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Drivers of spider body plans: time, geography or climate?
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 57-61.Introduction -- Methods -- Results -- Discussion -- 4. Conclusions -- References -- Appendices.Spiders are a highly diverse order that are present across practically all terrestrial environments. Many aspects of their morphological characteristics have been studied, but what is not as well-known is the impact that climate has on their body-plan diversity and body plan overall. Spiders from differing climates or continents could have differing morphological variation. Spiders from five sites across climates, geographies and slices of geological time were measured and mapped on a two-dimensional representation of morphological space. One modern and one fossil site were specifically matched for climate, the two modern sites were matched for geography and two fossil sites were matched for geological epoch. From the analysis, it was shown that neither climate nor geography played any role in separating the sites in morphological space. The sites from the same epoch (Eocene for fossil, and modern) were identical to one another across the critical axis of the morphospace, which separated spiders by the ratio between their body length and leg length. Based on the family composition in sites and how well-constrained morphology was within a family, it seems most likely that phylogenetics or ecology dictate a spiders body plan. However close examination of a single family could yet yield other interesting results.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (73 pages) colour illustrations, colour map
Beatrice, Guinevere, Joan and Nicolette: a cross-section of Britain’s perception of womanhood in the long nineteenth century and its convergence with medievalism
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 454-498.Introduction -- Chapter One. ‘La donna’ idealizzata : Dante’s Beatrice as an archetype of feminine perfection -- Chapter Two. An adulterous queen : Guinevere as a complex model of demonised womanhood -- Chapter Three. The soldier and the saint : Joan of Arc as an embodiment of the ‘New Woman -- Chapter Four. Nicolette and her descendants : the medievalised, orientalised woman as both a symbol of feminine ‘otherness’ and a reflection of British womanhood -- Chapter Five. Concluding thoughts -- Works cited.Medievalism – manifestations of the Middle Ages in the post-medieval world – intersected with both ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ discourses of gender in the long nineteenth century in Britain. Nineteenth-century medievalism has been studied extensively, but the detailed interplay between this phenomenon and gender politics, particularly the representation of ‘womanhood’, is a rich area that will profit from the more extensive and nuanced analysis this thesis offers. The thesis analyses four medieval female figures, distinct in their connection to diverse aspects of debates on womanhood, in order to develop a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of nineteenth-century British medievalism and its inextricable interconnectedness with gendered discourses of the time.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (498 pages) illustrations (some colour), portraits (some colour
Factors affecting the motivation of EFL instructors living in South Korea to learn Korean
No full textThesis by publication.Includes bibliographical references.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2“I’m never going to be part of it” : identity, investment and learning Korean -- Chapter 3. Ebbs and flows : a longitudinal study of an English language instructor’s motivation to learn Korean-- Chapter 4. Where’s the vision? Rescuing integrativeness to understand the L2 self-concepts of English-speaking EFL instructors living in South Korea -- Chapter 5. This isn’t working : Korean language learning demotivation among EFL instructors in South Korea -- Chapter 6. The ‘confounding nature’ of Korean – native-speaking English EFL instructors’ relationship with the national language of their host nation -- Chapter 7. Conclusion -- Appendices.Globalization has seen unprecedented numbers of native English speakers move to host nations to work ‘on location’ this century. Surprisingly, however, little L2 motivation research appears to have focused on those who have done so in North-East Asia, with none having examined the language-learning motivation of native English speakers living and working in South Korea. To help redress this significant gap in the literature, the research reported this thesis draws on data from 14 in-depth semi-structured interviews with EFL instructors employed in South Korean university language education centres. The interview data is supplemented by optional diaries kept by some of the participants and a one-year longitudinal case study of one participant.The thesis comprises five parts, each focusing on the experiences and perceptions of the participants through a different theoretical lens: (1) identity and investment (Norton, 2013); (2) the process model of motivation (Dörnyei & Ottό, 1998) by way of a one-year longitudinal case study; (3) the L2 motivational self-system (Dörnyei, 2005) and the role of ‘rescued’ integrativeness (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015) for learners of languages other than English; (4) demotivation; and (5) globalization (Ushioda & Dörnyei, 2017). Overall, these studies found that participants were largely unmotivated to learn Korean due to the temporary nature of their employment contracts and working visas, the greater desire of Koreans to learn and use English and their perception that Korean proficiency was neither needed, nor expected of them. In some cases, their lack of motivation was expressed by way of a disdain for aspects of Korean culture and/or the language. Only two of the 14 participants demonstrated intrinsic motivation to learn Korean. One of these individuals pursued integration with her host nation through self-study and immersion in Korean-speaking communities of practice, while the other had sought to master Korean as the realization of a personal goal.Taken together, these studies highlight that while globalization may have offered participants significant language learning opportunities, they tended not to pursue these opportunities in South Korea, or elsewhere. Largely in South Korea by default as temporary ‘aliens’ in the ascribed role of EFL instructor, many of them tended to continue a life of default by remaining on the periphery and attributing much of their demotivation to South Korean society. However, in so doing, it is argued that participants place themselves at great risk given the dynamics of globalization and its potential negative impact on the future status of native-English speaking EFL instructors.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xv, 243 pages) diagrams, table
A mere equestrian?: Sejanus and the succession to Tiberius in its Augustan context
No full textBibliography: pages 320-325.1. Overview -- 2. The succession to Augustus -- 3. The succession to Tiberius -- 4. Sejanus -- 5. The case for Sejanus as Tiberius' successor.The issue of succession in the Roman Empire has long drawn scholarly attention. Since succession was anathema to Roman political sensibilities, Augustus was forced to take an indirect approach to perpetuating his regime, indicating potential candidates rather than designating them directly. This requisite subtlety introduced great instability into the heart of the principate, since succession was at once necessary and impossible. The position of leading political deputy was thus defined, as Augustus’ own position was, by legal, rather than hereditary, mechanisms. This definition of the position of princeps ironically widened the pool of potential successors, since it was the powers, rather than family connections, that defined the candidates. Even if Augustus used family connections, including marriage and adoption, to indicate potential successors, these connections did not, in and of themselves, allow a man to succeed. Detailed discussion of the legal powers granted to potential successors, as well as marriage and adoption, will lead to the definition of the ‘mechanics of succession’, that is, the means by which Augustus and then Tiberius attempted to perpetuate their regimes. These mechanics will then be applied to the career of Lucius Aelius Sejanus, prefect of the praetorian guard under Tiberius, to determine whether Sejanus was ever in a position to succeed as princeps. This approach deviates from the standard view that Sejanus, due to his equestrian status, was never a potential successor to Tiberius. If potential successors are defined in terms of the mechanics of succession, and Sejanus was granted parallel privileges, the issue of him as Tiberius’ successor is worthy of re-examination.1 online resource (xiv, 326 pages
Trolling for norms: the (de)politicising of irony, stigma, and affect
No full textThesis by publication.Bibliography: pages 76-87.Introduction -- Chapter One. Tricksters, troublemakers, tormentors, and tyrants -- Chapter Two. Vibrant violence at the frontiers of the freedom to troll -- Chapter Three. Punching up! Trolling and the art of stigma maintenance -- Chapter Four. “U mad bro?” The sticky visibility of affective asymmetries-- Chapter Five. Becoming unstuck? -- References.Originally, internet trolls were tricksters who pretended to be sincere participants in discussions, but whose real intent was to provoke inexperienced users into pointless arguments and cause disruption for entertainment. More recently, however, trolling has become a catch-all term for almost any behaviour that is even vaguely humorous, deceptive, or disruptive. Through inductive analysis of Reddit discussions about trolling and of other documents interviewing trolls, this thesis draws into focus a trolling ideal type. This ideal type is shown to approximate a case study of political trolling involving the Twitter hashtag #BoycottStarWarsVII. The case study illuminates how trolls use an intentionally provocative bait to create a feedback loop of amplified visibility and intensified affect. By circulating affect, the feedback loop produces a stickiness and magnetism that draws faceless trolls together into a coherent whole. However, through the dramatic irony norm, trolls use that same affect to stigmatise and exclude the Other to the outgroup.By policing feeling rules whilst performing a folk devil virtual identity, trolls generate a polarising ressentiment which depoliticises the revolutionary potential of anger. Through this process, political trolls seek to repel threats to the borders of their privileged identity and ecalibrate political sentiment in their favour.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (87 pages) colour illustration
Skill acquisition and cue-based processing
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 239-291.Chapter One. Overview -- Chapter Two. Cue-utilisation -- Chapter Three. Cue-utilisation versus the multiple-cue judgement framework -- General discussion -- Complete reference list -- Appendices.Over the last several decades, research across a number of practice domains has suggested that the advanced perceptual-cognitive skills or cue utilisation of experts enables these operators to excel in tasks that rely upon anticipatory decisions and the formation of rapid responses. Indeed, skilled performance itself has been characterised by rapid and accurate responses, often in complex and dynamic situations. These specialised associations, which represent situation-specific relationships between environmental features and outcomes or objects and which lie resident in memory, are referred to as cues. However, while cue utilisation is typically considered a pattern recognition or associational process, the specific cognitive mechanisms that underlie cue utilisation remain unclear. The present programme of research was designed to investigate the nature of cue utilisation and examine the mechanisms that underlie cue utilisation in the early stages of learning a new task/skill.Study 1 was conducted with the aim of investigating the impact of cue utilisation on performance, using a simplified rail control task. The results indicated that there were significant differences in the performance of participants with higher and lower cue utilisation. Throughout the 20-minute rail task, the mean response latency of participants with higher cue utilisation remained significantly higher, compared to participants with lower cue utilisation. One explanation for these results was that the decision to re-route trains in the rail task could be initiated up to seven seconds from the appearance of a train, and therefore, participants with greater cue utilisation may have recognised this opportunity and utilised the additional time. To test this explanation, a similar methodology was adopted in Study 2, but with the inclusion of a secondary task to invoke an explicit cognitive load part-way through the simulated rail control task.Throughout the initial stage of the rail task, the performance of participants was consistent with the results from Study 1, whereby the response latency recorded was higher for participants with higher cue utilisation. However, once the secondary task was initiated, the response latencies of participants with lower cue utilisation increased, while the response latency amongst participants with higher cue utilisation remained relatively consistent. These results provided support for the view that participants with higher cue utilisation identified cues in the environment (e.g., decision-time availability) that allowed them some advantage, reducing the demands on cognitive load, and thereby enabling their performance to be less impacted by an increase in cognitive demands.Study 3 was designed to examine whether the performance of participants with relatively greater cue utilisation during the simulated rail control task, reflected strategies to reduce cognitive load, or whether a reduction in cognitive load represented an outcome of the process to achieve cue utilisation. A primary difference in Study 3 was the inclusion of a pattern in the rail task. Trains were programmed to appear in a particular sequence, and trains on only two of the four tracks required a diversion. Importantly, this pattern was not disclosed to participants. The results indicated that, under higher workload conditions, participants with higher cue utilisation were least affected by the imposition of the secondary task (they made fewer errors and were faster to respond in the rail task). Further, the participants in the higher cue group were eleven times more likely than those in the lower cue group, to accurately report the rail pattern. The results of Study 3 suggested that greater cue utilisation during a novel, simulated rail control task, reflected pattern-recognition mechanisms which resulted in a reduction of cognitive load.Extending these findings, Study 4 was designed to examine whether the relationship between cue utilisation and rail task performance depended upon pattern recognition (a moderating relationship) and whether individuals who have higher cue utilisation and who rapidly acquire task-related patterns, also have an increased tendency toward miscueing. Study 4 included three different patterns of rail movement and each was programmed to change abruptly during the course of the twenty-four-minute rail task. It was reasoned that if participants who acquired the pattern were reliant on the pattern to formulate fast and accurate train diversions, the initial, abrupt change to this pattern would represent a miscue, and result in a temporary reduction in performance evident in slower responses and reduced accuracy. The results provided support for this hypothesis. Participants with higher cue utilisation were 2.9 times more likely to identify the train pattern. Further, compared to participants with lower cue utilisation and for participants who verbally identified the rail pattern, higher cue utilisation was associated with an increase in mean response latency to the initial miscue. However, for participants who did not identify the pattern, no relationship was evident. These findings suggest that the capacity to detect and respond to task-related patterns acts as the underlying mechanism that explains the impact of cue utilisation on task performance. The results of Study 4 also suggested that a capacity for high cue utilisation and an ability to rapidly detect patterns of dynamic stimuli, can give rise to miscueing in environments that are typically marked by regularity and routine.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (x1, 299 pages) diagrams, table
'The little whare in Waterloo': thinking about Maori in Australia
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 59-63.Introduction -- Chapter One -- Chapter Two -- Chapter Three -- Chapter Four -- Conclusion -- Appendices -- Glossary -- Bibliography.One in five Maori now lives in Australia, and the number of Australian-born Maori is increasing, yet most conversations around Maori in relation to indigeneity and identity tend to assume that New Zealand is the only site of Maori experiences. This thesis focuses on a little carved whare, which was built in Waterloo in 1976 as part of a Sydney Housing estate, in order to critically explore the rootedness of migrating Maori and inevitable complexity of Maori self-perception. The little whare also draws attention to Maori interactions with Indigenous peoples and lands in Australia and the ensuing uneasy entanglement of indigeneity, migration, colonisation and identity. Offering an Australian Maori perspective on the topic, this thesis asks how we "think" about Maori in Australia by tracing the resettlement, history, Indigenous intersections and cultural expression of the Australian Maori diaspora and identifies specific elements that merits further research. Ultimately, the insights made visible by a close focus on the little whare invite broader discussions around intersecting indigeneity and the emergence of an Australian Maori identity.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (63 pages) illustration
Challenging parenting behaviour and childhood anxiety disorders: a role for fathers?
No full textThesis by publication."Centre for Emotional Health, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia" -- title page.Includes bibliographical references.Chapter 1. General introduction -- Chapter 2.Recalled challenging parenting behaviour and anxiety in adulthood : a retrospective cohort study -- Chapter 3. The relationship between challenging parenting behaviour and childhood anxiety disorders -- Chapter 4. Fathers’ challenging parenting behaviour and anxiety towards childhood anxiety disorders : a novel computerised task -- Chapter 5. The structure of challenging parenting behaviour and associations with anxiety in Dutch and Australian children -- Chapter 6. General discussion -- Appendices.The relationship between certain parenting behaviours and offspring anxiety has been the subject of extensive research. Whilst often described as parenting behaviours, the majority of research has focussed on mothers, ignoring the role of fathers. This thesis addresses this gap, exploring the relationship between father’s behaviours and childhood anxiety disorders via a novel parenting construct, termed ‘Challenging Parenting Behaviour’ (CPB). Paper 1 examined the relationship between recalled CPB and current adult anxiety. An exploratory factor analysis identified three latent constructs underlying adults’ recall of CPB; Social and Novelty CPB were associated with lower reported adult anxiety, and fathers’ Teasing CPB was related to increased adult anxiety. Extending upon these findings, Papers 2 and 3 examined the concurrent associations between CPB and childhood anxiety, whilst also considering the role of parental anxiety. Paper 2 identified that fathers reported to engage in more CPB than mothers, yet only mothers CPB was able to predict child anxiety diagnosis. Importantly, CPB from both caregivers was associated with reduced anxiety symptoms. Paper 3 developed a novel measure for assessing CPB, testing this measure on a sample of fathers. This study also examined the effect of fathers’ CPB on child risk-taking, and the relationship between fathers’ CPB and child behavioural inhibition (BI). Children took more risks when playing with their father than when alone. No evidence was found for a relationship between fathers’ CPB and BI, nor between CPB and anxiety, except for a partial relationship between a subdomain of CPB; rough-and-tumble play, and child anxiety diagnosis. Neither paper displayed evidence for a relationship between parent anxiety and CPB. Finally, Paper 4 evaluated the measurement invariance of a measure of CPB across Dutch and Australian mothers and fathers of preschool-aged children. The Australian sample of this study was drawn from Papers 2 and 3. There was evidence of partial scalar invariance, indicating that the groups differed on some subscales of the questionnaire. Importantly, CPB from mothers and fathers predicted fewer anxiety symptoms and anxiety disorders for all groups. Taken together, the results of this thesis present unique information about fathers’ (and mothers’) CPB and its relation to offspring anxiety, suggesting that CPB may be associated with lower report of child anxiety.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xiv, 263 pages) table
Building leadership capacity for social inclusion: three case studies
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 317-369.Chapter One. Leadership capacity and social inclusion -- Chapter Two. A review of the social inclusion, leadership, social capital, and leadership development literature -- Chapter Three. Developing relational leadership capital to enable social inclusion : a conceptual framework -- Chapter Four. Case study methodology and mixed methods -- Chapter Five. Australian social and political context -- Chapter Six. Case studies : two refugee and migrant settlement organisations -- Chapter Seven. Case study of the Uniting Church in Australia -- Chapter Eight. A quantitative study of leadership development practices in Protestant churches in Australia -- Chapter Nine. Analysis of empirical data -- Chapter Ten. Discussion and conclusions -- Appendices -- References.Competing interests and power differentials pose a challenge for the social inclusion of marginalised groups in society. To address this challenge, this thesis investigates the potential contribution of leadership development across multiple levels. To this end, it adopts mixed qualitative and quantitative methods and data collected from multiple case studies of not-for-profit organisations engaged in the pursuit of social inclusion in Australia. The qualitative aspect of this study comprises 25 in-depth semi-structured interviews in two migrant settlement services agencies and 21 interviews in four congregations and denominational structures of the Uniting Church, Australia’s third largest Christian denomination. It also draws on relevant organisational and Government publications and reports. The qualitative study is supplemented with an exploratory meso-level quantitative study of approaches to leadership development in Protestant churches, utilising the 2011 National Church Life Survey dataset of 2214 Protestant congregations with aggregated data from 185,557 individual churchattenders. The empirical data suggests that in not-for-profit settings, both leadership development and social inclusion involve similar individual, relational, and collective processes, and build various forms of capital that enhance power and efficacy.This thesis addresses social inclusion and leadership development together, thereby overcoming the lack of scholarly attention to the relationship between the two. Social capital theory is used as a conceptual bridge between the two phenomena, which facilitates consideration of the multilevel dynamics and power differentials that have grown alongside the influence of neoliberalism on Australia’s civil society and body politic. In addition, to enable a more holistic approach to leadership development and social inclusion, this study extends on existing understandings of leader and leadership development, phenomena which have previously been depicted in terms of human capital and social capital respectively. This ‘capitals’ perspective is extended to include cultural capital. This then enables attention to the development of relational leadership across multiple levels. By elaborating and applying a new conceptual framework referred to as Inclusive Relational Leadership Development (IRLD), the study explores how individual agents and organisations can collaborate to build meso-level organisational leadership capacity that can advance social inclusion.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xii, 369 pages) diagrams, graphs, table
Modelling short term equilibrium and long term change in a natural way
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 116-119.Chapter 1. Introductory remarks -- Chapter 2. Literature review -- Chapter 3. The Markov chain agent model -- Chapter 4. The dynamic model -- Chapter 5. Discussion of results -- Appendix -- References.Why would an agent produce and supply something if it got nothing in return? In order to investigate how complex systems, such as biological and economic systems, organize themselves, McLeod (2015) constructs a simple economic model for a biological system. In the context of a dimension model, it was shown that if exchange of resources between creatures is based on relative scarcity, we get a similar outcome to that produced by a market economy, even though such exchanges are not reciprocal. Specifically the ‘biological economy’ constructed in McLeod (2015) promotes the development of specialization and interdependence, and the number of creatures increases over time. These may be construed as large scale, or system, trends.The work presented in this thesis extends McLeod (2015). It develops a multi–sector general equilibrium model of an economy in which resource-based processes are modelled, in order to understand evolution from an economic perspective. The model is based on habitual behaviour represented by Markov chains. It applies particularly, but not exclusively, to biological systems and to pre–market human economies. Interestingly, the interplay between producers of scarce resources and consumers of those resources generates various kinds of agent number and system trajectories. These range from expanding to collapsing and oscillating to stable, depending on the ‘efficiency’ of the agents. Such dynamics occur even though we do not assume any explicit law of motion, objective function, or maximisation principle. The model demonstrates that: (̧‘–) mutation/learning will cause a progressive increase in the specialization, interdependence and size of the economy; and (̧‘–̧‘–) a path dependent outcome is possible. Overall, the work contributes to our economic understanding of systems by grounding the dynamics of those systems in the cut and thrust of evolutionary competition, rather than in the more aloof view of agent behaviour suggested by abstract optimization economics.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (119 pages) diagram