Raising the subject : ideology in children's fiction

This thesis is concerned to reveal, by means of textual analysis, ideologies connected to human subjectivity within eight contemporary novels for 'children' . The analyses draw upon the work of Macherey, Eagleton, Jameson and Bakhtin among others. The texts discussed cover more than two decades, from 1955 to 1977. The first, Philippa Pearce's Minnow on the Say, attempts to reconcile a traditional form of subjectivity with a less hierarchic and mare open type. Lyotard's account of customary and scientific knowledge, and Said's of affiliation ion , are the basis for discussion here. Susan Cooper's sequence The Dark is Rising grounds humanism in a mythic British past. Within these texts the problem of situating the subject within a wider social framework is linked to one of nationalism. Her novels are fantasies, and provide an opportunity for a discussion of a non-realist form and its ideological implications, Todorov's account of the fantastic as a genre is a reference—point in this analysis. Jane Garden’s Bilge water presents a discontinuous subject—in-process. Her story is told by a first— person narrator, situated within a framed narrative. Through its themes and structures the text interrogates its central character's project of subjectivity as perfectible, centered and continuous, and finds it untenable. In Russell Hagan’s The House and his Child the possibility of self-determination within language as discourse is of central concern. The tin mice, who are hollow, echo in their persons the text's interest in the distinction between inside and outside, the difference which Lacanian theory posits as essential for an accession to subjectivity- Hoban's work gives an account of the postmodern subject, and calls into question the subjectivities assumed in Pearce's and Cooper's texts.

Environmental site assessment for abalone ranching on artificial reef

This study investigated the feasibility of ranching the abalone Haliotis rubra (Leach) and Haliotis laevigata (Donovan) on concrete artificial reefs at a site chosen by industry investors on silty bottom off Altona Beach, Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia. The study started from the premise that artificial reef deployment combined with abalone stock enhancement may achieve the dual purpose of habitat and stock improvement. It evaluated the hydrodynamics of the site in relation to artificial reef structural stability and drift algal transport, the development and ecology of the artificial reef assemblage, and abalone enhancement by seeding the reefs with hatchery juvenile abalone and transplanting adult broodstock abalone. Despite a scarcity of reports on culturing abalone on artificial reef, a literature review examined broadly the functions of artificial reefs, particularly in the context of abalone enhancement, and the relationship between artificial reefs, hydrodynamics and ecology. The major finding was that the success of artificial reef projects is highly dependent on the environment of the chosen site, and that preliminary studies are essential to predict their likely success. This consideration alone provided strong justification to undertake this study. The topography at the Altona site was generally flat, with natural patches of low basalt boulder reef, offering low habitat complexity, yet supporting a diverse range of flora and fauna, including a low-density wild stock of H. rubra. Water depth was a mean of 3.3 m at low tide and 4.4 m at high tide. A single, uncomplicated, concrete artificial reef of H-shape design, was tested as abalone habitat. The hydrodynamic analysis confirmed previous studies of Port Phillip Bay, with mild current speeds of mean 0.045 m.s-1, and maximum-modelled wave height (H1/3) of 1.21 m and period (T1/3) of 4.51 sec. Water temperature ranged from 9.9şC during July to 23.8şC during January, with salinity averaging of 35.5 ppt. The site had a low probability of receiving drift algae, necessary as a food source for abalone, because of its geographic location, potentially affecting ranch productivity. Ecological monitoring of the three-year old artificial reef shows complex changes in the flora and fauna over time, particularly in respect of the sessile fauna. Key differences between the artificial reef and a nearby natural reef community were: lower cover of corallines and late colonisers, such as sponges. High levels of sedimentation were recorded at the Altona site. Hatchery juvenile H. laevigata, with mean survival of 15% after two years and a mean annual growth rate of 39 mm, showed the most promise for outplanting. In comparison, for hatchery juvenile H. rubra, mean survival was 9% after three years and mean annual growth rate was 22 mm. No natural recruitment of H. laevigata was recorded on artificial reef despite transplants of adult broodstock on the reefs. Natural recruitment of H. rubra was also low and insufficient to reliably contribute to abalone ranch stock. Having examined the hydrodynamic, ecological and enhancement attributes of the Altona site, the study concluded that the site was marginally viable for abalone ranching, and that an alternative site near Werribee, 20 km further southwest, had superior attributes for growth and survival of abalone.

Use and cost effectiveness of computer based training in the insurance industry

Training is essential to the growth and economic well-being of a nation. This need for training pervades all levels of industry, from a national level where a country’s well being is enhanced by training, to each company where productivity is improved, down to the individual whose skills are enhanced and as a result improve their position in the employment marketplace. The Australian Bureau of Statistics report ‘Training and Education Experience –Australia’ (ABS 1993) indicates that training in Australia is undertaken at a significant level with some 86% of employers undertaking some form of training. This is slightly higher in the Finance industry at a little over 89%. On the job training is undertaken by 82% of employers and off the job training is used by 47% of employers. In 80% of the off the job cases these courses were conducted in a conventional manner using an instructor. The remaining 20% of cases were either self paced (14%) or instructor based (6%). These latter cases could involve Computer Based Training (CBT). The report, referred to in the last paragraph, also indicates that a significant aspect of business in Australia is that 95% of businesses have less than 20 staff. This poses significant problems in that the ability to deliver effective training is limited. With businesses as small as these their size does not permit them to carry specialist training personnel so this role falls to the senior staff. These people already have a full workload and their ability to be able to take on training duties is limited. In addition these people were employed for their technical skills, not training. It may be that their ability to fill the role of a trainer is not good and as a result the training may not be very effective. In addition, small business has difficulty in releasing staff for training, The difficulties faced by small business were recognised by the Australian National Training Authority in their 1995 report which indicated that there was a need to develop a ‘training culture’ among small business employers. The authority made a commitment to provide flexible delivery strategies. This includes Computer Based Training (CBT). CBT has existed since the 1970’s. It came on to the scene with a flourish and tended to provide ‘page turning’ programs or ‘drill and practice programs’. In limited areas this form of training became popular but its popularity waned in the 80’s. With the advent of better graphical displays, larger and faster memory, and improved programs in the 1990’s the quality of CBT today is superior to those offered in the 70’s and has greater appeal. Today, still photographs and video clips can be displayed and made interactive. Because of this CBT is making a comeback and starting to have a greater impact. The insurance industry covers a wide range of companies in Australia, these companies vary in size from companies with employees in the thousands to companies with less than five staff. While the needs of the employees of each are similar the ability of these companies to deliver the training varies significantly. Any training can be divided into two parts. Internal or on the job training and external. External training deals with those aspects that concern the industry as a whole whereas internal training affects the individual company. Internal training would deal with matters like company procedures, company products and the like. External training deals with matters such as legislation, products generally, and the like. In the insurance industry the major problem arises with the small companies. Insurance companies would tend to be large in size and able to cover their training costs but the insurance brokers who would make up, numerically, the major number of companies would have a significant number of companies that fall into the 20 staffer less category. In fact many would have a staff of less than 5. While CBT can benefit all companies it is these small companies that could benefit from it the most. This thesis examines: • The place of CBT in training, its cost and effectiveness. • The incidence of CBT in the insurance industry and how the industry determines its effectiveness. • If a program that meets an industry need is able to be produced at a realistic price?

Influence of land cover on water resources

The influence of land cover on water quality and quantity was examined using a multidisciplinary approach that integrated land use maps, historical databases, and statistical modelling. Systematic changes in the Glenelg Hopkins landscape were identified, in addition to a relationship between greater proportions of vegetation and better water quality.

Urban sustainability and market typologies : lessons from Tabriz Bazaar

The market is an essential component of urban form. Contemporary shopping malls can benefit from the inherent efficiencies of traditional markets. This paper addresses the development of sustainable models of market typologies based on a specific case study, the Bazaar of Tabriz in Iran.

As one of the biggest historical covered markets in the world (Moradi and Nassabi 2007), it remains an effective trading centre in the city. What are the lessons that make Tabriz a sustainable urban typology and what lessons can we draw from its spatial and operational structure?

To address this question, the paper presents two analytical studies of the urban and building morphology of Tabriz. First, the paper presents an analysis of the urban and social structure of the market based on Lynchian analysis. Second, it provides an analysis of the thermal, ventilation and lighting principles used in the buildings of the market and how they respond to the extreme climatic conditions of north-west Iran.

Rainfall and snow in one side and hot summers in the other, give the buildings in the city really critical performance in terms of life span during the years of operation.

The main target in this case study, is to illuminate the urban typological clarifications in the Bazaar of Tabriz, which wilt elucidate how parallel links between urban morphology (land cover) and urban typology (land use) in a defined urban planning can form a sustainable urban space. Moreover, how the case of this study can be an energy efficient complex with its own urban morphology.

The lessons of Tabriz for the development of contemporary markets are summarised in the paper and need to be addressed at two scales, namely the urban scale and the scale of the building.

The short-term responses of small mammals to wildfire in semiarid mallee shrubland, Australia

Context. Wildfire is a major driver of the structure and function of mallee eucalypt- and spinifex-dominated landscapes. Understanding how fire influences the distribution of biota in these fire-prone environments is essential for effective ecological and conservation-based management.

Aims. We aimed to (1) determine the effects of an extensive wildfire (118 000 ha) on a small mammal community in the mallee shrublands of semiarid Australia and (2) assess the hypothesis that the fire-response patterns of small mammals can be predicted by their life-history characteristics.

Methods. Small-mammal surveys were undertaken concurrently at 26 sites: once before the fire and on four occasions following the fire (including 14 sites that remained unburnt). We documented changes in small-mammal occurrence before and after the fire, and compared burnt and unburnt sites. In addition, key components of vegetation structure were assessed at each site.

Key results. Wildfire had a strong influence on vegetation structure and on the occurrence of small mammals. The mallee ningaui, Ningaui yvonneae, a dasyurid marsupial, showed a marked decline in the immediate post-fire environment, corresponding with a reduction in hummock-grass cover in recently burnt vegetation. Species richness of native small mammals was positively associated with unburnt vegetation, although some species showed no clear response to wildfire.

Conclusions. Our results are consistent with the contention that mammal responses to fire are associated with their known life-history traits. The species most strongly affected by wildfire, N. yvonneae, has the most specific habitat requirements and restricted life history of the small mammals in the study area. The only species positively associated with recently burnt vegetation, the introduced house mouse, Mus domesticus, has a flexible life history and non-specialised resource requirements.

Implications. Maintaining sources for recolonisation after large-scale wildfires will be vital to the conservation of native small mammals in mallee ecosystems.

Effects of snow cover on the timing and success of reproduction in high-Arctic pink-footed geese Anser brachyrhynchus

During four breeding seasons, 2003–2006, we studied the relationship between snow cover and nesting performance in pink-footed geese (Anser brachyrhynchus) in a key breeding site on Svalbard. Snow cover in late May, i.e., at the time of egg laying of geese, was derived from MODIS satellite images. Snow cover had a profound cascading effect on reproductive output via the number of nesting pairs and timing of nesting, which affected nest success, while there was only a tendency for a negative effect on clutch size. Hence, we estimated a five-fold difference in the number of young produced (to post-hatching) between years with little snow and years with high snow cover. The results from the study area correlated with whole-population productivity estimates recorded in autumn. Thus, snow cover derived from MODIS satellite images appears to provide a useful indicator of the breeding conditions in the Arctic.

Fire, energy, and the ecology of reptiles in semi-arid Australia

‬Fire dependent ecosystems cover over half of the world's land surface. Understanding the factors that determine the distribution of fauna in these systems is essential to biodiversity conservation. This thesis explores the ecology of reptiles in a fire-prone region.

Pop3p is essential for the activity of the RNase MRP and RNase P ribonucleoproteins in vivo

RNase MRP is a ribonucleoprotein (RNP) particle which is involved in the processing of pre-rRNA at site A3 in internal transcribed spacer 1. Although RNase MRP has been analysed functionally, the structure and composition of the particle are not well characterized. A genetic screen for mutants which are synthetically lethal (sl) with a temperature-sensitive (ts) mutation in the RNA component of RNase MRP (rrp2-1) identified an essential gene, POP3, which encodes a basic protein of 22.6 kDa predicted molecular weight. Overexpression of Pop3p fully suppresses the ts growth phenotype of the rrp2-1 allele at 34°C and gives partial suppression at 37°C. Depletion of Pop3p in vivo results in a phenotype characteristic of the loss of RNase MRP activity; A3 cleavage is inhibited, leading to under-accumulation of the short form of the 5.8S rRNA (5.8SS) and formation of an aberrant 5.8S rRNA precursor which is 5'-extended to site A2. Pop3p depletion also inhibits pre-tRNA processing; tRNA primary transcripts accumulate, as well as spliced but 5'- and 3'-unprocessed pre-tRNAs. The Pop3p depletion phenotype resembles those previously described for mutations in components of RNase MRP and RNase P (rrp2-1, rpr1-1 and pop1-1). Immunoprecipitation of epitope-tagged Pop3p co-precipitates the RNA components of both RNase MRP and RNase P. Pop3p is, therefore, a common component of both RNPs and is required for their enzymatic functions in vivo. The ubiquitous RNase P RNP, which has a single protein component in Bacteria and Archaea, requires at least two protein subunits for its function in eukaryotic cells.

Assessment of spatiotemporal varying relationships between rainfall, land cover and surface water area using geographically weighted regression

Traditional regression techniques such as ordinary least squares (OLS) are often unable to accurately model spatially varying data and may ignore or hide local variations in model coefficients. A relatively new technique, geographically weighted regression (GWR) has been shown to greatly improve model performance compared to OLS in terms of higher R 2 and lower corrected Akaike information criterion (AICC). GWR models have the potential to improve reliabilities of the identified relationships by reducing spatial autocorrelations and by accounting for local variations and spatial non-stationarity between dependent and independent variables. In this study, GWR was used to examine the relationship between land cover, rainfall and surface water habitat in 149 sub-catchments in a predominately agricultural region covering 2.6 million ha in southeast Australia. The application of the GWR models revealed that the relationships between land cover, rainfall and surface water habitat display significant spatial non-stationarity. GWR showed improvements over analogous OLS models in terms of higher R 2 and lower AICC. The increased explanatory power of GWR was confirmed by the results of an approximate likelihood ratio test, which showed statistically significant improvements over analogous OLS models. The models suggest that the amount of surface water area in the landscape is related to anthropogenic drainage practices enhancing runoff to facilitate intensive agriculture and increased plantation forestry. However, with some key variables not present in our analysis, the strength of this relationship could not be qualified. GWR techniques have the potential to serve as a useful tool for environmental research and management across a broad range of scales for the investigation of spatially varying relationships.

Functional analysis of the leading malaria vaccine candidate AMA-1 reveals an essential role for the cytoplasmic domain in the invasion process

A key process in the lifecycle of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum is the fast invasion of human erythrocytes. Entry into the host cell requires the apical membrane antigen 1 (AMA-1), a type I transmembrane protein located in the micronemes of the merozoite. Although AMA-1 is evolving into the leading blood-stage malaria vaccine candidate, its precise role in invasion is still unclear. We investigate AMA-1 function using live video microscopy in the absence and presence of an AMA-1 inhibitory peptide. This data reveals a crucial function of AMA-1 during the primary contact period upstream of the entry process at around the time of moving junction formation. We generate a Plasmodium falciparum cell line that expresses a functional GFP-tagged AMA-1. This allows the visualization of the dynamics of AMA-1 in live parasites. We functionally validate the ectopically expressed AMA-1 by establishing a complementation assay based on strain-specific inhibition. This method provides the basis for the functional analysis of essential genes that are refractory to any genetic manipulation. Using the complementation assay, we show that the cytoplasmic domain of AMA-1 is not required for correct trafficking and surface translocation but is essential for AMA-1 function. Although this function can be mimicked by the highly conserved cytoplasmic domains of P. vivax and P. berghei, the exchange with the heterologous domain of the microneme protein EBA-175 or the rhoptry protein Rh2b leads to a loss of function. We identify several residues in the cytoplasmic tail that are essential for AMA-1 function. We validate this data using additional transgenic parasite lines expressing AMA-1 mutants with TY1 epitopes. We show that the cytoplasmic domain of AMA-1 is phosphorylated. Mutational analysis suggests an important role for the phosphorylation in the invasion process, which might translate into novel therapeutic strategies.

Genes and song : genetic and social connections in fragmented habitat in a woodland bird with limited dispersal

Understanding the processes leading to population declines in fragmented landscapes is essential for successful conservation management. However, isolating the influence of disparate processes, and dispersal in particular, is challenging. The Grey Shrike-thrush, Colluricincla harmonica, is a sedentary woodland-dependent songbird, with learned vocalizations whose incidence in suitable habitat patches falls disproportionally with decline in tree cover in the landscape. Although it has been suggested that gaps in tree cover might act as barriers to its dispersal, the species remains in many remnants of native vegetation in agricultural landscapes, suggesting that it may have responded to habitat removal and fragmentation by maintaining or even increasing dispersal distances. We quantified population connectivity of the Grey Shrike-thrush in a system fragmented over more than 120 years using genetic (microsatellites) and acoustic (song types) data. First, we tested for population genetic and acoustic structure at regional and local scales in search of barriers to dispersal or gene flow and signals of local spatial structuring indicative of restricted dispersal or localized acoustic similarity. Then we tested for effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on genetic and acoustic connectivity by fitting alternative models of mobility (isolation-by-distance [the null model] and reduced and increased movement models) across treeless vs. treed areas. Birds within 5 km of each other had more similar genotypes and song types than those farther away, suggesting that dispersal and song matching are limited in the region. Despite restricted dispersal detected for females (but not males), populations appeared to be connected by gene flow and displayed some cultural (acoustic) connectivity across the region. Fragmentation did not appear to impact greatly the dispersal of the Grey Shrike-thrush: none of the mobility models fit the genetic distances of males, whereas for females, an isolation-by-distance model could not be rejected in favor of the models of reduced or increased movement through treeless gaps. However, dissimilarities of the song types were more consistent with the model of reduced cultural connectivity through treeless areas, suggesting that fragmentation impedes song type sharing in the Grey Shrike-thrush. Our paper demonstrates that habitat fragmentation hinders important population processes in an Australian woodland bird even though its dispersal is not detectably impacted.