Going native : a review of Jing Wang’s 'Brand New China’

Jing Wang's book is confused about its audience and fails to give an adequate account of either the specific knowledge available to advertising research or the nature of Chinese consumption. In addition its critique of cultural studies is misplaced and misguided.

Grassroots leaders: Reclaiming 'Native Leadership' as content for enhancing formal leadership preparation

It is almost a truism that persons who occupy formal bureaucratic positions in schools may not actually be leaders if they were not role incumbents in a bureaucracy. It is also clear from studies of grassroots leaders that without the qualities of skills of leadership no one would follow them because they have no formal, hierarchical role upon which others were dependent to them. One of the reasons for re-examining the nature of grassroots leaders is to attempt to recapture those tactics or strategies which might be reconceptualized and utilized within more formal settings so that role dependent leadership becomes more effectual and trustworthy than one that is totally dependent on role authority. This reasoning is especially a critical need if there is a desire to work towards more democratic and collaborative working arrangements between leaders and followers, and where more flexible and dynamic relationships promise higher levels of commitment and productivity. Hecksher (1994) speaks of such a reconceptualization as part of a shift from an emphasis on power to one centered on influence. This paper examines the nature of leadership before it was subjected to positivistic science and later behavioural studies. This move follows the advice of Heilbrunn (1996) who trenchantly observed that for leadership studies to grow as a discipline, “it will have to cast a wider net” (p.11). Willis et. Al. (2008) make a similar point when they lament that social scientist have forced favoured understanding bureaucracies rather than grassroots community organizations, yet much can be gained by being aware of the tactics and strategies used by grassroots leaders who depend on influence as opposed to power. This paper, then, aims to do this by posing a tentative model of grassroots leadership and then considering how this model might inform and be used by those responsible for developing school leaders.

Creative writing, literary studies, and global thinkers

There has been growing interest in how to make tertiary education more global and international not only in context but, also, in approach and methodology. One area of the education sector that has come under specific focus is the higher education sector curriculum and its design. This paper addresses the process of ‘internationalising’ the curriculum through the specific example of designing a new literary unit for undergraduate students, mainly literary studies and creative writing students. The literary unit entitled: Imagining the Americas: Contemporary American Literature and Culture, has the added complexity of being a unit about national fiction. This paper explores the practical problems and obstacles encountered in setting up this unit while using a framework of internationalisation. The case study examines the practicalities in implementing strategies that reflect the overall objective of creating global thinkers within a tertiary environment.

Evolution of the extinct Sabretooths and the American cheetah-like cat

The sabretooths (Smilodon and Homotherium) and the American cheetah-like cat (Miracinonyx) were the top predators in Late Pleistocene America, but became extinct about 13 thousand years ago. As the evolutionary history of these taxa remains poorly understood , we analysed their phylogenetic relationship to extant felids. In contrast to previous molecular studies , our results show that the sabretooths diverge early and are not closely related to any living cats. This supports their morphological placement in a separate subfamily (Machairodontinae). Despite its remarkable morphological similarity to the African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), Miracinonyx appears to have evolved from a puma-like ancestor, presumably in response to similar ecological pressures.

Democracy, Crime and Justice. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences

As a growing number of nations embark on a path to democracy, criminologists have become increasingly interested and engaged in the challenges, concerns, and questions connecting democracy with both crime and criminal justice. Rising levels of violence and street crime, white collar crime and corruption both in countries where democracy is securely in place and where it is struggling, have fuelled a deepening skepticism as to the capacity of democracy to deliver on its promise of security and justice for all citizens. What role does crime and criminal justice play in the future of democracy and for democratic political development on a global level? The editors of this special volume of The Annals realized the importance of collecting research from a broad spectrum of countries and covering a range of problems that affect citizens, politicians, and criminal justice officials. The articles here represent a solid balance between mature democracies like the U.S. and U.K. as well as emerging democracies around the globe – specifically in Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe. They are based on large and small cross-national samples, regional comparisons, and case studies. Each contribution addresses a seminal question for the future of democratic political development across the globe. What is the role of criminal justice in the process of building democracy and instilling confidence in its institutions? Is there a role for unions in democratizing police forces? What is the impact of widespread disenfranchisement of felons on democratic citizenship and the life of democratic institutions? Under what circumstances do mature democracies adopt punitive sentencing regimes? Addressing sensitive topics such as relations between police and the Muslim communities of Western Europe in the wake of terrorist attacks, this volume also sheds light on the effects of terrorism on mature democracies under increasing pressure to provide security for their citizens. By taking a broad vantage point, this collection of research delves into complex topics such as the relationship between the process of democratization and violent crime waves; the impact of rising crime rates on newly established as well as secure democracies; how crime may endanger the transition to democracy; and how existing practices of criminal justice in mature democracies affect their core values and institutions. The collection of these insightful articles not only begins to fill a gap in criminological research but also addresses issues of critical interest to political scientists as well as other social and behavioral scientists and scholars. Taking a fresh approach to the intersection of crime, criminal justice, and democracy, this volume of The Annals is a must-read for criminologists and political scientists and provides a solid foundation for further interdisciplinary research.

Numerical and experimental studies of cold-formed steel floor systems under standard fire conditions

Light gauge cold-formed steel frame (LSF) structures are increasingly used in industrial, commercial and residential buildings because of their non-combustibility, dimensional stability, and ease of installation. A floor-ceiling system is an example of its applications. LSF floor-ceiling systems must be designed to serve as fire compartment boundaries and provide adequate fire resistance. Fire rated floor-ceiling assemblies formed with new materials and construction methodologies have been increasingly used in buildings. However, limited research has been undertaken in the past and hence a thorough understanding of their fire resistance behaviour is not available. Recently a new composite panel in which an external insulation layer is used between two plasterboards has been developed at QUT to provide a higher fire rating to LSF floors under standard fire conditions. But its increased fire rating could not be determined using the currently available design methods. Research on LSF floor systems under fire conditions is relatively recent and the behaviour of floor joists and other components in the systems is not fully understood. The present design methods thus require the use of expensive fire protection materials to protect them from excessive heat increase during a fire. This leads to uneconomical and conservative designs. Fire rating of these floor systems is provided simply by adding more plasterboard sheets to the steel joists and such an approach is totally inefficient. Hence a detailed fire research study was undertaken into the structural and thermal performance of LSF floor systems including those protected by the new composite panel system using full scale fire tests and extensive numerical studies. Experimental study included both the conventional and the new steel floor-ceiling systems under structural and fire loads using a gas furnace designed to deliver heat in accordance with the standard time- temperature curve in AS 1530.4 (SA, 2005). Fire tests included the behavioural and deflection characteristics of LSF floor joists until failure as well as related time-temperature measurements across the section and along the length of all the specimens. Full scale fire tests have shown that the structural and thermal performance of externally insulated LSF floor system was superior than traditional LSF floors with or without cavity insulation. Therefore this research recommends the use of the new composite panel system for cold-formed LSF floor-ceiling systems. The numerical analyses of LSF floor joists were undertaken using the finite element program ABAQUS based on the measured time-temperature profiles obtained from fire tests under both steady state and transient state conditions. Mechanical properties at elevated temperatures were considered based on the equations proposed by Dolamune Kankanamge and Mahendran (2011). Finite element models were calibrated using the full scale test results and used to further provide a detailed understanding of the structural fire behaviour of the LSF floor-ceiling systems. The models also confirmed the superior performance of the new composite panel system. The validated model was then used in a detailed parametric study. Fire tests and the numerical studies showed that plasterboards provided sufficient lateral restraint to LSF floor joists until their failure. Hence only the section moment capacity of LSF floor joists subjected to local buckling effects was considered in this research. To predict the section moment capacity at elevated temperatures, the effective section modulus of joists at ambient temperature is generally considered adequate. However, this research has shown that it leads to considerable over- estimation of the local buckling capacity of joist subject to non-uniform temperature distributions under fire conditions. Therefore new simplified fire design rules were proposed for LSF floor joist to determine the section moment capacity at elevated temperature based on AS/NZS 4600 (SA, 2005), NAS (AISI, 2007) and Eurocode 3 Part 1.3 (ECS, 2006). The accuracy of the proposed fire design rules was verified with finite element analysis results. A spread sheet based design tool was also developed based on these design rules to predict the failure load ratio versus time, moment capacity versus time and temperature for various LSF floor configurations. Idealised time-temperature profiles of LSF floor joists were developed based on fire test measurements. They were used in the detailed parametric study to fully understand the structural and fire behaviour of LSF floor panels. Simple design rules were also proposed to predict both critical average joist temperatures and failure times (fire rating) of LSF floor systems with various floor configurations and structural parameters under any given load ratio. Findings from this research have led to a comprehensive understanding of the structural and fire behaviour of LSF floor systems including those protected by the new composite panel, and simple design methods. These design rules were proposed within the guidelines of the Australian/New Zealand, American and European cold- formed steel structures standard codes of practice. These may also lead to further improvements to fire resistance through suitable modifications to the current composite panel system.

An expressed sequence tag (EST) library for Drosophila serrata, a model system for sexual selection and climatic adaptation studies

The native Australian fly Drosophila serrata belongs to the highly speciose montium subgroup of the melanogaster species group. It has recently emerged as an excellent model system with which to address a number of important questions, including the evolution of traits under sexual selection and traits involved in climatic adaptation along latitudinal gradients. Understanding the molecular genetic basis of such traits has been limited by a lack of genomic resources for this species. Here, we present the first expressed sequence tag (EST) collection for D. serrata that will enable the identification of genes underlying sexually-selected phenotypes and physiological responses to environmental change and may help resolve controversial phylogenetic relationships within the montium subgroup.

Studies of assisted reproduction in the spotted grass frog Limnodynastes tasmaniensis: ovulation, early development and microinjection (ICSI)

Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) offer a wide range of techniques that have the potential to augment efforts to conserve and manage endangered amphibians and improve wild and captive population numbers. Gametes and tissues of species nearing endangered or extinct status can be cryopreserved and stored in gene banks, to provide material that can be utilised in the future as ART methods are refined. The Spotted Grass Frog, Limnodynastes tasmaniensis, is an abundant amphibian species in South-Eastern Australia of the family Myobatrachidae, that is suitable for the development of ART systems that can be applied to the threatened and endangered myobatrachid and other amphibian species native to Australia. The aim of this study was to advance the understanding of ovulation, fertilisation and embryo nic development of Lim. tasmaniensis and in vitro manipulations of reproduction and development for use in the development of advanced ART procedures such as intracytoplasmic spermatozoon injection (ICSI), androgenesis and nuclear transfer. Ovulation in amphibians can be induced by protocols utilising natural or synthetic hormones. All protocols tested on Lim. tasmaniensis in this study required two injections and the most effective protocols continued to require a first injection of pituitary extracts to induce ovulation. The second injection was, however, successfully replaced by synthetic chorionic gonadotrophin at a threshold dosage of 100 iu and halved the number of cane toads required to source the pituitaries. A combination of LHRH and Pimozide offered a less effective protocol, that did not require the use of pituitary extracts, and avoided the risk of pathogen transfer associated with unsterilised pituitary extracts. Unfertilised eggs of Lim. tasmaniensis were exposed to media of various osmolalities to determine media effects on eggs and their surrounding jelly layers that might impact on egg viability and fertilisability. Osmolality had no effect upon the egg diameter, however, rapid swelling of the jelly layers occurred within 15 minutes of exposure to various media treatments and plateaued from 30-90 minutes without further expansion. Swelling of the jelly layers was increased in hypotonic media (2.5% SAR, H2O) and minimised in the isotonic media (100% SAR). The optimal conditions for the culture of Lim. tasmaniensis eggs were identified as a holding media of 100% SAR, followed by a medium change to 2.5% SAR at insemination. This sequence of media minimised the rate of swelling of the jelly layers prior to contact with the spermatozoa, and maximised the activation of spermatozoa and eggs throughout fertilisation and embryonic development. Embryos of Lim. tasmaniensis were cultured at four temperatures (13 C, 17 C, 23 C and 29 C), to determine the effect of temperature on cleavage and embryonic development rates. Embryonic development progressed through a sequence of stages that were not altered by changes in temperature. However cleavage rates were affected by changes in temperature as compared with normal embryonic growth at 23 C. Embryonic development was suspended at the lowest temperature (13 C) while embryonic viability was maintained. A moderate decrease in temperature (17 C) slowed cleavage, while the highest temperature (29 C) increased the cleavage rate, but decreased the embryo survival. Rates of embryonic development can be manipulated by changes in temperature and this method can be used to source blastomeres of a specific size/stage at a predetermined age or halt cleavage at specific stages for embryos or embryo derived cells to be included in ART procedures. This study produced the first report of the application of Intracytoplasmic Spermatozoon Injection (ICSI) in an Australian amphibian. Eggs that were activated by microinjection with a single spermatozoon (n=50) formed more deep, but abnormal, cleavage furrows post-injection (18/50, 36%), than surface changes (12/50, 24%). This result is in contrast to eggs injected without a spermatozoon (n=42), where the majority of eggs displayed limited surface changes (36/42, 86%), and few deep, abnormal furrows (3/42, 7%). Three advanced embryos (3/50, 6%) were produced by ICSI that developed to various stages within the culture system. Technical difficulties were encountered that prevented the generation of any metamorphs from ICSI tadpoles. Nevertheless, when these blocks to ICSI are overcome, the ICSI procedure will be both directly useful as an ART procedure in its own right, and the associated refinement of micromanipulation procedures will assist in the development of other ART procedures in Lim. tasmaniensis. A greater understanding of basic reproductive and developmental biology in Lim. tasmaniensis would greatly facilitate refinement of fertilisation by ICSI. Assisted Reproductive Technologies, in conjunction with gene banks may in the future regenerate extinct amphibian species, and assist in the recovery of declining amphibian populations nationally and worldwide.

Restoration of native folding of single-stranded DNA sequences through reverse mutations: an indication of a new epigenetic mechanism

We used in vivo (biological), in silico (computational structure prediction), and in vitro (model sequence folding) analyses of single-stranded DNA sequences to show that nucleic acid folding conservation is the selective principle behind a high-frequency single-nucleotide reversion observed in a three-nucleotide mutated motif of the Maize streak virus replication associated protein (Rep) gene. In silico and in vitro studies showed that the three-nucleotide mutation adversely affected Rep nucleic acid folding, and that the single-nucleotide reversion [C(601)A] restored wild-type-like folding. In vivo support came from infecting maize with mutant viruses: those with Rep genes containing nucleotide changes predicted to restore a wild-type-like fold [A(601)/G(601)] preferentially accumulated over those predicted to fold differently [C(601)/T(601)], which frequently reverted to A(601) and displaced the original population. We propose that the selection of native nucleic acid folding is an epigenetic effect, which might have broad implications in the evolution of plants and their viruses.

Molecular dynamics studies of the effects of branching characteristics on the crystalline structure of polyethylene

Molecular dynamics simulations were carried out on single chain models of linear low-density polyethylene in vacuum to study the effects of branch length, branch content, and branch distribution on the polymer’s crystalline structure at 300 K. The trans/gauche (t/g) ratios of the backbones of the modeled molecules were calculated and utilized to characterize their degree of crystallinity. The results show that the t/g ratio decreases with increasing branch content regardless of branch length and branch distribution, indicating that branch content is the key molecular parameter that controls the degree of crystallinity. Although t/g ratios of the models with the same branch content vary, they are of secondary importance. However, our data suggests that branch distribution (regular or random) has a significant effect on the degree of crystallinity for models containing 10 hexyl branches/1,000 backbone carbons. The fractions of branches that resided in the equilibrium crystalline structures of the models were also calculated. On average, 9.8% and 2.5% of the branches were found in the crystallites of the molecules with ethyl and hexyl branches while C13 NMR experiments showed that the respective probabilities of branch inclusion for ethyl and hexyl branches are 10% and 6% [Hosoda et al., Polymer 1990, 31, 1999–2005]. However, the degree of branch inclusion seems to be insensitive to the branch content and branch distribution.

First-principle studies of the formation and diffusion of hydrogen vacancies in magnesium hydride

Ab initio density functional theory (DFT) calculations are performed to study the formation and diffusion of hydrogen vacancies on MgH2(110) surface and in bulk. We find that the formation energies for a single H-vacancy increase slightly from the surface to deep layers. The energies for creating adjacent surface divancacies at two inplane sites and at an inplane and a bridge site are even smaller than that for the formation of a single H-vacancy, a fact that is attributed to the strong vacancy−vacancy interactions. The diffusion of an H-vacancy from an in-plane site to a bridge site on the surface has the smallest activation barrier calculated at 0.15 eV and should be fast at room temperature. The activation barriers computed for H-vacancy diffusion from the surface into sublayers are all less than 0.70 eV, which is much smaller than the activation energy for desorption of hydrogen on the MgH2(110) surface (1.78−2.80 eV/H2). This suggests that surface desorption is more likely than vacancy diffusion to be rate determining, such that finding effective catalyst on the MgH2 surface to facilitate desorption will be very important for improving overall dehydrogenation performance.