Two voices : the marginalised body as a voice & Imperfect Offerings a novel

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of self-harm as a form of political protest using two different, but complementary, methods of inquiry: a theoretical research project and a novel. Through these two approaches, to the same research problem, I examine how we can re-position the body that self-harms in political protest from weapon to voice; and in doing so find a path towards ethical and equitable dialogue between marginalised and mainstream communities. The theoretical, or academic, portion of the thesis examines self-harm as protest, positing these acts as a form of tactical selfharm, and acknowledge its emergence as a voice for the otherwise silenced in the public sphere. Through the use of phenomenology and feminist theory I examine the body as site for political agency, the circumstances which surround the use of the body for protest, and the reaction to tactical self-harm by the individual and the state. Using Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism, and the dialogic space I propose that by ‘hearing’ the body engaged in tactical selfharm we come closer to entering into an ethical dialogue with the otherwise silenced in our communities (locally, nationally and globally). The novel, Imperfect Offerings, explores these ideas in a fictional world, and allows me to put faces, names and lives to those who are compelled to harm their bodies to be heard. Also using Bakhtin’s framework I encourage a dialogue between the critical and creative parts of the thesis, challenging the traditional paradigm of creative PhD projects as creative work and exegesis.

Do strategy choices matter for nascent firms? A study on effectuation and causation impacts on new ventures outcomes

Principal Topic : Nascent entrepreneurship has drawn the attention of scholars in the last few years (Davidsson, 2006, Wagner, 2004). However, most studies have asked why firms are created focussing on questions such as what are the characteristics (Delmar and Davidsson, 2000) and motivations (Carter, Gartner, Shaver & Reynolds, 2004) of nascent entrepreneurs, or what are the success factors in venture creation (Davidsson & Honig; 2003; Delmar and Shane, 2004). In contrast, the question of how companies emerge is still in its infancy. On a theoretical side, effectuation, developed by Sarasvathy (2001) offers one view of the strategies that may be at work during the venture creation process. Causation, the theorized inverse to effectuation, may be described as a rational reasoning method to create a company. After a comprehensive market analysis to discover opportunities, the entrepreneur will select the alternative with the higher expected return and implement it through the use of a business plan. In contrast, effectuation suggests that the future entrepreneur will develop her new venture in a more iterative way by selecting possibilities through flexibility and interaction with the market, affordability of loss of resources and time invested, development of pre-commitments and alliances from stakeholders. Another contrasting point is that causation is ''goal driven'' while an effectual approach is ''mean driven'' (Sarasvathy, 2001) One of the predictions of effectuation theory is effectuation is more likely to be used by entrepreneurs early in the venture creation process (Sarasvathy, 2001). However, this temporal aspect and the impact of the effectuation strategy on the venture outcomes has so far not been systematically and empirically tested on large samples. The reason behind this research gap is twofold. Firstly, few studies collect longitudinal data on emerging ventures at an early enough stage of development to avoid severe survivor bias. Second, the studies that collect such data have not included validated measures of effectuation. The research we are conducting attempts to partially fill this gap by combining an empirical investigation on a large sample of nascent and young firms with the effectuation/causation continuum as a basis (Sarasvathy, 2001). The objectives are to understand the strategies used by the firms during the creation process and measure their impacts on the firm outcomes. Methodology/Key Propositions : This study draws its data from the first wave of the CAUSEE project where 28,383 Australian households were randomly contacted by phone using a specific methodology to capture emerging firms (Davidsson, Steffens, Gordon, Reynolds, 2008). This screening led to the identification of 594 nascent ventures (i.e., firms that are not operating yet) and 514 young firms (i.e., firms that have started operating from 2004) that were willing to participate in the study. Comprehensive phone interviews were conducted with these 1108 ventures. In a likewise comprehensive follow-up 12 months later, 80% of the eligible cases completed the interview. The questionnaire contains specific sections designed to distinguish effectual and causal processes, innovation, gestation activities, business idea changes and ventures outcomes. The effectuation questions are based on the components of effectuation strategy as described by Sarasvathy (2001) namely: flexibility, affordable loss and pre-commitment from stakeholders. Results from two rounds of pre-testing informed the design of the instrument included in the main survey. The first two waves of data have will be used to test and compare the use of effectuation in the venture creation process. To increase the robustness of the results, temporal use of effectuation will be tested both directly and indirectly. 1. By comparing the use of effectuation in nascent and young firms from wave 1 to 2, we will be able to find out how effectuation is affected by time over a 12-month duration and if the stage of venture development has an impact on its use. 2. By comparing nascent ventures early in the creation process versus nascent ventures late in the creation process. Early versus late can be determined with the help of time-stamped gestation activity questions included in the survey. This will help us to determine the change on a small time scale during the creation phase of the venture. 3. By comparing nascent firms to young (already operational) firms. 4. By comparing young firms becoming operational in 2006 with those first becoming operational in 2004. Results and Implications : Wave 1 and 2 data have been completed and wave 2 is currently being checked and 'cleaned'. Analysis work will commence in September, 2009. This paper is expected to contribute to the body of knowledge on effectuation by measuring quantitatively its use and impact on nascent and young firms activities at different stages of their development. In addition, this study will also increase the understanding of the venture creation process by comparing over time nascent and young firms from a large sample of randomly selected ventures. We acknowledge the results from this study will be preliminary and will have to be interpreted with caution as the changes identified may be due to several factors and may not only be attributed to the use/not use of effectuation. Meanwhile, we believe that this study is important to the field of entrepreneurship as it provides some much needed insights on the processes used by nascent and young firms during their creation and early operating stages.

Devising a scenographic approach in Jonzi D's Hip Hop theatre

Jonzi D, one of the leading Hip Hop voices in the UK, creates contemporary theatrical works that merge dance, street art, original scored music and contemporary rap poetry, to create theatrical events that expand a thriving sense of a Hip Hop nation with citizens in the UK, throughout southern Africa and the rest of the world. In recent years Hip Hop has evolved as a performance genre in and of itself that not only borrows from other forms but vitally now contributes back to the body of contemporary practice in the performing arts. As part of this work Jonzi’s company Jonzi D Productions is committed to creating and touring original Hip Hop theatre that promotes the continuing development and awareness of a nation with its own language, culture and currency that exists without borders. Through the deployment of a universal voice from the local streets of Johannesburg and the East End of London, Jonzi D creates a form of highly energized performance that elevates Hip Hop as great democratiser between the highly developed global and under resourced local in the world. It is the staging of this democratised and technologised future (and present), that poses the greatest challenge for the scenographer working with Jonzi and his company, and the associated deprogramming and translation of the artists particular filmic vision to the stage, that this discussion will explore. This paper interrogates not only how a scenographic strategy can support the existence of this work but also how the scenographer as outsider can enter and influence this nation.

Human osteoblast cell spreading and vinculin expression upon biomaterial surfaces

Any biomaterial implanted within the human body is influenced by the interactions that take place between its surface and the surrounding biological milieu. These interactions are known to influence the tissue interface dynamic, and thus act to emphasize the need to study cell-surface interactions as part of any biomaterial design process. The work described here investigates the relationship between human osteoblast attachment, spreading and focal contact formation on selected surfaces using immunostaining and digital image processing for vinculin, a key focal adhesion component. Our observations show that a relationship exists between levels of cell attachment, the degree of vinculin-associated plaque formation and biocompatibility. It also suggests that cell adhesion is not indicative of how supportive a substrate is to cell spreading, and that cell spreading

Automated symbolic and numeric procedure for manipulator rigid-body dynamic significance analysis and simplification

This paper describes an automated procedure for analysing the significance of each of the many terms in the equations of motion for a serial-link robot manipulator. Significance analysis provides insight into the rigid-body dynamic effects that are significant locally or globally in the manipulator's state space. Deleting those terms that do not contribute significantly to the total joint torque can greatly reduce the computational burden for online control, and a Monte-Carlo style simulation is used to investigate the errors thus introduced. The procedures described are a hybrid of symbolic and numeric techniques, and can be readily implemented using standard computer algebra packages.

Demonstration of image compression in a low-bandwidth wireless camera network

This paper presents an overview of our demonstration of a low-bandwidth, wireless camera network where image compression is undertaken at each node. We briefly introduce the Fleck hardware platform we have developed as well as describe the image compression algorithm which runs on individual nodes. The demo will show real-time image data coming back to base as individual camera nodes are added to the network. Copyright 2007 ACM.

Choice of image features for depth-axis control in image based visual servo control

This paper is concerned with choosing image features for image based visual servo control and how this choice influences the closed-loop dynamics of the system. In prior work, image features tend to be chosen on the basis of image processing simplicity and noise sensitivity. In this paper we show that the choice of feature directly influences the closed-loop dynamics in task-space. We focus on the depth axis control of a visual servo system and compare analytically various approaches that have been reported recently in the literature. The theoretical predictions are verified by experiment.

Adaptive depth estimation in image based visual servo control of dynamic systems

This paper considers the question of designing a fully image based visual servo control for a dynamic system. The work is motivated by the ongoing development of image based visual servo control of small aerial robotic vehicles. The observed targets considered are coloured blobs on a flat surface to which the normal direction is known. The theoretical framework is directly applicable to the case of markings on a horizontal floor or landing field. The image features used are a first order spherical moment for position and an image flow measurement for velocity. A fully non-linear adaptive control design is provided that ensures global stability of the closed-loop system. © 2005 IEEE.

Real-time image streaming over a low-bandwidth wireless camera network

In this paper we describe the recent development of a low-bandwidth wireless camera sensor network. We propose a simple, yet effective, network architecture which allows multiple cameras to be connected to the network and synchronize their communication schedules. Image compression of greater than 90% is performed at each node running on a local DSP coprocessor, resulting in nodes using 1/8th the energy compared to streaming uncompressed images. We briefly introduce the Fleck wireless node and the DSP/camera sensor, and then outline the network architecture and compression algorithm. The system is able to stream color QVGA images over the network to a base station at up to 2 frames per second. © 2007 IEEE.

Toward robust image detection of crown-of-thorns starfish for autonomous population monitoring

Robust texture recognition in underwater image sequences for marine pest population control such as Crown-Of-Thorns Starfish (COTS) is a relatively unexplored area of research. Typically, humans count COTS by laboriously processing individual images taken during surveys. Being able to autonomously collect and process images of reef habitat and segment out the various marine biota holds the promise of allowing researchers to gain a greater understanding of the marine ecosystem and evaluate the impact of different environmental variables. This research applies and extends the use of Local Binary Patterns (LBP) as a method for texture-based identification of COTS from survey images. The performance and accuracy of the algorithms are evaluated on a image data set taken on the Great Barrier Reef.

Australian pelvic floor questionnaire : a validated interviewer-administered pelvic floor questionnaire for routine clinic and research

The aim of this study was to design and validate an interviewer-administered pelvic floor questionnaire that integrates bladder, bowel and sexual function, pelvic organ prolapse, severity, bothersomeness and condition-specific quality of life. Validation testing of the questionnaire was performed using data from 106 urogynaecological patients and a separately sampled community cohort of 49 women. Missing data did not exceed 2% for any question. It distinguished community and urogynaecological populations regarding pelvic floor dysfunction. The bladder domain correlated with the short version of the Urogenital Distress Inventory, bowel function with an established bowel questionnaire and prolapse symptoms with the International Continence Society prolapse quantification. Sexual function assessment reflected scores on the McCoy Female Sexuality Questionnaire. Cronbach’s α coefficients were acceptable in all domains. Kappa coefficients of agreement for the test–retest analyses varied from 0.5 to 1.0. The interviewer-administered pelvic floor questionnaire assessed pelvic floor function in a reproducible and valid fashion in a typical urogynaecological clinic.

Validating the functional capacity index : a comparison of predicted versus observed total body scores

Background: The Functional Capacity Index (FCI) was designed to predict physical function 12 months after injury. We report a validation study of the FCI. Methods: This was a consecutive case series registered in the Queensland Trauma Registry who consented to the prospective 12-month telephone-administered follow-up study. FCI scores measured at 12 months were compared with those originally predicted. Results: Complete Abbreviated Injury Scale score information was available for 617 individuals, of whom 587 (95%) could be assigned at least one FCI score (range, 1-17). Agreement between the largest predicted FCI and observed FCI score was poor ([kappa] = 0.05; 95% confidence interval, 0.00-0.10) and explained only 1% of the variability in observed FCI. Using an encompassing model that included all FCI assignments, agreement remained poor ([kappa] = 0.05; 95% confidence interval, -0.02-0.12), and the model explained only 9% of the variability in observed FCI. Conclusion: The predicted functional capacity poorly agrees with actual functional outcomes. Further research should consider including other (noninjury) explanatory factors in predicting FCI at 12 months.

The Remnant

An Interactive Installation with holographic 3D projections, satellite imagery, surround sound and intuitive body driven interactivity. Remnant (v.1) was commissioned by the 2010 TreeLine ecoArt event - an initiative of the Sunshine Coast Council and presented at a remnant block of subtropical rainforest called ‘Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve’ - located 100kms north of Brisbane near the township of Maleny. V2 was later commissioned for KickArts Gallery, Cairns, re-presenting the work in a new open format which allowed audiences to both experience the original power of the work and to also understand the construction of the work's powerful illusory, visual spaces. This art-science project focused upon the idea of remnant landscapes - isolated blocks of forest (or other vegetation types) typically set within a patchwork quilt of surrounding farmed land. Participants peer into a mysterious, long tunnel of imagery whilst navigating entirely through gentle head movements - allowing them to both 'steer' in three dimensions and also 'alight', as a butterfly might, upon a sector of landscape - which in turn reveals an underlying 'landscape of mind'. The work challenges audiences to re-imagine our conceptions of country in ways that will lead us to better reconnect and sustain today’s heavily divided landscapes. The research field involved developing new digital image projection methods, alternate embodied interaction and engagement strategies for eco-political media arts practice. The context was the creation of improved embodied and improvisational experiences for participants, further informed by ‘eco-philosophical’ and sustainment theories. By engaging with deep conceptions of connectivity between apparently disparate elements, the work considered novel strategies for fostering new desires, for understanding and re-thinking the requisite physical and ecological links between ‘things’ that have been historically shattered. The methodology was primarily practice-led and in concert with underlying theories. The work’s knowledge contribution was to question how new media interactive experience and embodied interaction might prompt participants to reflect upon appropriate resources and knowledges required to generate this substantive desire for new approaches to sustainment. This accentuated through the power of learning implied by the works' strongly visual and kinaesthetic interface (i.e. the tunnel of imagery and the head and torso operated navigation). The work was commissioned by the 2010 TreeLine ecoArt event - an initiative of the Sunshine Coast Council and the second version was commissioned by Kickarts Gallery, Cairns, specifically funded by a national optometrist chain. It was also funded in development by Arts Queensland and reviewed in Realtime.

Does quality of life among breast cancer survivors one year after diagnosis differ depending on urban and non-urban residence? A comparative study

Background: This study examined the quality of life (QOL), measured by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy (FACT) questionnaire, among urban (n=277) and non-urban (n=323) breast cancer survivors and women from the general population (n=1140) in Queensland, Australia. ---------- Methods: Population-based samples of breast cancer survivors aged <75 years who were 12 months post-diagnosis and similarly-aged women from the general population were recruited between 2002 and 2007. ---------- Results: Age-adjusted QOL among urban and non-urban breast cancer survivors was similar, although QOL related to breast cancer concerns was the weakest domain and was lower among non-urban survivors than their urban counterparts (36.8 versus 40.4, P<0.01). Irrespective of residence, breast cancer survivors, on average, reported comparable scores on most QOL scales as their general population peers, although physical well-being was significantly lower among non-urban survivors (versus the general population, P<0.01). Overall, around 20%-33% of survivors experienced lower QOL than peers without the disease. The odds of reporting QOL below normative levels were increased more than two-fold for those who experienced complications following surgery, reported upper-body problems, had higher perceived stress levels and/or a poor perception of handling stress (P<0.01 for all). ---------- Conclusions: Results can be used to identify subgroups of women at risk of low QOL and to inform components of tailored recovery interventions to optimize QOL for these women following cancer treatment.

Spherical image-based visual servo and structure estimation

This paper presents a formulation of image-based visual servoing (IBVS) for a spherical camera where coordinates are parameterized in terms of colatitude and longitude: IBVSSph. The image Jacobian is derived and simulation results are presented for canonical rotational, translational as well as general motion. Problems with large rotations that affect the planar perspective form of IBVS are not present on the sphere, whereas the desirable robustness properties of IBVS are shown to be retained. We also describe a structure from motion (SfM) system based on camera-centric spherical coordinates and show how a recursive estimator can be used to recover structure. The spherical formulations for IBVS and SfM are particularly suitable for platforms, such as aerial and underwater robots, that move in SE(3).