18 research outputs found
Salt polygons and porous media convection
No full textFrom fairy circles to patterned ground and columnar joints, natural patterns
spontaneously appear in many complex geophysical settings. Here, we investigate
the origins of polygonally patterned crusts of salt playa and salt pans. These
beautifully regular features, approximately a meter in diameter, are found
worldwide and are fundamentally important to the transport of salt and dust in
arid regions. We show that they are consistent with the surface expression of
buoyancy-driven convection in the porous soil beneath a salt crust. By
combining quantitative results from direct field observations, analogue
experiments and numerical simulations, we further determine the conditions
under which salt polygons should form, as well as how their characteristic size
emerges.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figure
Overlapping montage: a comparative study of mainstream film and moving-image installations
No full textThis dissertation develops a discussion on the need for a comparative approach to the study of film and moving- image installations. It addresses the lack of critical attention given to moving-image installations within film studies generally and academic teaching programmes in particular. The development of a comparative approach requires researching a number of interlinking and independent fields of study such as film studies, art history/criticism, photography, literary theory, critical theory, anthropology and philosophy. While arguing against traditional disciplinary boundaries, the discussion critiques the accepted articulations of current interdisciplinary approaches.
The dissertation discusses how an expanded field of comparative film studies needs to concern itself with both diachronic and synchronic axes, requiring a longer historical framework to analyse shifts in technologies of representation and related theories of subjectivity within particular capitalist formations. It is argued that this type of comparative model elaborates a more critically productive and conceptually expansive discussion of cultural products, whether they are mainstream film or moving-image installations. As such it aligns itself with an awareness of the political importance of history, memory and personal experience.
The theoretical ground for a comparative approach is developed through exploring montage and fragmentation. While articulating the significance of theories of fragmentation to discussions of modernity and modernism, the thesis foregrounds the significance of understanding all cultural production as ‘montages’ - as elaborations of a number of competing discourses, both when they are made and when they are read. A reconceptualization of montage as a dominant component in cultural meaning making moves away from montage as an aesthetics of form. Rather than understanding film and moving-image installations as rigidly delineated objects, they are explored through hybridity and overlap, for example through the multiple scopic regimes, which shape and form them. In this enterprise, the significance of an anthropological materialist’ approach to cinema and moving-image installations is articulated as a means of developing a critical cognitive engagement with our varied cultural and ever changing social environment
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Diplomatic negotiation in an international organisation: an exploration of expert status and power
No full textThis paper will explore the status and characteristics of ‘expert’ membership within an international organisation and its influence on the development of ‘exosomatic resources’. Invoking the framework of the ‘Community of Practice’ (Wenger, 1998), it is argued that status and power are realised in the development and interpretation of policy and conventions within the organisation, through the ‘negotiation of meaning’ and through the ‘politics of participation and reification’. Negotiations and decisions may take place over a period of time but are also situated within plenary debates. As such it is argued that power and hierarchy are not fixed structures but are emergent and fluid discursively over time and space. The paper defines the characteristics of ‘expert’ membership encompassing a consideration of the command of participatory and interactional norms, as well as knowledge of the status and content of reified products. To illustrate these characteristics a critical analysis of the discourse of one delegate is provided. This exemplifies how expert knowledge is applied within a debate to influence and inform the development and interpretation of texts and subsequently to contribute to the (re)production of shared meaning and agreement on issues under debate. It is argued that in considering both the forms of asymmetry in organisations and the practice of decision-making, research should focus on: the type of knowledge that is required and valued in any context; how this knowledge is accessed, enacted and exploited; and which members are instrumental in its construction, representation and reproduction
Getting up close and textual: an interpretive study of feedback practice and social relations in doctoral supervision
No full textThe privatised interactions between doctoral student and supervisor as they jointly work on the text are the subject of my thesis. To investigate this important yet neglected aspect of supervision, I use data obtained from interviews with seven doctoral supervisory pairs in the social sciences, arts, and humanities in an Australian university. My methodology comprises a series of close-ups to explore feedback relations within supervision and the ways in which meanings are played out for both supervisors and students. The interpretive approach draws upon Foucaultian theory, critical discourse analysis, and (post)critical theory traditions. Accordingly, the power asymmetries between supervisor and student are seen as productive - in the sense of creatively fertile - and not merely synonymous with prohibition or disempowerment. Within five interpretive chapters, I engage with the productive and problematic aspects of supervisory relations, making visible how supervisory feedback assists in the formation of students' scholarly identities. My analysis examines how the pressures to ensure the production of timely and disciplined thesis texts are impacting on feedback relations. It also examines various ambiguities and tensions such as those embedded in the supervisor's position as 'pastor' and 'critic', between asymmetrical and relational power, between the promotion of authorship/autonomy on the one hand, and the preservation of the canon on the other. My discussion highlights the ways supervisors, notwithstanding their authority, attempt to mediate the power disparity through mechanisms such as standing back, withholding and filtering feedback, or using the invitational strategies of 'under offering' which downplay the disciplinary nature of their work. I also reflect on what makes acceptance or resistance more or less likely and what promotes/hinders the transition to and reliance on students' own expertise. Overall, the interpretations I offer suggest that the exercise of power is never straightforward, is opaque and ambiguous and susceptible to misunderstanding and unpredictability. My research thus reveals a picture of social relations that is less orderly and transparent than assumed in the institutional literature and associated guidelines. In particular, the research qualifies the current institutional faith that PhD research/writing is a transparent process, within which supervisors can be trained in the 'skills' for providing effective feedback so students can work at an efficient pace and produce predictable results
Working girls: Revisiting the gendering of public relations
No full textWomen make up the majority of public relations practitioners, suggesting that the liberal-feminist battle for workplace equality has been won. Analysing scholarship on the gendering of public relations, which began to emerge in the 1980s, this paper examines how the dual processes of feminisation and professionalisation mutually reinscribe one another in ways that reproduce the patriarchal gender relations underpinning the public relations industry. Recent Australian examples demonstrate the impact of the gendering of public relations and the need for greater attention to, and reflexivity about, gender issues in public relations by both the industry and by scholars
BBC TV's Panorama, conflict coverage and the 'Westminster consensus'.
No full textThe BBC's 'flagship' current affairs series Panorama, occupies a central place in Britain's television history and yet, surprisingly, it is relatively neglected in academic studies of the medium. Much that has been written focuses on Panorama's coverage of armed conflicts (notably Suez, Northern Ireland and the Falklands) and deals, primarily, with programmes which met with Government disapproval and censure. However, little has been written on Panorama's less controversial, more routine war reporting, or on the programme's more recent history, its evolving journalistic practices and place within
the current affairs form. This thesis explores these areas and examines the framing of war narratives within Panorama's coverage of the Gulf conflicts of 1991 and 2003.'
One accusation in studies looking beyond Panorama's more contentious episodes is that the series has, traditionally, (over)represented 'establishment' or elite perspectives in its reporting. This charge has been made by media scholars (Williams 1968; Hall et al. 1981; Born, 2004), champions ofrival current affairs programmes (see Goddard et al.
2007) and even by a number ofsenior figures within the BBC and Panorama itself (Day 1990; Dyke 2004a). This thesis tests that view in relation to an archive ofPanorama
programmes made between 1987 and 2004, with particular reference to its coverage of the First and Second Gulf Wars. The study aims to establish if Panorama has, in fact,
patrolled the 'limits ofdebate', largely confined itself to 'elite views' and predominantly reflected the 'Westminster consensus' in its coverage of conflict.
The thesis is supported by interviews with current and former Panorama staff and contains discussion of working practices at Panorama, particularly as they relate to
reporting conflicts involving British armed forces. There is an assessment of the BBC's journalistic culture and developments within the News and Current Affairs directorate
in the period under discussion; the legal and institutional constraints under which the series operated; challenges and threats to the current affairs tradition; wider concerns
relating to television's coverage ofwar in general, and the two wars against Iraq specifically. Questions of indexing and framing are foregrounded in textual and content
analysis of forty-two episodes dealing with the Gulf Wars to assess whether Panorama's coverage was overdetermined by official sources and elite perspectives or if it gave adequate space to a diversity of opinions and explanations for the conflicts and thereby fulfilled its legal obligations and Public Service role
Whole-genome sequencing of patients with rare diseases in a national health system
No full text\ua9 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.Most patients with rare diseases do not receive a molecular diagnosis and the aetiological variants and causative genes for more than half such disorders remain to be discovered1. Here we used whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in a national health system to streamline diagnosis and to discover unknown aetiological variants in the coding and non-coding regions of the genome. We generated WGS data for 13,037 participants, of whom 9,802 had a rare disease, and provided a genetic diagnosis to 1,138 of the 7,065 extensively phenotyped participants. We identified 95 Mendelian associations between genes and rare diseases, of which 11 have been discovered since 2015 and at least 79 are confirmed to be aetiological. By generating WGS data of UK Biobank participants2, we found that rare alleles can explain the presence of some individuals in the tails of a quantitative trait for red blood cells. Finally, we identified four novel non-coding variants that cause disease through the disruption of transcription of ARPC1B, GATA1, LRBA and MPL. Our study demonstrates a synergy by using WGS for diagnosis and aetiological discovery in routine healthcare
The principles of screen design for computer-based learning materials.
No full textThe critical interface between learners and computer-based learning materials is the
screen. If the display of learning is not effective then learning will be hindered.
Screen design is therefore an important element in the design of computer-based
learning.
This research investigated the three fundamental screen design elements of
text, colour and graphics. A review of literature, experimental design and a limited
survey of computer-based learning materials provided the background for this
research. The experimental materials reflected the results of the review and survey
by using representative subjects, providing a learning focus and employing computerbased materials. Two experiments were undertaken. The Colour and Graphics
experiments considered the effects of a number of variables on learners' behaviour
which included: the use of colour; the size and type of graphics; the learner's prior
knowledge of tutorial subject; and the complexity of the display.
The results of this research showed that colour is a powerful motivating force
as long as it is not used excessively. This was identified as the use of more than
seven colours. Graphics can be used more extensively in current computer-based
learning materials and users preferred representational graphics occupying a quarter
to a half of the screen. However, learners were not prepared to make the effort to
either use analogical graphics to make links with their prior knowledge or to extract
information contained in the structure and form of logical graphics. Subjects were
motivated by representational graphics.
Learners' behaviour in relation to the various screen displays they
encountered was affected by their prior knowledge of the tutorial content. This was
apparent in their choice of options (additional modules) within the tutorial, their
methods of interacting with the material and their responses to individual displays
Alternative Solutions to Meet the Service Needs of Low Volume Bridges in Iowa; TR-452, June 2004
No full textThere is a nationwide need for a safe, efficient and cost effective transportation
system. An essential component of this system is the bridges. Local agencies perhaps
have an even greater task than federal and state agencies in maintaining the low
volume road (LVR) bridge system due to lack of sufficient resources and funding.
The primary focus of this study was to review the various aspects of off-system bridge
design, rehabilitation, and replacement. Specifically, a reference report was developed
to address common problems in LVR bridges. The source of information included
both Iowa and national agencies. This report is intended to be a “user manual” or
“tool box” of information, procedures and choices for county engineers to employ in
the management of their bridge inventory plus identify areas and problems that need to
be researche
