Do small-aperture presbyopic corrections influence the visual field?

Purpose To explore the effect of small-aperture optics, designed to aid presbyopes by increasing ocular depth-of-focus, on measurements of the visual field. Methods Simple theoretical and ray-tracing models were used to predict the impact of different designs of small-aperture contact lenses or corneal inlays on the proportion of light passing through natural pupils of various diameters as a function of the direction in the visual field. The left eyes of five healthy volunteers were tested using three afocal, hand-painted opaque soft contact lenses (www.davidthomas.com). Two were opaque over a 10 mm diameter but had central clear circular apertures of 1.5 and 3.0 mm in diameter. The third had an annular opaque zone with inner and outer diameters of 1.5 and 4.0 mm, approximately simulating the geometry of the KAMRA inlay (www.acufocus.com). A fourth, clear lens was used for comparison purposes. Visual fields along the horizontal meridian were evaluated up to 50° eccentricity with static automated perimetry (Medmont M700, stimulus Goldmann-size III; www.medmont.com). Results According to ray-tracing, the two lenses with the circular apertures were expected to reduce the relative transmittance of the pupil to zero at specific field angles (around 60° for the conditions of the experimental measurements). In contrast, the annular stop had no effect on the absolute field but relative transmittance was reduced over the central area of the field, the exact effects depending upon the natural pupil diameter. Experimental results broadly agreed with these theoretical expectations. With the 1.5 and 3.0 mm pupils, only minor losses in sensitivity (around 2 dB) in comparison with the clear-lens case occurred across the central 10° radius of field. Beyond this angle, sensitivity losses increased, to reach about 7 dB at the edge of the measured field (50°). The field results with the annular stop showed at most only a slight loss in sensitivity (≤3 dB) across the measured field. Conclusion The present theoretical and experimental results support earlier clinical findings that KAMRA-type annular stops, unlike circular artificial pupils, have only minor effects on measurements of the visual field.

Adaptive frequency scaled wavelet packet decomposition for frog call classification

Environmental changes have put great pressure on biological systems leading to the rapid decline of biodiversity. To monitor this change and protect biodiversity, animal vocalizations have been widely explored by the aid of deploying acoustic sensors in the field. Consequently, large volumes of acoustic data are collected. However, traditional manual methods that require ecologists to physically visit sites to collect biodiversity data are both costly and time consuming. Therefore it is essential to develop new semi-automated and automated methods to identify species in automated audio recordings. In this study, a novel feature extraction method based on wavelet packet decomposition is proposed for frog call classification. After syllable segmentation, the advertisement call of each frog syllable is represented by a spectral peak track, from which track duration, dominant frequency and oscillation rate are calculated. Then, a k-means clustering algorithm is applied to the dominant frequency, and the centroids of clustering results are used to generate the frequency scale for wavelet packet decomposition (WPD). Next, a new feature set named adaptive frequency scaled wavelet packet decomposition sub-band cepstral coefficients is extracted by performing WPD on the windowed frog calls. Furthermore, the statistics of all feature vectors over each windowed signal are calculated for producing the final feature set. Finally, two well-known classifiers, a k-nearest neighbour classifier and a support vector machine classifier, are used for classification. In our experiments, we use two different datasets from Queensland, Australia (18 frog species from commercial recordings and field recordings of 8 frog species from James Cook University recordings). The weighted classification accuracy with our proposed method is 99.5% and 97.4% for 18 frog species and 8 frog species respectively, which outperforms all other comparable methods.

Surveying the field: Primary school teachers’ conceptions of the literacy capabilities of recently graduated primary school teachers

In 2015, ALEA National Council provided funds to support the implementation of a research project which was undertaken by a group of teacher educators and researchers from a range of universities across three Australian states. Stage one of the project, which is reported on here, examined primary school teachers’ perceptions of the personal and professional literacy capabilities of recently graduated primary school teachers. This stage of the project also examined primary school teachers’ perceptions of the impact of initial teacher education on the personal and professional literacy capabilities of recently graduated primary school teachers. The project team, led by Associate Professor Beryl Exley (Queensland University of Technology), included Chief Investigators Dr Eileen Honan (The University of Queensland), Associate Professor Lisa Kervin (University of Wollongong), Associate Professor Alyson Simpson (University of Sydney) and Dr Muriel Wells (Deakin University), with Dr Sandy Muspratt as the Statistical Analyst and Lesley Friend as the Research Assistant with primary responsibility for the publication of the online survey.

Promoting law student well-being – A developing program and the use of animation

It is widely acknowledged that student mental well-being is a critical factor in the tertiary student learning experience and is important to student learning success. The issue of student mental well-being also has implications for effective student transition out of university and into the world of work. It is therefore vital that intentional strategies are adopted by universities both within the formal curriculum, and outside it, to promote student well-being. This paper describes the ongoing development of the ‘I Belong in the LLB’ program at the Queensland University of Technology Law School, and the use of animation to engage students with the importance of mental health.

Comments on: "The role of the social environment in psychiatric research: Outstanding challenges and future directions by Dana March, James Kirkbride, Wim Veling"

On 17 March 2009, we hosted a live discussion of fresh new ideas in the epidemiology of schizophrenia. Discussion leaders Dana March of Columbia University, James Kirkbride of the University of Cambridge, and Wim Veling of Parnassia Psychiatric Institute delivered a wide-ranging discussion of social factors such as migration, ethnicity, and urbanicity, but also asked how this research could benefit from genetic insights. Finally, they discussed possible biological mechanisms that might transduce social factors into psychosis

Flow field and traverse times for fan forced injection of fumigant via circular or annular inlet into stored grain

Fan forced injection of phosphine gas fumigant into stored grain is a common method to treat infestation by insects. For low injection velocities the transport of fumigant can be modelled as Darcy flow in a porous medium where the gas pressure satisfies Laplace's equation. Using this approach, a closed form series solution is derived for the pressure, velocity and streamlines in a cylindrically stored grain bed with either a circular or annular inlet, from which traverse times are numerically computed. A leading order closed form expression for the traverse time is also obtained and found to be reasonable for inlet configurations close to the central axis of the grain storage. Results are interpreted for the case of a representative 6m high farm wheat store, where the time to advect the phosphine to almost the entire grain bed is found to be approximately one hour.

Enhancing the shopping experience with ambient displays: A field study in a retail store

This paper discusses the prototypical implementation of an ambient display and the results of an empirical study in a retail store. It presents the context of shopping as an application area for Ambient Intelligence (AmI) technologies. The prototype consists of an ambient store map that enhances the awareness of customer activity. The results of our study indicate potentials and challenges for an improvement of the shopping experience with AmI technologies. Based on our findings we discuss challenges and future developments for applying AmI technologies to shopping environments.

Organizational affordances: A structuration theory approach to affordances

Affordance is an important concept in the field of human–computer interaction. There are various interpretations of affordances, often extending the original notion of James J. Gibson. Often the treatment of affordances in the current human–computer interaction literature has been a one-to-one relationship between a user and an artefact. We believe that the social and cultural contexts within which an artefact is situated affect the way in which the artefact is used and the notion of affordance needs to be seen as a dynamic, always emerging relationship between people and their environment. Using a Structuration Theory approach, we conceptualize the notion of affordance at a much broader level, encompassing social and cultural aspects. We suggest that affordances should be seen at three levels: single user, organizational (or work group) and societal. Focusing on the organizational level affordances, we provide details of several important factors that affect the emergence of affordances. - This article provides a new perspective on the discourse of affordance with the use of Structuration Theory. - It shows how affordance can be understood as ‘use’ in situated practices (i.e. ‘technology-in-practice’) - The Structuration Theory approach to affordances is showcased using two case studies.

Exploring literacy lives: Returning to the field

The challenges of conducting lengthy field work in today’s busy academic world have impacted the types of research that are able to be carried out. In particular, traditional educational ethnography has become problematic for research beyond initial doctoral research programs. This paper analyzes data collected during a return to the field of a study about literate lives, eleven years after the initial data collection. It considers the implications of exploring people’s lives over time.

Entering the field: Beginning teachers’ positioning experiences of the staffroom

Little is known about beginning teachers’ political positioning experiences of the staffroom. This paper employs Bourdieu's conceptual tools of field, habitus and capital to explore beginning health and physical education teachers’ positioning experiences and learning in staffrooms, the place in which teachers spend the majority of their non-teaching school time. From an Australian context, we present beginning (or emerging) teachers’ stories from one rural general staffroom and one urban departmental staffroom. Using the narratives we reflect upon how their positioning in the politics of the staffroom as beginning teachers presented significant challenges including negotiating the professional micropolitics, negotiating capital and negotiating opportunities and risks for reflection and change in contrasting social spaces.

Res Communis? A critical legal geography of outer space, Antarctica, and the deep seabed

This chapter provides a critical legal geography of outer Space, charting the topography of the debates and struggles around its definition, management, and possession. As the emerging field of critical legal geography demonstrates, law is not a neutral organiser of space, but is instead a powerful cultural technology of spatial production. Drawing on legal documents such as the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty, as well as on the analogous and precedent-setting legal geographies of Antarctica and the deep seabed, the chapter addresses key questions about the legal geography of outer Space, questions which are of growing importance as Space’s available satellite spaces in the geostationary orbit diminish, Space weapons and mining become increasingly viable, Space colonisation and tourism emerge, and questions about Space’s legal status grow in intensity. Who owns outer Space? Who, and whose rules, govern what may or may not (literally) take place there? Is the geostationary orbit the sovereign property of the equatorial states it supertends, as these states argued in the 1970s? Or is it a part of the res communis, or common property of humanity, which currently legally characterises outer Space? Does Space belong to no one, or to everyone? As challenges to the existing legal spatiality of outer Space emerge from spacefaring states, companies, and non-spacefaring states, it is particularly critical that the current spatiality of Space is understood and considered.

Post-millennial Australian dramaturgies: Changes in Australian dramaturgy and performance since the 2000s

This chapter examines the burgeoning field of dramaturgy in Australian performance and suggests that the growth of the both the profession and the practices of dramaturgy were a result of structural changes arising from the policies of the Howard Government, globalism and economic rationalism, as well as the demographic pressures of generational reform.

Tailoring texture of γ-Y2Si2O7 by strong magnetic field alignment and two-step sintering

In this study, a well-dispersed γ-Y2Si2O 7 ethanol-based suspension with 30 vol% solid loading was prepared by adding 1 dwb% polyethylene imine dispersant, which allows feeble magnetic γ-Y2Si2O7 particles with anisotropic magnetic susceptibility to rotate in a 12 T strong magnetic field during slip casting, resulting in the development of a strong texture in green bodies. Pressureless sintering gives rise to more pronounced grain growth in the textured sample than in the untextured sample prepared without the magnetic field due to the rapid migration of the grain boundaries of the well-oriented grains, which was revealed by constant-heating-rate sintering kinetics. It was found that the use of two-step sintering is very efficient not only for inhibiting the grain growth but also for enhancing the texture. This implies that controlled grain growth is crucial for enhancing texture development in γ-Y2Si2O7.

A rare P2X7 variant Arg307Gln with absent pore formation function protects against neuroinflammation in multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic relapsing-remitting inflammatory disease of the central nervous system characterized by oligodendrocyte damage, demyelination and neuronal death. Genetic association studies have shown a 2-fold or greater prevalence of the HLA-DRB1*1501 allele in the MS population compared with normal Caucasians. In discovery cohorts of Australasian patients with MS (total 2941 patients and 3008 controls), we examined the associations of 12 functional polymorphisms of P2X7, a microglial/macrophage receptor with proinflammatory effects when activated by extracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP). In discovery cohorts, rs28360457, coding for Arg307Gln was associated with MS and combined analysis showed a 2-fold lower minor allele frequency compared with controls (1.11% for MS and 2.15% for controls, P = 0.0000071). Replication analysis of four independent European MS case–control cohorts (total 2140 cases and 2634 controls) confirmed this association [odds ratio (OR) = 0.69, P = 0.026]. A meta-analysis of all Australasian and European cohorts indicated that Arg307Gln confers a 1.8-fold protective effect on MS risk (OR = 0.57, P = 0.0000024). Fresh human monocytes heterozygous for Arg307Gln have >85% loss of ‘pore’ function of the P2X7 receptor measured by ATP-induced ethidium uptake. Analysis shows Arg307Gln always occurred with 270His suggesting a single 307Gln–270His haplotype that confers dominant negative effects on P2X7 function and protection against MS. Modeling based on the homologous zP2X4 receptor showed Arg307 is located in a region rich in basic residues located only 12 Å from the ligand binding site. Our data show the protective effect against MS of a rare genetic variant of P2RX7 with heterozygotes showing near absent proinflammatory ‘pore’ function.