What's On at UWA

This lecture by Professor Michael Crawford, Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition, is a part of the 2013 ‘Celebrating Oceans Initiatives’ co-sponsored by the UWA Oceans Institute and the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies, the WA Museum and the Maritime Museum.

This lecture will look at how food, particularly marine lipids, have played a determining role in the way that creatures developed on earth, and will discuss how nutrition is shaping life in the future. It points to the links between poor nutrition and modern degenerative diseases.

This workshop is co-sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Studies and the Energy and Minerals Institute at UWA, iVEC@UWA, iVEC, CSIRO and CESRE.

Measuring multiscale and multiphysics earth material behaviour on time scales ranging from days to millions of years transcends our current capability in the laboratory. Physics based virtual computer simulations will soar over the next few years as we see the passing of the petascale, and the dawning of the exascale era.

This workshop will focus on understanding the potential usage of GPU and MIC from a computational scientific user point of view, particularly for multiscale problems in Earth Science and Resource Engineering. In addition to algorithmic research, we will focus on high-level libraries and programming environments and visualization tools that can improve the performance and productivity of large- scale applications.

These advancements in GPU and accelerator research will be illustrated by both computational kernels and entire large-scale applications, which exercise these tools and libraries.

R is a free and extremely powerful language and software environment for statistical computing, data analysis, and graphics. The course is designed for those who have no experience with R, but have a basic understanding of statistics. The course will include: Introduction to R: How to install R on your computer; basic R commands, how to use and understand the R help pages. Data: Reading in data and data manipulation; summarising data; basic statistical analysis and fitting linear models. Graphics and output: Basic plotting commands and how to customise your plots; how to export your plots and output in a user-friendly format. Functions: Writing simple functions and flow control structures.

Raine Visiting Professor Lecture

The Seminar: Sarcopenia is the loss of skeletal muscle mass and function with age. There has been exciting recent progress in the development of a consensus approach to defining sarcopenia which is enabling the prevalence to be compared in different settings. It is clear that it is common in older men and women, and that its components have serious health consequences in terms of disability, morbidity and mortality as well as significant healthcare costs.

Important influences on sarcopenia such as resistance exercise and nutritional intake in later life are well described. However there remains considerable unexplained variation between older people which might be partly explained by the observation that muscle mass and strength in later life reflect not only the rate of loss but also the peak attained earlier in life. This has led to an innovative lifecourse approach to understanding sarcopenia utilising unique UK birth cohorts such as the Hertfordshire Cohort Study.

The Speaker: Avan Aihie Sayer graduated in medicine from the University of London and following general medical training, won a 4 year Wellcome Clinical Training Fellowship including an MSc in Epidemiology in London and a PhD on the developmental origins of ageing at the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit in Southampton. She became a Consultant in Geriatric Medicine in Southampton in 1998, returned to the MRC as a Clinical Scientist in 2000 and was appointed to a Chair in Geriatric Medicine at the University of Southampton in 2007. She is Principal Investigator of an MRC programme grant studying sarcopenia, frailty and clinical practice in older people and leads an interdisciplinary ageing research group including a flourishing NIHR funded academic geriatric medicine training programme. She is involved in a wide range of national and international collaborations.

Rational belief formation involves holding beliefs with the firmness that the evidence warrants. Unfortunately, humans are known to fall short of this ideal, being prone to various forms of “misbelief”. Such deviations from rational belief range from “healthy” (yet potentially destructive) forms, such as “positive illusions” about one’s prowess and prospects, to the bizarre delusions common in certain psychiatric and neurological disorders. According to the dominant psychiatric conception (e.g., the DSM), delusions are fixed beliefs that are under-responsive to relevant evidence. I will argue that whereas many cases of misbelief fit this definition (e.g., sexual overperception, positive illusions, anosognosia), delusions do not. I will present evidence that delusion-prone individuals are actually overly responsive to current evidence. Biography Ryan McKay is a senior lecturer in psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research interests include cognitive neuropsychiatry, evolutionary psychology and behavioural economics. He was educated at UWA (B.Sc. Hons) and Macquarie University (MClinPsych, PhD), and has held research posts in Boston (Tufts University), Belfast (Queen’s University), Zürich (University of Zürich) and Oxford (University of Oxford).

A world recognised specialist in the field of ecology and evolution of host-parasite interactions, Paul’s research interests focus on the coevolution and ecology of host-parasite interactions.

As head of the Experimental Ecology research group at ETH, his pioneering works on host-parasite interactions paved the way for innovative research worldwide.

The trypanosome Crithidia bombi infects several species of Bombus (bumblebees); here, we focus on B. terrestris. The parasite is spread by contacts on flowers and evidence shows that the infecting populations in the hosts are very prevalent and highly variable. At the same time, the presumably relevant genetic complements of the hosts are highly conserved. One alternative defence strategy is by variable gene expression and the synergistic actions of effector molecules. The concept and evidence for such a process are discussed.

Professor Tilling main areas of expertise are in methods for analysing exposures and outcomes across the life-course, and in methods for dealing with missing data. She has a mathematical background, an MSc in Applied Statistics and a PhD in Epidemiology, together with more than 15 years’ experience working in academic public health and epidemiology. Prof Tilling enjoys interpreting and explaining results from more complex statistical methods to other researchers and members of the public and using all forms of the media to effectively promote public health messages.

Areas of interest: Childhood growth; Life-course analyses; Trajectories of change in disease outcomes (E.g. PSA in prostate cancer, EDS in Multiple Sclerosis; Complex inter-relationships which change over time (E.g. fat mass and physical activity, risk factors for CHD; Methodological interests: Methods to examine and correct for bias due to missing data; Structural equation models, particularly for longitudinal data; Multilevel models for growth trajectories; Fractional polynomial and linear spline models Time-varying confounding - marginal structural models and g-estimation

There have been many recordings of internal wave spectra in lakes.When the density profile is so that it can be approximated by a few (often two) layers of constant density there has been satisfactory agreement between the observed spectra and calculated seiche frequencies.

The situation with continuous stratification is less satisfactory.There have been several careful laboratory studies of exactly periodic standing waves in containers. Uniform stratification, constant buoyancy frequency, is the most common setup reported. There is a good picture of standing waves in a trapezoidal tank in a paper in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v388/n6642/abs/388557a0.html. (There have been many later experiments with similar pictures.)

Standing waves as above may be modelled with a stream function satisfying the one-dimensional wave equation - in space variables - equation (9.11.6) of Imberger 'Environmental Fluid Dynamics'. Boundary conditions for a closed container have the stream function constant around the boundary. The problem is mathematically not well set. Eigenspaces are infinite dimensional.

It is possible to suggest a dichotomy with two sorts of standing wave/seiche motions. On the one hand there are very smooth seiche-style oscillations as familiar with the classical solutions in rectangular boxes, semicircles, etc On the other hand there is internal wave "focusing" - with its clear evidence of the characteristic directions. See the picture in the Nature paper.

My work suggests that this dichotomy shouldn't be over-stated. Even in the nice domains with the smooth solutions there are plenty of solutions clearly showing the characteristics.The mathematics involved in this main conclusion is extremely simple.

BIO.

Grant's first degree is from UWA - in Applied Maths.Grant first met Jorg early in 1968 when Jorg was researching for his MSc at UWA,and he was tutoring, marking time before semester started in Cambridge. Grant's PhD was on "waves and free-streamline flows" at the Department of Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge. After a couple of postdocs, Grant joined the staff of UWA's Maths Department in 1974, and worked there until the end of 2010. His research has involved various fluid dynamics problems,those of greatest relevance to CWR being surface water waves and internal waves.He has had a range of other interests, partly driven by who would fund his research leaves in England.

Grant has some sessional teaching in Engineering Maths at Curtin University, and some non-CWR research there. A CV and publication list is up at https://sites.google.com/site/keadyperthunis/home

Grant lives close to UWA, and has family/carer responsibilities requiring him to be able to get home more easily than is possible from Curtin. The career change from Maths to CWR is proving slower than anticipated.The work described in today's talk was motivated by a CWR concern with mixing at shorelines associated with internal wave behaviour there, and more generally that seiche frequencies are detectable in measured internal wave spectra.

It is too theoretical to be of immediately applicable, but may be of longer term relevance to scientific understanding of mixing. After getting this one submitted Grant is determined to change to computations - seiching frequencies, SWAN, etc. - concentrating on comparing theoretical results with those from computer codes.And, Grant truly loves math. software - Mathematica and Maple and Matlab -and likes helping people with these.

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

****All Welcome****

The Arab Spring has both changed and charged some of the region’s thorniest problems – from the rise of political Islam to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Israel-Palestine conflict to rivalries between key regional powers. Exploring the sources of conflict in the Middle East and their various linkages, the lecture would provide an assessment of whether the region is indeed destined for implosion or whether political sagacity and diplomatic creativity can bring it back from the brink.

Professor Mohammed Ayoob is Michigan State University's Distinguished Professor of International Relations. He has published 13 books and over 90 papers and articles in leading journals such as World Politics, International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Review, Foreign Policy, International Affairs, amongst others. He recently published an edited volume with Etga Ugur entitled Assessing the War on Terror. The lecture will present the ideas contained in his forthcoming book to be published by the Polity Press (Feb 2014).

We are delighted to invite you to a symposium on ‘Oral Health in Aged Care: Research and Realities’ on November 14th as part of the activities of our Centre for Research Excellence in Primary Oral Health Care (UWA node). This symposium brings together a number of outstanding national and international speakers to share research findings and perspectives regarding oral health in aged care. Guest speakers include: Dr Penny Flett (Chief Executive Officer of Brightwater Care Group and Chair of the WA Aged Care Advisory Council) Aged care perspective on oral health Professor Murray Thomson – ( University of Otago, New Zealand) New Zealand research on oral health in aged care Professor Clive Wright (Previously Chief Dental Officer, Centre of Oral Health Strategy, NSW Health). Research, policy and education. Dr Barry Gibson –(School of Dentistry at the University of Sheffield, UK) Sociology of ageing Ms Adrienne Lewis – (SA Dental Service and University of Adelaide) Better Oral Health Connections in Aged Care Prof Leon Flicker (Professor of Geriatric Medicine at UWA) Aged care in Australia Prof Lone Schou – (recent Dental Dean, University of Copenhagen) Health Promotion, Inequality and Aged Care: A European Perspective A/Prof Matt Hopcraft – (Australian Dental Council, past president ADA Vic) Dental care and disease in Victorian Nursing homes We welcome researchers, dental and health professionals, nursing and other relevant professional groups, aged care staff and anyone interested in these issues. Further information can be found at http://www.dentistry.uwa.edu.au/research/symposium. Please register early as places are limited. Convened by Professor Linda Slack-Smith, queries to Dr Lydia Hearn [email protected]. RSVP by October 25th – see web link to register (please distribute to those interested).

The course will cover material ranging from a review of simple one-way ANOVA, to more complex designs and analyses including crossed and nested factors with fixed and random effects.The emphasis throughout will be placed on applications rather than theory. The statistical package R and R Commander will be used and some familiarity with this will be assumed.

In Australia over the last five years, the Federal Government has thrust a policy couplet of ‘quality’ and ‘equity’ to the forefront of education agendas in both schooling and higher education sectors. This couplet reflects and refracts dominant education discourses around the globe. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has played a significant role in forging these educational priorities for a global knowledge era, and at the same time contributed to heightened competition between countries as they strive for ‘world class’ education systems and institutions. The Australian Federal Government has taken the approach of increasing central control of education in order to enhance both quality and equity, and hence Australia’s competitive positioning in the global arena. But educational quality and equity are amorphous ‘chameleon’ concepts; what are they, how do we measure them and are they comfortable bedfellows? Together, they might be described in terms of a Gordian knot; that is, they have become inextricably interlinked and they potentially create intractable problems. This presentation begins to untie the Gordian knot of quality and equity in education and asks if increasing central government control is the best solution to the policy problem. In so doing, it draws on concepts of ‘policy pandemics’, international ‘policy learning’ and ‘glocalisation’ to emphasise the importance of critical analysis of education trends from global to local levels in an emerging global knowledge society.

Flipped classroom is a term currently popular in educational contexts. This seminar defines flipped classroom approach, highlights benefits and pitfalls, illustrates a range of flipped classroom approaches in university teaching, and talks about getting started in flipping your classroom.

Abstract :

I will discuss a few things, all related to semiregular graph automorphisms : the polycirculant conjecture, the abelian normal quotient method, an interesting class of graphs...

The Lung Institute of WA invites you to a free seminar on: "Confronting the killer: epidemiology and prevention of pneumonia in Papua New Guinean children" by Associate Professor Deborah Lehmann. A light lunch will be served from 12.00pm with a 12.30pm – 1.30pm presentation.

The Lung Institute of WA invites you to a free seminar on: "Confronting the killer: epidemiology and prevention of pneumonia in Papua New Guinean children" by Associate Professor Deborah Lehmann. A light lunch will be served from 12.00pm with a 12.30pm – 1.30pm presentation.

While humans use their voice mainly for communicating information about the world, paralinguistic cues in the voice signal convey rich dynamic information about a speaker´s arousal and emotional state, and extralinguistic cues reflect more stable speaker characteristics including identity, biological sex and social gender, socioeconomic or regional background, and age. Here I discuss how recent methodological progress in voice morphing and voice synthesis has promoted research on current theoretical issues, such as how voices are mentally represented in the human brain. Special attention is dedicated to the distinction between the recognition of familiar and unfamiliar speakers, in everyday situations or in the forensic context, and on the processes and representational changes that accompany the learning of new voices. I describe how specific impairments and individual differences in voice perception could relate to specific brain correlates. Finally, I consider that voices are produced by speakers who are often visible during communication, and present evidence that shows how speaker perception involves dynamic face-voice integration. Overall, the representation of para- and extralinguistic vocal information plays a major role in person perception and social communication, could be neuronally encoded in a prototype-referenced manner, and is subject to flexible adaptive recalibration as a result of specific perceptual experience.

Biography: Stefan Schweinberger is a full professor at the University of Jena in Germany. He is chair for General Psychology and head of the DFG-funded Person Perception Research Unit. Stefan received his Ph.D. and Habilitation from the University of Konstanz and was professor at the University of Glasgow before moving to Jena. His research interests include the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying person perception, particularly the electrophysiological correlates of face and voice perception.

A free public lecture by Jamie Peck, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia.

The lecture will explore the political and theoretical status of neoliberalism in these ostensibly twilight times. Particular attention will be focused on the peculiar course of austerity politics in the United States, where a banking crisis has once again been transformed into a state crisis, the costs of which have been trickling down in ways that the benefits of growth never did.

Cost: free, RSVP to http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/peck

This talk will discuss some results of an ongoing collaborative research project between the Archaeological Studies Program, University of the Philippines, the Australian National University and UWA on the Pleistocene-Early Holocene settlement of the Philippines. The Philippines have recently produced some significant evidence related to early human colonization episodes, including the currently oldest securely dated evidence for modern humans in Island Southeast Asia altogether. The project is aimed at contextualizing these finds through systematic identification, excavation, dating and multi-disciplinary analyses of new sites on a number of islands.

This talk will concentrate on new results from recent archaeological investigations at the Bubog rock shelter sites on the small island of Ilin (Mindoro Occidental). The archaeological and stratigraphic sequences at the two sites provide evidence on how variability in landscape formation, sea levels and landmass during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene influenced past human behaviour, demonstrating a correlation between human foraging strategies and environmental changes. The current results of this project contribute substantially to our understanding of the processes of human colonization and adaptation in the Archipelago. They complement ongoing research into Island Southeast Asia's palaeogeography and enhance current knowledge of human occupation and subsistence strategies across the region.

Effective management of diversity in society and workplaces continues to present challenges in the 21st century. Diversity management remains a fragmented research discipline and profession which suffers from crises of legitimacy and trust. Despite an ‘it’s good for us: it’s good for business’ mantra, diversity management still attracts resistance ranging from active backlash to passive indifference.

The lively interactive lecture will explore reasons for this resistance and highlight understandings of how diversity management contributes to an organisation’s triple bottom line (people, profit and planet related performance outcomes). Drawing on his extensive research collaboration with a wide range of industries and organisations, Professor Özbilgin will outline how to develop evidence based arguments to achieve support from leadership and line management for diversity management initiatives; as well as provide models which can aid assessment of diversity management activities from multiple perspectives and interests including strategy, employee well-being and productivity, reputation, profit and competitiveness. The lecture will be interactive and audience members will be able to contribute to the discussion.

Cost: free, RSVP required vis http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/ozbilgin