63 research outputs found
Resourceful and creative methods are necessary to research rare disorders
No full textClinical NeurologyPediatricsSCI(E)1LETTER9870-8715
Women Look into Love: Reimaginings of Heterosexual Love in Contemporary Women’s Fiction
No full textThis thesis explores how contemporary women writers write about heterosexual love, considering not only the ways it has been implicated in patriarchal models and traditional romance plots, but also its portrayal in light of developments in feminism and fiction in the 1990s and 2000s. The thesis examines Carol Shields’s The Republic of Love (1992), Toni Morrison’s Jazz (1992), Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine (1993), Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup (2001), Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto (2001), Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin (2000) and Doris Lessing’s Love, Again (1995). In this study it emerges that as well as illustrating continuities, the scope of the treatment of love is opened up further in recent fiction as aspects like age or social, economic and historical factors are centralised and considered in interesting ways. The thesis also identifies some positive approaches to heterosexual love, as in, for example, the emphasis on men’s capacity for emotions. However, this is not always the case, as a writer like Lessing further develops a vision of love without providing an affirmative view. Thus, the contemporary women writers’ work can be said to contribute to understandings of heterosexual love on many different levels, even as feminist criticisms of repressive, patriarchal forms of romantic relationship continue to remain relevant
Barriers to sustaining antiretroviral treatment in Kisesa, Tanzania: a follow-up study to understand attrition from the antiretroviral program.
No full textTwo years after the introduction of free antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Tanzania and in spite of the logistical support provided to facilitate clinic attendance, a considerable level of attrition from the program was identified among clients from a semi-rural ward. Qualitative research on ART patients' health-seeking behavior identified factors affecting sustained attendance at treatment clinics. A mix of methods was used for data collection including semi-structured interviews with 42 clients and 11 service providers and 4 participatory group activities conducted with members of a post-test group between October and December 2006. A socio-ecological framework guided data analysis to categorize facilitators and barriers into individual, social, programmatic, and structural level influences, and subsequently explored their interaction and relative significance in shaping ART clients' behavior. Our findings suggest that personal motivation and self-efficacy contribute to program retention, and are affected by other individual-level experiences such as perceived health benefits or disease severity. However, these determinants are influenced by others' opinions and beliefs in the community, and constrained by programmatic and structural barriers. Individuals can develop the requisite willingness to sustain strict treatment requirements in a challenging context, but are more likely to do so within supportive family and community environments. Effectiveness and sustainability of ART roll-out could be strengthened by strategic intervention at different levels, with particular attention to community-level factors such as social networks' influence and support
The sedimentology of bedforms to barforms within tidally-influenced fluvial zones (TIFZx): lower Columbia River, OR/WA, USA, and the lower Chehalis River, WA, USA
No full textThe tidally-influenced fluvial zone (TIFZ), or ‘fluvial-tidal’ transition, is an environment characterized by unidirectional fluvial, bidirectional tidal, and oceanic oscillatory currents. TIFZ environments (i.e., deltas to estuaries) occur everywhere rivers meet ocean basins, and thus are important to understand from a geomorphological, morphodynamic and sedimentological perspective. However, most of the few existing studies of modern TIFZs have investigated a single region within a TIFZ, or relied heavily upon sediment cores and/or trenches. A large percentage of current knowledge of TIFZs thus comes from ancient outcrop studies, where the boundary conditions of the environments being studied are unknown. Therefore, most sedimentological models of TIFZs are built upon interpretations and qualitative discussions, and not via direct observations. There is thus a need to systematically investigate modern TIFZs using geophysical data collection techniques beyond sediment cores and/or trenches, in order to refine current sedimentological models with observations made within the context of known boundary conditions. The aim of this research is therefore to integrate a number of geophysical datasets collected within two modern TIFZ environments: (a) the single-threaded lower Chehalis River, Washington, USA, and (b) the multi-threaded lower Columbia River (LCR), Oregon/Washington, USA, in order to characterize the morphology, sedimentology, and internal sedimentary architecture of the bedforms and barforms in these systems. These results will be used to further the current understanding, and sedimentological models, of single- and multi- threaded TIFZs.
New data are presented defining the large-scale TIFZ hydraulic environments along the lower Chehalis River using Power Spectral Density (PSD) and wavelet transform analyses of water elevation time series data. These findings were used to provide a large-scale hydraulic context for sedimentological results/interpretations gained from (a) Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), (b) Parametric echosounding (PES) sub-bottom profiling, (c) shallow (≤ 5m in depth) vibracores, and (d) time series of aerial imagery of point-bar deposits across the lower Chehalis River TIFZ. These results show that point-bars located within the fully-fluvial to mixed tidal-fluvial regimes undergo relatively rapid laterally-oriented migration (> 1.5 myr-1), and possess an internal alluvial architecture consisting of lateral-accretion packages composed of continuous vertically-stacked sets of parallel strata. However, point-bars located within the tidally-dominated, fluvially-influenced regime experience relatively slow laterally-oriented migration (< 1.5 myr-1), and possess an internal alluvial architecture consisting of lateral-accretion packages composed of discontinuous- or chaotically- bedded vertically-stacked sets of strata. These vertically-stacked discontinuous strata are the product of bidirectional tidal-current reworking of initially deposited parallel strata.
The large-scale geomorphic/morphodynamic evolution of barforms within the multi-threaded LCR TIFZ from the mid-Holocene to present was investigated via shallow vibracores, deep sediment cores (≥ 10m depth), and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating. This study demonstrates that the large-scale geomorphic state of the mid-Holocene to present-day LCR TIFZ is that of an ‘entrenched’ tidally-modified fluvial-deltaic environment, and not a pure estuarine basin or a late-Holocene ‘bay-head delta’ prograding into an unfilled estuary. This new LCR TIFZ geomorphic/morphodynamic model was then utilized as the context to examine the morphological variations of dunes within the LCR TIFZ thalweg, and the sedimentology and internal alluvial architecture of mid-channel barforms. Analysis of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) multibeam echo sounding (MBES) surveys of the main LCR navigation channel bed, reveals that in the mixed tidal-fluvial regime, dune morphology drastically changes from tidally-reversing 2-2.5D bedforms possessing heights < 1m, to 3D dunes that are downstream-migrating with heights between ~ 2-3m. This change in dune morphology marks the upstream-most point of intense flood tidal-current (landward-oriented) bedload transport, and the switch to strong downstream-oriented bedload transport. Lastly, the sedimentology/internal alluvial architecture of LCR TIFZ mid-channel bars were investigated using GPR, PES and coring. These results show that LCR mid-channel bars formed within the TIFZ fluvially-dominated, tidally-influenced hydraulic regime, possess an internal alluvial architecture and sedimentology indistinguishable from that of fully-fluvial braid-bars. Here, bars are mainly constructed from vertically-stacked (~ 10m thick) dune to unit-bar scale trough-cross and cross-bed sets. Thus, tidal hydraulic processes such as twice daily bar submergence/emergence, and ‘slackwater’ intervals, play no pivotal role in modifying the small- to large- scale sedimentology of these bars. In addition, within the LCR TIFZ mixed tidal-fluvial hydraulic regime, the internal alluvial architecture of mid-channel bars transition to bar cores, which are ~ 2-3m thick, consisting of vertically-stacked trough- and planar- cross-sets overlain by low-angle dipping (generally < 5°) longitudinally- and laterally- oriented accretion sets up to 5m in thickness. These low-angle dipping accretion-sets are interpreted as the product of the reworking of stacked dune to unit-bar scale cross-sets into stacked-beds of ripple-scale cross-laminae via the combined effects of flood-tidal currents and intrabasinal wind-waves. Vibracores taken from two mixed tidal-fluvial mid-channel bars have vertical grain size trends displaying coarsening-upwards sequences towards the bar-tops, where the bar-top medium sands become very-well sorted. This coarsening-upwards in bars in the mixed tidal-fluvial regime is reasoned the product of the winnowing of clays to fine sands via tidal-currents in conjunction with intrabasinal wind-waves, which cause the preferential preservation of coarser sediments. Importantly, these results illuminate the importance of intrabasinal wind-waves in playing a major role in the sedimentological products of the TIFZ, which is typically ignored in previous models of the fluvial-tidal transition.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01The student, Eric Prokocki, accepted the attached license on 2017-07-12 at 23:18.The student, Eric Prokocki, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2017-07-12 at 23:29.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2017-07-14 at 12:11.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11442 on 2018-03-02 at 13:01:51Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-02T19:59:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3
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Contemporary Art in Japan and Cuteness in Japanese Popular Culture
No full textThis thesis is an art historical study focussing on contemporary Japan, and in particular the artists Murakami TakashL Mori Mariko, Aida Makoto, and Nara Yoshitomo. These artists represent a generation of artists born in the 1960s who use popular culture to their own ends. From the seminal exhibition 'Tokyo Pop' at Hiratsuka Museum of Art in 1996 which included all four artists, to Murakami's group exhibition 'Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture' which opened in April 2005, central to my research is an exploration of contemporary art's engagement with the pervasiveness of cuteness in Japanese culture.
Including key secondary material, which recognises cuteness as not merely something trivial but involving power play and gender role issues, this thesis undertakes an interdisciplinary analysis of cuteness in contemporary Japanese popular culture, and examines howcontemporary Japanese artists have responded, providing original research through interviews with Aida Makoto, Mori Mariko and Murakami Takashi. Themes examined include the deconstruction of the high and low in contemporary art; sh6jo (girl) culture and cuteness; the relation of cuteness and the erotic; the transformation of cuteness into the grotesque; cuteness and nostalgia; and virtual cuteness in Japanese science fiction animation, and computer games.
Director of Studies: Toshio Watanabe
Supervisors: David Ryan and Omuka Toshihar
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
Ready-to-use therapeutic food with elevated n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid content, with or without fish oil, to treat severe acute malnutrition; a randomized controlled trial
No full textBackground Ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF) are lipid-based pastes widely used in the treatment of acute malnutrition. Current specifications for RUTF permit a high n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content and low n-3 PUFA, with no stipulated requirements for preformed long-chain n-3 PUFA. The objective of this study was to develop an RUTF with elevated short-chain n-3 PUFA and measure its impact, with and without fish oil supplementation, on children’s PUFA status during treatment of severe acute malnutrition. Methods This randomized controlled trial in children with severe acute malnutrition in rural Kenya included 60 children aged 6 to 50 months who were randomized to receive i) RUTF with standard composition; ii) RUTF with elevated short chain n-3 PUFA; or iii) RUTF with elevated short chain n-3 PUFA plus fish oil capsules. Participants were followed-up for 3 months. The primary outcome was erythrocyte PUFA composition. Results Erythrocyte docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) content declined from baseline in the two arms not receiving fish oil. Erythrocyte long-chain n-3 PUFA content following treatment was significantly higher for participants in the arm receiving fish oil than for those in the arms receiving RUTF with elevated short chain n-3 PUFA or standard RUTF alone: 3 months after enrolment, DHA content was 6.3% (interquartile range 6.0–7.3), 4.5% (3.9–4.9), and 3.9% (2.4–5.7) of total erythrocyte fatty acids (P <0.001), respectively, while eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) content was 2.0% (1.5–2.6), 0.7% (0.6–0.8), and 0.4% (0.3–0.5) (P <0.001). RUTF with elevated short chain n-3 PUFA and fish oil capsules were acceptable to participants and carers, and there were no significant differences in safety outcomes. Conclusions PUFA requirements of children with SAM are not met by current formulations of RUTF, or by an RUTF with elevated short-chain n-3 PUFA without additional preformed long-chain n-3 PUFA. Clinical and growth implications of revised formulations need to be addressed in large clinical trials
InterRett, a model for international data collection in a rare genetic disorder
No full textRett syndrome (RTT) is a rare genetic disorder within the autistic spectrum. This study compared socio-demographic, clinical and genetic characteristics of the international database, InterRett, and the population-based Australian Rett syndrome database (ARSD). It also explored the strengths and limitations of InterRett in comparison with other studies. A literature review compared InterRett with RTT population-based and case-based studies of 30 or more cases that investigated genotype and/or phenotype relationships. Questionnaire data were used to determine case status and to investigate the comparability of InterRett and ARSD. Twenty-four case series, five population-based studies and a MECP2 mutation database were identified of which 21 (70%) collected phenotype and genotype data. Only three studies were representative of their underlying case population and many had low numbers. Of 1114 InterRett subjects, 935 born after 1976 could be verified as Rett cases and compared with the 295 ARSD subjects. Although more InterRett families had higher education and occupation levels and their children were marginally less severe, the distribution of MECP2 mutation types was similar. The InterRett can be used with confidence to investigate genotype phenotype associations and clinical variation in RTT and provides an exemplary international model for other rare disorders
A critical history of the international art journal Artforum
No full textThe American-based international art journal Artforum has proved one of the most prominent and influential of art history's discursive agencies, playing a critical role in framing, probing, and re-working particular beliefs of art
practice, art history, and art criticism broadly conceived of as 'Modernist' and 'post-Modernist.' This thesis investigates the development of Artforum's critical and historical writing on 'Modernist,' 'post-Modernist,' and feminist issues. It takes Artforum, from 1962 to 1993, as its 'archive' and undertakes a critical history of the journal's personnel, policies, and textual discourse, as
well as its look and design.
The first chapter, "The Language of Another Generation," focuses upon the 'old' Artforum, a concept of the magazine which attempts to articulate a retrospective perception of its critical power from the mid -1960s to the mid'
70s. Specifically, it challenges a conception of the magazine which portrays it as a mouthpiece for Clement Greenberg's theories of Modernist artistic and
critical practices. In attempting to elucidate this misconception of the journal, the chapter makes use of some of Michel Foucault's suggestions for a historical
analysis that focuses on the ruptures, rather than the continuities of Lhe object of study. To this end, the chapter identifies factors which contributed to the
construction of the idea of Artforum as a Greenberg-influenced journal and then locates a discourse working against that idea, a discourse that disrupts Greenbergian Modernism.
Chapter 2, "Shameless Hussies," centres on Artforum's November 1974 and November 1980 issues and questions the journal's gendered biases toward the human figure in art. It considers the magazine's attempt to wrest from body
and performance artists Lynda Bengiis, Lisa Lyon, and Carolee Schneemarln their artistic authority, and documents its struggle to maintain the producer/product, subject/object distinctions that these artists had blurred
through their practices. Indeed, the chapter propounds that Artforum's resistance to images of the female figure waxed when the body represented belonged to the artist herself and, in view of the evidence presented by the
November 1980 issue, waned when artist and body were either distinct identies or male. The chapter concludes with an analysis of whether or not the journal succeded in nullifying the artists' political power by preventing their bodies' final collapse into ambiguous representation. Chapter 3, "Autocritique," looks at Artforum's relationship to certain concepts of post-Modernism through its notable recourses to a self-referential criticality. It discusses examples of the journal's self-reflexivity under the editorships of John Coplans, Ingrid Sischy, and current editor Jack Bankowsky and proposes that the magazine oscillates between working with and exhibiting a Greenbergian notion of Modernist self-criticism on the one hand, and an idea of a post-Modernist deconstructive impulse on the other
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