WA State Government, extended its deployment of infrastructure to the northern waters of Western Australia, including the Kimberley region. In this presentation, the current status of the instrumentation deployed and example data highlights will be presented. The IMOS infrastructure located in these regions includes continental shelf moorings (ADCP, thermistor and water quality loggers) and ocean glider transects for subsurface water properties; passive acoustic sensors for whale monitoring; AUV transects for benthic monitoring and, remotely sensed data products (SST and ocean colour). In the north-west the infrastructure is designed to monitor the influence of north-west shelf region on Leeuwin Current dynamics and the local continental shelf processes. Examples of different processes, identified using the data streams from the Kimberley region will be presented.

Mr Clay Bryce (WA Museum) The WA Museum Woodside Collection Projects (Kimberley): 2008-2015

The WA Museum has been accumulating data on Kimberley marine fauna since 1976. In 2008 the Museum’s Department of Aquatic Zoology decided to ascertain the current state of the region’s marine biodiversity knowledge. With help from Woodside Energy, it embarked on an ambitious program to mine Kimberley marine faunal data from Australian museums, as well as floral records from the WA Herbarium. This resulted in over 60,000 records equating to over 6000 marine species. Augmenting this historical approach is a series of contemporary rapid assessment surveys (2009 – 2014), from Cape Leveque to the WA/NT border, examining 8 faunal taxa and the marine flora. This talk will provide an overview of these marine biodiversity programs.

Glenn Johnson, is an audiologist (hearing specialist) with 20 years experience in clinical practice, consulting and teaching. He will share his fascination with ears, offering attendees a basic run down of ear anatomy with a focus on the amazing and largely unnoticed feats accomplished by the human hearing system. Afterwards participants will have the opportunity to peer inside their own ear canals and see what lurks within! Using a video otoscope we’ll project live video footage of one of your most intimate body parts onto the big screen.

Those who are excited by this “opportunity” (even in a morbid or squirmy sort of way) are encouraged to join the seminar at SymbioticA to find out about Glenn's work.

CONVOCATION, THE UWA GRADUATES ASSOCIATION

invites all graduates and other members of Convocation

to attend its

SECOND ORDINARY MEETING

with reports from

the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Johnson

the Warden of Convocation, Associate Professor David Hodgkinson

and the Guild President, Mr Matthew Mckenzie

Guest Speaker: PROFESSOR PAUL JOHNSON, Vice-Chancellor will speak on

‘The changing role of universities in the 21st century'

Pipe Organ Plus: Five Sundays in Fremantle

Concert Four: Terrae

With the Winthrop Singers of UWA

Nicholas Bannan - director

Dominic Perissinotto - pipe organ

Featuring

Louis Vierne - Symphony No 6 Op 59 for organ

Antoine Brumel - Missa: Et ecce terrae motus "The Earthquake Mass" for 12-part choir

Standard $35 - Concession $30 - Student U-18 $20

www.trybooking.com/BDET

LIWA invites you to a free seminar on: "Patenting for medical researchers the ins and outs" by Mr Gary Cox, Chairman, Partner, Wray and Associates. Time: 12 noon for light lunch with 12.30pm – 1.30pm presentation.

An occasion to honour Geoff Kennedy’s contribution to UWA.

Please RSVP by Monday 17th September to [email protected]

A. Kimberley Lema1,2, Bette L. Willis1, and David G. Bourne2

1ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville 4811, Australia ([email protected]; [email protected]) 2Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB 3, Townsville MC, Townsville 4810, Australia ([email protected];[email protected])

Scleractinian corals live in a close symbiotic relationship with a diverse group of dinoflagellates (Symbiodinium or zooxanthellae), but corals also harbour highly diverse, abundant, and stable, microbial communities. The discovery of bacterial communities as symbiotic partners in corals is surprisingly recent and the ecological function of these bacterial communities is still poorly understood.

Elucidating the functional role these mutualistic bacterial communities play in the corals’ multi-partner symbiosis (i.e. the holobiont) is essential to understand their importance in coral health. One important proposed functional role for coral associated bacteria is nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen fixation can only be accomplished by diazotrophic bacteria and is fundamentally important because it makes gaseous dinitrogen (N2) available for nitrogen limited ecosystems such as coral reefs.

In this study, we investigated the diversity of diazotrophic bacterial communities associated with corals of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) by profiling the conserved subunit of the nifH gene, which encodes the dinitrogenase iron protein. We looked at the diversity of diazotrophs in different: coral species, coral microhabitats (mucus and tissue), life stages and geographical regions. Coral mucus nifH sequences displayed high heterogeneity, and many bacterial groups overlapped with those found in seawater.

In contrast, the dominant diazotrophic bacteria in tissue samples in all coral species, through all life stages and at different locations were closely related to the bacterial group rhizobia, which represented over 67% of the total sequences in all cases. Our results suggest that, as in terrestrial plants, rhizobia have developed a mutualistic relationship with corals and may contribute fixed nitrogen to Symbiodinium.

Bio,

Kim was born and grew up in Mexico City. She completed her BSc in Marine Science at the Centre d’Océanologie de Marseille, Université Aix-Marseille II (Marseille, France), with a thesis on a mathematical model for marine protected areas.

Stayed in France for some months after completing her BSc and worked with deep-sea bioluminescent bacteria at the LMGEM Marine microbiology and biogeochemistry laboratory, CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research). Then, returned to Mexico, Yucatan Peninsula, and worked on migration models of marine turtles and whale sharks at the CINVESTAV (Centre of Advanced Research, Mexico) and PRONATURA(NGO).

Finally, felt ready to go further from home and flew to Australia. Completed a Master of Applied Sciences at James Cook University (Townsville, QLD) and went on to do a PhD. Kim is currently finalizing her PhD on “ Coral nitrogen Fixing bacteria” under the supervision of Prof. Bette Willis (JCU) and David Bourne (AIMS). One component of her thesis is through collaboration with Prof. Peta Clode at the CMCA (Centre of Microscopy) at UWA.

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

****All Welcome****

The Symposium of WA Neuroscience 2012 will be held in conjunction with the Neurotrauma Research Program of Western Australia on the 27th of September, 2012. The Symposium will showcase research presentations by Honours and PhD students as well as early career researchers, who will compete for cash prizes. The Symposium will run from 1 to 5 pm in lecture theatre G33 of the MCS (Bayliss) Building, followed by a Sundowner. Registration is free and open to staff, students and the general public, but requested for catering purposes: please email [email protected].

A public lecture by Susan Maushart, author and journalist.

In early 2011, inspired by Henry David Thoreau's exhortation to "live the life you have imagined" – and also the exchange rate - Weekend Australian Magazine columnist Susan Maushart moved back to the US after 25 years in Western Australia. She thought she was going home again. But it turns out Heraclitus and Ginger Rogers were right. You really can't step in the same river twice, going backwards and in high heels.

In this funny, free-range and 100% hormone-free talk, Maushart ponders the paradoxes of her culture of origin from the privileged perspective of a born-again alien, from the dark arts of teeth bleaching to the high drama of the Weather Channel (her mother's favourite reality TV show) to the endurance sport of Extreme Commuting.

Cost: Free. RSVP to [email protected].

As Minister for External Affairs and Minister for Defence, Sir Paul Hasluck was integral in formulating Australia’s post war security and foreign policy. He was a strong advocate for our nation’s indigenous people, particularly in health and education. He was a prolific writer, authoring volumes on politics, foreign affairs, public policy and poetry.

Following his graduation from UWA, Sir Paul became a journalist, a diplomat and then a Member of Parliament and a term as Governor-General and remained active in public life following his retirement. Sir Paul died in Perth in 1993.

The Sir Paul Hasluck Foundation was established this year to promote and inform conservative thought and debate of key issues facing Australia. It seeks to celebrate the central insight of Sir Paul’s life: that learning and ideas matter.

The lecture will rotate around Australian states, and will feature a renowned speaker addressing a significant contemporary issue, drawing on Sir Paul’s interests and principles

If theatre is conceit, can science really be performed or are playwrights and performance makers up to something else?

Vivienne Glance has recently returned from a writer's residency with The Arts Catalyst London and will share that experience with you as well as outline some of the writing techniques, provocations and dramaturgy behind successful science plays and performance works. She will also talk about her own works, Staring at the Sun, which had a reading in London in 2012, and The Cat in the Box, which performed to full houses at The Blue Room Theatre in WA this year.

Vivienne Glance is a writer and theatre practitioner with over 20 years experience. She also has a Bachelor of Science degree. Combining science and performance has been a focus of her theatre practice for many years, and she recently consolidated this through her PhD research.

The Prospective Students Office is providing a guided walking tour of UWA's Crawley Campus on the Queen's Birthday long weekend Monday public holiday (1 October 2012).

These tours are for prospective students who would like to find out more about studying at UWA whilst taking in the beautiful gardens and buildings at the Crawley campus.

The tour will include a stop at the Admissions Centre & Prospective Students Office, where you will be able to collect information and course brochures, and find out more about what life is like for our students.

Parents are also welcome to attend.

Tours run for approximately one hour and are available at various times throughout the year after business hours, in the school holidays, and on public holidays, so there is bound to be a time that suits you and your family!

If you reside in Melbourne and are considering applying for an undergraduate, postgraduate coursework or research degree at the University of Western Australia, you may wish to attend our information session on Monday, 1 October 2012 at the Crowne Plaza, Melbourne.

You will have the opportunity to learn about the range of undergraduate, postgraduate and research courses offered at the University and hear from staff and graduates about the advantages of studying at UWA and living in Perth.

University staff from the following areas will be presenting and available to meet one-on-one:

* Domestic and International Admissions Centres

* The UWA Business School

* Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts

* Arts

* Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

* Life and Physical Sciences

* Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Prospective Australian and international students are welcome to attend.

A Public Lecture by Dorothy Bishop, Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology, University of Oxford.

Many children have specific developmental difficulties affecting specific areas such as reading, language, maths, motor co-ordination, attention or social skills. A range of diagnostic labels are used: dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, and so on. These give the impression that we are dealing with distinct medical entities, but this is very far from the truth.

In this lecture, Professor Bishop will illustrate with the case of dyslexia. This is defined on the basis of behavioural tests, and there is no sharp dividing line between dyslexia and normal variation in reading ability.

The lecture will contrast dyslexia with specific language impairment (SLI), which is at least as important but is largely unknown, and consider how far this may be the consequence of the fact that dyslexia is a good ‘meme’, whereas SLI is not. Our current labels may be worth preserving, provided we do not let them mislead us.

Cost: Free. RSVP to [email protected]

Extreme rainfall over the south and north-west of Western Australia and the Sydney region of NSW over the last fifty years has been modelled using a Bayesian hierarchical approach based on statistical extreme value theory. Spatial variability of the extreme rainfall distribution is modelled using a Gaussian process, derived from a convolution kernel approach.

This is a flexible approach, accommodating rainfall measured over different durations (from sub- to super-daily) and also allowing for the possibility of linking the extremes to external drivers.

The approach can be used to characterize the behaviour of extremes under present day and projected future conditions. It can be used to derive intensity-frequency-duration curves • together with estimates of their associated uncertainties, • for specific locations that can be either gauged or ungauged, and • provide information for the design of engineering structures such as culverts, bridges, and stormwater and sewerage systems. Extensions to model extremes of areal rainfall, with applications to depth-area curves for example, will be described.

This talk will focus more on the methodology than the application.

Bio,

Mark is a senior statistician with CSIRO, in the Division of Mathematics, Informatics and statistics. He has applied statistics to problems of spatial modelling for many years, in particular the modelling sediment composition in rivers, estuaries and dams. Recently he has been developing spatial approaches to the analysis of extreme rainfall for the Indian Ocean Climate Initiative,

The Upper Parramatta River Catchment Trust and the federal government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. His statistical interest also include the application of Bayesian methodologies and hierarchical modelling.



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

****All Welcome****