Art museums and the global tourist: Experience centres in experience-scapes

In the experience economy, the role of art museums has evolved so as to cater to global cultural tourists. These institutions were traditionally dedicated to didactic functions, and served cognoscenti with elite cultural tastes that were aligned with the avant-garde’s autonomous stance towards mass culture. In a post-avant-garde era however museums have focused on appealing to a broad clientele that often has little or no knowledge of historical or contemporary art. Many of these tourists want art to provide entertaining and novel experiences, rather than receiving pedagogical ‘training’. In response, art museums are turning into ‘experience venues’ and are being informed by ideas associated with new museology, as well as business approaches like Customer Experience Management. This has led to the provision of populist entertainment modes, such as blockbuster exhibitions, participatory art events, jazz nights, and wine tasting, and reveals that such museums recognize that today’s cultural tourist is part of an increasingly diverse and populous demographic, which shares many languages and value systems. As art museums have shifted attention to global tourists, they have come to play a greater role in gentrification projects and cultural precincts. The art museum now seems ideally suited to tourist-centric environments that offer a variety of immersive sensory experiences and combine museums (often designed by star-architects), international hotels, restaurants, high-end shopping zones, and other leisure forums. These include sites such as Port Maravilha urban waterfront development in Rio de Janiero, the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, and the Chateau La Coste winery and hotel complex in Provence. It can be argued that in a global experience economy, art museums have become experience centres in experience-scapes. This paper will examine the nature of the tourist experience in relation to the new art museum, and the latter’s increasingly important role in attracting tourists to urban and regional cultural precincts.

Diffusion indices on magnetic resonance imaging and neuropsychological performance in amnestic mild cognitive impairment

Background: Magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) shows promise in the early detection of microstructural pathophysiological changes in the brain. Objectives: To measure microstructural differences in the brains of participants with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) compared with an age-matched control group using an optimised DTI technique with fully automated image analysis tools and to investigate the correlation between diffusivity measurements and neuropsychological performance scores across groups. Methods: 34 participants (17 participants with MCI, 17 healthy elderly adults) underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based DTI. To control for the effects of anatomical variation, diffusion images of all participants were registered to standard anatomical space. Significant statistical differences in diffusivity measurements between the two groups were determined on a pixel-by-pixel basis using gaussian random field theory. Results: Significantly raised mean diffusivity measurements (p<0.001) were observed in the left and right entorhinal cortices (BA28), posterior occipital-parietal cortex (BA18 and BA19), right parietal supramarginal gyrus (BA40) and right frontal precentral gyri (BA4 and BA6) in participants with MCI. With respect to fractional anisotropy, participants with MCI had significantly reduced measurements (p<0.001) in the limbic parahippocampal subgyral white matter, right thalamus and left posterior cingulate. Pearson's correlation coefficients calculated across all participants showed significant correlations between neuropsychological assessment scores and regional measurements of mean diffusivity and fractional anisotropy. Conclusions: DTI-based diffusivity measures may offer a sensitive method of detecting subtle microstructural brain changes associated with preclinical Alzheimer's disease.

Predicting the need for adaptive radiotherapy in head and neck cancer

Background and purpose Adaptive radiotherapy (ART) can account for the dosimetric impact of anatomical change in head and neck cancer patients; however it can be resource intensive. Consequently, it is imperative that patients likely to require ART are identified. The purpose of this study was to find predictive factors that identify oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPC) and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients more likely to need ART. Materials and methods One hundred and ten patients with OPC or NPC were analysed. Patient demographics and tumour characteristics were compared between patients who were replanned and those that were not. Factors found to be significant were included in logistic regression models. Risk profiles were developed from these models. A dosimetric analysis was performed. Results Nodal disease stage, pre-treatment largest involved node size, diagnosis and initial weight (categorised in 2 groups) were identified as significant for inclusion in the model. Two models were found to be significant (p = 0.001), correctly classifying 98.2% and 96.1% of patients respectively. Three ART risk profiles were developed. Conclusion Predictive factors identifying OPC or NPC patients more likely to require ART were reported. A risk profile approach could facilitate the effective implementation of ART into radiotherapy departments through forward planning and appropriate resource allocation.

Spinal inflammation in the absence of sacroiliac joint inflammation on magnetic resonance imaging in patients with active nonradiographic axial spondyloarthritis

Objective: To evaluate the presence of spinal inflammation with and without sacroiliac (SI) joint inflammation on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with active nonradiographic axial spondyloarthritis (SpA), and to compare the disease characteristics of these subgroups. Methods: ABILITY-1 is a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial of adalimumab versus placebo in patients with nonradiographic axial SpA classified using the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society axial SpA criteria. Baseline MRIs were centrally scored independently by 2 readers using the Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) method for the SI joints and the SPARCC 6-discovertebral unit method for the spine. Positive evidence of inflammation on MRI was defined as a SPARCC score of >2 for either the SI joints or the spine. Results: Among patients with baseline SPARCC scores, 40% had an SI joint score of >2 and 52% had a spine score of >2. Forty-nine percent of patients with baseline SI joint scores of <2, and 58% of those with baseline SI joint scores of >2, had a spine score of >2. Comparison of baseline disease characteristics by baseline SI joint and spine scores showed that a greater proportion of patients in the subgroup with a baseline SPARCC score of >2 for both SI joints and spine were male, and patients with spine and SI joint scores of <2 were younger and had shorter symptom duration. SPARCC spine scores correlated with baseline symptom duration, and SI joint scores correlated negatively with the baseline Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index, but neither correlated with the baseline Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score, total back pain, the patient's global assessment of disease activity, the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index, morning stiffness, nocturnal pain, or C-reactive protein level. Conclusion: Assessment by experienced readers showed that spinal inflammation on MRI might be observed in half of patients with nonradiographic axial SpA without SI joint inflammation.

Cosmopolitan tendencies in recent intersubjective art

This thesis uses cultural studies approaches to ask in what ways can intersubjective art act on the disparities brought about by late capitalism through the auspices of cosmopolitanism? How do the same processes that oppress others allow the artist to be mobile and self-reflexive while accruing and deploying a broad range of knowledges and competencies? The answer is paradoxical: those oppressed by the processes of late capitalism become the focus, theme, and content of the intersubjective artwork while the artists benefit from a system they seek to problematise and critique. Three case study chapters highlight these complex and disconcerting politics.

Art museums and the global tourist: Experience centers in experiencescapes

Art museums are playing an important role is attracting cultural tourists to global cities and regions. Traditionally, art museums were primarily known for their didactic role. In a post-avant-garde era however museums are more focused on appealing to a broader clientele that want art to be novel and entertaining. Art museums have also come to play a greater role in gentrification projects and cultural precincts. This is because they are ideally suited for tourist-centric environments that offer a variety of immersive sensory experiences, and combine museums (often designed by star-architects), international hotels, restaurants, high-end shopping zones, and other leisure platforms. These "experiencescapes" include Port Maravilha urban waterfront development in Rio de Janiero, the Shanghai Bund, and the Broad project in Los Angeles. The Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart Australia is a boutique player in the global market for experiencescapes. It is smaller than many of its competitors and is situated in a remote part of the world, yet it has made an important contribution to Tasmania’s tourism industry.

A novel approach to 6-DOF adaptive trajectory tracking control of an AUV in the presence of parameter uncertainties

In this paper, the trajectory tracking control of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUVs) in six-degrees-of-freedom (6-DOFs) is addressed. It is assumed that the system parameters are unknown and the vehicle is underactuated. An adaptive controller is proposed, based on Lyapunov׳s direct method and the back-stepping technique, which interestingly guarantees robustness against parameter uncertainties. The desired trajectory can be any sufficiently smooth bounded curve parameterized by time even if consist of straight line. In contrast with the majority of research in this field, the likelihood of actuators׳ saturation is considered and another adaptive controller is designed to overcome this problem, in which control signals are bounded using saturation functions. The nonlinear adaptive control scheme yields asymptotic convergence of the vehicle to the reference trajectory, in the presence of parametric uncertainties. The stability of the presented control laws is proved in the sense of Lyapunov theory and Barbalat׳s lemma. Efficiency of presented controller using saturation functions is verified through comparing numerical simulations of both controllers.

"It makes you think anything is possible”: Representing diversity in music theory pedagogy

This paper critiques a traditional approach to music theory pedagogy. It argues that music theory courses should draw on pedagogies that reflect the diversity and pluralism inherent in 21st century music making. It presents the findings of an action research project investigating the experiences of undergraduate students undertaking an innovative contemporary art music theory course. It describes the students’ struggle in coming to terms with a course that integrated composing, performing, listening and analysing coupled with what for many was their first exposure to the diversity of contemporary art music. The paper concludes with suggesting that the approach could be adopted more widely throughout music programs.

Estimation of cosmological parameters using adaptive importance sampling

We present a Bayesian sampling algorithm called adaptive importance sampling or population Monte Carlo (PMC), whose computational workload is easily parallelizable and thus has the potential to considerably reduce the wall-clock time required for sampling, along with providing other benefits. To assess the performance of the approach for cosmological problems, we use simulated and actual data consisting of CMB anisotropies, supernovae of type Ia, and weak cosmological lensing, and provide a comparison of results to those obtained using state-of-the-art Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). For both types of data sets, we find comparable parameter estimates for PMC and MCMC, with the advantage of a significantly lower wall-clock time for PMC. In the case of WMAP5 data, for example, the wall-clock time scale reduces from days for MCMC to hours using PMC on a cluster of processors. Other benefits of the PMC approach, along with potential difficulties in using the approach, are analyzed and discussed.

Critical reckonings : Global art and art history after the West and Eurocentrism

Review of Paul Wood (2013), Western Art and the Wider World. Wiley-Blackwell : Chichester, United Kingdom.

The digital-bricoleur: Contemporary screen-based visual art practices

This paper describes a practice-led methodology that combines contemporary art theory and processes, as well as concepts of fan studies to construct a space for the critical and creative exploration of screen culture. The research promotes new possibilities for purposeful creative engagements with the screen, framed through the lens of what I term the digital-bricoleur. This performative, link-making approach documents the complicit tendencies that arise out of my affective relationship with screen culture, mapping out a cultural terrain in which I can creatively and critically ‘play’. The creative exploitation of this improvisational and aleatory activity then forms the creative research outputs. It appropriates and reconfigures content from screen culture, creating digital video installations aimed at engendering new experiences and critical interpretations of screen culture.

Stone baby: An exploration of affect and trauma in visual art

Stone Baby: An Exploration of Affect and Trauma in Visual Art was held at the Block, QUT Creative Industries Precinct on August 27-28, 2014. At the conclusion of my Masters project, this exhibition was a showcase of the outcomes of my material and digital explorations in the form of installation, sculpture and film. My primary motivation can be described as a relational and ethical attempt to find a balance between the erotic and the aggressive. This is experienced in the self as feelings of attraction and repulsion in response to the new and unknown "other". Consequently creative practice is necessarily a complex affair that is experienced as a completely immersive and self-contained psychological space. It is within this space that both physical sensation and raw emotion are able to tangibly and conceptually interact with psychoanalytic theory, and concrete materials video and sound.

Context-based assessment: Creating opportunities for resonance between classroom fields and societal fields

There is on-going international interest in the relationships between assessment instruments, students’ understanding of science concepts and context-based curriculum approaches. This study extends earlier research showing that students can develop connections between contexts and concepts – called fluid transitions – when studying context-based courses. We provide an in-depth investigation of one student’s experiences with multiple contextual assessment instruments that were associated with a context-based course. We analyzed the student’s responses to context-based assessment instruments to determine the extent to which contextual tests, reports of field investigations, and extended experimental investigations afforded her opportunities to make connections between contexts and concepts. A system of categorizing student responses was developed that can inform other educators when analyzing student responses to contextual assessment. We also refine the theoretical construct of fluid transitions that informed the study initially. Implications for curriculum and assessment design are provided in light of the findings.