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Short-term and long-term experiences of study abroad in Australia
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 87-98.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Literature review -- Chapter 3. Theoretical framework of motivation -- Chapter 4. Methodology -- Chapter 5. Findings -- Chapter 6. Discussion -- Chapter 7. Conclusion -- References -- Appendices.This study investigates language learning experiences of study abroad (SA) through a comparison between students of short-term and long-term programs in Australia. The study aims to examine how the programs influence their motivation, how their motivation influences their interactions with host nationals and integration into host communities, and how their motivation changes over the course of social interactions. Five students from short-term and another five students from long-term programs participated in this study over an eight-week period (a four-week period for each group). The study adopted narrative inquiry as a qualitative methodology, and utilised multiple data sources: interviews, journals, and classroom observations. Narratives were firstly collected from interviews and journals; secondly, compared against each source and with observational data; and lastly, synthesised into individual cases. The data were thematically analysed using NVivo, based on the theoretical framework of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory refined with Directed Motivational Current from a person-in-context perspective. This analysis procedure identified and categorised key motivational factors and behavioural patterns of motivation between the groups. The findings show that the participants’ language learning experiences varied between the two programs, due to their motivation which led them to engage in different learning opportunities of social interactions. The findings also reveal that although the program features influenced their motivation to a certain degree, they had their own dynamics of motivation and complexities of social interactions even in the same program. This study therefore provides insights into the understanding of the dynamics of motivation in language learning experiences of SA.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (vii, 118 pages) diagrams, table
We regret the error: a novel and exegesis
No full textTheoretical thesis.Includes bibliographical references.Fit to print : literary representations of journalism in 20th century America (exegetical/critical component) -- Excerpt from We regret the error : a novel (creative component)Working from a historical framework that positions newspapers and novels as divergent textual forms under a cultural paradigm of actuality, this series of essays examines journalism as a literary topos in 20th century American fiction. I argue for reading journalism-centered fictions as metanarratives about the formation of public knowledge and its underlying power structures. The first essay examines two novelistic accounts of Louisiana Senator Huey "Kingfish" Long's authoritarian tendencies-Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here and Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men-and their broad conceptions of the role of factuality in public discourse. The second essay argues two historically interested novels, Annie Proulx's The Shipping News and Colson Whitehead's John Henry Days, implicate journalistic practice in writing the "first draft of history" and subsequent erasure of alternative cultural histories. Finally, I read E.L.Doctorow's The Waterworks as a drama of unreportable truth, in which Doctorow imagines the incapacity of facts to function in a public sphere compromised by private interests. As a whole ,these essays reflect American novelists' thoroughgoing skepticism of journalism's devotion to epistemologies of verification.I take up this tradition with my own novel and its confrontation with the epistemological crises attendant to the United States' War on Terror. Set in a small town in Illinois in 2006, We Regret the Error centers on a young reporter named David Sinclair who struggles to find his place as the new editor of the weekly New Rome News. To win the favor of the town, Sinclair sets out to write a profile of a local war hero, Tiberius Marks, currently deployed in Afghanistan. But as Sinclair grows closer to Marks's fiancé, Ernestine Burden, reality and reportage diverge. When Ernie reveals that Tie has been missing in action for weeks, Sinclair makes the fateful choice to invent and publish a story of Tie's death, a version of martyrdom the town chooses to adopt as truth.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (202 pages
Auditory-sensorimotor brain function during mental imagery of musical pitch and rhythm
No full textThesis by publication."Department of Cognitive Science, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia" -- title page.Bibliography: pages 247-257.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Mental Imagery of music : review of the literature -- Chapter 3. The pitch imagery arrow task : effects of musical training, vividness, and mental control -- Chapter 4. Applying modern psychometric techniques to the pitch imagery arrow task -- Chapter 5. Pitch imagery depends upon coordination of auditory and sensorimotor brain activity -- Chapter 6. Sensorimotor contributions to mental imagery of musical rhythm -- Chapter 7. General discussion.This thesis examined how the auditory and sensorimotor regions of the human brain function and interact to support mental imagery of musical pitch and rhythm. Three sets of experiments were designed to: (1) develop and validate novel musical imagery tasks that address some prominent drawbacks of previous paradigms, and are suitable for use in magnetoencephalography (MEG) neuroimaging studies; (2) measure auditory sensorimotor brain function during mental imagery of musical pitch; (3) measure auditory-sensorimotor brain function during mental imagery of musical rhythm. Pitch imagery was studied using a Pitch Imagery Arrow Task (PIAT). Behavioural testing showed that the task reliably induced imagery in participants with a range of musical training and that performance was correlated with scores on an established psychometrictest of imagery ability (BAIS). Item Response Theory analysis showed that the taskrequires the ability to both maintain and manipulate pitches and overcome perceptualbiases. Rhythm imagery was studied using a Rhythm Imagery Task (RIT), and performance was found to improve after short-term tapping training. Individual differences in auditory imagery vividness and mental control were found to be more important for pitch than rhythm imagery. During both pitch and rhythm imagery, MEG beta-band activity was modulated in a similar manner in both auditory and sensorimotor source regions, indicating coordination of activity between these regions. Individual differences in imagery ability were related to greater sensorimotor to auditory directed connectivity. Finally, short-term motor training modulated the amount of right sensorimotor activity during rhythm imagery. These results support the interpretation that musical imagery is associated with coordinated activity in these regions; that the left cerebral hemisphere plays a dominant role in pitch imagery manipulation and that sensorimotor activity in the right cerebral hemisphere is particularly important for tracking rhythm. These contributions to knowledge have implications for music education and for therapeutic interventions for disorders of hearing, memory or motor function.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (x, 242 pages) diagrams, graphs, table
Auditory processing and reading in children with reported reading and/or listening concerns
No full textmq:71108Thesis by publication."HEARing Cooperative Research Centre, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia" -- title page.Includes bibliographical references.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Comorbidity of auditory processing, attention and memory in children with word reading difficulties -- Chapter 3. Is auditory processing associated with non-word reading ability in school-aged children with identified reading and/or listening concerns? -- Chapter 4. The contribution of auditory discrimination to word and non-word reading in school-aged children with reading difficulties -- Chapter 5. Discussion -- Appendices.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xiii, 238 pages) graphs, table
Examining the response of melanoma cells to immune activity and immunotherapy
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 194-221.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Interferon signalling is frequently downregulated in melanoma -- Chapter 3. TNFα effects on immune marker expression in melanoma cells -- Chapter 4. Immunotherapy resistance mechanisms in melanoma cells -- Chapter 5. Differential regulation of PD-L1 and PD-L2 expression in melanoma cells -- Chapter 6. Conclusion -- References.Immunotherapy in the form of immune checkpoint inhibitors has significantly improved the survival of patients with advanced melanoma. However, immune checkpoint blockade is only effective in 15-40% of melanoma patients and failure to respond to immune checkpoint blockade may occur via several tumour intrinsic or extrinsic mechanisms, including overexpression of immune inhibitory ligands and receptors, alterations in antigen processing and presentation, and defects in the interferon gamma (IFNγ) signalling pathway.In this PhD project, we first examined IFNγ responses in a large panel of immunotherapy-naïve melanoma cell lines with defined genetic drivers; BRAF-mutant, NRAS-mutant, BRAF/NRAS wild type cutaneous melanoma, and GNAQ/GNA11-mutant uveal melanomas (Chapter 2). We investigated the basal and IFNγ-induced expression of immune inhibitory ligands PD-L1 and PD-L2, antigen presenting molecules HLA-ABC and HLA-DR, and nerve growth factor receptor (NGFR) on the surface of these immunotherapy-naïve cell lines to determine the influence of melanoma driver oncogenes on IFNγ signalling. In Chapter 3, we compared tumour necrosis factor (TNFα) response in the same panel of cell lines. We found that melanoma response to IFNγ and TNFα are heterogeneous, and that IFNγ induced PD-L1, PD-L2, HLA-DR and HLA-ABC expression more potently, whereas TNFα preferentially up regulated NGFR expression. We further identified two well-recognised mechanisms of immunotherapy resistance, including the loss of β-2-microglobulin (β2M) and interferon gamma receptor 1 (IFNGR1) expression in these immunotherapy-naïve cells.In Chapter 4, we extended our characterization of resistance mechanisms to a panel of 16 short-term melanoma cell lines (PD-1 PROG cell lines) derived from patients who progressed on anti-PD-1 or combination of anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4 based immunotherapy. We assessed expression of IFNGR1, PD-L1, PD-L2, HLA-ABC, HLA-DR and B2M in these cells. We additionally analysed expression of transcription factors, melanoma pigment antigens and markers of de-differentiation, including SOX10, MLANA, AXL, MITF and NGFR. We identified several potential mechanisms of immunotherapy resistance in this panel of PD-1 PROG cell lines including loss of β2M expression, increased expression of immune inhibitory molecules, diminished response to IFNγ stimulation and melanoma de-differentiation.Finally, in Chapter 5, we examined the regulation of PD-L1 and PD-L2 in the melanoma cell lines. Specifically, we assessed the temporal accumulation and stability of total and cell surface-specific expression of PD-L1 and PD-L2.Our results demonstrate that melanoma responses to IFNγ or TNFα are heterogeneous, frequently downregulated in immunotherapy-naïve melanoma and potentially predictive of response to immunotherapy. Our results also confirmed that loss of antigen presentation molecules, upregulation of immune inhibitory checkpoints, loss of melanoma response to IFNγ and reduced expression of melanoma differentiation antigens, are associated with resistance to PD1-based immunotherapies. Translation of these findings to the clinic may provide clinicians with the rational design and clinical development of personalized treatment strategies for each patient, which could result in better treatment response and increased long-term survival rates for patients with metastatic melanoma.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xxiii, 221 pages) diagrams, graphs, table
Imaging the crustal and upper mantle structures of the Junggar terrain in northwestern China: implications for subduction-collision-accretion processes in the past
No full textEmpirical thesis.Bibliography: pages 119-149.1. Introduction -- 2. Methodology and theory -- 3. Seismological evidence for a remnant oceanic slab in the Western Junggar, Northwest China -- 4. Imaging the fossil subduction slab in the Junggar Region, Northwest China -- 5. Upper mantle velocity model of the Junggar terrain from body wave finitefrequency tomography -- 6. Conclusions and outlooks -- References.The Junggar terrain of northwestern China is an ideal place to study the complex subduction collision-accretion processes in the Central Asian Orogenic Belts. Currently, the evolutionary history of the Junggar terrain is still under hot debate, especially the west Junggar region where multiple Paleozoic subduction systems are proposed to explain the tectonic evolution. Previous studies on the Junggar terrain are mostly based on geochemistry, geochronology and geomagnetism, a fine-scale velocity structure model of the Junggar terrain, which can provide vital constraints on the tectonic evolution, is still lacking.In this thesis, by employing receiver function analysis, ambient noise tomography, two planesurface wave tomography and teleseismic body wave finite-frequency tomography, I construct high-resolution 3D velocity models of the crust and upper mantle structure of the Junggar terrain using data from two seismic arrays deployed in the Junggar terrain. Because most of the subsurface features in the Junggar terrain are well-preserved since the late Paleozoic, our models help to unveil past tectonic processes in the Junggar region. From the receiver function analysis, I find that significant Moho variations are observed across the study region and a pronounced Moho offset is imaged between the Zaire mountains and the western Junggar basin. From the seismic tomographic models, I image a pronounced high velocity anomaly beneath the Junggar basin at the middle/lower crust and the uppermost mantle. This high velocity body slightly dips northwestward under the west Junggar to ~150 km depth, then appears at ~400 km depth. This high velocity anomaly in the middle/lower crust and uppermost mantle is interpreted as the remnant of fossil subduction slabs by examining its speed and temperature, while the high velocity near the mantle transition zone beneath the west Junggar is considered as either the detached slab or part of the mantle convection system in the Junggar region. Based on these interpretations, I propose a failed northwestward subduction model with the fossil oceanic lithosphere still trapped beneath the Junggar basin and the western part of Junggar to explain the latest tectonic activities in the west Junggar.The identification of the fossil slab in the Junggar region is significant because most ancient oceanic slabs in continental collision zones are not well preserved. The fossil slab in the Junggar region not only gives important clues on the evolutionary processes in this region but also provides a nature laboratory to study the ancient subduction systems through the Earth's history.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xxvi, 149 pages) colour illustration
Cultural Statecraft: the Confucius Institute project in Australia
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 100-114.Chapter 1: Introduction -- 16 Chapter 2: Analytical Framework -- Chapter 3: China's National Ambitions -- Chapter 4: The Confucius Institute Project -- Chapter 5: The Confucius Institute Project in Australia -- Chapter 6: Conclusion.The last several decades have seen China continue to grow its position as a significant power in regional and world affairs. One such strategy for cultivating its international image has been the Confucius Institute (CI) project, a centrally-coordinated network of not-for profit bodies tasked with promoting Chinese language and culture in overseas educational institutions. Australia has become host to one of the largest number of CIs in a single country, with fourteen CIs established in Australian partnering institutions to date. By focusing on the CI project in Australia's domestic context, an interesting question arises: Why has the Chinese government promoted the growth of the Confucius Institute project in Australia and elsewhere ? I argue that the Chines e state has used the CI project as one of its key mechanisms of cultural statecraft, facilitating China's national development in the same manner as its broader statecraft apparatus . Drawing upon primary research including interviews with employees of the CIs, I show that the government has coordinated the CI Project through a loosely centralised model in which individual CIs are delegated with sufficiently high levels of autonomy over their operation and management. This allows the Chinese state to efficintly promote the learning of Chinese culture and the Chinese language in much the same benign manner as the efforts of other governments. However, given the relatively poor level of transparency in the CI project's operations in educational institutions throughout Australia, the possibility for the CIs to be used as tools of the Chinese state's sharp power cannot be discounted.1 online resource (114 pages
Quantifying secondary spectrum and optimal timescales in mobile wireless communications
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 223-240.1. Introduction -- 2. Background and related work -- 3. Power, latency and cost of secondary spectrum access -- 4. High resolution spectrum measurement system -- 5. Quantifying secondary spectrum resources -- 6. Intel project pattern submissions -- 7. Conclusions and future work.The sub-optimal methods currently used to allocate and manage electromagnetic spectrum results in a significant waste of spectrum resources. This wasted 'secondary' spectrum, presents a significant engineering opportunity for developing novel methods and systems to 'capture' and utilise. Limited techniques are available for determining, to a high degree, the underlying structure of secondary spectrum and the implications that timescales of observation and operation present to this structure. Additionally, no formal method exists for quantifying and evaluating these structures. This lack of understanding is instead substituted for randomness, making it difficult to develop effective secondary spectrum access systems. To address this lack of insight, power and latency implications for future secondary spectrum access systems with respect to timescale is identified, followed by the construction of a low cost high resolution measurement system to provide real world context. Leveraging these findings and capabilities, a novel 'Whites- pace Opportunity Distribution' algorithm is developed, providing an unprecedented view into the structure of secondary spectrum opportunities in both time and frequency. These insights are captured in the collaborative development of several novel secondary spectrum access and spectrum management technologies. This thesis presents several inventions, novel analysis techniques and evaluation methods to further the understanding of the impact of timescales on secondary spectrum utilisation.1 online resource (xv, 240 pages
Investigating cognitive, emotional, and social functions of violent music for its fans
No full textTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 71-84.[1] Investigating cognitive, emotional, and social functions of violent music for its fans -- 2 Method -- 3 Results -- 4 Discussion.The majority of research investigating violent music has primarily focused on negative outcomes evoked in non - fan populations, calling into question the ecological validity of such research. The present study focused on fans of two genres of violent music, violent heavy/death metal and violent rap, and investigated: (1) the cognitive, emotional, and social functions these genres serve for their fans; (2) short - term emotional responses after listening to violent music; and (3) the capacity for fans' passion (harmonious vs. obsessive) and psychopathology (depression, anxiety , stress ) to explain within - group differences in positive/negative outcomes. Fans of violent heavy/death metal music ( N = 46), violent rap music ( N = 49), and a comparison fan group of non - violent classical music ( N = 50) completed an online questionnaire pertaining to their preferred genre. Participants completed surveys measuring music functions, music in mood regulation, passion for music, and psychopathology. They then listened to music excerpts of their preferred genre , reporting their emotional and affective responses. Whilst both groups of violent music fans reported mostly similar cognitive, emotional, and social functions of music to classical music fans, both violent fan groups reported significantly less positive and more negative emotional responses than classical music fans. Harmonious a n d obsessive passion significantly predicted some functional uses of music and some positive and negative emotional outcomes in all groups , al though so me findings were varie d . Finally, psychopathology was significantly positively associated with negative emotional outcomes in all three groups. Specifically , depression was associated with negative outcomes for heavy/death metal fans, whereas anxiety was associated with negative outcomes for violent rap fans. These results show that violent music is used for a range of functions, and that those functions differ depending on fans' specific kind of passion and their current feelings of depression and anxiety. The cognitive, emotional, and social impact that violent music may have on society is discussed.1 online resource (x, 112 pages
Risk management in electricity markets: premium dynamics, premium forecasting and industry structure
No full textThesis by publication.Includes bibliographical references.1. Abstract -- 2. Introduction -- 3. Electricity futures markets in Australia – an analysis of risk premiums during the delivery period -- 4. Electricity futures markets in Australia : generating density forecasts for returns of low liquidity instruments -- 5. Vertical integration of generation and retail : foreclosure in the electricity futures market -- 6. Thesis summary and conclusions -- References.The topic of this PhD thesis is the electricity market with emphasis on the liquidity of electricity futures contracts and the dynamics and forecasting of the futures premium. The futures market is an important tool for managing electricity price risk, particularly for stand-alone electricity retailers.The first research paper titled ‘Electricity Futures Markets in Australia – An Analysis of Risk Premiums during the Delivery Period’ provides an empirical analysis of risk premiums of electricity futures contracts during the delivery period for the major eastern states of Australia. While current research on electricity futures markets typically focuses on risk premiums for the pre-delivery period, a specific feature of the Australian market is that as a contract enters delivery, it continues to be traded until expiry. We develop an approach that decomposes the observed futures price during the delivery period into three parts: the crystallised value of the portion already delivered, the expected average spot price for the remaining days of the contract, and the risk premium for the remaining days of the delivery period. We examine the dynamics of realised risk premiums during the delivery period for quarterly and peak load contracts, as well as drivers of the observed premiums such as liquidity-based measures, time to maturity, current and historical spot prices and the historical behaviour of premiums. We find that risk premiums are positive during the delivery period for the majority of the considered contracts. Further, our results suggest that a model using open interest, time to maturity, as well as recent characteristics of spot prices and risk premiums provides relatively high explanatory power for the observed premiums. Our findings are of interest to market participants such as traders, retailers, producers, consumers and hedgers and are relevant, in particular, for risk management and hedging strategies during the delivery period of futures contracts.The second paper, ‘Electricity Futures Markets in Australia: Generating Density Forecasts for Returns of Low Liquidity Instruments’, examines density forecasts of price changes in electricity futures contracts. These instruments, used for risk management, typically exhibit low liquidity during periods of more than one year prior to delivery. We assess the performance of different density forecasting methods, using conventional approaches that are based on historical returns for the considered instruments. We find that such an approach performs poorly and provides inaccurate predictions for day-ahead densities. The poor performance is due to a reliance on return data from a low liquidity period for making predictions relating to more liquid periods. To deal with this shortcoming, we introduce a new approach which enriches historical data for a contract with data from more liquid trading periods of identical contracts traded over the preceding three years. We find that our data enrichment approach significantly improves the correct specification of density forecasts of daily returns based on various evaluation metrics. Our results are of interest to risk managers and parties with exposure to electricity price risk. Our approach is also relevant for market participants who want to appropriately evaluate the risk of price changes for derivatives exhibiting different phases of return behaviour and liquidity, depending on their time to maturity.The third paper, ‘Vertical Integration of Generation and Retail: Foreclosure in the Electricity Futures Market’, presents empirical evidence of foreclosure in the electricity futures market following vertical integration between the electricity retail and generation stages. This foreclosure limits risk mitigation options open to retailers and other participants and has the potential to reduce retail competition and harm consumers. We find a statistically significant fall in base load energy volume transacted on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) relating to a delivery period longer than 12 months. At the same time, we do not find a statistically significant change in the volume within the 12-month horizon, and total volume ignoring the horizon. The horizon beyond 12-months is particularly relevant for the commercial and industrial customer market segments as well as for the residential customer segment on contracts longer than 12 months. The reduction in the volume pertaining to horizons longer than 12 months shows that the structure of the futures market became more short-term; focused on the ≤ 12-month horizon. The sample that we use covers the period from 2007 to 2017 for New South Wales, the largest region in the Australian National Electricity Market in terms of energy volumes traded on the spot and futures markets. The impact of industry structure on stand-alone retailers and the potential to reduce competition is of interest to policy makers, regulators, consumers, and retailers with a net exposure to the spot electricity market.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (161 pages) graphs, table