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1
Pringle, Billy. "Steven Lukes and the 'three-dimensional' power of neoliberal discourse : a case study of Australian policy documentation." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:43956.
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Steven Lukes’ ‘three-dimensional’ theory of power offers an empirical, process-oriented and discourse-focused framework for studying ‘power over’ and the manipulation of interests in the context of political power. Despite receiving a lot of attention and critique in the immediate wake of its publication in 1973, Lukes’ second edition, which expands, revises and defends his theory in response to this critique, has been all but overlooked in recent studies of political discourse and neoliberal hegemony, with many authors instead favouring Marxist or Foucauldian approaches. This thesis tests the usefulness of Lukes’ framework, by applying it to the use of discourse in the Australian Government Response to the Competition Policy Review. In particular, it focuses on the processes by which interests can be influenced, shaped or determined: an issue that Lukes only briefly discusses, but that critically informs his theoretical approach, by focusing on a particular moment of policy formation. The Response is a recent piece of pro-competition policy documentation, and is informed by a history of neoliberal and economic rationalist rhetoric. While Lukes’ framework has seen numerous case studies, most of these focus on the impact of domination, and are therefore retrospective. As a recent document, most of the policies the Response discusses have not yet been enacted, therefore it represents an attempt to influence the interests of readers, while not yet having a broad impact. This provides a new perspective on Lukes’ framework, and expands it to allow for analysis of prospective cases of domination.
2
Chavez, Stephanie G. "An investigation of taphonomic changes and decomposition rates of remains after exposure to cold environments : a porcine model." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45680.
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Many taphonomic studies have concluded that temperature is one of the most influential variables driving decomposition. However, the effect extreme cold treatments, such as freezing, have on the process and rate of decomposition has received little attention. This is presumably because temperatures below zero degree Celsius are believed to slow or stop microbial and invertebrate activity, inhibiting the decomposition process. The few studies present in the literature describing the decomposition process of cold treated remains are mostly international in origin, with no consensus as to whether the decomposition process and rate is even affected by frozen temperatures. The vast majority of these studies have, however, suggested that frozen remains tend to disarticulate at an accelerated rate and are more prone to external decay whereas never-frozen remains exhibit putrefaction from within, or internal decay. Knowledge of how a body decomposes after exposure to extremely cold temperatures is important, particularly as it will assist with the development of methods used to determine the post-mortem interval (PMI) when remains are suspected to have been exposed to these extreme temperatures. To determine if freezing impacts the decomposition of soft tissue and the disarticulation sequence of remains, a 2017 summer and winter field study was conducted in the Hawkesbury region of NSW Australia. Two frozen and two never-frozen Sus scrofa (domestic pig) carcasses were deposited on the grounds surface and left to decompose over a 12-week period each season. Soft tissue changes were recorded and ‘scored’ and the PMI determined using a previously published method. Bacterial swabs were also collected and analysed via real-time PCR to determine which bacterial communities were present at each stage of decomposition. Results indicate clear morphological differences in decomposition patterns between frozen and never-frozen remains throughout summer, with frozen remains skeletonising faster and decomposing in an ‘outside-in’ pattern. Winter appears to produce little morphological variation between frozen and never-frozen remains. PMI calculations show that there are clear differences in PMI estimations between frozen and never-frozen remains in early decomposition, however differences become negligible as decomposition progresses. The summer study was validated using human remains at the Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research (AFTER), where morphologically the human remains decomposed similarly to the summer pigs. Microbial results in both pig and human models show freezing appears to pause microbial activity, however, once remains are allowed to thaw, bacteria experiences rapid growth in frozen remains. Furthermore, patterns are observed between bacteria that may provide an indication as to whether a body has been frozen at or around the time of death. The results of this study contribute to the increasing knowledge of taphonomic factors affecting decomposition in Australian environments.
3
Horgan, Michael I. "Characterisation of vinylphosphonic acid-based block copolymers." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45450.
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Block copolymers incorporate the properties of multiple homopolymers into discrete chemical domains. A wide variety of physical and electrochemical behaviours are exhibited by these ‘smart’ polymers. Changes in environment effect the confirmation and structures of these materials, such stimuli-responsivity includes pH, temperature or ion concentration. This potential for controlled behaviour in solution and surface chemistry has enabled the production and investigation of block copolymers in many fields. Notably these materials are applied as flocculants and facilitate ion transport in water filtration systems without the need for power generators. Therefore block copolymers present a valuable construction material for use at industrial facilities. Where each block exhibits like-attractions with hydrogen-bonding environments, these species of copolymers are called double hydrophilic block copolymers (DHBC). These particular groups of block copolymers are of primary interest in the development of PEM batteries and drug delivery systems. DHBCs with vinylphosphonic acid (VPA) moieties display strong research potency in these investigations. Elucidation of the chemical structure for such materials has been attempted using a number of analytical techniques. However, at current there is no established method that evaluates the purity of the block copolymers in terms of the parent polymers and the distribution of compositions. Techniques for the analysis of these properties in polymers generally involve separation chemistry. Size exclusion chromatography (SEC) is the most common method within research and industry for determining these properties. This method separates analyte in solution by hydrodynamic volume, polymer volumes are highly dependent on molar mass as well as composition and branching, as such incomplete separation by one of these factors occurs in SEC leading to errors in molecular weight calculations. Furthermore ‘smart’ polymers that exhibit charges are susceptible to aggregation and adsorption onto the stationary phase. To evaluate DHBCs with charged and neutral blocks alternative methods were investigated in this work. Block copolymers of PVPA have been produced by RAFT/MADIX polymerization, this synthetic scheme for aqueous production of high charge polymers can result in parent homopolymers remaining in sample. In order to assess the purity of PVPA-based DHBCs made via RAFT/MADIX this project presents a method for their quantification via free solution CE-CC. Free solution capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a separation method for the characterization of ions based on their charge to friction ratio. Sample analyte is placed in a fluid medium with buffer and subjected to an electric field. This causes ionization of analyte components while migration is initiated by attraction of these ions to the poles of the electric field. It has previously been observed that hydrodynamic volume in approaches a maximum with an increase in size of polyelectrolytes. Above a certain threshold these polymers exhibit negligible increases in volume; in these cases separation by electrostatic friction outweighs molar mass dependent hydrodynamic friction at these chain lengths. This state of CE separation for large polyelectrolytes is termed the ‘critical conditions’ (CE-CC) where polymers can be characterised in terms of their structure or end-groups. The charged-uncharged DHBCs were examined in this work by CE-CC and the complete separation and detection of the parent homopolymers was achieved. Polymers constructed from these charged species, though valuable for industrial and bio-technologies, can be difficult to synthesize with narrow chemical distributions and few techniques are available that can accurately quantify all species present in these samples. In the separation of block copolymers by CE we observed that short chain di-block copolymers of charged PVPA and neutral block species PAM, PEG and PVP displayed large distributions in block structure as well as a number of impurities. For RAFT/MADIX synthesised PVPA-based DHBCs the dispersity of different structures was found to be dependent on the degree of polymerisation of the first charged block species more so than the second neutral block species. The heterogeneity of these distributions was examined using CE-CC and related to the compositions of the block copolymers using a novel conversion of electrophoretic mobility to distribution of charge density. This work builds a robust and efficient method for assessing the structures and species of interesting DHBCs by separation in CE. To summarise, the purity and heterogeneities of structures in smart charged-uncharged DHBCs were investigated by CE-CC. Properties such as structural distribution, purity and charge density were assessed within a single separation using this technique. Further investigation of other difficult to characterise copolymers especially smart DHBCs by CE-CC could be used to study the synthesis of these materials and aid the development of more complex copolymers for commercial application.
4
Mukoko, Isaac. "Family conflict and conflict resolution among Zimbabwean migrants in Greater Western Sydney." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:46091.
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This study assessed the main causes of conflict among Zimbabwean families in Greater Western Sydney and possible solutions. The main issues of contention were found to be: Disagreements on the management of money, changing gender roles, isolation and separation from the extended family, men’s loss of breadwinner status and intergenerational cultural differences between parents and children.
To gather data for this research, ten (10) semi-structured interviews were conducted with purposively sampled men, women and youths. The interviews were conducted in venues that were desirable to the participants. The interviews went for between 1 to 2 hours on each sitting. Not a single interview went for less than 1 hour or for more than 2 hours. To cater for gender equity, equal numbers of male and female participants were involved in the research project.
The research results showed that most people believed the following strategies could help reduce the occurrence of conflict in the families. The need to (1) be more financially frugal, transparent and inclusive (2) strike a balance between household duties and job commitments (3) respect community elders’ advice on the importance of cultural values (4) adopt strategies which encourage community interaction.
The overall recommendation was that, the community must be proactive and strive to work as one on all the issues mentioned above. The older generation must aim higher and inculcate good behavioural attitudes in the younger generation. For this to be achieved, the children must be involved in community issues at an earlier stage. This can be done by having “Youths” in executive positions of a created Youth Council. This council will be elected by the Youths themselves to safeguard the interests of young people in the community but will still fall under the arms of the main community executive for understudying. This was a grand conflict resolution strategy which was put forward by the Youths representatives. It was a correct summary to the findings of this research study.
5
Isemonger, Holly. "Constraint, pleasure and genre in contemporary poetics." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:46094.
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Jeffery Wainright writes that the central paradox of poetry results from two conflicting desires: the desire to ‘say something meaningful and memorable’ and the desire to say nothing and simply delight in the nature of language itself (203). The contradiction is as old as the art, however, the question still remains: how can a poet engage with the two poles in a meaningful way? What strategies and tools can a poet use to achieve this? Often the tension between form and content is provisionally mitigated by poetry that gives too much weight to what is being expressed, rather than the form of its expression. As a result the intensity of the content stands in for the crafting of the linguistic material, which should contribute to the readers response. There are many contemporary writers who engage with these topics in poetics, however, I have chosen to use a small selection of poems by Matthew Welton as a case study because they provide useful technical lessons on navigating the impasses of the conventional lyric. The relationship between form and content is at the heart of nearly every art form and fundamental questions arise from it: what is being said? How do the materials construct what is being said? What value do the writer and the reader place on these components? The issues are simple to state in general terms but difficult to resolve in relation to particular poems due to their subjective nature.
6
Ahmed, Arnab. "A quantitative analysis of visual perceptual tasks for use in schizophrenia research." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45423.
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Schizophrenia is a neurological disorder that is primarily associated with hallucinations, delusions and disordered or confused thinking. Additionally, and less noticeably, the disorder is accompanied by a plethora of cognitive deficits and, as this thesis will address, sensory deficits. Historically, sensory deficits in patients with schizophrenia have been largely discounted. These deficits have instead been attributed to higher-order mechanisms such as impairments to attentional or emotional processing and often localised to the pre-frontal cortex or the limbic system. It is only within the last 50 years (Javitt, 2009) that schizophrenia research has awoken to the possibility of sensory deficits localised to the primary sensory cortices themselves. This thesis will focus on cataloguing potential mechanisms within the visual system which cannot be explained by higher-order processes alone but instead serve as an example of processing deficits in patients with schizophrenia which are likely to be present across the whole brain. Specifically, this thesis will investigate the feasibility of utilising established visual phenomena, through psychophysical and electrophysiological experimentation, within schizophrenia research. This document will first detail our current understanding of sensory deficits in patients with schizophrenia, with particular focus on lower level mechanisms such as gain control. It will also consider how they may be implemented within a clinical setting; this framework will inform all subsequent experiments. Three main experimental chapters will follow titled: "Assessing the functional significance of the Horizontal Effect"; "Correlations between visual oddball responses and schizotypy"; and "Adaptation to Orientation Regularity". Each of these experiments represents an attempt at creating a novel visual paradigm for use within clinical populations which will advance our knowledge of how the visual system performs in patients with schizophrenia. The final chapter will draw upon the conclusions reached from each of the experimental programs and assess future directions for both the current program as well as the field itself.
7
Badar, Usman. "Secularity, religion and liberal political philosophy : a critical assessment of the conception and justification of the secular in contemporary academic debate." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45715.
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Following decades in which certain standard positions in the social sciences framed the discourse on secularity and religion, recent times have seen the emergence of crucial and critical interventions in this area. The academic debate on the ‘post-secular’ – carefully distinguishing among and between the related but distinct notions of secularity, secularisation and secularism – challenges much of what was previously taken for granted. This thesis focuses on the contributions of Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Talal Asad and William Connolly, which it outlines, explains and critically engages on the question of the conception and justification of the secular. On the back on these contributions, it argues that having moved beyond classic negative conceptions of the secular as the simple other of religion – where both are considered fixed, universal categories – it should be positively understood as a normative force, tied to modernity, in its own right – one that is not opposed to religion per se but to that religion which challenges its fundamentals. Further, the secular and religious relate in much more complex ways than the former simply coming to the fore as modernisation leads humanity to mature and shed the latter. As for liberal justifications of secularism, these rest on untenable claims of the secular occupying neutral epistemic and political grounds, which make it uniquely suitable for modern, pluralistic societies, and of religion distinctively being prone to violence and intolerance. This thesis challenges the supposed neutrality of the secular in particular, showing that it is as ideological and normative as any other worldview.
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Boyle, Peter. "Ghostspeaking : heteronyms and the translation of poetry." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45784.
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This thesis is composed of two parts: an exegesis, which examines the relationships between heteronymous poetry and the translation of poetry, and a creative component consisting of a book of heteronymous poetry Ghostspeaking and the translation of two books by Cuban poet José Kozer – Índole and Carece de causa. The exegesis opens by noting how heteronymous poetry has appealed especially to translators and has often taken the form of pseudo-translation. It is argued that heteronymous poetry and the translation of poetry largely spring from their creator’s desire to introduce styles and aesthetic approaches from outside a given language and poetic community. Both practices rely on a poet’s ability to write in different voices, placing themselves at the service of other poets real or imagined. The argument is developed first by examining the work of Fernando Pessoa, instigator of the modern heteronym tradition, and later through analysis of Edmond Jabès’ Le livre des questions and Juan Gelman’s Los poemas de Sidney West. In all three cases – Pessoa, Jabès and Gelman – heteronyms or quasi-heteronyms take the form of fusion poets, fictional writers in whom literary traditions from outside their creator’s own language and poetic community are recombined in novel ways. Thus, for Pessoa, Jabès and Gelman respectively, 19th-century English and American poetry, Talmud and Kabbalah, 20th-century North American and German models combine with Portuguese, French and Argentine poetic traditions. The turn to heteronyms performs two main functions: it offers a way to introduce models and aesthetic attitudes from outside one’s poetic community, operating at times as a form of “translation by other means”, and it uses fiction to generate new poetry. The exegesis concludes by asking to what extent it is possible to write in another’s voice, particularly when translating poetry. This question is examined through close analysis of five poems by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, César Vallejo, Charles Baudelaire and Marosa di Giorgio alongside translations by Henry Wadsworh Longfellow, Clayton Eshleman, Michael Smith, John Ashbery and Adam Giannelli. The analysis suggests that often poet-translators can find analogues for a poem’s sound-shape and, to a significant extent, write poetry in a voice other than their own. The heteronymous collection Ghostspeaking contains eleven imaginary poets from Latin America, France and Québec “translated” into English and accompanied by biographies and interviews developing their fictive identities. While some of the heteronyms, such as Ricardo Xavier Bousoño, Lazlo Thalassa and Ernesto Ray, have an affinity with neo-baroque poets like José Kozer, Gerardo Deniz and Néstor Perlongher, others like Antonio Almeida employ a more traditional poetics, demonstrating how the creator of heteronyms like the translator of poetry may seek to create different, even opposing, voices. Other heteronyms, like Antonieta Villanueva, open ways to explore parts of my own life through fiction, as poetry as memory and poetry as invention interact. José Kozer (1940 - ) is a major figure within Spanish-language poetry of the last forty years. His books, Índole (2013) and Carece de causa (2004), reveal two different sides to his writing – a humorous ironic poetry of everyday life that delights in unexpected connections (Índole) and a sustained meditation on his Jewish heritage, particularly the life and death of his father and grandfather (Carece de causa). Both books are grounded in an aesthetics that prefers disruption, highly specific detail and abrupt shifts in subject matter and register, presenting a formidable range of difficulties for a translator.
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Thambiraj, Solomon R. "Biological activities and structural characterisation of polysaccharides from three Australian sweet lupin species." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45325.
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Lupin is a major rotational crop produced abundantly in Australia. Three species of sweet lupins are grown in Australia which are blue lupin (Lupinus angustifolius), white lupin (Lupinus albus) and yellow lupin (Lupinus luteus). In this study, preliminary screening of crude polysaccharides from the three lupin species have been carried out with a view to make an informed decision about further detailed study on individual sweet lupin species (Chapter 3). Polysaccharides from all the three species exhibited significant antioxidant, immunostimulatory and prebiotic activities and hence have been selected for further detailed study. Blue lupin polysaccharides (BLPs) have been isolated and their biological activities investigated (Chapter 4). The antioxidant, Immunostimulatory and prebiotic activities of these fractions were measured. Three of the blue lupin polysaccharides (BLP-1, BLP-2 and BLP-5) displayed significant biological activities. FT-IR and 13C NMR studies have revealed that the lupin galactans are characterised by β-Dgalactopyranosyl units linked through (1, 4) glycosidic bond. Lupin galactomannans have galactose to mannose ratio of 1:2 and mannopyranosyl units that are linked through β-D-(1, 4) glycosidic bond and alternate mannopyranosyl units have a galactose unit branching out at –OH6. The observed antioxidant and immunostimulatory activities of BLP-2 and BLP-5 have shown strong correlation to the quantities of galactans and galactomannans. Lupinus albus L. (white lupin) seeds have good nutritional profile that has not been fully exploited. In this study, water-soluble polysaccharides were isolated from the whole seeds of white lupin (Chapter 5) and purified and a spectrum of their biological activities investigated. Two isolated polysaccharide fractions WLP-1 and WLP-2 have displayed highly significant radical scavenging, iron chelating, immunostimulatory and prebiotic activities. These activities of WLP-1 and WLP-2 showed good correlation to their galactose contents. Structural characterisation revealed that the WLPs contain galactans and galactomannans with similar structure to that of blue lupin polysaccharides. In this research, polysaccharides from Lupinus luteus L (yellow lupin) were isolated from the whole seeds of yellow lupin and their bioactivities were investigated (Chapter 6). Yellow lupin polysaccharides (YLPs) exhibited good antioxidant, immunostimulatory and prebiotic activities. YLP-2 with largest galactose content displayed best activity amongst the three isolated polysaccharides. Spectroscopic methods were used to determine the structures of YLPs that are similar to blue and white lupin polysaccharides. The results presented in this thesis strongly suggest that the yellow lupin polysaccharides possess antioxidant, immune enhancing and prebiotic activities. The MRI contrast potentials of Gd (III) complexes (Chapter 7) with lupin polysaccharides have been investigated. Low molecular weight lupin polysaccharides were T1 agents and high molecular weight lupin polysaccharides were T2 agents. Excellent biological activities displayed by the polysaccharides from the three lupin species studied showed important biological activities suitable for nutraceutical and functional agents. Findings of this research strongly point to the fact that galactan is the major polysaccharide that determines the activities of sweet lupin polysaccharides.
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Maximous, Amal. "Teaching and learning community interpreting." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:53128.
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Community interpreting, or liaison interpreting, takes place within community or public service settings to facilitate communication between public services and members of minority communities who do not have a good command of the dominant language. Community interpreting is mostly performed in short consecutive or dialogue modes, where the interpreter works in at least two directions (in two languages), in close proximity to the speakers, who usually have different backgrounds, levels of expertise and status. Community interpreting is a complex task that requires many skills and competencies. Therefore, teaching such a task is as complex. Although there is a growing body of research on teaching community interpreting, little is known about community interpreting classrooms. This study examines how community interpreting was taught and learnt in one academic year (2013) and one university (Western Sydney University). The study also explores students’ and teachers’ views and perceptions of the teaching and learning processes. The study also examines the communication between students and teachers. The study is mainly of a qualitative nature: it deployed mainly qualitative data collection and analysis methods. Data elicited via classroom observation and teacher and student interviews is the core of the study. Some non-negligible quantitative data has also been elicited and analysed. The main finding of the study is a wealth of descriptive information of community interpreting classroom activities, dynamics and student-teacher communication. The data of the study also showed a lack of uniformity in the teaching practices and a communication gap between teachers and students. The data indicated a lack of awareness among teachers and students of the growing body of theoretical components and research that can enhance the teaching and learning process, improve both teachers’ and students’ experience and ultimately improve the outcome of the training or educational process.
11
Lamichhane, Pratibha. "Identifying the challenges of autonomous learning among international Master of Research students in Western Sydney University." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:46778.
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This is a qualitative narrative study that has explored the challenges of international research students in understanding, adapting, and evolving in an autonomous learning culture, specifically in an Australian context. As a small project incorporating six participants, who are all Master of Research (MRes) students, this study confines itself within the context of Western Sydney University (WSU); the findings and discussion of which have highlighted the rationale for a wider research scope in the future. The potential benefit of this study would be improved preparedness of international research students towards autonomous learning structures in Australian universities. This study will help in understanding the unique pedagogical support that international MRes students may require that is responsive to their prior learning contexts and assist in revising the current research-specific support. Through the narrative storytelling process, this study has captured the lived experiences of these students that may contribute to the current literature on international research students, and issues of their integration into diverse learning contexts, styles, and curriculums that are common in Australian universities.
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Brooks, Cristy. "Obesity and chronic low back pain : an investigation of the relationship and possible mediating factors." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:46078.
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Background: Obesity and chronic low back pain (cLBP) are prevalent social and economic burdens with significant contribution to poor overall health. Previous research has viewed the two health conditions as separate research and clinical problems, but there is evidence of a relationship between them. However, combined obesity and cLBP research is limited and not well understood.
Aim: The aim of this thesis was to investigate the relationship between obesity and cLBP, and to explore the possible factors mediating that relationship.
Methods: A series of three explorative studies were employed to examine the relationship between obesity and cLBP. Study 1 investigated associations between BMI and exercise-related cLBP changes. Study 2 was an exploration of associations between adipose tissue distribution and cLBP. Study 3 investigated the effect of body mass distribution on a known postural task, and the possible mediation by movement of the lumbar spine or lumbar muscle endurance.
Results: BMI and BMI changes were not associated with cLBP, or successful predictors of cLBP changes. Regional adiposity, particularly the ratio of abdominal to lumbar adiposity, was associated with and a significant predictor of cLBP. Body mass distribution was shown to result in poorer postural task performance, but mediation by spinal movement or muscle endurance was not confirmed.
Discussion: No significant relationships between BMI and cLBP were identified, indicating the reliance on BMI as an obesity measure may not be justified. The established associations between regional adiposity distribution and cLBP may suggest that adipose tissue is a key contributor within the obesity-cLBP relationship. Although mediation of spinal movement or muscle endurance was not supported in the experimental context used, the link between body composition and mass distribution with cLBP was further confirmed.
Conclusion: The work of this thesis supports evidence of a link between obesity and cLBP. Adiposity and body mass distribution have been implicated in this relationship. Future studies should continue to explore possible mediating factors between obesity and cLBP in a variety of research contexts.
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Aljaffal, Taghreed. "Investigating environmental sustainability practices among Middle Eastern Ethnic restaurants in Sydney." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45501.
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Like most other sectors of the economy, environmental sustainability is increasingly gaining significant recognition within the hospitality industry. Although previous studies have examined environmental sustainability practices and attitudes within different hospitality sectors, a clear knowledge gap exists concerning the sustainability practices of ethnic restaurants, which represent a substantial sector within the hospitality field. This study explored aspects of environmental sustainability among Middle Eastern ethnic restaurants in the Australian Sydney metropolitan region, practices around water and energy consumption, local procurement, and waste management were examined through interviews with restauranteurs. Qualitative methods using in-depth semi-structured interviews with owners and employees of ethnic restaurants in Sydney were conducted in June 2017, with the aim of eliciting environmental practices followed by the restaurants, as well as the attitudes motivating these practices. Drivers and barriers to ethnic restaurants introducing these practices were also examined in order to understand constraints to application of environmental sustainability measures. The study found that Middle Eastern ethnic restaurants are following certain techniques to reduce energy consumption such as turning off un-used equipment and using energy efficient lights. However, the interviews revealed the lack of awareness in regard to the use of energy efficient equipment in kitchens as well as limited use of renewable energy resources such as solar panels. In regard to water consumption, the study found that the environmental sustainability practices that Middle Eastern restaurants followed to reduce their water consumption included using dual-flush toilets to save water per flush and encouraging the staff to use water wisely in cleaning. Moreover, local purchasing and just in time inventory are among the sustainability practices that Middle Eastern restaurants followed in regards to purchasing and storage of goods and materials. Waste management vii techniques employed included separating rubbish and recycling - papers, plastic cardboard, and cooking oil. In addition, the study highlighted some techniques that Middle Eastern restaurants follow to reduce food waste as a part of their cultural and religious beliefs, these practices included, portion control, donating left over food, reuse of edible leftover food to create other cultural dishes, and even feeding leftovers to the birds. However, the study highlighted the absence of other techniques to treat food waste such as composting or creating gardens for herbs or edible plants. Moreover, this study found that lack of knowledge and support, coupled with cost are the main barriers that prevent Middle Eastern ethnic restaurants from implementing environmental sustainability practices. While this study extends the literature on ethnic restaurants and sustainability practices in restaurants, it is also provides recommendations for enhancing sustainable performance within the restaurant industry and hospitality sector more broadly. It is also offers some recommendations for further investigation and future research into the understanding of environmental practices of ethnic hospitality businesses.
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Wray, Alex. "Applying spectral phasor analysis to DNA environments." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45933.
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Two contradictory models exist that describe the condensation of interphase chromatin into mitotic chromosomes. Fixed cell and indirect methods describe a hierarchical folding of interphase chromatin. In contrast, developments in living cell characterisation have described a highly dynamic, disordered packing of chromatin at different concentration densities in both interphase and mitotic states. This presents a need to develop living cell applicable techniques for the elucidation of chromatin architecture and dynamics. The technique spectral phasor analysis is capable of characterising spectral shift associated with environmental changes throughout a live cell. Spectral phasor analysis can unmix fluorescent molecules without prior knowledge of their contribution to the spectra and elucidate subtle spectral shifts in single dyes as they associate with different cellular environments. Here, spectral phasor analysis was tested for its ability to characterise DNA environments using the non-intercalating, membrane permeable dye, H33342. This enabled chromatin dynamics to be elucidated as minor groove bound H33342 condensed in fixed and live cell environments. Spectral phasor analysis was performed on DNA bound H33342 in solution following different treatment conditions designed to change the binding mode and affinity of H33342. Spectral characterisation was also performed on L6 myoblasts fixed at different stages post serum starvation. Fixed L6 cells were also spectrally analysed for the elucidation of cellular environments exhibiting discrete emissions. Cellular environments were inferred morphologically. Multiple data acquisitions were performed through the z-plane in a fixed cell for the quantification of discrete H33342 emission volumes. Live L6 myoblasts were also characterised by spectral phasor analysis following cell degradation by UV irradiation. Spectral phasor analysis elucidated shifts in H33342 emission spectra as a product of H33342, DNA and MgCl2 concentration increases in solution. Shifts in H33342 emissions were also identified following heat denaturation of gDNA in solution and found to be dependent on minor groove flanking sequence. Areas of convolution in solutions of self-complementary oligonucleotides also exhibited distinct spectral characteristics from the solutions themselves, suggesting a local DNA concentration dependent spectral shift. In fixed cells, spectral phasor analysis revealed cell-wide cyclical fluctuation of both the λmax and width of H33342 emission spectra, up to 30 hours post exposure to serum starved conditions. It was observed that, over the serum starved time course, the width of H33342 emissions broadened and the λmax decreased. Nuclear microenvironments were elucidated by shifts in λmax and spectral width and a clear difference between H33342 emission spectra in the nucleus and cytoplasm was apparent. Shifts in the emission spectra of H33342 were identified at different stages of the cell cycle, indicating that spectral shift can occur as a consequence of chromatin condensation. The intensity of H33342 emissions was found to exhibit a negative and linear correlation to spectral width, whereas no such correlation was found for λmax. By comparing emissions of H33342 bound to chromatin in different density states, the intensity of H33342 emissions was found to increase and the spectral width narrowed as chromatin density increased. Analysis of discrete emissions in 3D revealed fluorescence intensity increases and spectral width narrowing towards the centre of the chromosomal mass in prophase. These emissions occupied smaller volumes as intensity increased and width narrowed, further supporting the model that spectral shift in H33342 emissions is chromatin density dependent. Analysis of live and fixed cell H33342 emissions revealed differences in emission characteristics. Upon inducing cell degradation by irradiation, nuclear and cytoplasmic emission differences began to converge. Spectral phasor analysis represents a distinctive analysis tool for the characterisation of DNA environments in solution and in fixed and live cells. With future development spectral phasor analysis can be applied to the elucidation of live cell chromatin condensation and dynamics in 3D, positioning it as a powerful technique in the biophysical toolkit.
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Ng, Tiong Weng. "Molecular interactions of polo-like Kinase 1 (PLK1) in colorectal cancer." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:46007.
Full textAbstract:
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most prevalent cancers in Australia with about a third being rectal cancer. Locally advanced rectal cancer is frequently treated with pre-operative radiotherapy (DXT) in concurrent with chemotherapy to reduce the tumour mass for better surgical access, and therefore improving the treatment outcomes. The response to DXT varies amongst individual patients, raising the need of predictive markers to prevent unnecessary toxic therapy. Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) is involved in cell cycling and DNA damage response (DDR) and in view of the latter, it may be a potential marker for patient response to chemoradiotherapy. The relationship between PLK1 expression and radiosensitivity remains controversial, particularly in CRC. In addition, the causes of PLK1 overexpression remain unclear although it is associated with oncogenesis. This thesis aims to study the role of PLK1 in radiosensitivity of CRC, the contribution of mutation and DNA methylation to PLK1 expression and the correlation between PLK1 and p21 expression. CRC cell lines (HCT116 and SW48) that are microsatellite unstable and microsatellite stable (Colo320DM and T84) were chosen for the studies. The CRC cells were treated with PLK1-specific siRNA and ionising radiation (IR) and then subjected to PLK1 expression, cell survival, apoptotic and cell cycling analyses. Data analysis from Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) and Sanger sequencing of PLK1 gene were performed in the genetic study. The DNA methylation study involved mass spectrometry analysis and pyrosequencing of DNA from the CRC samples. The correlation between PLK1 and p21 was studied by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining on tissue microarray (TMA) of CRC patient cohort. Depletion of PLK1 additively enhanced the effect of IR on cell survival, apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in HCT116, SW48 and Colo320DM, but did not radiosensitise the cells. COSMIC data showed a low incidence of mutation in CRC, but the mutation c.1010A>G (p.R3370Q) at the motif for ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of PLK1 may elevate the PLK1 stability. Sanger sequencing detected mutations of PLK1 in HCT116 and SW48 but they are not functionally associated. DNA methylation studies concluded that PLK1 expression is likely to be independent of CpG methylation. IR induced a transient increase of PLK1 expression in all the microsatellite unstable cell lines with HCT116 and SW48 downregulated later. Lastly, IHC of CRC patient cohort TMA demonstrated the weak association between PLK1 and p21 expression.
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Kaye-Smith, Holly. "Doing laundry more sustainably : disrupting everyday practices through media conversations." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44524.
Full textAbstract:
This research experiments with a video prototype created to activate user participation in ideas for washing clothes less. Washing clothes can be an extremely resource intensive process, and only 7.5% of the clothes that we wash are considered ‘heavily soiled’, suggesting many clothes are washed unnecessarily. Clothes laundering is referred to as a form of inconspicuous consumption because this routinised activity often goes unnoticed as it melds inconspicuously into everyday life. This is problematic because the routine of the activity can play a greater role in the clothes being washed than the actual need to clean the garments. This research recognises the significant environmental gains that could be met by reducing unnecessary habitual washing. A reduction in washing could be accomplished if clothes users simply questioned whether a garment was ‘dirty’ enough to be put through a washing machine. If the garment is not, the wearer may implement a less resource intensive cleansing method, such as airing the garment on a hanger. This research also responds to the need for social change advocates and people who make media such as, documentarians, film makers, designers and bloggers, people who I refer to as ‘media makers’, to foster ground-up interventions and strategies for change that could help reduce consumption-related social and environmental problems. The research also explores how media makers can incorporate more inclusive approaches that involve their audiences in contributing to social change. The research seeks ways to equip clothes users with ideas and skills that bypass consumer-oriented ventures in order to capitalise on everyday activity as a form of activist intervention. The investigation began theoretically, and then moved on to auto-ethnographic trials that tested ‘wash less’ methods, before recruiting members of the public for conversational social research in a video shoot, video screening and discussion groups, and finally laundry trials and interviews. The findings suggest that discussion about alternative laundering techniques can be harnessed as a form of disruption that can be augmented by practice-orientated media.
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Williams, Sharon. "Public drum project : exploring designs for musical composition that enable participation and collaboration." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:47366.
Full textAbstract:
This research project explores designs for musical composition that enable participation and collaboration. The importance of holistic participation to this study is contingent on the idea that the level of involvement in music is central to the experience of it, and that greater engagement offers the potential for a deeper and more satisfying experience. The significance of collaboration hinges on the idea that diverse “knowledges” and ways of thinking are valuable components of the creative process and they enable innovation. The study examines alternatives to the tripartite Western art music model, which customarily separates composers, performers and listeners, and focuses on enabling collective music making that is inclusive and nonhierarchical. This involves theoretical research grounded in concepts drawn primarily from the philosophies and practices of John Cage, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and R. Buckminster Fuller. It also involves praxis, focused on collaborative participatory musical composition, which evolved into a participatory sound installation, involving one hundred drums hanging in a public space. The majority of those who took part in the installation trials were able to participate, and to collaborate, and the enthusiastic involvement of these participating individuals points to the efficacy of the evolving installation design. The research indicates musical composition may have the potential to function as an exemplar for participation and social collaboration in other arenas. The project could be described as both theory/concept-based and practice-based qualitative research that utilises an experimental rhizomatic methodology. The study utilises an assemblage of complex, interwoven and iterative processes and methods—at times characterised principally by practical creative work, and at other times more by theoretical research. In accord with the overall project’s rhizomatic approach, the thesis is divided into five main sections, which can be read in any order.
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Hochstrasser, Daniel. "Investigating the effect of visual phonetic cues on the auditory N1 & P2." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44884.
Full textAbstract:
Studies have shown that the N1 and P2 auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) that occur to a speech sound when the talker can be seen (i.e., Auditory-Visual speech), occur earlier and are reduced in amplitude compared to when the talker cannot be seen (auditory-only speech). An explanation for why seeing the talker changes the brain’s response to sound is that visual speech provides information about the upcoming auditory speech event. This information reduces uncertainty about when the sound will occur and about what the event will be (resulting in a smaller N1 and P2, which are markers associated with auditory processing). It has yet to be determined whether form information alone can influence the amplitude or timing of either the N1 or P2. We tested this by conducting two separate EEG experiments. In Experiment 1, we compared the N1 and P2 peaks of the ERPs to auditory speech when preceded by a visual speech cue (Audio-visual Speech) or by a static neutral face. In Experiment 2, we compared contrasting N1/P2 peaks of the ERPs to auditory speech preceded by print cues presenting reliable information about their content (written “ba” or “da” shown before these spoken syllables), or to control cues (meaningless printed symbols). The results of Experiment 1 confirmed that the presentation of visual speech produced the expected effect of amplitude suppression of the N1 but the opposite effect occurred for latency facilitation (Auditory-only speech faster than Audio-visual speech). For Experiment 2, no difference in the amplitude or timing of the N1 or P2 ERPs to the reliable print versus the control cues was found. The unexpected slower latency response of the N1 to AV speech stimuli found in Experiment 1, may be accounted for by attentional differences induced by the experimental design. The null effect of print cues in Experiment 2 indicate the importance of the temporal relationship between visual and auditory events.
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Brice, Kylie L. "Bugs in "bears" : are mismatches between diets and gut microbial communities a bugbear for koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus)?" Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45500.
Full textAbstract:
The role of the mammalian gastrointestinal (GI) microbiome in influencing host health, immune system development and function, and more recently behaviour, is well recognised. Much work has been undertaken to determine which factors influence the microbial community composition of the gut microbiome, resulting in the finding that environmental factors such as diet and geography shape the distribution of the dominant bacterial species, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes and Proteobacteria in the mammalian gut. Research has also found that the functional potential of the gut microbiome can be predicted from the microbial community composition, and that diet is a stronger determinant of gut microbiome function than host phylogeny in mammals. The overarching goal of this project was to characterise the microbial community composition of the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) gut microbiome in a variety of contexts. In particular, the similarities and differences between microbial communities associated with simple two eucalypt diets at Cape Otway, Victoria (Chapter 2), the microbial communities associated with mixed eucalypt diets at Mountain Lagoon, NSW (Chapter 4), and the stability of the microbial community of Mountain Lagoon koalas over time (Chapter 5). Community composition was linked to functional potential of the gut microbiome from koalas eating simple eucalypt diets at Cape Otway (Chapter 3) by shotgun sequencing of the faecal microbiome, all critical aspects of the nutritional ecology and health of the koala. Differences in diet choice may influence microbial composition, richness and diversity in the dietary specialists’ gut microbiome. Using the 16S rRNA gene, I investigated whether koalas eating either of two simple eucalypt diets, consisting of either the highly preferred and relatively nutritious Eucalyptus viminalis (subgenus Symphyomyrtus), or the less preferred and less nutritious Eucalyptus obliqua (subgenus Eucalyptus), had different gut microbial community profiles. I found that although all koala gut microbiomes were dominated by Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, there were significant diet associated differences in relative abundance of the dominant bacterial genera Parabacteroides, Bacteroides and bacterial taxa in the family Ruminococcaceae. The differences in relative abundance extended to bacterial taxa present at low abundances including, bacterial taxa in the phyla Cyanobacteria, Synergistetes and Proteobacteria, suggesting that there may be differences in functional potential of the gut microbiomes from koalas eating different diets (Chapter 2). Differences in functional potential between the two dominant groups of bacteria Parabacteroides and Ruminococcaceae were assessed with the “Genome Browser” from the Microbial Genome and Metagenome Data Analysis pipeline of the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute site, and the Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes database. The results of which indicated that the gut microbiomes dominated by Parabacteroides (E. viminalis) would target the more easily degraded carbohydrates e.g. oligosaccharides and starch, where the gut microbiomes dominated by Ruminococcaceae (E. obliqua) would more readily modify and degrade the recalcitrant cell-wall fibre e.g. hemicellulose and cellulose. There were significant differences in gut microbial richness and diversity between the two diets, leading me to consider whether the gut microbial community of the E. viminalis koalas had less diversity because they were more specialised and therefore, more efficient at nutrient extraction (Chapter 2). I used a gene-centric approach to analyse metagenomic data to predict the functional potential of the gut microbiomes influenced by the two diets at Cape Otway. I found that although many of the potentially functional pathways were shared between the metagenomes from the koala microbiomes, indicating a potential core of functional genes shared across the koala gut microbiomes, the phylogenetic and functional profiles separated based on diet (Chapter 3). I considered whether the variation in microbial communities could influence energy extracted from the diet by the koala, and discovered that the microbiomes of koalas eating E. obliqua had the potential to produce the highenergy short chain fatty acid (SCFA) butyrate, where the microbiomes of the koalas eating E. viminalis had the potential to produce the SCFA succinate (Chapter 3). This finding may indicate that koalas eating the lower quality eucalypt diet of E. obliqua may benefit from an increased abundance of butyrate-producing bacterial taxa including Butyrivibrio, Eubacterium and Roseburia, thereby increasing the energy yield of their diet. The results of my previous investigations lead me to consider whether variation in the microbial communities of the koala gut microbiome would be similar across geographically-separated populations, with differences in dietary diversity. I found that reduced dietary diversity influences the community composition of the koala gut microbiome, resulting in a corresponding reduction in microbial richness and diversity (Chapter 4). Leading me to pose the question, can a highly-specialised gut microbiome adapt to a change in diet? My results indicate that it would be difficult, due to the significant differences in microbial richness and diversity detected between the Cape Otway and Mtn Lagoon populations. An important finding during this investigation was, that although the gut microbiomes of the Mountain Lagoon koalas were dominated by the phyla Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, the next dominant phylum was Synergistetes rather than Cyanobacteria, which was the third dominant phylum of the Cape Otway koala gut microbiomes (Chapters 2 & 4). This may indicate that the Mountain Lagoon koalas encounter a potentially more toxic plant secondary metabolite in their complex diets, compared with the Cape Otway koalas with their simple two eucalypt diets. Bacterial taxa from the phylum Synergistetes has been identified as playing important roles in detoxification of toxic plant secondary metabolites, and toxic amino acids in the ruminant system. This finding indicated that the koala gut microbiome harbours and maintains sitespecific microbiota, which aid the koala in processing its difficult diet. During this investigation, I characterised taxonomic koala core microbiomes present across 50, 95 and 100% of the geographically-separated koala samples (Chapter 4). A taxonomic core microbiome is likely to include shared critical functional genes that enable them to degrade, detoxify and extract essential macro-and micronutrients from its difficult and challenging diet. The findings of my work lead me to investigate the forces which shape the composition of the gut microbiome overtime within and between co-occurring individuals. Therefore, I undertook a short seven-month longitudinal study of the Mountain Lagoon koala population (Chapter 5). I found that there were greater inter-individual differences in microbial relative abundance than there was intraindividual, and that the community composition of the gut microbiomes from individual koalas were relatively stable over the seven-month collection period.
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Hewitt, Leonie M. "What attributes do Australian midwifery leaders identify as being essential to effectively manage a midwifery group practice (MGP)?" Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44549.
Full textAbstract:
Background: Midwifery Group Practice (MGP) is a service where women
are cared for by one primary midwife, supported by another midwife or group
of midwives, who work in partnership with them across all stages of the
pregnancy, birth and postnatal period, within the public hospital system. MGP
outcomes consistently show reduced medical interventions and high levels of
satisfaction for women yet only 8% of women in Australia have access to this
option of care. Midwives working in MGP are shown to display a higher job
satisfaction and occupational autonomy compared to midwives providing
standard hospital care. Management of services is closely aligned with staff
retention and satisfaction and so is critical to MGP sustainability. Since little is
known about the attributes of a manager for effective management of these
services, this research is urgently needed to help ensure these models of care
are sustainable.
Aims: The aim of this project was to discover the attributes required in a
manager of a MGP in Australia in order to effectively manage the service.
Methodology: A qualitative approach using thematic analysis was used in
this study. Eight midwifery leaders were purposively sampled and interviewed ace-to-face using semi-structured open-ended questions. The interviews were
audio-taped and transcribed for analysis.
Findings: The overarching theme ‘Holding the ground for midwifery, for
women’, described the role of the MGP manager as someone who stands up for
midwives and women. Three themes demonstrate the complexity of the role of
the manager and the intrinsic traits that make an effective leader, described as
‘having it’, the actual job of management captured under the theme ‘someone
with their hand on the steering wheel’ and the job of ‘juggling forces’ that
surround MGP. The theme ‘Helping managers to manage better’ describes the
preparation for the role and the support required to help the manager in this
demanding position.
Conclusion: The findings of this study will contribute to knowledge about
what is required for effective MGP management to help enhance sustainability
of these services and how best to prepare the managers for this role.
Development of effective management and leadership styles could contribute
to adopting a healthy, progressive culture within the hospital hierarchy. It is
hoped this study will contribute to further research into midwifery
management, MGP sustainability and barriers to MGP.
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Al-Masum, Md Abdullah. "Modelling housing market fundamentals : empirical evidence from the Sydney housing market." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45931.
Full textAbstract:
Housing prices in Sydney have increased rapidly in recent years. This leads to a debate of whether Sydney housing prices have departed from macroeconomic fundamentals. However, little empirical studies have been devoted to this area. Therefore, the study aims to fill this gap by examining the long run association between housing prices and market fundamentals. In addition, it also examines the long-run determinants of housing prices in Greater Sydney over 1991-2016 by using a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). The empirical results suggested that Sydney housing prices are cointegrated with market fundamentals in the long run. In addition, this study also found that market fundamentals such as gross disposable income, housing supply, unemployment rate and gross domestic product are the key long-run determinants of housing prices in Greater Sydney. The findings of the study have some profound implications to policy makers and housing investors.
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Priddis, Steven. "Embracing determinism : the benefits of rejecting free will belief." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45991.
Full textAbstract:
Affirmation is the positive response to determinism; the belief that determinism is a boon, and an improvement over having free will. In this thesis, I will argue that the loss of free will, and the rejection of its illusion, can provide us with myriad benefits. Typically, one hears that internalizing the truth of determinism would make us lethargic and immoral, as society breaks down around us. Those threats are greatly overstated, whilst the positive aspects of belief in determinism are often ignored. These benefits include being more accepting, less judgemental, leading a better emotional life, expecting less, and understanding oneself. My thesis makes some baseline assumptions. The first of these is that determinism is true. I’m not concerned with providing a defence of this assumption, as this has been done admirably elsewhere. It may well be the case the determinism is not strictly true, in the case of quantum randomness. To that, I would say that we are sufficiently determined that any minute level of randomness appears inconsequential, and certainly does not provide us a backdoor to free will. Second, I assume that we lack free will as it is typically understood. That is, the incompatibilist is correct and the libertarian is incorrect. I borrow from Honderich in arguing that the free will of the libertarian and the free will of the compatibilist are both separate and important. The positive aspects of determinism require the loss of libertarian free will, however, which is what determines denies us.
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Thorneycroft, Ryan. "Reimagining disablist and ableist violence as abjection." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:47390.
Full textAbstract:
The theory of the abject has been used in research to comprehend the oppression and violence of various minority groups, and it refers to the ways in which subjects are rendered unintelligible according to regulatory norms. Some populations are constituted as abject (a subject position), and many experience abjection (a practice). In this thesis, I work with an account of abject/ion in the context of disability. Abandoning a construct of violence (which by law requires a stable notion of a victim and a perpetrator), I move to a theorisation of abjection to explore the ways in which disabled subjects are produced and reproduced, constituted and treated through time. I interrogate and reimagine disablist and ableist violence as abjection, and by drawing upon thirteen life history narratives of people labelled ‘intellectually disabled’ and a Foucauldian-inspired analysis of discourse, I build an account of abjection as simultaneously individual and collective, psychic and social. I argue that without exploring how abjection is lived as an individual and collective, social and psychic practice, it is impossible to explore the sites, practices, and possibilities in which abjection might be resisted/reclaimed, and the terms of intelligibility reimagined. To position disabled people in relation to the abject is not enough; exposing experiences of abjection, thinking otherwise about disability, and opening up spaces of possibility in which abjection can be resisted or reclaimed are all critical to reimagining disablist and ableist violence as abjection.
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Marhoff-Beard, Stephanie J. "Determining an accurate method for estimating the post-mortem interval of decomposed remains found in a temperate Australian environment." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44323.
Full textAbstract:
Estimating the post-mortem interval (PMI) is one of the most important determinations to make in a forensic investigation. However, at present, an accurate and reliable forensic anthropological method for estimating the PMI, based on the gross morphological changes occurring during decomposition, is currently unavailable. This is due to a multitude of variables influencing the rate and processes of decomposition in any given environment. Forensic anthropologists have traditionally relied on their knowledge and experience of the decomposition stages to make an assessment of the time since death. However, recently new, quantitative methods that are not solely based on the anthropologists observations, have been developed in a number of regions that have been proposed to accurately determine the PMI based on the observed decomposition changes alongside important taphonomic variables.
The aim of the current study was to examine and document the decomposition process of pig carcasses, as an analogue for human remains, in the summer and winter climate of the Greater Western Sydney region. Secondly, the study aimed to evaluate the accuracy and replicability of the Megyesi et al. [1] ADD method, the Marhoff et al. [2] formula and the Vass [3] universal PMI formula, for their applicability as PMI methods in this region. Thirdly, should the methods mentioned above fail to accurately determine the PMI of remains within this region, a new method for PMI determinations will be created based on the observed decomposition changes and the most influential taphonomic variables affecting decay rates within the Greater Western Sydney region. Over an 18 month period, from June 2014 to March 2016, four experimental trials were undertaken: two summer trials and two winter trials. Eight adult pig carcasses per trial were left to decompose naturally on a soil surface at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury campus. During each trial, four carcasses were left to decompose in the shade under the canopy of trees and the other four carcasses were deposited in the open, with direct exposure to the sun. This was to examine the differences in decay rates between a sun and shaded microclimate. The published methods [1-3] and their associated scoring protocols were applied to determine the PMI of the remains. Through linear mixed modelling, the variation between the true PMI and the estimated PMI. The results showed that of the three methods validated in the present study, none could accurately determine the PMI in the Greater Western Sydney region. The Vass [3] formula overestimated the PMI during the winter trials but underestimated the PMI of the summer remains. The Megyesi et al. [1] and Marhoff et al. [2] methods were both found to underestimate the PMI when they were applied during the winter but overestimated the PMI when they were applied during the summer.
As it was found that the currently published protocols for PMI estimates could not accurately determine the PMI of remains found within this region, a new method (the Marhoff-Beard method) for PMI determinations specific to the Western Sydney region was created. Using the degree of soft tissue decomposition observed at the time of discovery alongside the climatic variables humidity, wind speed, and rainfall, new regression equations were created.
To determine if the new Marhoff-Beard formulae were accurately estimating the PMI for the Western Sydney region, the method was validated retrospectively from photographs of pig and human remains, and was applied longitudinally from the start to the end of the decomposition process on a donated human body. The validation showed this new method can accurately determine the PMI in a Western Sydney winter and summer climate and results were comparable when it was applied to both human remains and pig carcasses. The method performed consistently well during the fresh and early decomposition stages with a maximum error of eight days. As the remains dried and progressed through the advanced and skeletonisation stages, the accuracy of the method became compromised. It is likely the Marhoff-Beard method failed after this time point, as the decomposition process during the later stages is affected by further variables which were not accounted for by this method.
Continued testing of the Marhoff-Beard method for PMI determinations should be undertaken both within this region and other temperate Australian locations. It should also be determined what variables are affecting decay rates during the more advanced stages of decomposition as this will help refine the PMI formula for its use during these stages.
25
Redman, Kellyanne. "The effects of fatigue on decision-making in Junior Rugby League." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45566.
Full textAbstract:
During the later stages of sporting competition, a decrease in performance is regularly observed and is often attributed to fatigue. Although, it is unclear if the decrement of performance is exclusively due to physiological fatigue or an indicator of a decline in decision-making (DM) performance. Rugby league (RL) is a highly physical and tactical team sport wherein players are required to make decisions under time and fatigued based constraints. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of match-related fatigue on DM in junior RL players. A secondary aim of this study was to compare positional playing groups, forwards and backs, and determine if fatigue differentially effects DM performance.
Twenty male junior RL players (mean ± standard deviation: age 15.9 ± 0.9 years, body mass 87.3 ± 14.3 kg, height 1.82 ± 0.07 m, playing experience 10.2 ± 2.4 years, predicted VO2max 47.42 ± 3.69 mL.kg-1.min-1) completed a match simulation protocol (MSP) that replicated the physiological demands of an elite junior RL match. DM performance was measured pre, mid and post match simulation via a reactive agility test and video-based temporal occlusion task. Upper and lower body neuromuscular measures (countermovement jump and plyometric push up) were also applied prior to DM assessments to quantify fatigue. Ratings of perceived exertion were obtained immediately post exercise at mid and post MSP.
Two-way mixed ANOVA was utilised to assess any changes in temporal occlusion, reactive agility test and neuromuscular fatigue (countermovement jump etc.) at the time points of pre, mid and post MSP and to compare positional playing groups (forwards and backs). Paired T tests for rating of perceived exertion measures, as they were only taken mid and post MSP. In the event of a significant main effect, post hoc comparisons were made using a Bonferroni correction. Significance was accepted at p < 0.05.
The main finding of this study was despite observing a decline in neuromuscular function during the MSP, this decline did not significantly affect DM performance. Additionally, there was no significant difference between forwards and backs DM performance throughout the MSP.
These results suggest elite junior RL players are capable of processing information during a progressively fatiguing match simulation. The results of this study are beneficial for elite level junior RL coaching staff as it highlights DM practice during fatiguing conditions is not an aspect of training that requires attention.
26
Tadros, Joseph. "Flow chemistry approaches to access norcantharidin inspired cytotoxic agents." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45758.
Full textAbstract:
This project focused on the development of flow chemistry methodologies to access norcantharidin inspired analogues as potential cytotoxic agents, accessed via a convergent mixed batch-flow protocol. Within this project, an optimised flow hydrogenation protocol was established using the H-Cube Pro™ fitted with a Raney nickel CatCart® at 25 ℃, full H2, and a 0.50 mL min-1 flow rate, affording norcantharidin in a quantitative conversion. Furthermore, a new flow hydrogenation protocol to cleanly effect concurrent olefin and nitrile reduction in a single flow cycle was developed using the H-Cube Pro™ fitted with a Raney cobalt CatCart® at 75 ℃, 75 bar H2 pressure, full H2, and a 0.30 mL min-1 flow rate. Utilising the developed protocols, a library of six norcantharidin analogues were synthesised. Of these, a biphenyl-based derivative displayed cytotoxicity, producing an average GI50 of ≈ 0.04μM across a panel of eight human cancer cell lines.
27
Tsiotsioras, George. "Using proteomics and CRISPR to identify key host regulatory proteins involved in host-parasite interactions following the attachment of Trichomonas vaginalis." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:46328.
Full textAbstract:
Trichomonas vaginalis is an extracellular protozoan parasite responsible for the most common non-viral sexually transmitted infection in the world, infecting an estimated 170 million people per annum. The current model for T. vaginalis pathogenesis is still not clearly understood due to the number of mechanisms the parasite utilizes during infection. This project will focus on protein changes within host cells following interaction with T. vaginalis. Specifically, the changes in protein expression within host cells post-parasite attachment. Host proteins will then be analysed using SWATH analysis to identify the proteins and ultimately the genes that encode these proteins. Using DNA editing technologies (CRISPR/Cas9), genes found to be upregulated following interaction will be targeted for knockdown. This can potentially result in the identification of transmission blocking candidates. Results showed the need for further analysis in identifying targets for knockdown.
28
Jerovich, Andrew. "Implicit attitudes and the other race effect." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:43067.
Full textAbstract:
The present study sought to test two recent theories (Hugenberg et al., 2010, 2013; Wan et al., 2015) that modelled the Other Race Effect (ORE) and clarify if there was a role for implicit bias (Walker & Hewstone, 2008). The ORE is better recognition for faces of one’s own race compared to other races (Meissner & Brigham, 2001). The present study recruited Asian and Caucasian participants and had them complete Implicit Association Tests (to assess implicit bias), face memory tasks (for Asian, Caucasian and Black African faces to assess for the ORE) and several questionnaires (including questions on perceived power and explicit attitudes). Half of the participants received Hugenberg et al.’s (2010) “motivation to individuate” instructions and the other half received control instructions. Contrary to the Hugenberg et al. (2010, 2013) model, there was no evidence for the “motivation to individuate” instructions having an effect on the size of the ORE. Contrary to the findings of Wan et al. (2015), there was no support for power/socioeconomic status moderating the effect of the “motivation to individuate” instructions on the size of the ORE. There was also no support for a relationship between implicit bias and the size of the ORE. Last, there was mixed evidence of experience being related to the direction of the ORE. Overall, there was no support for the current models for the ORE. Attention is drawn to issues with the conceptualisation of motivation and goals in the study of the ORE, and the need to utilise ethnicity in the place of race when studying group biases in perception.
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Thepsourinthone, Jack. "It's a man's world : an investigation of masculinity and internalised homophobia amongst homosexual men." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45568.
Full textAbstract:
Gender norms often dictate areas of daily living which individuals ought to adopt and abide by. However, as a consequence of the heterosexist ideals associated with gender norms, sexual minority individuals often experience negative attitudes towards their own sexuality— internalised homophobia. As a result, gay men often feel the compulsion to compensate for their perceived lack of masculinity. The current thesis contains a series of two manuscripts which explore and critique hegemonic masculinity and its attributing role in the lives of homosexual males. The thesis draws attention to both hegemonic—heterosexual— masculinity and homosexual—straight-acting—masculinity.
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Druery, Dylan. "Identification of key host proteins governing Trichomonas vaginalis : a host-parasite interaction study." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:46624.
Full textAbstract:
Trichomonas vaginalis is a flagellated extracellular protozoan parasite that causes Trichomoniasis, a chronic infection in the vaginal and prostate epithelium of humans. Current treatments combating T. vaginalis infections are effective but there is a trend of increasing resistance to 5- nitromidazoles which are the main class of drugs used to treat trichomoniasis. To date, the majority of research has focused on the parasite and little research has involved the host. Parasites cannot live without their host which suggests that the host must be contributing something other than just a refuge for the parasite. This project studies T. vaginalis host–parasite interactions, specifically with the aim to identify how host proteins may be involved in the establishment and maintenance of T. vaginalis infection. The goal of this project was to interact T. vaginalis with HeLa mammalian cervical epithelial cells, with the view to identify upregulated and downregulated proteins using sequential window acquisition of all theoretical fragment ion spectra (SWATH) proteomics. A proof of principle study was also undertaken by knocking out the host receptor galectin-1 using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. Our hypothesis is that allowing interaction of T. vaginalis with HeLa cells there will be potentially a number of upregulated and downregulated host proteins that may be manipulated by T. vaginalis, which play a key role in the infection process.
22 proteins were found to be differentially expressed, including proteins that may be manipulated by T. vaginalis. Proteins that were identified were found to have many different biological functions including the regulation of apoptosis, inflammation, cell cycle regulation and attachment. These proteins may be studied in future experiments to identify their biological significance to T. vaginalis infection. The galectin-1 knockout study produced a partial knockout of galectin-1 and could be used in future attachment studies once further optimization of the CRISPR knockout is performed.
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Shaikh, Sumaiya. "Investigations in acute and chronic allodynia : using human psychophysics, sensory analysis, glial modulation & functional proteomics in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44885.
Full textAbstract:
In many chronic pain pathologies, stimuli that are normally non-painful to healthy humans, such as light touch or small decrements in temperature, can cause painful responses – a phenomenon called allodynia. The majority of research on tactile allodynia has focused on myelinated low threshold A mechanoreceptors (A-LTMR) that are otherwise known to mediate innocuous mechano-sensation (1, 2). Recently, there is a growing recognition of the contribution of more than one class of low threshold fibres to pain processing, i.e. unmyelinated low threshold C mechanoreceptors (C-LTMRs), which are believed to be responsible for affective touch processing. (3-6). The first evidence of the contribution of C tactile fibres (CTs), the human counterpart of C-LTMRs, to cutaneous allodynia was shown in human models of rapid-onset skin and muscle pain as well as delayed-onset muscle soreness (3-9). In addition, recent studies in transgenic mice, in both acute and chronic pain models, have provided molecular mechanisms at the spinal level, which functionally correspond to the tactile and cold allodynia perceived in human subjects (10-13). In the last few years, both animal and human studies have argued for a convergence of low threshold C fibre input to nociceptive fibre signalling at the dorsal horn level (3, 4, 7, 10, 14-17). On the basis of the behavioural observations of bilateral cold and tactile allodynia post unilateral median nerve injury (from Paper I) in this thesis, it is hypothesised that central interactions of fibres conducting noxious (i.e. nociceptors) as well as non-noxious stimuli (i.e.non-nociceptors) at the dorsal horn level are responsible in driving these sensations. In addition, the actions of spinal immune cells in the dorsal horn such as microglia and astrocytes to influence nociceptive processing have been firmly established (18-22). Akin to the canonical perspective of attributing allodynia to A-LTMRs, the role of spinal glial cells in injury induced hypersensitivity has always been looked at in the context of these ALTMRs in addition to the unmyelinated high threshold C nociceptors (20, 23, 24). From previous observations of such neuro-glial modulation mentioned above, it is hypothesized that the glial cells can modulate bilateral noxious signalling and the percept of allodynia evoked by otherwise innocuous stimuli, i.e. normally non-painful touch and cooling in this model of bilateral allodynia due to a unilateral nerve injury. Incidentally, rapid cooling and non-painful gentle touch are hallmark of CTs in humans (5, 6) and in mice (10, 12, 13) and hence, cannot be ignored as one of the likely substrates of this phenomena in this rat model. In the dorsal horn, lamina II, which is the main termination site of CT inputs, has been postulated to act as a 'gate' for processing noxious as well as innocuous information by converging and processing inputs from superficial as well as deep dorsal horn (25). This work supports the view, also discussed in Abraira, Kuehn (26), that of low and high threshold inputs from the periphery, it is the dorsal horn (lamina I-III), that acts as the primary convergence centre to 'gate' or 'gain' painful and non-painful information before it is passed over to higher order neurons. Furthermore, by studying the neuronal and nonneuronal interactions in the dorsal horn at the peak time point of the bilateral allodynia seen in our model, it is possible to understand the biochemical changes responsible for this behaviour. These changes help us understand key mechanisms of protein signalling at the cellular dorsal horn that has been often overlooked in other experiments involving proteomics due to experimental bias. Hence, the animal studies in this thesis provide a greater understanding of mechanisms of allodynia and its modulation using pharmacological tools in animals. In rats, following a unilateral median nerve injury, bilateral allodynia was ameliorated using minocycline, a glial inhibitor, by modulation of the dorsal horn interactions between glia and primary afferent fibres that respond to non-painful stimuli. These interactions (Paper I & II) were studied using immuno-staining and proteomic profiling of the dorsal horn – prior to and following nerve injury and its modulation by minocycline. The key result from the animal work, presented in this thesis, is the presentation of modulatory proteins responsible for the sensory behaviour at the contralateral, uninjured side as opposed to the primarily studied injured side of the dorsal horn. To understand the ‘gating’ and ‘gaining’ mechanism of the dorsal horn discussed previously in rodent models, it is important to ask what dissimilates the perception of painfulness from non-painfulness or pleasure in humans with acute pain. Therefore, in healthy humans (Paper III), pain modulation was tested in the context of acute background muscle pain with concurrent ‘affective’ tactile stimulation. Furthermore, the resulting percept and its peripheral substrates was determined using a preferential block of myelinated fibres. In this study, we demonstrated that activation of CTs can produce a stimulus-locked, bi-directional (excitatory/inhibitory) affective modulation of pain that is consistent with previously documented CT function in the rodent dorsal horn. From this human study, it is hypothesised that CT dependent context driven affective stimulus can determine the direction of the perception, in this case, pleasurable or painful. This study also presents with the idea that long term changes in the dorsal horn circuitry may not be necessary to initiate this type of context-dependent bi-directional stimulation and can be achieved in an acute setting. Hence, the animal and human studies combine the animal sensory behaviour and human perception of allodynia (and its modulation) to explore the link between the activation of low threshold sensory fibres such as CTs (by innocuous stimuli) and nociceptive processing in acute and pathological pain states. This thesis comprises of an introduction section and 3 manuscripts. The introduction provides a short review of the peripheral and central mechanisms of allodynia with the aim of interlacing it with the work presented in the 3 manuscripts (referred to in the text by their Roman numerals).
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Herff, Steffen A. "Memory for melody : investigating the link between experience, perception, and memory formation." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44121.
Full textAbstract:
Music exhibits remarkable properties in the context of memory. For example, memory for melodies is long lasting, persistent, and spared from some forms of dementia and severe brain injuries. Over the course of 10 experiments, we here attempt to shed light on the question of what makes music ‘special’ by specifically investigating interference in memory for melody. Most domains show a decrease in recognition performance between the first and second presentation of an object as the number of intervening items increases. We tested this cumulative disruptive interference effect in the context of memory for melodies, with results showing that memory for melodies is not much affected by the number of intervening items. Specifically, the probability of correctly recognising a melody was statistically identical and above chance between 1 and up to nearly 200 intervening melodies. To explain these findings, we provide a new Regenerative-Multiple-Representations (RMR) conjecture. The conjecture describes a crucial link between prior experience, perception, and subsequent formation of memories. Using the theoretical framework of this conjecture, we further explored memory for melodies in a series of experiments. In the process, we revealed how to disrupt and shape memory for melodies’ resilience to cumulative interference using melodies in an unfamiliar tuning system and with pitch-only and rhythm-only sequences. In a final analysis, we used memory as a window into perception in more general terms, and analysed data from all experiments combined to measure the degree of similarity in listeners’ perception of music. The findings of this dissertation contribute to our understanding of fundamental memory phenomena, while providing practical implementations and elucidating further the mechanisms that explain why music may indeed be ‘special’.
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Pino, Escobar Gloria. "Do bilingual and monolingual children differ? : measuring and comparing attentional control skills in the verbal and non-verbal domains." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45937.
Full textAbstract:
The aim of the current master’s thesis was to investigate 1) whether bilingual and monolingual children display differences in behavioural measures of attentional control in the verbal and non-verbal domains and 2) whether attentional control performance in children correlates across domains. The present study therefore explored the impact of being bilingual from birth on the cognitive skills (specifically attentional control) and lexical retrieval proficiency of early-school-aged children in Greater Sydney, Australia. Participants included monolingual (N=17) and bilingual (N=17) Australian born children who were matched in age, sex and parental education. Bilingual participants were exposed to two languages from birth and were highly proficient in both their languages. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis, including the literature review and general design of the study. Chapter 2 presents the study of the verbal domain in terms of children’s lexical performance. In this Chapter, performance in the letter and category verbal fluency task (VFT) (partially in Pino Escobar et al., 2016) are analysed and compared between language groups. Chapter 3 investigates the cognitive non-verbal domain under the Dimensional Card Change Sort (DCCS) and the Day-Night Stroop task (Day-Night). Afterwards, Chapter 4 investigates the relations between verbal and non-verbal tasks of attentional control in bilingual and monolingual children. Finally, Chapter 5 concludes the thesis with a General discussion. Results indicated better bilingual performance on the letter and category VFT but comparable performance between monolingual and bilingual groups on the DCCS and the Day-Night task. It was also found that performance in the letter VFT correlated with the DCCS while no relation between category VFT and the Day-Night task was found. Regression analyses, however, showed that while DCCS performance predicted only letter VFT; vocabulary proficiency (as measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)) predicted performance of both letter and category VFT. Results were explained in light of the characteristics of the participant samples. Firstly, bilingual and monolingual groups were strictly matched in age and gender, both groups exhibited similar parental education backgrounds and similar English receptive vocabulary proficiency. And secondly and more importantly, bilingual participants were highly proficient and productive in an additional language. It was therefore proposed that this last characteristic conferred bilinguals with additional attentional control to efficiently sort and retrieve words under different conditions. These results suggest that during complex lexical retrieval (i.e., letter VFT) seven to eight-year-old bilingual and monolingual children can recruit high order attentional control. In sum, our findings show that both vocabulary proficiency and general attentional control skills account for monolingual and bilingual children’s performance on complex verbal fluency tasks. Additionally, controlling for vocabulary proficiency has a determining factor when comparing monolingual and bilingual performance: high vocabulary proficiency in both languages likely underlies the unprecedented bilingual advantage shown in the present study.
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Kaya, Ece. "Transforming industrial urban waterfronts : industrial heritage and tourism." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:39519.
Full textAbstract:
The transition from Fordist production to post-Fordist flexible production since the late 1960s has affected cities in spatial, economic and social ways. Throughout the world, former industrial sites located in urban centres have witnessed deindustrialisation as a prominent change, and have been threatened by the rise of neoliberal urban and economic transformation interventions, such as gentrification and waterfront redevelopment. These two forms of urban transformation have started to create globally renowned tourist precincts, but at the same time they have exposed both heritage and the community to the prospect of insolence. This thesis examines the Sydney waterfront areas of Darling Harbour and The Rocks, which have been transformed in different socio-political contexts and at different times.
Tourism is now a global phenomenon involving hundreds of millions of people, and urban tourism is acknowledged as an essential component of a city’s economy. Urban centres are investing in viable forms of tourism and growth, encouraging major infrastructure developments such as waterfront precincts. Waterfront areas have always played an important role in urban environments – in the early stages as working ports, which acted as hubs for trade and shipping. However, in the latter part of the 20th century, there was a shift from production to consumption on the waterfront. Due to the modernisation of shipping technologies, many port areas were left abandoned, forcing city councils to search for different usages to mitigate economic decline. Attempts to transform waterfronts from industrial spaces into tourism/leisure precincts became a popular approach, but have also triggered concerns for the heritage of these places. Industrial heritage, which consists of both physical remains and memories of places and the industrial processes themselves, is considered as an indication of development.
Since European settlement, the area from Sydney’s Darling Harbour to West Circular Quay was developed as a working port and as a hub for the marine industries. These areas have remained part of the main urban centre in Sydney. However, when they became redundant, development decisions by the state government of New South Wales changed these industrial landscapes through a long-term strategy that aimed to transform the city’s waterfront into a world-class tourist destination. The study explores the significance of the industrial heritage assets of Darling Harbour and The Rocks and the implications of the transformation procedures. The case-study areas have always been considered success stories of transformation with mixed touristic, recreational, residential and commercial activities. However, this research examines and evaluates how the significant industrial historical and heritage values have been affected. It argues that tourism/leisure-led developments create urban landscapes in which cultural identity and historical assets are sacrificed.
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Gurney, Myra. "'The great moral challenge of our generation' : the language, discourse and politics of the climate change debate in Australia 2007-2017." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:47371.
Full textAbstract:
This is a thesis by publication comprising four published research papers and an overarching statement which examine the language and discourse of the climate change debate in Australia since 2007. Published over the period of my candidacy, the papers individually explore a range of questions about the broader underpinning drivers of a unique period of political disruption in Australia – the so-called ‘climate wars’. Thematically, this thesis considers how the scientific urgency and moral imperative for climate change policy action, so powerful in 2007, degenerated into a rancorous political wedge that provided the catalyst for the removal of three sitting prime ministers. The thesis addresses a number of pertinent questions. What is it about climate change as a scientific, environmental, economic, psychological, social, cultural and ethical and ideological phenomenon that offers insight into this remarkable period of Australian political history? What does the political narrative of this period tell us about the taxonomy of public and political debate broadly, the changing political economy of media and its resultant impact on the relationship between governments and its citizens specifically? Given that scientific evidence of trend-breaking global temperatures is being reported in increasingly strident language, how can the discursive practices that have underpinned the Australian debate shed light on this political impasse and policy gridlock? The papers in this thesis have employed both a ‘close’ and ‘distant reading’ (Moretti, 2013) mixed methods approach to critical discourse and frame analysis. Two of the studies use the innovative computer-assisted content analysis software Leximancer (Smith & Humphries, 2006) to develop and analyse large corpuses of media data from a different perspective and from a unique place in the political timeline. Each paper employs one of these key discursive frames as a focal prism for what might be discovered about different ways of ‘knowing’ climate via the role of the language and considering the social and political function of the texts. The research ultimately highlights the power of language and the way that the framing of climate change via the media has worked to shape the political narrative, impact the public debate and direct the political action. Ultimately, understanding frames, and how they shape the communication of a contentious issue, is important for the development of effective strategic communication of significant public issues. Climate change is arguably, THE defining issue of our era.
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Nikesitch, Nicholas. "The roles of the unfolded protein response (UPR) and chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) in the pathogenesis and treatment of multiple myeloma." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:47352.
Full textAbstract:
Multiple myeloma (MM) remains as a predominantly incurable malignancy despite high-dose chemotherapy, autologous stem cell transplant and novel agents. MM is a genetically heterogeneous disease with increasing genetic complexity as the disease progresses to a more aggressive stage. The disease is characterised by the proliferation of plasma cell clone/s, and the continual production of immunoglobulin fragments, known as paraprotein. The malignancy most commonly affects an aged population with approximately 1200 new cases diagnosed in Australia each year. The introduction of proteasome inhibitors (PIs), such as bortezomib (Bz), has improved the life expectancy of MM patients significantly. However, not all MM patients respond to Bz. The response rate to Bz and dexamethasome in newly diagnosed MM is about 40-80%, while only 30% in relapsed/refractory MM. Therefore, relapsed refractory MM, in particular those who are refractory to proteasome inhibitors, remain the biggest hurdle in treating the disease. Myeloma cells are highly dependent upon the unfolded protein response (UPR) to modulate ER stress levels and restore cellular proteostasis. The excessive levels of paraprotein produced by myeloma cells surpass the ERs protein folding ability, leading to proteotoxicity and ER stress. The removal of protein levels by proteasomal degradation is one way in which the UPR in myeloma cells reduces ER stress levels, whilst also orchestrating the reduction of gene transcription and protein translation. The activation of the UPR is regulated through three endoplasmic reticulum transmembrane proteins: IRE- 1 (inositol-requiring enzyme-1), PERK (double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase (PKR) - like endoplasmic reticulum kinase) and ATF6 (activating transcription factor 6). One of the most important regulators of this pathway, downstream of IRE1, is XBP-1 (X-box Binding Protein 1). XBP-1 is not only critical in the activation and regulation of the UPR, but is also important in secretory cells, as well as being necessary in plasma cell differentiation. During UPR activation, XBP-1 is activated through the splicing of a 26bp intron from XBP-1 mRNA into its active isoform. This is facilitated by IRE1, but can also be achieved by ATF6. The expression of XBP-1 is able to predict PI sensitivity in MM patients. The mRNA expression of both the total amount and spliced (active) isoform of XBP-1 are substantially reduced under increasing Bz resistance in MM, although XBP-1 is not a direct target of Bz. Its expression is possibly a surrogate marker for dependence on the UPR in MM. Therefore, an alternative stress mechanism is likely to be compensating reduced UPR activity and alleviating ER stress in Bz resistance. It is possible that chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) is compensating the UPR in Bz resistance. CMA is a highly specific degradation pathway responsible for the removal of damaged and unwanted soluble cytosolic proteins. The CMA pathway is already known to be important in modulating oxidative stress, nutrient starvation, and eliminating damaged proteins. The activity of CMA is directly proportional to the expression of LAMP2A, as LAMP2A is the rate-limiting factor in CMA activity. The expression of LAMP2A is known to be upregulated in a variety of tumours relative to untransformed cells, and also promotes tumour proliferation. LAMP2A protein expression is also significantly higher in a number of tumour tissues relative to their surrounding untransformed healthy tissue, thereby establishing the importance of CMA in tumour biology. The purpose of this project was to improve the existing understanding surrounding the role of the UPR in Bz sensitivity in MM. The project further aimed to determine the importance of CMA in Bz resistance, and whether CMA compensated the UPR in Bz resistant myeloma cells, conferring resistance. We hypothesised that reduced dependence on the UPR mediates Bz resistance in MM. We further hypothesised that CMA would be upregulated in Bz resistant cells, which subsequently would compensate the UPR in alleviating ER stress. Therefore, the inhibition of CMA in Bz resistant cells was hypothesised to result in cell death, providing a novel therapeutic target in treating Bz resistance in MM.
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Yew, Miranda. "A multi-frequency study of the Milky Way-like spiral galaxy NGC6744." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44648.
Full textAbstract:
I present a multi-frequency study of the intermediate spiral SAB(r)bc type galaxy NGC6744. I used available data from the ACIS instrument on the X-Ray telescope, Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA)and Murchison Wide_eld Array (MWA) radio-continuum and WISE Infrared (IR) observations. I present an analysis identifying 117 X-ray sources and 280 radio sources. Of these, I found 10 sources in common between the X-ray and radio catalogues with one of these sources being the faint supermassive black hole (SMBH) with bolometric radio luminosity similar to the Milky Way's SMBH. Also, I classi_ed 7 objects as Supernova Remnant (SNR) candidates, 16 Hii regions and the remaining 256 radio sources categorised as background objects. Using WISE images, I found the star-formation rate (SFR) of NGC6744 to be in the range 2.8-4.7 Mʘ yr-1. This shows that the growth of NGC6744 is larger than late-type spirals, such as the Milky Way, but less than starburst galaxies, and is still actively building.
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Rolfe, Aden. "The heavenly emporium of benevolent knowledge : classification, categorisation & poetics." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44551.
Full textAbstract:
“The Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge” is a poetry and poetics project that explores the relationship between animals and systems of classification. It consists of two parts, a suite of 14 pairs of poems, “The Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge”, and an essay, “Of What the Kangaroo”. The poems and the overall project take their title from Jorge Luis Borges’ 1942 essay, “John Wilkins’ Analytical Language”. The Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge is (as far as we know) a false reference, an example of what translator and essayist Eliot Weinberger calls Borges’ “faux erudition”2 (qtd. in Rolfe “Interviews”). Borges deploys it to playfully advance his argument—“there is no classification of the universe that is not arbitrary and speculative” (Selected, 231)—but also to achieve what his genuine references cannot. That is, the Heavenly Emporium embodies the absurdity that can be found within all taxonomies and systems of classification. This is the spirit with which Michel Foucault conscripts the Heavenly Emporium as the seed for his influential archaeology of the human sciences, The Order of Things. “In the wonderment of this taxonomy,” he writes, “the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that (xv)”. In accepting my own limitations, my specific inability to think that, this project offers the opportunity to think with that. Using Borges’ catalogue as a structural and conceptual conceit, I’ve developed 14 pairs of poems for the emporium’s 14 categories. Each pair posits an Australian animal to be classified within its corresponding category, testing the bounds of the particular classification and the designation Australian. The essay “Of What the Kangaroo” likewise explores ways of rethinking our categorical understanding of Australian animals. Applying the discipline of poetics and my perspective as a poet, I unpack the encounter between Joseph Banks and the kangaroo in 1770 as an exemplary episode of category formation in the early modern period. The two components of this project approach classification from opposite directions. The essay “Of What the Kangaroo” is concerned with finding the appropriate category for a specific animal; the poems of “The Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge” suggest appropriate animals for specific categories. In both cases, the animals are constituted as textual objects, not as animals in themselves. In both we see the arbitrariness, provisionality and absurdity of classification as a model for the production of knowledge. In both we glimpse the possibility of other taxonomies, other systems of thought, other heavenly emporia.
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Kucinskas, Marnie. "The effect of sub-inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics on the regulation of eDNA in Staphylococcal biofilms." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45604.
Full textAbstract:
Biofilms are complex communities of microbial cells encased in a self-produced extracellular matrix which are associated with recurrent infections in clinical settings and are difficult treat. Many microorganisms including Staphylococcus species form biofilms. The difficulty of treating biofilms is due to tolerance phenotypes which include reduced growth rate, the extracellular matrix reducing antibiotic penetration and adaptive responses to environmental stresses. Sub-inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics have been reported to influence eDNA-dependent biofilm formation in species of S. aureus with poor biofilm forming ability in an eDNA-dependent manner. However, gene expression studies into the regulation of eDNA on strains which respond have not been conducted. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether there is a link between a positive biofilm response to sub-inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics and up-regulation of genes involved in cell lysis and DNA degradation. A number of strains of Staphylococcus aureus were screened for their ability to form a biofilm. Those which showed poor biofilm forming ability were exposed to further analysis at sub-inhibitory concentrations of oxacillin and vancomycin. Two strains, S. aureus WSU2 and WSU3 showed a response to 1/2 MIC of vancomycin and 1/4 MIC of oxacillin respectively. S. aureus WSU2 showed a 1.8 times increase in eDNA with a similar increase in biofilm production whilst S. aureus WSU3 showed a doubling of eDNA and biofilm production. Reverse Transcription Real Time PCR was used to analyse the expression of genes which have been linked to cell death and lysis in S. aureus. These genes included cidA and lrgA, which act on murein hydrolases, the autolysin atlA, and the staphylococcal nuclease genes nuc 1 and nuc 2. The polysaccharide gene, icaA was also measured to see if it was linked to increased biofilm production in the test strains. There were small changes in gene regulation for both S. aureus WSU2 and WSU3 for all genes tested. S. aureus WSU2 treated with vancomycin showed different expression of genes compared to S. aureus WSU3 treated with oxacillin. In most cases the nucleases genes were unaffected, however in S. aureus WSU3 the nuclease genes were found to be significantly downregulated. The autolysin gene was significantly upregulated 1.6 fold in S. aureus WSU2 treated with 1/2 MIC vancomycin. This upregulation of the autolysin was consistent with the increase in eDNA observed for the strain. This effect was also observed when 24 hour biofilms were exposed to a single 90 minute antibiotic treatment. The gene expression changes observed in this study, although are less than 2-fold, do appear to show a consistent trend and suggest that atlA could play an important role in eDNA-dependent biofilm formation. With further investigation, the link between gene expression and eDNA-dependent biofilm formation under sub-inhibitory doses of antibiotics can be further understood. The increase in biofilm formation and alteration of eDNA within the biofilm matrix can potentially impact S. aureus biofilm-associated infections. Therefore, further studies may give a better understanding of the effect of sub-inhibitory antibiotic exposure on biofilm formation which could lead to improved treatment strategies.
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Ho, Phu Hai. "Antecedents and consequences of brand community image : research from Vietnam's alcohol industry." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:46280.
Full textAbstract:
Building a strong brand is a major element of brand management. Keller (2013) argued that brand image is a measure of brand strength, which is a key source of customer-based brand equity. Marketing managers strive to build a unique and inimitable brand image to attain advantage in a fiercely competitive market. Suggestions from branding research indicate that a brand image can be extracted from secondary associations: that is, that its strength depends on the depth of brand knowledge and consumer experience found in the brand community. Thus, a brand community becomes an effective marketing tool to strengthen both the consumer–brand relationship and the social identity of individuals in that community. In the brand community literature, researchers have placed consumers at the centre of any relationships. This is an important role; however, little attention has been paid to the psychological and social processes of the individual members of consumer-centric brand communities. The purpose of this research is to examine empirically the antecedents and consequences of a brand community image. Amid the call for research into emerging markets that will advance the understanding of management theories and their practical implications (Sheth 2011), this research is designed to be conducted in an emerging marketing context: in this case, Vietnam. The choice of alcohol branding is particularly appropriate for this research as its symbolic characteristics and strong social influences affect its consumption (Casswell & Maxwell 2005).
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Rabbi, Fazle. "Dynamic interactions between commodity prices and Australian macroeconomic variables." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:49557.
Full textAbstract:
Price swings of commodities affect the economies of commodity
exporting nations worldwide and these fluctuations are a major concern for
Australian policy makers. Australia is one of the major commodity exporting
countries in the global market; therefore, the main focus of this thesis was to
shed light on the influence of various fundamental macroeconomic variables on
Australian commodity prices. First, emphasis was placed on what magnitude
changes in real interest rates and fluctuations of the real exchange rate account
for volatility in commodity prices and whether commodity prices tend to show
overshooting phenomena (J. Frankel, 1986; J. Frankel, 2006) in reaction to
interest rate changes.
The possible contribution of global real economic activity to Australian
commodities prices was then assessed, which can lead to both higher interest
rates and volatile commodity prices (Akram, 2009; Svensson, 2008) within
Australia. Similarly, the current slowdown in world economic growth after
several years of high growth might clarify the sharp drop in real interest rates
and commodity prices. In addition, the present study explored whether
Australian resources stock prices had significant predictive ability for the future
global commodity price index as suggested by Rossi (2012).
Johansen’s (1988, 1991) cointegration technique was utilised to attain
the above research objectives and to examine the long-run relationship of the
considered variables. This thesis utilised seasonally adjusted monthly time
series for real interest rate, real exchange rate, industrial production and resources stock price from January 2000 to December 2015 after considering an
appropriate structural break.
The study found significant long-run relationships among the variables;
therefore, the vector error correction model was applied to judge the short-run
dynamic relationship among variables. Then, the forecast ability of all variables
was assessed by employing vector error correction Granger causality or block
exogeneity tests. Single equation models do not allow the examination of
dynamic relations between commodity prices and other macroeconomic
variables over different time horizons (Akram, 2009); therefore, the study
applied the impulse response technique as well as forecast error variance
decomposition to assess the comparative influences of diverse shocks to the
variations in key variables of the proposed commodity price model.
The research found significant negative relationships between real
interest rates and commodity prices. However, the impulse response results did
not show any immediate responses of commodity prices because of an impulse
in the real interest rate. This showed a significant negative response of
commodity prices after six months of the initial shock and the importance of
interest rate information to predict the commodity prices in the long run. In two
years’ time, approximately one third of the commodity price changes will be
explained by the shocks in real interest rate. The shocks from opposite directions
showed a significant negative response for real interest rate after having shocks
from Australian commodity prices in the medium term.
The results of the present study also suggested an immediate fall in
Australian commodity prices and thereafter increases at a higher rate significantly in response to the real exchange rate shock, consistent with
Frankel’s (1986) overshooting model of commodity prices. This finding raised
the question as to whether real exchange rate shocks are a significant factor of
Australian macroeconomic instability as commodity export plays an important
role in its economy. Results of the present study revealed the response to this
query as being in the negative, especially in the long run.
The interaction of these two variables from opposite directions showed
interesting results. Separate commodity-related drivers of exchange rates results
showed that Australian real exchange rate movements were not purely random.
Vector error correction-based Granger causality tests indicated a strong support
of causality from commodity prices to real exchange rate in the short run.
The impulse response results showed the most noteworthy results. The
shocks from Australian commodity prices showed immediate significant
depreciation in real exchange rates and the index remained depreciated
significantly in all horizons, which shows the complete opposite results to many
studies (Connolly & Orsmond, 2011; Minifie, Cherastidtham, Mullerworth, &
Savage, 2013; Plumb, Kent, & Bishop, 2013; Sheehan & Gregory, 2013).
However, this finding is consistent with the theoretical explanation provided by
Dumrongrittikul (2012) to explain the puzzle of the Chinese real exchange rate,
which is supported by the theoretical explanation of S. Edwards’ (1989) real
exchange rate model.
The results of the present study also showed that the shock to industrial
production had a negative effect on Australian commodity prices and the effect
remained significant during all time horizons. It also showed that the commodity price fluctuation had predictive ability of the Australian resources
stock prices.
After considering these above findings, several policy recommendations
for relevant Australian authorities are suggested and limitations are discussed
including the pathway for future research.
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Kamran, Fozia. "Enzymatic hydrolysis of lupin (Lupinus angustifolius) protein : isolation and characterization of bioactive peptides." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45742.
Full textAbstract:
Blue lupin (L. angustifolius) is one of few sweet lupin species that is most commonly grown in Australia as soil nitrogen fixing crop. Australia is the largest producer and exporter on sweet lupins in the world. Despite the fact that lupin is rich of protein and fibre, and the lupin based foods offer several health benefits, the grain is mostly used for animal consumption. Hence, it is a low priced commodity. It is therefore; very beneficial to demonstrate the possibility of deriving nutraceutical, functional and therapeutic agents from sweet lupin grain/flour that is most abundant in Australia. Research in this direction will benefit Australian farmers, food industry as well as consumers. This project aims to derive bioactive peptides from lupin protein. It is well known that bioactive peptides can be derived from many food proteins (both animal and plant sources); such as milk, eggs, cheese, meat, fish, soy, rice, wheat and legumes. The process of protein hydrolysis to produce bioactive peptides is of several types, namely, (i) gastrointestinal digestion by digestive enzymes (ii) fermentation by microbial enzymes and (iii) in vitro hydrolysis by commercial enzymes. Many proteinases such as alcalase, trypsin, chymotrypsin, pancreatin, pepsin and flavourzyme have been employed in the literature to produce important bioactive peptides from food proteins. This study aims to: • Enzymatically hydrolyse sweet lupin protein using pepsin, pancreatin and flavourzyme (lupin hydrolysates). • Separate the lupin hydrolysates by molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) membrane. • Further purification of MWCO fractions by bioactivity guided purification methods. • Size exclusion chromatography (SEC) is used in this research for bioactivity guided purification. • Several bioactivities were determined at different stages of purification. These include; antioxidant, immunomodulatory, ACE inhibitory and antimicrobial activities. • The thesis also aims to evaluate the MRI contrast potential of bioactive lupin peptides isolated in this research.
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Williams, Caitlin M. "Bush tracks and backyards : intergenerational changes and challenges for children claiming play spaces." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44523.
Full textAbstract:
Play is among the most fundamental behaviours human beings engage in (Pellegrini, 2009). Through play, children obtain lifelong physical, cognitive and social skills. However, recent shifts in social attitudes have resulted in a generation of children for whom play, notably that which is conducted independently of direct parental supervision has drastically declined (O’Brien, Jones, Sloan and Rustin, 2000). This study has drawn upon the research of Kinoshita (2009); and Skår and Krogh (2009), and reflects upon past studies of intergenerational play. This study is an Australian-based case study of the changing patterns of children’s capacity to play independently within their communities through investigating how contextual changes and parental attitudes have shaped children’s play experiences, and how lived play experiences of children in the current generation compares and contrasts to previous generations. Based in Westleigh, New South Wales, this study is focused on the changes in play experienced by children during the past four decades. The unique nature of this site provides insights into the factors impacting independent play in the broader Australian context.
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Burns, Emma. "An investigation of cortical inhibition in acute and chronic pain." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:47350.
Full textAbstract:
Musculoskeletal disorders are a leading cause of disease burden worldwide. Alarmingly, the prevalence and socioeconomic impact of these conditions is rising. Pain is a common and disabling feature of many musculoskeletal disorders. While significant individual burden is evident at all stages of pain, socioeconomic costs increase dramatically when pain becomes chronic (> 3 months). Therapies that reduce the duration and severity of chronic pain are needed to lessen the individual and socioeconomic burden of these conditions. However, current interventions achieve limited success. The lack of effective therapies is hypothesised to be caused, in part, by a limited understanding of the neurophysiology of chronic musculoskeletal pain and the mechanisms driving the transition to chronicity. Recent advances in technology provide evidence of structural and functional changes in brain regions, including the primary motor cortex (M1), in response to musculoskeletal pain. Lasting changes in the excitability, topography and organisation of M1 have been hypothesized to underpin symptom chronicity in musculoskeletal disorders, however the mechanisms underlying these changes remain unclear. Inhibitory intracortical networks modulate the excitability, organisation and output of extrinsically projecting M1 neurons, and are well positioned to influence the cortical response to pain. Yet, the effect of acute and chronic muscle pain on inhibitory intracortical networks has not been fully elucidated. Thus, the overall aim of this thesis was to contribute to the body of knowledge on the intracortical response to musculoskeletal pain using i) acute experimental pain models in healthy individuals and ii) clinical populations living with chronic pain. The findings from the four studies conducted in this thesis provide novel insight into the intracortical response to acute and chronic musculoskeletal pain. As each of the mechanisms investigated are thought to be mediated by distinct neuronal populations, these findings suggest that the intracortical response to musculoskeletal pain is extensive and diverse. Observations of opposing changes in short- and long interval intracortical inhibition in the acute (increased inhibition) and chronic (decreased inhibition) stages of pain suggest that these forms of inhibition could play a role in the transition to chronicity. However, study 3 and 4 did not detect a correlation between intracortical inhibition and measures of pain and disability in LE and LBP, respectively. While this suggest that changes in intracortical activity may not contribute directly to symptoms of chronic pain and motor dysfunction, there is the possibility of a non-linear relationship between these variables. When the findings are taken together, changes in intracortical inhibition in pain suggest the enactment of a cortically driven motor strategy to protect painful tissues from further insult. While beneficial in the short term when the need to protect the tissues is high, failure to return to normal intracortical function in the long-term could lead to pain persistence through altered tissue loading. Large, longitudinal trials examining the transition from acute to chronic pain are necessary to confirm these hypotheses. If confirmed, future therapies which target maladaptive intracortical change could lead to greater improvements in pain and function for individuals experiencing chronic musculoskeletal pain.
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Grieve, Stephen C. "Jazzed up blues (and) roots : a musical exploration of space, genre, and hybridity." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:44968.
Full textAbstract:
Jazz, blues, folk and roots hybrids are an increasingly popular and prominent feature of popular music around the world. In this context, a small number of scholars have identified and described the emergence of a pastoral strain of hybridity in jazz which is characterised as evoking a more rural, spacious and relaxed sound in contrast to the more urbane and strident sounds of bebop derivations. This research focusses on relationships between jazz, genre hybridity and the use and evocation of space, explored in the context of the musical characteristics of pastoral expression. The study is constructed as a practice-led research project and addresses the research questions through the development and production of a CD of new musical works and through a written component. Research outcomes are documented in the creative practice component, the CD Chincogan, and are examined and discussed in the accompanying exegesis. The exegesis is constructed in two parts. The first outlines the research questions and musical and scholarly contexts, and the second provides an analysis of the recorded works. The seven pieces of music created for this project were composed, arranged, recorded and produced by me in collaboration with other musicians, and have been inspired by the hybrid and spatially infused works of a number of significant artists in the field. The study explores hybrid jazz, roots, blues and folk forms through the lens of the pastoral and interrogates the role of musical space in the mediation of hybridity. The research aims to contribute to greater understanding of the musical mechanisms which underpin these sounds.
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Alotaibi, Hammad. "The impact of national and organisational culture on performance : case study, National Water Company in Saudi Arabia." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:48474.
Full textAbstract:
This project on the impact of national and organisational culture on performance management systems examines the connection between national culture and authoritative culture. The study is based on Hofstede’s five dimensions of organisational and national culture and Raymond’s research on individual performance and behaviour. In an organisation, culture provides a set of guideline and framework that influences the behaviour and controls the performance and activities of the employees. The purpose of this project is to combine Hofstede’s model of national and organisational culture with Raymond’s model of performance management. Hofstede did not include performance management in his study, while Raymond did not include cultural dimensions. Therefore, combining both will contribute significantly to the body of the knowledge on the link between culture and performance management. The comparison of both the models has helped in considering the importance and value of the national and organisational culture so that the changes in the dimensions can be brought accordingly. The National Water Company (NWC) in Saudi Arabia (KSA) was used as a case study to investigate the impact of organisational culture and national societies on performance management systems. Quantitative techniques were used to analyse the information and compare it to existing literature and speculation. NWC is operating and dealing with different types of customers and clients. Therefore, it is important to consider the factors that influence the employees and customers. The venture explores the connections among national and authoritative culture and execution in NWC in KSA. Hierarchical culture is critical in creating authoritative procedures, controlling standards and executing management. The findings of this study present a deeper understanding of authoritative culture and its effects on performance execution in KSA. The study found that organisational culture can be considered as regulating glue that holds the general association together. A hierarchical culture provides an accessible backdrop for this study because it minimises organisational differences as a variable. The associations studied work together in a similar national culture. The idea of culture is largely viewed as an important part of contemporary associations. Hierarchical culture can be developed by two basics variables of social meeting; auxiliary dependability of a gathering and reconciliation of single thing in unrivalled standard. Research has effectively characterised the diverse attributes that relate to organisational culture. Put simply, culture can be described as an arrangement of normal values that can be evaluated by that individual’s portrayal of the comparable association culture, even with distinctive levels inside the association. The findings indicate that the association’s standards and qualities have a solid effect on all individuals connected with the association. The limitation of this study is that research has been carried out without considering the effects of change management on the NWC in Saudi Arabia. This thesis discussed and interrogated the relationship between national culture, and organizational culture and how the two elements are linked to performance management. The researcher aims at illustrating the relationships between cultures and performance through Hofstede’s models and organizational performance model. It uses predominantly Hofstede models. This thesis produced a theoretical synthesis of Hofstede and Raymond. Few studies have been conducted to study organizational culture in Saudi Arabia. These studies have left a significant gap in the research. The study outlined below has filled this gap.
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Ijaz, Ali Z. "Taxonomic and environmental annotation of bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences via Shannon entropy and database metadata terms." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:47536.
Full textAbstract:
Microbial ecology seeks to describe the diversity and distribution of microorganisms in various habitats within the context of environmental variables. High throughput sequencing has greatly boosted the number and scope of projects aiming to study and analyse these organisms, with ever-increasing amounts of data being generated. Amplicon based taxonomic analysis, which determines the presence of microbial taxa in different environments on the basis of marker gene annotations, often uses percentage identity as the main metric to determine sequence similarity against databases. This data is then used to study the distribution of biodiversity as well as the response of microbial communities to stressors. However, the 16S rRNA gene displays varying degrees of sequence conservation along its length and is therefore prone to provide different results depending on the part of 16S rRNA gene used for sequencing and analysis. Furthermore, sequence alignment is primarily performed using the popular BLAST sequence alignment tool, which incurs a great computational performance penalty although newer, more efficient tools are being developed. A new approach that is fast and more accurate is critically needed to process the avalanche of data. Additionally, repositories of environmental metadata can provide contextual information to sequence annotations, potentially enhancing analysis if they can be incorporated into bioinformatics pipelines. The overarching aim of this work was to enhance the taxonomic annotation of bacterial sequences by developing a weighted scheme that utilizes inherent evolutionary conservation in the bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences and by adding contextual, environmental information pertaining to these sequences in a systematic fashion.
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Faris, Mona M. "Perceptual assimilation, discrimination, and acquisition of non-native and second-language vowels assimilated as uncategorised." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45190.
Full textAbstract:
Non-native and second-language (L2) phones are perceived in terms of their similarities and differences to the listener’s native (L1) phonemes. A non-native phone that is reliably identified as similar to a single L1 phoneme is described as being categorised according to PAM/PAM-L2 (Best, 1995; Best & Tyler, 2007), and such categorised assimilations have been the focus of much of the research on non-native and L2 speech perception. It is also possible that non-native/L2 phones are perceived as being speech-like, but are not identified with any one particular L1 phoneme. In such instances, they are said to be assimilated as uncategorised. This thesis presents experiments designed to address how these uncategorised phones are perceived, discriminated, and acquired by adult L2 learners. The findings have theoretical implications for models of cross-language and L2 speech perception, and contribute to our understanding of the perception and acquisition of uncategorised phones. The first question addressed in this thesis was whether there were any systematic differences in the way in which uncategorised non-native phones are assimilated within the L1 phonological system. In the first experiment, native Egyptian Arabic speakers residing in Egypt perceptually assimilated and rated all of the Australian English vowels in relation to their L1 vowels. Results revealed new assimilation types for uncategorised phones. They may be perceived as being moderately similar to just a single L1 phoneme (focalised), to two or more L1 phonemes (clustered), or unlike any of the L1 phonemes (dispersed). This suggests that not all uncategorised phones are perceived in the same way, but rather, they vary in the extent to which they are perceptually identified with L1 phonemes. The second set of experiments addressed the issue of how well pairs of non-native phones might be discriminated when one or both phones are assimilated as uncategorised (i.e., Uncategorised-Uncategorised and Uncategorised-Categorised assimilations, respectively). Native Australian English speakers discriminated Danish monophthongal and diphthongal vowel contrasts varying in assimilation type, including Uncategorised-Uncategorised and Uncategorised-Categorised. Discrimination accuracy was modulated by the presence of perceived phonological overlap in the categorisations to L1 phonemes, with partially overlapping contrasts discriminated less accurately than non-overlapping contrasts. By considering the different uncategorised assimilations and the presence of perceived phonological overlap to L1 categories, it was possible to fine-tune predictions for Uncategorised- Uncategorised and Uncategorised-Categorised assimilations much better than if overlap were not considered. The final aim of this thesis was to examine the acquisition of uncategorised L2 phones in adults. It was predicted that new category formation would be more likely to occur for uncategorised, than for categorised, L2 phones. Egyptian Arabic speakers acquiring Australian English in an immersion setting were recruited for a 1-year longitudinal study. They were assessed on their perceptual assimilation of the English vowels, and also on their discrimination accuracy of English vowels that formed Uncategorised-Uncategorised and Uncategorised-Categorised assimilations, as it is these assimilations that should be easily acquired according to the PAM (Best, 1995) and SLM (Flege, 1995) theoretical models. The learners were not absolute beginners, but they differed on six factors related to L2 experience (i.e., length of residence, age of foreign language acquisition, age of immersion, proportion of L2 use, L2 vocabulary size, and duration of English as a foreign language training). There was no evidence of new category acquisition, perhaps because they had already reached a plateau in L2 learning at the start of the study, or possibly because a longer period of immersion may be needed to determine whether they show improvements over time. However, by considering variability among individual learners, the six factors were shown to predict discrimination accuracy to a certain extent, predominantly for Uncategorised-Uncategorised and Uncategorised-Categorised assimilations. Overall, the experiments reported in this thesis provided a much-needed systematic and thorough investigation into the perceptual assimilation, discrimination, and acquisition of uncategorised non-native/L2 phones. The experiments demonstrated that uncategorised phones vary in their perceptual assimilation to the L1, and that discrimination accuracy is dependent upon the presence of perceived phonological overlap for contrasts involving uncategorised phones. This has important theoretical implications for both cross-language and L2 speech perception models. A number of interesting questions are also raised for L2 phonological category formation, answers to which have the potential to provide a step forward in our understanding of L2 acquisition.
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Wakeling, Solomon. "Believing in mermaids : the creation of persuasive underwater worlds in the face of disenchantment." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:45607.
Full textAbstract:
The thesis is composed of two parts: Believing in mermaids—the creation of persuasive underwater worlds in the face of disenchantment: a critical and creative response and Believing in mermaids—the creation of persuasive underwater worlds in the face of disenchantment: a critical essay. The first part ‘The Cry of the Swan’ is a folktale composed by mermaids. It is known to have its origins in a human story of which all that survives is the title, The Suicide Kiss—the story itself having been lost to the sea. The tale has been known variously in other editions as The Call of the Siren (or The Siren Call), The Starless Pools, The Shy Water and The Unlit Lake. The version presented here is a re-translation of that tale from the mermaid tongue into English, based on mermaid engravings. It must be accepted that with each successive shuffle there have been losses and gains. The second part represents the fruits of an inquiry into literary method whose objective was to find a means of imparting the literary qualities common to the genre of literary fiction—such as the foregrounding of interesting language forms, cadence, specificity and complexity—to fantastic literature, using stories involving mermaids as a case study. Part I provides a comparative analysis of a group of three texts from the early 20th-century—The Sea Lady, The Sea Fairies and Wet Magic—which betray a tension between the realist and fantastic modes when telling stories involving mermaids and underwater worlds. In part II I propose a method of imparting the believability and “precision” of detail that Borges discusses (77) to an underwater fantasy world in which the physical environment renders most real-world details meaningless or absurd. This method entails an application and re-purposing of the theory of “functional equivalence” from translation theory and is based upon a utilisation of the writings of Umberto Eco. Part III will discuss the use of mistranslation as a model and other strategies for creating a dense, specific and richly-textured ‘other world’ in Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle.
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Brown, Adrian W. "Could "The Cleveland Model" or the "Mondragon model" work within New South Wales? : exploring the possibilities of distributist political-economies in New South Wales." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:46154.
Full textAbstract:
This paper explores the possibilities of the political-economy theory, distributism, both as a form of analysis and as a practical source of cooperative economy ideas. Regarding analysis, in this paper distributist thought will be used to analyse the currently hegemonic political-economy theory, globalised neoliberalism, and offer that the historical critique of liberal derived economic theories which reference their internal priority disorders, is still pertinent and valid. The paper will then explicate the underpinning anthropocentric concepts of distributism – the person, the common good, the good life, subsidiarity, and familial and community sources of authority – and how these can help manifest technologically dynamic, participatory, egalitarian, stable, sustainable, localised political-economies. To demonstrate this, the integrated and coordinated cooperative economies of Mondragon Corporacion Cooperativa (MCC) and The Cleveland Model (TCM) will be analysed and contextualised, and the critiques of both models discussed. Furthermore, the debates regarding distributism and cooperative economies more generally will be explicated, so too the apparent strengths and failings of the Australian cooperative political-economy terrain. Finally, it will be suggested that due to its already distributist nature, the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney appeared to be a pertinent research direction for deeper explorations into the applicability of distributist economies in New South Wales.