Examining representations of women's leadership in the media and Australian universities

Examines how diverse academic women educational leaders experienced and negotiated media representations of leadership in their work. The thesis argues that feminist leadership analyses assume a commonality of women's interests, ignoring the diversity, which exists between different groups of women and the material impact of diversity upon female leaders' work.

Body image, media influences, sexual risk, and sexuality in men

This thesis examined the relationships between men's body image, different media influences, sexual orientation, and sexual risk taking. In comparison to heterosexuals, gay men were significantly less satisfied with their bodies. Media influences predicted men's body image, and gay men demonstrated greater internalisation of media messages compared to heterosexual men. Based on four case studies the portfolio demonstrates that motivational interviewing might be a useful approach to manage ambivalence and resistance to clients presenting with an anxiety disorder or a parent-child relational issue.

Measuring miscible fluid displacement in porous media with magnetic resonance imaging

The development of new quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technologies open new opportunities for measurements of mass transport in porous media. The current work examines a simple miscible displacement process of H2O and D2O in porous media samples. Laboratory measurements of dispersion in porous media traditionally monitor the effluent intensity of an injected tracer. We employ MRI to obtain quantitative water saturation profiles, and to measure dispersion in rock core plugs. The saturation profiles are modeled with PHREEQC, a fluid transport modeling program. We demonstrate how independent magnetic resonance measurements can be employed to estimate three important input parameters for PHREEQC, mobile porosity, immobile porosity, and dispersivity. Bulk Carr Purcell Meiboom Gill (CPMG) T2 distribution measurements were undertaken to estimate mobile and immobile porosity. Bulk alternating-pulsed-gradient-stimulated-echo (APGSTE) measurements were undertaken to measure dispersivity. The imaging method employed, T2 mapping Spin Echo Single Point Imaging (SE-SPI), also provides information about the pore size distributions in the rock cores, and how the fluid occupancy of the pores changes during the displacement process.

Pd embedded in porous carbon (Pd@CMK-3) as an active catalyst for Suzuki reactions: accelerating mass transfer to enhance the reaction rate

Heterogeneous catalysts are promising candidates for use in organic reactions due to their advantages in separation, recovery, and environment compatibility. In this work, an active porous catalyst denoted as Pd embedded in porous carbon (Pd@CMK-3) has been prepared by a strategy involving immersion, ammoniahydrolysis, and heating procedures. Detailed characterization of the catalyst revealed that Pd(0) and Pd(II) species co-exist and were embedded in the matrix of the porous carbon (CMK-3). The as-prepared catalyst has shown high activity toward Suzuki reactions. Importantly, if the reaction mixture was homogenized by two minutes of ultrasonication rather than magnetic stirring before heating, the resistance to mass transfer in the pore channels was significantly reduced. As a result, the reactions proceeded more rapidly and a four-fold increase in the turnover frequency (TOF) could be obtained. When the ultrasonication was employed throughout the entire reaction process, the conversion could also exceed 90% even without the protection of inert gas, and although the reaction temperature was lowered to 30 °C. This work provides a method for fabricating highly active porous carbon encapsulated Pd catalysts for Suzuki reactions and proves that the problem of mass transfer in porous catalysts can be conveniently resolved by ultrasonication without any chemical modification being necessary.[Figure not available: see fulltext.] © 2014 Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.