What's On at UWA

Abstract: Microeconomic data often have within-cluster dependence. This dependence affects standard error estimation and inference in regression models, including the instrumental variables model. Standard corrections assume that the number of clusters is large, but when this is not the case, Wald tests can either over-reject or under-reject and weak instrument robust tests can over-reject. We examine the use of bootstrap methods to construct appropriate critical values for these tests when the number of clusters is small. We find that a variant of the wild bootstrap performs well and reduces absolute size bias significantly, even with a small number of clusters. We also provide guidance in the choice among possible weak instrument robust tests when data have cluster dependence. These results should extend to fixed effect panel data models.

All are welcome to attend the seminar No RSVP required. Contact :Gopalan Nair (08) 6488 3377; [email protected]

American soprano Julianne Baird returns to The University of Western Australia as IAS Professor-at-Large to perform in this special event. Baird is renowned as an early music specialist and possesses a magnificent voice. She will be joined in recital by Paul Wright (violin) and other outstanding performers in an evening of chamber bliss.

A public lecture by Alan Grodzinsky, Director, Center for Biomedical Engineering, MIT.

It is widely accepted that Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disorder in the world, causing major health problems, pain and disability for adults young and old. Yet today, there are still no disease modifying Osteoarthritis drugs (“DMOADS”) that can halt or reverse the progression of disease, only drugs that may temporarily alleviate painful symptoms in knees, hips or other affected joints. Osteoarthritis is a disease of the whole joint, including cartilage, bone and other soft tissues.

In this lecture, Dr Grodzinsky, UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Professor-at-Large, will discuss current challenges to diagnosis, tissue degradation, and drug discovery for Osteoarthritis.

The Seminar: Fetal glucocorticoid exposure is a key mechanism proposed to underlie prenatal "programming" of adult cardiometabolic and neuropsychiatric disorders. Regulation of fetal glucocorticoid exposure is achieved by the placental and fetal glucocorticoid "barrier," which involves glucocorticoid inactivation by 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 2 (11beta-HSD2). Mice null for 11beta-HSD2 exhibit altered placental development and function, decreased birth weight, delayed neurodevelopment and increased anxiety and depressive-like behaviour as adults. This raises the question as to whether it is placental or fetal brain 11b-HSD2 that underpins programmed outcomes? Preliminary data suggest that fetal brain 11beta-HSD2 impacts specifically on depressive-like behaviours, but that broader anxiety-related and neurodevelopmental effects are likely to relate to indirect effects of 11-HSD2 in the placenta.

The Speaker: Caitlin completed her PhD at UWA under the supervision of Prof Brendan Waddell and Dr Peter Mark, where she focused on developmental programming and the significance of omega-3 intake in attenuating adverse health outcomes. Caitlin moved to Edinburgh in 2006 to take up a postdoctoral position at The Queen's Medical Research Institute. Here she continued her research interest in developmental programming in the lab of Prof Jonathan Seckl and Prof Megan Holmes. Caitlin then returned to Perth in late 2011 to commence an Assistant Professor position at The School of Anatomy , Phsiology and Human Biology at UWA.

Groups and Combinatorics Seminar

Graham Farr (Monash)

will speak on

Algebraic properties of chromatic polynomials

at 1pm on Tuesday 7th of August in Maths Lecture Room 2

**Note this is the new regular seminar time for this semester**

Abstract: We give a survey of some recent work on algebraic properties of chromatic polynomials, including their roots (as algebraic numbers), factors and Galois groups. Collaborators: Adam Bohn (Queen Mary), Peter Cameron (Queen Mary), Daniel Delbourgo (Monash), Bill Jackson (Queen Mary), Kerri Morgan (Monash).

A public lecture by Associate Professor Meredith Blake, Law School, UWA.

With an ageing population and the medical technology available to prolong life, action and inaction connected with the ending of life in the clinical setting raises confronting issues for modern society. The issues engage the disciplines of religion, philosophy, ethics, medicine, and economics, as well as the law, and therefore represent a complex, multi-layered challenge for legal regulation. One of the problems which the law faces in this context is its struggle to deal with scientific and philosophical concepts from these other disciplines.

When is it in the best interests of a person to cease life-sustaining medical intervention? Should persons be able to request medical assistance in hastening death? In what circumstances can doctors decide not to resuscitate profoundly disabled young children? These are some of the questions which illustrate this challenge. The place which the sanctity of life occupies in society explains why these sorts of questions are troubling, especially when that principle is ‘in conflict’ with both objective and subjective assessments that a life is of unacceptably poor quality. Given the significance of these issues, it is especially important that the law responds coherently and transparently.

These are some of the difficult questions which will be addressed in this lecture.

Cost: Free, but seats are limited. RSVP to [email protected].

The first Soil&Water Seminar for Semester 2, 2012, will be Assoc. Prof. Louise Barton from SEE(UWA)on Weds Aug 8. All welcome!

TITLE: “Assessing strategies for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from wheat production: Role of grain legumes and soil liming.”

ABSTRACT: Utilising inorganic nitrogen (N) fertilizer greatly influences greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural production systems in semi-arid regions. Our previous research demonstrated that the production and use of urea accounted for 70% of the total GHG emissions from wheat production in a semi-arid region of south-western Australia. Greenhouse gases were emitted during the manufacture of the urea (34% of total emissions), as well as following its application to land via carbon dioxide (CO2) hydrolysis (27%), and soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions (9%). A large proportion of N2O emissions occurred between growing seasons, and following summer rainfall events, rather than in response to N fertilizer applications, with nitrification considered to be the source of these losses.

Lowering N inputs is not considered to be an option for decreasing the contribution of N fertilizer to total GHG emissions from cropped soils in south-western Australia, as application rates are typically low. Instead, CO2 emissions resulting from N fertilizer production and urea hydrolysis could be partly mitigated by incorporating plants that fix atmospheric N (e.g. grain legumes) into the crop rotation, decreasing the reliance on synthetic N fertilizer. Furthermore, increasing soil pH by applying lime may be an approach to decreasing N2O emitted in response to summer rainfall events if nitrification, rather than denitrification, is the main soil biological source of the emissions. Consequently this seminar will present findings from a recently completed field-based study investigating if including a grain legume (lupin) in a cropping rotation, or increasing the soil pH via liming, decreased the GHG emissions from wheat production in south-western Australia.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Louise Barton is a soil scientist who has been researching nitrogen cycling in various landuses for the past 17 years. She is currently an Associate Professor at The University of Western Australia, and leads the Soil Biology Group in the School of Earth & Environment. Her current interests include measuring soil N2O emissions from cropping soils in the Western Australian grainbelt, and investigating the contribution of agriculture to greenhouse gas emissions. Louise completed her undergraduate degree at The University of Western Australia in 1991, and her PhD from the University of Waikato in 1998

Workshop Description:

Done well, teaching with technology has the potential to enhance learning. Using technology appropriately in teaching means recognising the widespread use of technologies in society, and enabling our learners to become more widely proficient with technologies. These can be achieved by the ways we present information, communicate with students, create communities, provide engaging learning experiences, and provide authentic learning and assessment tasks. This workshop will introduce the integration of technology into practice, demonstrate and explore practically a range of technology tools available for learning with technology, and consider curriculum design for effective practice.

Intended Outcomes: By the end of this workshop, you will:

understand the role of technologies in teaching and learning become familiar with a range of uses for technology in teaching and learning contexts have had practical experience with a range of technologies be prepared to design for the integration of technologies in practice

Martin Pera is Professor of Stem Cell Sciences at the University of Melbourne, the Florey Neuroscience Institute, and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research. He serves as Program Leader for Stem Cells Australia, the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative in Stem Cell Sciences. His research interests include the cell biology of human pluripotent stem cells, early human development, and germ cell tumours. Pera was among a small number of researchers who pioneered the isolation and characterisation of pluripotent stem cells from human germ cell tumours of the testis, work that provided an important framework for the development of human embryonic stem cells. His laboratory at Monash University was the second in the world to isolate embryonic stem cells from the human blastocyst, and the first to describe their differentiation into somatic cells in vitro. He has provided extensive advice to state, national and international regulatory authorities on the scientific background to human embryonic stem cell research.

The 2012 Joseph Gentilli Lecture by Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Science Studies University of California & 2012 UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Professor-at-Large.

This event has reached capacity, no more registrations can be taken.

Would you like to give an outstanding student an opportunity to use some of the most advanced computing facilities in WA? If so, please nominate a project for the iVEC research internship program. iVEC welcomes proposals for internship projects suited to a 10 week period over December 2012 to February 2013. Selected undergraduate students (3rd and 4th year and honours students) will receive up to $6,000 tax free over the 10 week internship.

Nominated projects must clearly demonstrate that the intern will be involved in exploring aspects of supercomputing, eResearch, large-scale storage, high-speed communications or scientific visualisation and must utilise iVEC Facilities.

Projects can come from any research field and should be submitted in early August.

Sponsored positions can be accommodated. In previous years, sponsored intern projects allowed iVEC to increase available places from eight to fourteen.

For more information and for application forms, see our website http://www.ivec.org/research_interns or email Valerie Maxville at [email protected] .

A public lecture by Dr Michael J. Chandler, Emeritus Professor, The University of British Columbia, Canada.

There is overwhelming evidence that Australian Indigenous peoples’ mental health and social and emotional wellbeing is well behind that of other Australians and is a key contributor to the health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The cumulative effect of inter-generational trauma and ‘malignant grief’, combined with social and economic disadvantage, has resulted in high rates of psychological distress, substance abuse and self-harm. Suicide rates among Indigenous Australians are a national tragedy. For example, in Western Australia between 2004-2008 Indigenous suicides were triple that of other West Australians.

Similarly, the rate of Aboriginal youth suicide in Canada is a serious problem. However, ongoing research by Professor Michael J. Chandler amongst Canada’s First Nations communities has found that youth suicide is not necessarily an “Aboriginal” problem per se, but may be a problem for only some communities. The communities that take steps to preserve their cultural past and control their civic lives tend to have fewer suicides. That is, a sense of identity and ‘cultural continuity’ can help Aboriginal people, and especially youth, to see that they have a future.

Professor Chandler’s 2012 Australian lecture tour is timely and important. It will not only inform the important ongoing academic research around cultural continuity and suicide prevention in Aboriginal communities, but also has the potential to influence public debate and government thinking in this critical policy area.

Professor Michael J. Chandler’s visit is generously sponsored by: *UWA’s School of Indigenous Studies; *Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation; *Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Centre for Research Excellence in Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing; *WA Commissioner for Children & Young People; *WA Mental Health Commission: *Centre for Social Impact at the UWA Business School

On the 1st of July 2012 UWA switched its online research opportunities database from COS (Community of Science) to PIVOT. PIVOT quickly and easily allows you to customise your online research profile so that you will be among the first to hear about relevant grant and funding opportunities. Also, PIVOT provides a feature to define ‘saved searches’ for automatic alerts on new funding opportunities corresponding to your research strengths. To introduce you to the functionalities of the system and also to show you how you can ‘claim’ your own profile, Mark Wilson from ProQuest will visit UWA and present PIVOT to the wider UWA research community.

"The Irish Catholic Community and the State in the 19th Century: Setting the Scene"

Professor Oliver Rafferty SJ, the 2012 St Thomas More College Chair of Jesuit Studies, will present the first 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. He will present the remaining five seminars in the same locations, and at the same time, on Fridays 17th and 24th August, and Fridays 7th, 14th, and 21st September.

In the last few decades, China's rapid economic growth and large-scale development of the tourism industry put enormous pressure on the country’s physical, political, economic, social and cultural environment. This often led to valuable tourism resources being adversely affected at tourist destinations. In particular the pursuit of short-term economic benefits in tourism development raises questions of ethics in terms of fairness of distribution, cultural integrity, alleviation of poverty, and sustainability. While the present political climate regarding cultural heritage protection in China appears encouraging and positive, the reality at the local level seems more complex. This paper is concerned with these issues and examines the implications of recent and potential tourism development on the rich natural and cultural heritage of a small village – once an important stop-over on the Ancient Tea Horse Road - located in a beautiful and remote valley in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains.

UWA opens up the whole campus to the public.

Come and find out about the courses on offer, career options, scholarship opportunities, our valuable research, community programs and facilities.

There's also residential college tours, hands-on activities, live music and entertainment, and plenty of fun activities for the whole family.

The overall aim of Professor Harding research programme is to focus on how the timing and duration of social exposures are related to ethnic differences in health and health related behaviours over the life course. Professor Harding established the first large scale cohort study of ethnic minority children in the UK, designed to examine the contribution of social, biological and economic influences on health. The Determinants in Adolescent Social well-being and Health (DASH) study has created a unique longitudinal social-epidemiological resource that can be used to examine ethnic specific effects, particularly in relation to the effects of deprivation and family life on cardiovascular, mental and respiratory health. About 6,000 children aged 11-13y took part in the baseline survey in 2002/3, 80% of whom are ethnic minorities.

Lunch time talk: What Matters to Winthrop Professor Cheryl Praeger AM FAA

When: Tuesday 14th August 2012, 12pm to 1.30pm

Where: Science Library – 3rd Floor Seminar Room

'What Matters to me and why' is a series of lunch time talks and conversations with UWA Academics. The talks explore personal stories of family, place, formative influences and how these things continue to shape people's lives and academic work.

The next conversation is with Cheryl Praeger, who is the Director of the Centre for the Mathematics of Symmetry and Computation at UWA.

Cheryl will share some of her story and then there will be the opportunity for questions/conversation. BYO lunch. Tea/Coffee is available in the meeting room (at the request of the Science Library, please do not carry coffee through the library).

The Science Library is towards the southern end of the campus just past the Chemistry and Psychology buildings.