The studio sans frontières : the open-studio as an answer to the challenges of teaching contemporary art

Since at least the 1960s, art has assumed a breadth of form and medium as diverse as social reality itself. Where once it was marginal and transgressive for artists to work across a spectrum of media, today it is common practice. In this ‘post-medium’ age, fidelity to a specific branch of media is a matter of preference, rather than a code of practice policed by gallerists, curators and critics. Despite the openness of contemporary art practice, the teaching of art at most universities remains steadfastly discipline-based. Discipline-based art teaching, while offering the promise of focussed ‘mastery’ of a particular set of technical skills and theoretical concerns, does so at the expense of a deeper and more complex understanding of the possibilities of creative experimentation in the artist’s studio. By maintaining an hermetic approach to medium, it does not prepare students sufficiently for the reality of art making in the twenty-first century. In fact, by pretending that there is a select range of techniques fundamental to the artist’s trade, discipline-based teaching can often appear to be more engaged with the notion of skills preservation than purposeful art training. If art schools are to survive and prosper in an increasingly vocationally-oriented university environment, they need to fully synthesise the professional reality of contemporary art practice into their approach to teaching and learning. This paper discusses the way in which the ‘open’ studio approach to visual art study at QUT endeavours to incorporate the diversity and complexity of contemporary art while preserving the sense of collective purpose that discipline-based teaching fosters. By allowing students to independently develop their own art practices while also applying collaborative models of learning and assessment, the QUT studio program aims to equip students with a strong sense of self-reliance, a broad awareness and appreciation of contemporary art, and a deep understanding of studio-based experimentation unfettered by the boundaries of traditional media: all skills fundamental to the practice of contemporary art.

Nursing Sans Frontieres: A Three Year Case Study of Multi-State Registration of Support Nursing Practice Using Information Technology

Objective: To highlight the registration issues for nurses who wish to practice nationally, particularly those practicing within the telehealth sector. Design: As part of a national clinical research study, applications were made to every state and territory for mutual recognition of nursing registration and fee waiver for telenursing cross boarder practice for a period of three years. These processes are described using a case study approach. Outcome: The aim of this case study was to achieve registration in every state and territory of Australia without paying multiple fees by using mutual recognition provisions and the cross-border fee waiver policy of the nurse regulatory authorities in order to practice telenursing. Results: Mutual recognition and fee waiver for cross-border practice was granted unconditionally in two states: Victoria (Vic) and Tasmania (Tas), and one territory: the Northern Territory (NT). The remainder of the Australian states and territories would only grant temporary registration for the period of the project or not at all, due to policy restrictions or nurse regulatory authority (NRA) Board decisions. As a consequence of gaining fee waiver the annual cost of registration was a maximum of $145 per annum as opposed to the potential $959 for initial registration and $625 for annual renewal. Conclusions: Having eight individual nurses Acts and NRAs for a population of 265,000 nurses would clearly indicate a case for over regulation in this country. The structure of regulation of nursing in Australia is a barrier to the changing and evolving role of nurses in the 21st century and a significant factor when considering workforce planning.

Pore structure characterization of North American shale gas reservoirs using USANS/SANS, gas adsorption, and mercury intrusion

Small-angle and ultra-small-angle neutron scattering (SANS and USANS), low-pressure adsorption (N2 and CO2), and high-pressure mercury intrusion measurements were performed on a suite of North American shale reservoir samples providing the first ever comparison of all these techniques for characterizing the complex pore structure of shales. The techniques were used to gain insight into the nature of the pore structure including pore geometry, pore size distribution and accessible versus inaccessible porosity. Reservoir samples for analysis were taken from currently-active shale gas plays including the Barnett, Marcellus, Haynesville, Eagle Ford, Woodford, Muskwa, and Duvernay shales. Low-pressure adsorption revealed strong differences in BET surface area and pore volumes for the sample suite, consistent with variability in composition of the samples. The combination of CO2 and N2 adsorption data allowed pore size distributions to be created for micro–meso–macroporosity up to a limit of �1000 Å. Pore size distributions are either uni- or multi-modal. The adsorption-derived pore size distributions for some samples are inconsistent with mercury intrusion data, likely owing to a combination of grain compression during high-pressure intrusion, and the fact that mercury intrusion yields information about pore throat rather than pore body distributions. SANS/USANS scattering data indicate a fractal geometry (power-law scattering) for a wide range of pore sizes and provide evidence that nanometer-scale spatial ordering occurs in lower mesopore–micropore range for some samples, which may be associated with inter-layer spacing in clay minerals. SANS/USANS pore radius distributions were converted to pore volume distributions for direct comparison with adsorption data. For the overlap region between the two methods, the agreement is quite good. Accessible porosity in the pore size (radius) range 5 nm–10 lm was determined for a Barnett shale sample using the contrast matching method with pressurized deuterated methane fluid. The results demonstrate that accessible porosity is pore-size dependent.

In situ SANS study of the surface and pore filling adsorption of subcritical and supercritical CO2 in porous silica as a function of pore size

We applied small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and ultra small-angle neutron scattering (USANS) to monitor evolution of the CO2 adsorption in porous silica as a function of CO2 pressure and temperature in pores of different sizes. The range of pressures (0 < P < 345 bar) and temperatures (T=18 OC, 35 OC and 60 OC) corresponded to subcritical, near critical and supercritical conditions of bulk fluid. We observed that the adsorption behavior of CO2 is fundamentally different in large and small pores with the sizes D > 100 Å and D < 30 Å, respectively. Scattering data from large pores indicate formation of a dense adsorbed film of CO2 on pore walls with the liquid-like density (ρCO2)ads≈0.8 g/cm3. The adsorbed film coexists with unadsorbed fluid in the inner pore volume. The density of unadsorbed fluid in large pores is temperature and pressure dependent: it is initially lower than (ρCO2)ads and gradually approaches it with pressure. In small pores compressed CO2 gas completely fills the pore volume. At the lowest pressures of the order of 10 bar and T=18 OC, the fluid density in smallest pores available in the matrix with D ~ 10 Å exceeds bulk fluid density by a factor of ~ 8. As pressure increases, progressively larger pores become filled with the condensed CO2. Fluid densification is only observed in pores with sizes less than ~ 25 – 30 Å. As the density of the invading fluid reaches (ρCO2)bulk~ 0.8 g/cm3, pores of all sizes become uniformly filled with CO2 and the confinement effects disappear. At higher densities the fluid in small pores appears to follow the equation of state of bulk CO2 although there is an indication that the fluid density in the inner volume of large pores may exceed the density of the adsorbed layer. The equivalent internal pressure (Pint) in the smallest pores exceeds the external pressure (Pext) by a factor of ~ 5 for both sub- and supercritical CO2. Pint gradually approaches Pext as D → 25 – 30 Å and is independent of temperature in the studied range of 18 OC ≤ T ≤ 60 OC. The obtained results demonstrate certain similarity as well as differences between adsorption of subcritical and supercritical CO2 in disordered porous silica. High pressure small angle scattering experiments open new opportunities for in situ studies of the fluid adsorption in porous media of interest to CO2 sequestration, energy storage, and heterogeneous catalysis.

Characterization of tight gas reservoir pore structure using USANS/SANS and gas adsorption analysis

Small-angle and ultra-small-angle neutron scattering (SANS and USANS) measurements were performed on samples from the Triassic Montney tight gas reservoir in Western Canada in order to determine the applicability of these techniques for characterizing the full pore size spectrum and to gain insight into the nature of the pore structure and its control on permeability. The subject tight gas reservoir consists of a finely laminated siltstone sequence; extensive cementation and moderate clay content are the primary causes of low permeability. SANS/USANS experiments run at ambient pressure and temperature conditions on lithologically-diverse sub-samples of three core plugs demonstrated that a broad pore size distribution could be interpreted from the data. Two interpretation methods were used to evaluate total porosity, pore size distribution and surface area and the results were compared to independent estimates derived from helium porosimetry (connected porosity) and low-pressure N2 and CO2 adsorption (accessible surface area and pore size distribution). The pore structure of the three samples as interpreted from SANS/USANS is fairly uniform, with small differences in the small-pore range (<2000 Å), possibly related to differences in degree of cementation, and mineralogy, in particular clay content. Total porosity interpreted from USANS/SANS is similar to (but systematically higher than) helium porosities measured on the whole core plug. Both methods were used to estimate the percentage of open porosity expressed here as a ratio of connected porosity, as established from helium adsorption, to the total porosity, as estimated from SANS/USANS techniques. Open porosity appears to control permeability (determined using pressure and pulse-decay techniques), with the highest permeability sample also having the highest percentage of open porosity. Surface area, as calculated from low-pressure N2 and CO2 adsorption, is significantly less than surface area estimates from SANS/USANS, which is due in part to limited accessibility of the gases to all pores. The similarity between N2 and CO2-accessible surface area suggests an absence of microporosity in these samples, which is in agreement with SANS analysis. A core gamma ray profile run on the same core from which the core plug samples were taken correlates to profile permeability measurements run on the slabbed core. This correlation is related to clay content, which possibly controls the percentage of open porosity. Continued study of these effects will prove useful in log-core calibration efforts for tight gas.

A USANS/SANS study of the accessibility of pores in the barnett shale to methane and water

Shale is an increasingly important source of natural gas in the United States. The gas is held in fine pores that need to be accessed by horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing techniques. Understanding the nature of the pores may provide clues to making gas extraction more efficient. We have investigated two Mississippian Barnett Shale samples, combining small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and ultrasmall-angle neutron scattering (USANS) to determine the pore size distribution of the shale over the size range 10 nm to 10 μm. By adding deuterated methane (CD4) and, separately, deuterated water (D2O) to the shale, we have identified the fraction of pores that are accessible to these compounds over this size range. The total pore size distribution is essentially identical for the two samples. At pore sizes >250 nm, >85% of the pores in both samples are accessible to both CD4 and D2O. However, differences in accessibility to CD4 are observed in the smaller pore sizes (∼25 nm). In one sample, CD4 penetrated the smallest pores as effectively as it did the larger ones. In the other sample, less than 70% of the smallest pores (<25 nm) were accessible to CD4, but they were still largely penetrable by water, suggesting that small-scale heterogeneities in methane accessibility occur in the shale samples even though the total porosity does not differ. An additional study investigating the dependence of scattered intensity with pressure of CD4 allows for an accurate estimation of the pressure at which the scattered intensity is at a minimum. This study provides information about the composition of the material immediately surrounding the pores. Most of the accessible (open) pores in the 25 nm size range can be associated with either mineral matter or high reflectance organic material. However, a complementary scanning electron microscopy investigation shows that most of the pores in these shale samples are contained in the organic components. The neutron scattering results indicate that the pores are not equally proportioned in the different constituents within the shale. There is some indication from the SANS results that the composition of the pore-containing material varies with pore size; the pore size distribution associated with mineral matter is different from that associated with organic phases.

Sans Faute

Sans Faute (without fail) considers how technology has influenced Chinese society, culture and practice. The exhibition seeks to reveal a shared language between Western and Chinese contexts that exists through employing technology as a universal creative meeting point. The pervasive impact of the current digital landscape has been widely recognised, embraced and continues to influence many aspects of Chinese lives. The significance of these shifting contexts on contemporary art is explored in Sans Faute. Through the presentation of a range of video installations, the exhibition aims to initiate rigorous and critical engagement with these provocative works that challenge traditional ideologies to discover emergent ideas. Featuring works by eight artists from mainland China, Sans Faute is an exploration of different attitudes collected together to provide a complete picture of how these artists build a new iconic imagery. "The works of these artists present a younger generation's thinking of the reality of contemporary China through their own emotional and individual life experience," says Stephen Danzig, IDAprojects director. "We are currently witnessing an amazing re-identification in so many elements that make up China's social fabric - none more so than what's happening in the arts currently. You only need to see what's happening in Beijing to realise the pace of change." Sans Faute has been supported by QUT Confucius Institute.

Mechanistic details of the membrane perforation and passive translocation of TAT peptides

The trans-activator of transcription (TAT) peptide is regarded as the “gold standard” for cell-penetrating peptides, capable of traversing a mammalian membrane passively into the cytosolic space. This characteristic has been exploited through conjugation of TAT for applications such as drug delivery. However, the process by which TAT achieves membrane penetration remains ambiguous and unresolved. Mechanistic details of TAT peptide action are revealed herein by using three complementary methods: quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D), scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). When combined, these three scales of measurement define that the membrane uptake of the TAT peptide is by trans-membrane insertion using a “worm-hole” pore that leads to ion permeability across the membrane layer. AFM data provided nanometre-scale visualisation of TAT punctuation using a mammalian-mimetic membrane bilayer. The TAT peptide does not show the same specificity towards a bacterial mimetic membrane and QCM-D and SECM showed that the TAT peptide demonstrates a disruptive action towards these membranes. This investigation supports the energy-independent uptake of the cationic TAT peptide and provides empirical data that clarify the mechanism by which the TAT peptide achieves its membrane activity. The novel use of these three biophysical techniques provides valuable insight into the mechanism for TAT peptide translocation, which is essential for improvements in the cellular delivery of TAT-conjugated cargoes including therapeutic agents required to target specific intracellular locations.