Minerva Elements Records
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 10 of 1116
-
ItemPre-service education of the Australian Visual Communication Design teacher: Perceptions and practices of teacher educators( 2019)Each year in the Australian state of Victoria, approximately 12,000 senior secondary school students enrol in the subject of Visual Communication Design, its curriculum unique to Victorian schools and liberating design from its popular pairings with Visual Arts or Technology studies. However, as a learning area offered under the umbrella of The Arts, Visual Communication Design is predominantly delivered by Visual Arts specialists, who may or may not have been exposed to understandings of design in their previous studies or teacher training. In fact, only one Victorian tertiary institution specifically prepares teachers of Visual Communication Design, with all others embedding design pedagogical training alongside Visual Arts in pre-service teacher education programs. Of interest then, is the nature and extent of Victorian design teacher training when merged with art teacher education, and most significantly, the role of the teacher educator in shaping conceptions of best practice design pedagogy. This thesis, therefore, investigates how teacher educators’ perceptions of design, design pedagogy and the subject of Visual Communication Design have shaped Visual Arts and Design teacher education programs, and the extent to which teacher candidates are prepared for the enactment of Visual Communication Design curriculum. As a qualitative, cross-case analysis, it examines the lived experiences and personal ideologies of three teacher educators working in Victorian institutions, their insights gathered during hour-long semi-structured interviews, and illuminating the teacher educator’s significant influence on the nature of pre-service design teacher training. Despite sharing an appreciation for design as a distinct formal language, each of the teacher educators interviewed for this study reject the notion of explicitly cultivating design pedagogical content knowledge amongst teacher candidates, choosing instead to facilitate student-led inquiry into perceived areas of need, and nurture general teaching attributes of benefit across Arts domains. Their stories also reveal multifarious understandings of design and Visual Communication Design curriculum, problematic assumptions of subject content knowledge pre-existing amongst student cohorts, and a tendency to downplay rather than deconstruct art and design’s distinct methodologies. In response, I argue that limited exposure to design pedagogical content knowledge in Visual Arts and Design teacher education compromises teacher candidates’ capacity to evolve ‘classroom ready’ understandings of Visual Communication Design pedagogy and curriculum. I also call for recognition in teacher education of art and design’s discrete methodologies, for debate about both their fusion and division in secondary education, and for teacher educators to model informed notions of design and design pedagogy whilst building a culture of practice for future teachers of Visual Communication Design. This study draws from ideas of effective design instruction in higher education, cognitive apprenticeship theory, Shulman’s concepts of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and signature pedagogies, Dewey’s laboratory model of teacher training and Schon’s theory of reflective practice. The adoption of complexity theory as its framework acknowledges not only the dynamic conditions that govern how and what teacher educators teach, but also the complexity characterising design’s exchange with art both in and beyond Victorian teacher education.
-
ItemCreating an interactive music diffusion system( 2019)In this study I take a phenomenological approach to music composition, improvisation and sound system design. I apply the writing of author Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism to formulate an approach to composition and interactive design. I test whether it is possible to convert themes of Zuboff’s book into an interactive work of art which is relevant. I apply my research to the creation of an interactive sound installation based upon a Behavioural Value Reinvestment Cycle model. I explain my personal epoche, an interactive camera system, electro-acoustic music diffusion designs, audio software, and detail the development of the interactive music diffusion system design. I include descriptions of my compositions with accompanying sound recordings. A total of twelve compositions have been created for the purposes of this research. The music creation applies two approaches termed as either surveillance or conscious music. Surveillance music is composed by incorporating a camera for interactive outcomes. Conscious music compositions are works created in response to researching surveillance capitalism. To conclude I review and summarise my phenomenological experience and findings.
-
ItemTaiwan in Their Hands: cultural soft power and translocal identity making in the New York Taiwan Academy( 2019)In 2011, Kuomintang (KMT) President Ma Ying-jeou created the Taiwan Academies as a cultural exchange initiative to enhance Taiwan’s soft power and introduce Taiwan’s culture to the world, while also competing against China for space in the realm of competing notions of Chineseness internationally. Three Taiwan Academy resource centres were established that year in New York, Los Angeles, and Houston. This thesis presents a historical case study analysis of the Taiwan Academy resource centre in New York between 2012-2014, in order to examine the context of production of soft power discourse and the empirical consequences within a specific program, among a target audience. To this end, it examines soft power from the perspective of translocality, in order to uncover the often-overlooked socio-cultural, relational, and spatial aspects of cultural strategies aimed at generating soft power. This study responds to two central research questions. First: what kind(s) of cultural messages were being produced and exported to New York by Ma's administration in Taipei? Second: how were these messages translated, interpreted and received in practice, in their implementation at the New York Taiwan Academy? To address these, this research first re-conceptualises a de-Westernised, localised framework for interpreting cultural soft power discourse under Ma’s KMT administration. It then considers Taipei’s strategy of generating cultural soft power through Taiwan Academy from two perspectives: from “above”, in Taipei, and “below”, in New York. From “above”, it evaluates Taiwan Academy as a political strategy, in relation to relevant domestic, cross-Strait, and international contexts. From “below”, this study conducts a grounded analysis of two Taiwan Academy cultural programs and the translocal processes and practices that re-/defined the role of Taiwan Academy in New York. The conclusion integrates these two perspectives in order to address the dynamics and limits of Ma’s use of cultural soft power within the Taiwan Academy. In doing so, this thesis aims to explicate the contingent, relational, and inherently translocal nature of soft power practice.
-
ItemIn The Middle Of A Dream: The Craft and Phenomenology of Songwriting( 2019)In the Middle of a Dream Abstract, the count in One two three FOUR! The notion of 'song' is ubiquitous in Western culture but not much is known about songwriting which is odd considering how many songs have been written. At a formal level, songs and the way in which they are made are discussed infrequently. “While scholars and institutions have for some time studied and taught popular music from a socio-cultural perspective, a review of songwriting- process literature (C. Harrison, 2012d) reveals that popular, contemporary songwriting practice has not been widely researched academically...” How are the ideas generated? Do they arrive fully formed as if channelled from a higher place or are they conceived, written and assembled like other forms of creative endeavour? In fact, on a fundamental level are popular songs even actually written like the Lieder of Schumann or made from bits and pieces jammed in a recording studio? This project is a study of my practice as a songwriter. It has been pursued through the writing of a suite of songs and documented in a folio of notes, lead sheets and recordings, a live performance and accompanying dissertation. However, the recordings and performance are only to establish the fact that the writing took place for it is the writing of songs I have examined and not the making of records. In this regard I have diverged from the emerging scholarly discipline of the art of record production to focus primarily on the creation of the performable or recordable artefact. The recordings provided an end point to the writing process as well as documenting the finished works. References to the recording sessions note where changes to the compositions resulted and how the research was impacted. The songs were written with the sole intention of determining how they were written and not to create a stylistically or thematically unified whole. On the contrary my aim was to write as varied a selection of material as I could. It did not matter if the songs were any good or not. It didn’t matter if the recordings or the performances captured there on were proficient. Even studying the writing of a dreadful song would reveal a process worth avoiding. And the making of many a bad record has resulted in the occasional hit. In his book Song Writers on Song Writing4 Paul Zollo refers to three stages in the creation of a popular song, the writing, arranging and recording. I have focused solely on the first stage and from a songwriter’s ‘insider’ perspective. That being said there did develop a phenomenological and self-referential narrative as the writing proceeded and the study of the creative process tended to feedback into itself. At times this self-referencing considered the author’s autobiographical significance, the influence of the research on the research and interactions with participants. A reflective journal documenting the predetermined and accidental methods involved relates back to relevant popular and academic expositions. The following people have supported and helped me along the way and for that I thank them, Dr Robert Vincs for direction, advice and tastefully appropriate playing and Dr Tim Nikolsky for encouragement, organisation and great time. Gratitude also to the musicians who played on the recordings, Serge de Lucio, Margot Leighton, Anthony Barnhill and Daniel Berry and to Rohan Wallis for a finely tuned aesthetic. Particular appreciation for Niko Schauble’s input, he played on a couple, engineered some, mixed most and mastered all of the tracks with skill, generosity and good humour.
-
ItemLaparoscopic & Laparoscopically-Assisted Surgery in Rabbits: Comparison of Isobaric and Insufflated Laparoscopic Techniques to Open Laparotomy( 2019)The use of laparoscopic surgery for routine procedures such as ovariohysterectomy has been well described for dogs and is common in humans. Rabbits have been previously used as models for human laparoscopic surgery and training models for paediatric surgery, however reported use of clinical laparoscopy in rabbits is rare. There are concerns for use of laparoscopic surgery in rabbits due to the effects of the insufflation on ventilation and the risk of increased morbidity from the insufflation contributing to gastrointestinal stasis, a common and life-threatening complication of any surgery in rabbits. This study is designed to quantify and characterise the changes in the postoperative morbidity between open, insufflated and isobaric laparoscopy in healthy adult rabbits. The hypotheses were that use of isobaric laparoscopy will decrease the morbidity of ovariohysterectomy procedures compared to open and insufflated ovariohysterectomy at the expense of increased surgical time. Various investigations were performed over the research project, including a technical viability cadaveric study, a study describing the effects of isobaric and insufflated pneumoperitoneum on ventilatory capability and abdominal dimensions, a study describing the clinical implementation of a Rabbit Grimace Pain score and Behavioural Pain Score in the detection of postoperative pain, and a clinical trial assessing the effects of both laparoscopy methods and comparing them with open laparotomy for ovariohysterectomy. The overall findings of the study support the implementation of isobaric laparoscopy in the rabbit, and the use of laparoscopy in general as a method of reducing postoperative morbidity compared with equivalent laparotomy approaches.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableAutism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Anaesthesia( 2019)This thesis addresses the question of what is the best evidence-based management for children with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) coming under anaesthetic care in the hospital setting. The increasing prevalence of ASD (1) has meant that most anaesthetists need to become proficient in understanding and managing children with ASD. Children with ASD have higher hospital contact than their neurotypical peers.(2) Behavioural problems, sensory sensitivities, language deficit, and inflexibility with change contribute to the difficulties experienced by children with ASD in the hospital setting. (3)Hospitals may be inherently challenging to children with ASD: being inflexible places, with the sound of crying children, with invasive monitoring techniques and bright lights.(4) One unpleasant anaesthetic experience can lead to heightened anxiety and future refusal to attend hospital. In order to find the context for best anaesthetic care, we have reviewed the existing literature about ASD and its management in chapter one. The first part of chapter two is a review of anxiety and premedication in general terms. The evidence for current best practices in managing children with ASD in the perioperative period is outlined in the second part of chapter two. To further understand the family and staff perspective of optimal care, we conducted a qualitative study of 29 individuals including 15 parents of children with ASD who had had a recent anaesthetic and 14 staff members that had looked after them in different capacities at two hospitals in Melbourne, Australia in chapter three. Chapter four contains discussion and conclusion. It includes discussion about the discontinued preparation/premedication trial (CLOMID). The flaws in the design and obstacles in its execution are examined. Our data showed important organisational, educational and resource matters. Problems such as prolong waiting for an operation date, lack of training of staff including anaesthetists and nurses, lack of availability of simple equipment and private spaces in the recovery rooms- were to be addressed. Good communication, clear explanation, and friendly attitudes as well as flexibility and individualised care of patients were considered useful. The supplementary material includes a protocol for a preparation /premedication study that has not been concluded as well as two social stories that I have designed.
-
ItemWitnessing Virtual Realities: Mediating perspectives through Novel Technology( 2019)The historical techniques of journalism were orientated around an ideology of disinterest where the educated democratic subject would be informed and “hear both sides” – but today with new algorithmic techniques of affect management (virtual reality, VR) and discovery (social media), any such disinterest is clearly not central to how journalistic knowledge is transmitted, if it ever was. Therefore, what are the techniques of visual mediation that are appropriate to these new conditions? By locating my research with this question, I aim to use it as a conceptual basis for making artwork that positions the viewer outside the sphere of contemporary journalism looking in. Works that heighten and reveal the fallacy and contradiction of contemporary journalism practices through novel technologies to spark a critical dialogue of it
-
ItemProbabilistic Energy Management Systems in PV-Rich Communities( 2019)Increasing popularity of renewable and Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and introduction of smart meters are changing the way electricity distribution grids have been operated. The stochastic nature of renewable sources adds new challenges to distribution grid operations. Communities, which are defined as groups of individual customers that utilise renewable energy sources, are especially impacted by these challenges due to their lack of scale and know-how. In this thesis, we focus on PV-rich communities that have a number of end-users equipped with rooftop photovoltaic (PV) panels without any local storage. For such PV-rich communities, it would be beneficial to model and analyse the statistical properties of DERs and their demand. Historical data can help understand the stochastic behaviour of community DER and demand, and model them as random sequences. These random sequences are used as a basis for optimal decision-making on financial contracts between communities and energy generators. Unlike stochastic optimisation, forecasting, and the Monte Carlo simulation, our methodology enables PV-rich communities to conduct long-term planning, spot-market exposure risk analysis, fine-tuning power purchase agreements, and a good understanding of statistical properties of distribution networks utilising PV systems. Our approach benefits from data science and uses models and existing data in a computationally efficient manner. With the help of our proposed model-based tool, communities are able to plan their long term financial agreements without conducting a high number of simulations.
-
ItemAn approach to using digital technology in scenic design for low budget performance( 2019)This practice-based research is an exploration of current, accessible, digital technology and the impact it is having on visual-based scenic design for live performance. This is examined through my freelance art and design practice, which includes areas such as, props, sculpture, set design/construction and model making. This project considers visual-based digital technology in the process of creating scenic design solutions for low budget performance productions of less than $20,000.00 in total production costs (excluding personnel costs), taking typical profit share productions as the template. It focuses on accessible projection hardware and interactive visual software. Drawing from a range of digital based theorists and performance practitioners, I review the current use of digital technology in providing visual scenic design solutions for performance. This includes examples of recent productions that use visual based digital solutions in performance. Cost effective, accessible options inspired by these examples are then investigated through my practice and discussed here. The staging of an exemplar low budget performance ‘Absolute Uncertainty’ (less than $12000 allocated costs, including in kind support and donations) is documented in the accompanying video files. This includes unedited video of a dress rehearsal (titled: Absolute Uncertainty 480p.m4v), and video samples of three rehearsals, two at the start of the rehearsal process (May 2017) and one toward the end of the rehearsal process (August 2017). These followed three months of preproduction and experimentation. The final outcome of this project is the development of an adaptable, lightweight, easily configurable projection system that may be used as the core element in scenic design for low budget performance productions. The processes involved in this are discussed and evaluated through the staging and presentation of Absolute Uncertainty, and two other performances I worked on prior to ‘Absolute Uncertainty’, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Latecomers, where I developed and experimented with concepts. The focus of this discussion is on the usefulness of digital projection in different environments, digital projection and other visual technologies ability to effectively create a performance environment and the quick adaptability of these technologies in the development and staging, including blocking for low budget production.
-
ItemNon-smokers, Non-drinkers: Assessing surgical outcomes in a clinically distinct cohort of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma patients( 2019)Background Tobacco and alcohol intake are responsible for approximately 65-70% and 20-35% respectively of oral squamous cell carcinomas (SCC). Non-smoking, non-drinking (NSND) patients represent approximately 13-35% of the oral SCC population and are more likely to be young (Mean 20-35 years) or elderly (Over 70 years) females with a predilection for tongue, gingivae and lower lip sites. Although approximately 24% of head and neck cancers occur in patients over 70 years old, there are few published reports of oral SCC in elderly patients. This group appears to be characterized by a higher proportion of NSND females. Bone invasion by oral SCC necessitates jaw resection. Ideally, pre-operative imaging can be used to guide resection. The current rate of non-invaded mandible resections ranges between 20 and 100%. Even with free-flap reconstruction, segmental resection still results in cosmetic and functional deficits, donor site morbidity and significant physiological strain resulting in increased risk, prolonged recovery and need for rehabilitation. Decreased physiological reserve and multiple medical co-morbidities make complex surgery undesirable in an elderly population. Marginal resection aims to maintain bony continuity to avoid complex reconstruction. Objectives The objectives of this study were: 1. Examine differences in survival and clinical outcomes of elderly patients without traditional risk factors presenting with oral squamous cell carcinoma. 2. Determine the accuracy of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at identifying bone invasion in oral SCC. Materials & Methods Retrospective review of 287 consecutive patients divided into 2 treatment period cohorts treated for oral SCC between the 1st Jan 2007 and 31st Dec 2012.. Patients were classified as either smoker-drinkers (SD) or non-smoking, non-drinking (NSND). Only patients with oral sub-site primaries according to ICD-10 were included. Carcinomas of the lip, tonsil, base of tongue and oro-pharyngeal sub-sites were excluded. A subset of 109 patients who underwent mandibular resection were also reviewed for bone invasion. 83 of these patients had pre-operative CT imaging studies of diagnostic quality available for review and 72 underwent MRI which were compared to histological resection specimens. Results Of the study population (N=287), 24.4% were NSND and 9.75% were NSND elderly (older than 70 years) females. Disease specific survival at 5 years was significantly reduced when NSND elderly females were compared to all other patients (p <0.001) as well as age matched controls (p = 0.006). This effect was verified independently in each cohort. Bone invasion was detected in 44 out of 109 (40.4%) resection specimens. Bone invasion was identified on CT imaging in 31 out of 83 cases (37.3%) and by MRI in 35 out of 72 cases (48.6%). The sensitivity and specificity of CT for detecting bone invasion was 69.0% and 79.6% respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of MRI for detecting bone invasion was 87.1% and 80.5% respectively. Conclusions The results of this study suggest that NSND elderly females are a distinct patient population with poorer disease specific survival outcomes and that negative imaging studies should not preclude an oncologically safe bony resection if indicated on clinical grounds.