History curatorship in Australia : case studies from the National Museum of Australia 1991-2008

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.The main argument of this thesis is that history curatorship in Australia does not, as yet, possess a mature critical culture. While there is a growing literature in the academy about museums, there is surprisingly little material written by practising history curators. History curatorship, as such, lacks a tradition of critical writing about its professional practice. All too often curators move from one project to the next with little time to reflect on the way they work. While some curators have written about their work the impression emerges that history curators are still struggling to define what it is they do and how they do it. In this thesis I explore the relationship between theory and practice, or praxis, in relation to history curatorship. In most exhibitions curators seek to apply a theoretical framework to the subject matter they are working on. In some instances this is a self conscious process and in others it is implicit in their work. I will explore a series of case studies from projects I have completed at the NMA to explore this relationship in my own work. As such the thesis is designed to be an interrogation of my own professional practice. Reflecting on the work I have completed provides some valuable insights into the practice of history curatorship

Motion clouds: model-based stimulus synthesis of natural-like random textures for the study of motion perception

Choosing an appropriate set of stimuli is essential to characterize the response of a sensory system to a particular functional dimension, such as the eye movement following the motion of a visual scene. Here, we describe a framework to generate random texture movies with controlled information content, i.e., Motion Clouds. These stimuli are defined using a generative model that is based on controlled experimental parametrization. We show that Motion Clouds correspond to dense mixing of localized moving gratings with random positions. Their global envelope is similar to natural-like stimulation with an approximate full-field translation corresponding to a retinal slip. We describe the construction of these stimuli mathematically and propose an open-source Python-based implementation. Examples of the use of this framework are shown. We also propose extensions to other modalities such as color vision, touch, and audition

Physics of Neutron Star Kicks

It is no longer necessary to `sell' the idea of pulsar kicks, the notion that neutron stars receive a large velocity (a few hundred to a thousand km s$^{-1}$) at birth. However, the origin of the kicks remains mysterious. We review the physics of different kick mechanisms, including hydrodynamically driven, neutrino and magnetically driven kicks.Comment: 8 pages including 1 figure. To be published in "Stellar Astrophysics" (Pacific Rim Conference Proceedings), (Kluwer Pub.

Tau protein, A beta 42 and S-100B protein in cerebrospinal fluid of patients with dementia with Lewy bodies

The intra vitam diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is still based on clinical grounds. So far no technical investigations have been available to support this diagnosis. As for tau protein and beta-amyloid((1-42)) (Abeta42), promising results for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease ( AD) have been reported; we evaluated these markers and S-100B protein in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), using a set of commercially available assays, of 71 patients with DLB, 67 patients with AD and 41 nondemented controls (NDC) for their differential diagnostic relevance. Patients with DLB showed significantly lower tau protein values compared to AD but with a high overlap of values. More prominent differences were observed in the comparison of DLB patients with all three clinical core features and AD patients. Abeta42 levels were decreased in the DLB and AD groups versus NDC, without significant subgroup differences. S-100B levels were not significantly different between the groups. Tau protein levels in CSF may contribute to the clinical distinction between DLB and AD, but the value of the markers is still limited especially due to mixed pathology. We conclude that more specific markers have to be established for the differentiation of these diseases. Copyright (C) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel

Light hadron, Charmonium(-like) and Bottomonium(-like) states

Hadron physics represents the study of strongly interacting matter in all its manifestations and the understanding of its properties and interactions. The interest on this field has been revitalized by the discovery of new light hadrons, charmonium- and bottomonium-like states. I review the most recent experimental results from different experiments.Comment: Presented at Lepton-Photon 2011, Mumbai, India; 21 pages, 18 figures; add more references; some correctio

Chemotactic response and adaptation dynamics in Escherichia coli

Adaptation of the chemotaxis sensory pathway of the bacterium Escherichia coli is integral for detecting chemicals over a wide range of background concentrations, ultimately allowing cells to swim towards sources of attractant and away from repellents. Its biochemical mechanism based on methylation and demethylation of chemoreceptors has long been known. Despite the importance of adaptation for cell memory and behavior, the dynamics of adaptation are difficult to reconcile with current models of precise adaptation. Here, we follow time courses of signaling in response to concentration step changes of attractant using in vivo fluorescence resonance energy transfer measurements. Specifically, we use a condensed representation of adaptation time courses for efficient evaluation of different adaptation models. To quantitatively explain the data, we finally develop a dynamic model for signaling and adaptation based on the attractant flow in the experiment, signaling by cooperative receptor complexes, and multiple layers of feedback regulation for adaptation. We experimentally confirm the predicted effects of changing the enzyme-expression level and bypassing the negative feedback for demethylation. Our data analysis suggests significant imprecision in adaptation for large additions. Furthermore, our model predicts highly regulated, ultrafast adaptation in response to removal of attractant, which may be useful for fast reorientation of the cell and noise reduction in adaptation.Comment: accepted for publication in PLoS Computational Biology; manuscript (19 pages, 5 figures) and supplementary information; added additional clarification on alternative adaptation models in supplementary informatio

Reconciled climate response estimates from climate models and the energy budget of Earth

Climate risks increase with mean global temperature, so knowledge about the amount of future global warming should better inform risk assessments for policymakers. Expected near-term warming is encapsulated by the transient climate response (TCR), formally defined as the warming following 70 years of 1% per year increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration, by which point atmospheric CO2 has doubled. Studies based on Earth’s historical energy budget have typically estimated lower values of TCR than climate models, suggesting that some models could overestimate future warming. However, energy-budget estimates rely on historical temperature records that are geographically incomplete and blend air temperatures over land and sea ice with water temperatures over open oceans. We show that there is no evidence that climate models overestimate TCR when their output is processed in the same way as the HadCRUT4 observation-based temperature record3, 4. Models suggest that air-temperature warming is 24% greater than observed by HadCRUT4 over 1861–2009 because slower-warming regions are preferentially sampled and water warms less than air5. Correcting for these biases and accounting for wider uncertainties in radiative forcing based on recent evidence, we infer an observation-based best estimate for TCR of 1.66 °C, with a 5–95% range of 1.0–3.3 °C, consistent with the climate models considered in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report

Internet Gaming Disorder treatment: a case study evaluation of four different types of adolescent problematic gamers

Research examining Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has grown markedly in recent years. However, research on its psychological treatment is still scarce, especially with respect to efficacy of specific programs. The PIPATIC (Programa Individualizado Psicoterapéutico para la Adicción a las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación) program is a 22-session specialized treatment for adolescents with IGD. The present paper briefly outlines the cases of four treatment-seeking male adolescents aged between 13 and 18 years with different clinical IGD profiles undergoing the treatment. A case study using an A-B-A’ withdrawal design was conducted. After completing the PIPATIC program, all participants showed clinical improvement in the amount of time spent using video games and in the symptoms of IGD. Results also demonstrated they received lower scores on clinical tests related to comorbid disorders. In an area with so few studies relating to IGD treatment, the present study is of existential value and contributes clinical information concerning the treatment of IGD in treatment-seeking adolescent patients

Binary and Millisecond Pulsars at the New Millennium

We review the properties and applications of binary and millisecond pulsars. Our knowledge of these exciting objects has greatly increased in recent years, mainly due to successful surveys which have brought the known pulsar population to over 1300. There are now 56 binary and millisecond pulsars in the Galactic disk and a further 47 in globular clusters. This review is concerned primarily with the results and spin-offs from these surveys which are of particular interest to the relativity community.Comment: 59 pages, 26 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in Living Reviews in Relativity (http://www.livingreviews.org

Fitting censored quantile regression by variable neighborhood search

Quantile regression is an increasingly important topic in statistical analysis. However, fitting censored quantile regression is hard to solve numerically because the objective function to be minimized is not convex nor concave in regressors. Performance of standard methods is not satisfactory, particularly if a high degree of censoring is present. The usual approach is to simplify (linearize) estimator function, and to show theoretically that such approximation converges to optimal values. In this paper, we suggest a new approach, to solve optimization problem (nonlinear, nonconvex, and nondifferentiable) directly. Our method is based on variable neighborhood search approach, a recent successful technique for solving global optimization problems. The presented results indicate that our method can improve quality of censored quantizing regressors estimator considerably