School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications
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ItemThe Adaptation of Tertiary Admissions Practices to Growth and Diversity(La Trobe University, 2016)The expansion of higher education places adaptive pressure on institutional and policy frameworks that were originally designed at times of lower levels of participation. This adaptive pressure is evident in changes to admission and selection practices, and has become more acute with the introduction of demand driven funding for undergraduate Commonwealth supported places. Universities seeking to optimise their market share in line with their values and strategic objectives are increasingly utilising direct admissions rather than historically dominant state centralised admissions processes. Direct entry pathways are also being utilised by some institutions as a means of increasing their share of disadvantaged students in particular. Both centralised and direct admissions pathways are also drawing on contextual data – such as the geo-demographic background of the applicant, school attended, perceived academic potential, or volunteer and community service – in the assessment process (Harvey 2014). The growth and complexity of university admissions practices raises two key questions. First, what impact is rising complexity in admissions practices having on student decision-making, with particular emphasis on students from disadvantaged backgrounds? And, second, how are universities and state-based tertiary admissions centres (TACs) responding to the challenges associated with rising student participation, diversity and mobility, as well as complexity in admissions practice?
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ItemHaving a Hunch(“Gh Zane” Institute for Economic and Social Research, The Romanian Academy, 2023)It has recently been argued that when one conducts an inquiry into some question one ought to suspend belief with respect to that question. But what about hunches? In this short note, a hunch about the cause of a phenomenon is described. The hunch plays a role in the inquiry into the cause of the phenomenon. It appears that the hunch constitutes a belief that need not be suspended during the inquiry even though belief about the precise cause of the phenomenon is suspended.
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ItemAdolescent ambivalence about diabetes technology-The Janus faces of automated care(WILEY-HINDAWI, 2022-10-09)The Janus face metaphor approach highlights that a technology may simultaneously have two opposite faces or properties with unforeseen paradoxes within human-technology interaction. Suboptimal acceptance and clinical outcomes are sometimes seen in adolescents who use diabetes-related technologies. A traditional linear techno-determinist model of technology use would ascribe these unintended outcomes to suboptimal technology, suboptimal patient behavior, or suboptimal outcome measures. This paradigm has demonstratively not been successful at universally improving clinical outcomes over the last two decades. Alternatively, the Janus face metaphor moves away from a linear techno-determinist model and focuses on the dynamic interaction of the human condition and technology. Specifically, it can be used to understand variance in adoption or successful use of diabetes-related technology and to retrospectively understand suboptimal outcomes. The Janus face metaphor also allows for a prospective exploration of potential impacts of diabetes-related technology by patients, families, and their doctors so as to anticipate and minimize potential subsequent tensions.
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ItemHow often do cancer researchers make their data and code available and what factors are associated with sharing?(BMC, 2022-11-09)BACKGROUND: Various stakeholders are calling for increased availability of data and code from cancer research. However, it is unclear how commonly these products are shared, and what factors are associated with sharing. Our objective was to evaluate how frequently oncology researchers make data and code available and explore factors associated with sharing. METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis of a random sample of 306 cancer-related articles indexed in PubMed in 2019 which studied research subjects with a cancer diagnosis was performed. All articles were independently screened for eligibility by two authors. Outcomes of interest included the prevalence of affirmative sharing declarations and the rate with which declarations connected to data complying with key FAIR principles (e.g. posted to a recognised repository, assigned an identifier, data license outlined, non-proprietary formatting). We also investigated associations between sharing rates and several journal characteristics (e.g. sharing policies, publication models), study characteristics (e.g. cancer rarity, study design), open science practices (e.g. pre-registration, pre-printing) and subsequent citation rates between 2020 and 2021. RESULTS: One in five studies declared data were publicly available (59/306, 19%, 95% CI: 15-24%). However, when data availability was investigated this percentage dropped to 16% (49/306, 95% CI: 12-20%), and then to less than 1% (1/306, 95% CI: 0-2%) when data were checked for compliance with key FAIR principles. While only 4% of articles that used inferential statistics reported code to be available (10/274, 95% CI: 2-6%), the odds of reporting code to be available were 5.6 times higher for researchers who shared data. Compliance with mandatory data and code sharing policies was observed in 48% (14/29) and 0% (0/6) of articles, respectively. However, 88% of articles (45/51) included data availability statements when required. Policies that encouraged data sharing did not appear to be any more effective than not having a policy at all. The only factors associated with higher rates of data sharing were studying rare cancers and using publicly available data to complement original research. CONCLUSIONS: Data and code sharing in oncology occurs infrequently, and at a lower rate than would be expected given the prevalence of mandatory sharing policies. There is also a large gap between those declaring data to be available, and those archiving data in a way that facilitates its reuse. We encourage journals to actively check compliance with sharing policies, and researchers consult community-accepted guidelines when archiving the products of their research.
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ItemAugmenting Semantic Lexicons Using Word Embeddings and Transfer Learning(FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2022-01-24)Sentiment-aware intelligent systems are essential to a wide array of applications. These systems are driven by language models which broadly fall into two paradigms: Lexicon-based and contextual. Although recent contextual models are increasingly dominant, we still see demand for lexicon-based models because of their interpretability and ease of use. For example, lexicon-based models allow researchers to readily determine which words and phrases contribute most to a change in measured sentiment. A challenge for any lexicon-based approach is that the lexicon needs to be routinely expanded with new words and expressions. Here, we propose two models for automatic lexicon expansion. Our first model establishes a baseline employing a simple and shallow neural network initialized with pre-trained word embeddings using a non-contextual approach. Our second model improves upon our baseline, featuring a deep Transformer-based network that brings to bear word definitions to estimate their lexical polarity. Our evaluation shows that both models are able to score new words with a similar accuracy to reviewers from Amazon Mechanical Turk, but at a fraction of the cost.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableBones of Contention: Social Acceptance of Digital Cemetery Technologies(ACM, 2023-04-19)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableInvestigating the efficacy of interleaving materials in the preservation of plasticised PVC slip-cover notebooks in Yang Zhichao’s artwork Chinese Bible(Routledge, 2022-10)Plasticised poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC-P) is known to degrade rapidly and emit acidic gases and, as such, it is ideally stored separately from other materials. However, due to historic or aesthetic value, PVC-P book covers in paper-based collections cannot always be removed or replaced. There is currently a gap in the literature addressing strategies for storing PVC-P associated with paper materials. Prompted by a case study of the Chinese artist Yang Zhichao’s Chinese Bible (2009)—a performance installation artwork of 3000 notebooks including approximately 1000 notebooks with PVC-P covers—three potential interleaving materials (Mylar®, Hollytex® and buffered tissue) were tested to simulate use during long-term storage. Notebooks and PVC-P book covers were purchased and assembled to model stacked storage conditions, and thermally aged at 70°C and 50% relative humidity for 130 days. Before and after ageing, samples were analysed using visual examination techniques, ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, colourimetry and weighing. It was found that all three interleaving materials lowered the probability of ink offsetting. However, cover deformation and a blotchy surface haze were more commonly observed in interleaved samples compared to non-interleaved samples. More research is necessary to identify a suitable strategy to manage PVC-P degradation in close contact storage with paper materials. This study contributes to a better understanding of the storage of plastic-covered books that may be found in libraries and archives, highlighting the complexity of conserving plastic and paper composite materials.
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ItemNo Preview Available‘They Call Me Babu’: The Politics of Visibility and Gendered Memories of Dutch Colonialism in Indonesia(Routledge, 2022)The 2019 documentary film They Call Me Babu utilises historical film footage including the home movies of one Dutch family with a voiceover in Bahasa Indonesia to narrate the fictionalised experiences of a former female domestic worker in the colony of the Netherlands East Indies in the closing decades of Dutch colonial rule from 1939 to 1949. By centring the experiences of ‘babu’, women who worked as nannies and nursemaids for families holding European status, and giving the main character of the film agency, the Dutch-Indonesian director Sarah Beerends endeavours to make these women visible and to narrate their viewpoints. In this paper we argue, however, that the director’s aspiration to centre the women’s stories is haunted by the spectres of the colonial matrix of power. This leads to the unintended replication of nostalgic images of, and tropes about, the colony that has characterised earlier Dutch memory work. The film does not offer a critical engagement with colonial violence and the colonial structures of power are instead positioned as contributing to the nanny’s gendered emancipation. Furthermore, we reflect on why, in the context of recent vociferous debates about colonial violence, a film which serves to soften images of Dutch colonialism, was generally well received.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableSafe Storage? An Assessment of Polyethylene for the Storage of Heritage Objects(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2023-08-18)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableCollaborative Development of Polymer-Based Collection Survey Methodology and Relational Data Model(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2022-03-15)