CONNECT: RESEARCH & INNOVATION NEWS November - December 2013 issue tedXuwollongong launches lively ideas Investigating liveability with architects, scholars, designers and engineers weighing in on what makes a better tomorrow
aTSE FELLOWSHIP FOR CLEAN ENERGY INNOVATOR Professor Hua Kun Liu has been announced as an Australian Academy of Technological Sciences Fellow for 2013
celebrating our nHMRC grant success From ageing and neurogenerative disease to physical activity among young children: UOW’s new health research projects
The University of Wollongong ranks in the top 2% of research universities worldwide
Research & Innovation News is the research magazine of the University of Wollongong. Contact: Research Services Office Building 20, Level 1 University of Wollongong Northfields Ave, Wollongong NSW, Australia, 2522
Source: QS World University Rankings 2012/2013 Subscriptions: Visit www.uow.edu.au/research to subscribe to electronic versions of Research & Innovation News. This Publication is produced by: Sharon Martin Vicky Wallace Melissa Coade Email: research@uow.edu.au With thanks to our other UOW contributors.
For daily updates, follow uowresearch
Contents
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04 message from dv-c (RESEARCH)
Professor Judy Raper talks about the year that’s been and the importance of ‘impact’ in research
06 Awards
Celebrating UOW’s National Health and Medical Research Council Grants
08 protecting antarctica
Toxicity tests on Antarctic terrestrial flora? All part of Honours work for Anna Nydahl’s Conservation Biology degree. Read her report
12 profile
Geochronologist Dr Zenobia Jacobs cares a great deal about human history, second only to her passion for the future plight of animals
20 student profile
Candice Visser dives into issues that lie deep on the seabed floor, exploring interactions between legal regimes at the edge of the continental shelf
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Travel tale
Everything was up in the air for Dr Jenny Fisher when she joined a special group of scientists who took part in a NASA-led study of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition
26 opinion
Nutritition expert Professor Linda Tapsell explains how human metabolism, nutrition and the chemical composition of nuts makes for a heart-happy diet
28 new staff
Gaphic Designer Angelina Marcon-Jones has joined the school of Creative Arts. Last year she instructed the design students who shaped the design and marketing strategies for UOW’s Solar Decathlon China winners
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NEWS
Message from the DV-C (Research)
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Judy Raper
We must continue to strive to ensure that the great research we do has real impact on industry, the community or public policy.
As we near the end of 2013, we can reflect on the many changes we have seen at UOW as well as the political environment. At UOW we have a new strategic plan, reinforcing our strong commitment to research excellence, to helping solve the world’s major challenges and to making an impact in our local community, nationally and internationally. Last year’s release of the Excellence of Research in Australia (ERA) outcomes focused attention on the improvement of Australian research since the last assessment in 2010. Now we are anticipating another ERA round in 2015. At the same time there has also been much talk about the importance of ‘impact’ and how we might measure it. The G08 and ATN Universities released the results of their impact assessment trial in which they nominated research outputs with tangible benefits. Not surprisingly, the case studies show that Australian research can have a significant impact. Whether ‘impact’ will be a part of the next ERA round, or it is assessed in a separate exercise, we must continue to strive to ensure the great research we do has real impact on industry, the community or public policy. And we need to ensure that we keep track of, and measure these impacts. Our Global Challenges Program, launched in July, attempts to capture the increasing international recognition of the importance of large scale, multidisciplinary research
programs to solve the world’s ‘grand challenges’ in areas that will benefit future generations. The way we live and interact with each other is changing at a rapid pace. Technology, for example is now embedded in all we do, from holding business meetings online to ordering groceries on our smart phones. People are enjoying easier access to their friends and family via social media and advances in medical research have enabled us to enjoy longer, healthier lives than ever before. How will economic changes impact on manufacturing-based regions? What transformations will we need to make to ensure a longer life is also a better life for our ageing population? Is it possible to start from scratch when it comes to designing a more sustainable coastal environment? These Global Challenge programs have some common characteristics. They combine the excellence of investigatordriven, disciplinary research on which much of ERA is focussed, with the importance and benefits of contributing to real-world problems. That is what impact is all about. Not only will research outcomes be improved, but the fundamental objective is to benefit the public. After all, isn’t that why universities exist? At UOW, we are looking forward to making a real impact on these issues in the near and long terms.
The rise and rise of Global Challenges Enabling researchers to address the ‘big picture problems’ of our world, Global Challenges (GC) focuses on three major challenges under the unifying theme of Transforming Lives and Regions.The Program has attracted a passionate trio of academics to lead each of the challenges: Professor Lorna Moxham, for the challenge of Living Well, Longer; Professor Stuart Kaye, for Sustaining Coastal and Marine Zones; and Professor Geoff Spinks, for Manufacturing Innovation. GC has launched a major research project that aims to improve coastal fisheries management in the Pacific region to focus on the island nations of Kiribati,, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. It brings together the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) and AusAID which are at the forefront of responding to climate change. 4
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The initiative, worth $3.8 million over four years, aligns with the Sustaining Coastal and Marine Zones challenge with the aim to ensure food security and social stability in the face of a shortfall in fish supply in the coming decades. GC has also signed a MOU with the Southern Councils Group that comprises
local councils along the NSW South Coast, and Manly Hydraulics Laboratory to target such critical issues as rising sea levels and coastal hazard management. GC is also nurturing smaller projects through seed funding grants. Successful applicants for seed funding will be announced in November. Watch this space.
NEWS
“Small talk” in Taiwan as Nano Week brings IPRI to Asia
The latest Australian advances in patient treatment using medical bionics devices for drug delivery, as well as nerve and muscle regeneration have been put on show when UOW researchers teamed up with their Taiwanese collaborators for the 2013 Nano Week Exhibition in Taipei. Nano Week Taiwan includes the 11th Annual Taiwan Nano Exhibition that demonstrates the latest achievements in nanotechnology research to representatives from Government, industry and academic research institutes. Australian researchers were among a select group of international teams invited to host an exhibit and present talks on their work in the field. Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) Director Professor Gordon Wallace delivered a keynote speech at Nano Week focusing on building nano features into medical devices and a trade stand showcasing the Institute’s 3D printing capabilities drew considerable interest at the exhibition. “We have been building an innovation pipeline that generates and develops ideas within ACES and gets knowledge about
Top. Prof Gordon Wallace adresses visitors at the Taipei World Trade Centre, Pictured at the Nano Exhibition with Taiwanese students above are (centre) A/Prof Simon Moulton, Dr Robin Gorkin and A/Prof Peter Innis.
practical advances to the market place as quickly as possible,” Professor Wallace said. “In many projects we will not have all the skills involved readily at hand. The Taiwan electronics industry is globally recognised – if we can couple that expertise to our biomaterials developments we can progress the field of bionics much more effectively.” Researchers from IPRI are collaborating with scientists from the Taiwan National Program on Nanotechnology (NPNT) and the Biomedical Electronics Translational Research Centre (BETRC) from the National Ciao Tung University, Taiwan to tackle global challenges it the fields of energy and health. These include medical implants for epilepsy detection and control as well as wearable electronics diagnostics, monitoring and rehabilitation. The Exhibition attracts more than 10,000 visitors each year, with attendees ranging from industry and academics to visits by school children. >>Read more about the Taiwan Nano Exhibition http://bit.ly/1ffBuSa
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AWATR AWARDS feature
NHMRC Grants give healthy boost to research The University of Wollongong has won grants to lead five different health research projects from ageing and neuro degenerative diseases to the physical activity of young children. The Prime Minister, the Hon Tony Abbott MP together with the Minister for Health, the Hon Peter Dutton MP, recently announced funding outcomes for National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grants to commence in 2014. UOW researchers have been awarded a total of $3.4M in funding for five Project Grants and one Translating Research into Practice (TRIP) Fellowship. “These are outstanding results. The UOW success rate and total funding awarded for Project Grants is the highest we have achieved since 2009,” Deputy ViceChancellor (Research) Professor Raper said. GIVING CHILD OBESITY THE BOOT Early Childhood Expert Professor Tony Okely, with his team, Professor Stewart Trost, Professor Donna Berthelsen, Professor Jo Salmon, Professor John Reilly, Dr Dylan Cliff, Dr Rachel Jones, Dr Marijka Batterham, Professor Ngiare Brown and Professor Simon Eckermann, have received total funding of $1,064,324 over 4 years. Child obesity and physical inactivity have been identified as high priority health education concerns. Educators’ lack of skills and confidence in promoting physical activity 6
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and motor skill development, are where this UOW project is expected to make the biggest difference. The project is the first national competitive grant that will use the UOW Early Start facilities and infrastructure to deliver training in several components of the proposed intervention. Researchers will work with Early Start Engagement Centres, which are located around NSW, using unique videoconferencing facilities to assist childcare staff with training and advise them on how best to utilise scheduled activities to promote more physical activity. A distinctive feature of this project, is that all of the Early Start Engagement Centres are located in disadvantaged NSW communities where the need for high quality early childhood education is greatest. “This project will allow us to work in partnership with these communities in ways that previously would have been too costly and unsustainable,” Prof Okely said. “As each of the intervention centres has a videoconferencing unit that connects with the main Early Start facility at UOW, we will be able to demonstrate all components of the intervention to staff, who will be able to interact as if they were in the room.
“Furthermore, parents will be able to use videoconferencing to learn about ways to promote physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour in the home,” he said. UOW researchers Professor Roger Truscott, Associate Professor Aaron Oakley and Dr Martina Sanderson-Smith are also involved in successful Project Grants led by other institutions. They will study age-related protein aggregation, breast cancer stem cells and immunity and vaccine development against group A streptococcus respectively. NHMRC CEO Professor Warwick Anderson said the grants “address research needs, from basic science to research translation as well as supporting researchers and their teams to achieve the goals to improve the health of all Australians.”
>For more information about successful NHMRC grants see www.nhmrc.gov.au/ grants/outcomes-funding-rounds
Successful Projects
tREATING SCHIZOPHRENIA WITH INTELLIGENT POLYMERS: $675,558 Professor Xu-Feng Huang Three-year funding for the “Application of intelligent conducting polymers for treating schizophrenia and allied disorders focusing on neuronal outgrowth, myelination and synaptogenesis”. The project aims to establish whether implantable and organic conductive polymer polypyrrole (OCP-PPy), combined with electrical stimulation and targeted (multimodal) neurotrophin delivery, can be used to more effectively treat prefrontal cortical pathology and related cognitive dysfunction by promoting neuronal growth and neural transmission. A/Prof Jeremy Crook, A/Prof Robert Kapsa and Professor Gordon Wallace are also involved in the project.
neurodegenerative diseases and vitamin b12 deficiency: $536,124 Professor Brett Garner This is a dementia related grant funded by the NHMRC through the Department of Health and Ageing, which will investigate how ageing and neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s Disease are associated with the functional deficiency of vitamin B12 in the brain. Outcomes of the project will explain why current B12 administration to elderly patients has not resulted in any consistent therapeutic benefit in the ageing and dementia contexts. More importantly the project will help identify a pathway that could be targeted to improve neuronal vitamin B12 utilisation, which could lead to a reduction of the toxic metabolites which accumulate in the brain, known to contribute to neurodegenerative diseases.
chromatin regulation and neuroprotection: $343,447 Dr Lezanne Ooi In the nucleus of a cell, DNA is wrapped around ‘histones’ to form a complex known as chromatin. Chromatin-modifying enzymes have an important role in regulating gene expression and alterations in this function can cause disease. The inflammatory activation of brain cells, for exmaple, can lead to many changes that cause neurodegeneration. An important protein that prevents these changes is CoREST1, which functions as a molecular scaffold, linking DNA with enzymes that alter the structure of chromatin, to regulate whole panels of genes. This NHMRC project will investigate the actions of the CoREST family of proteins, to identify exactly how these proteins cooperate to regulate gene expression and protect vulnerable brain cells from degeneration.
IMPROVING PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AMONG CHILDREN: $1,064,324 Professor Tony Okely
building food composition data: $170,689 Dr Yasmine Probst Dr Probst’s Translating Research into Practice (TRIP) Fellowship was one of only 11 of these Fellowships funded nationally and the first TRIP ever awarded to UOW. She received the two year Fellowship for her project entitled: “From nutrients to foods to cuisines: Growing food composition data knowledge for more robust evidence-based advice”. Dr Probst, from UOW’s Smart Foods Centre in the School of Medicine will look at the relationship between food composition data and its impact upon the dietary assessment process from reporting of food information to translation into evidence based advice strategies.
peripheral nerve repair with biopolymer conduit: $605,558 Associate Professor Robert Kapsa The project aims to improve nerve conduit performance by utilising optimised hydrogel formulations containing laminin (or peptides). The conduits or nerve guides would be biodegradable and integrate biocompatible conducting polymers in the wall to provide electrical stimulation of the regenerating nerve. It builds on previous projects that has seen the development of a prtotype nerve conduit and shown that applied electrical stimulation increases the rate of nerve cells growth (ie. axon growth). It is envisaged that the conduits developed as a result of this project, will allow for further studies in larger animal models as precursor studies to clinical trials in humans.
This is the largest amount of funding ever received for a Project Grant with UOW as the lead organisation. The project, “Increasing physical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour in early childhood: A group randomised controlled effectiveness trial”, will essentially target existing programs and resources in child care services and homes with an aim to increase physical activity among pre-school aged children by 45 min/ day. Child obesity and physical inactivity have been identified as high priority health and education concerns. More information about the project is available at: >>http://bit.ly/17oO7uC
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NEWS
Protecting Antarctica: our last untouched wilderness Left: UOW Technical Officer Corrine De Mestre enjoys the company of some Emperor Penguins. Below: Australia’s continental Casey Station is located on Antarctica’s Windmill Islands, just over 3000kms from Hobart
UOW SOIL REMEDIATION PROJECTS Bachelor of Conservation Biology (Hons Adv) student Anna Nydahl will be developing routine toxicity tests with common native Antarctic terrestrial flora, including mosses and terrestrial algae, that can be used to develop remediation targets and in risk assessments throughout continental Antarctica. Before starting her Honours, she spent the summer season of 2012-13 at Casey Station, conducting field work to collect samples for her Honours project.
The remediation of Antarctic and subAntarctic fuel contaminated soil is a major project involving researchers and research students from all over Australia. UOW’s Professor Sharon Robinson from the Institute for Conservation Biology and Environmental Management and School of Biological Sciences alongside A/Prof Dianne Jolley from the Centre for Medical Biosciences and School of Chemistry are supervising two Honours students, to develop methodologies that determine what the end points should be for soil remediation as there are no set guidelines for acceptable hydrocarbon levels in soil and groundwater in Antarctica. Their work is vital to ensuring that the clean-up is comprehensive enough to guarantee that the native flora and fauna are no longer at risk from fuel spills. Antarctica is commonly thought of as the Earth’s last remaining untouched
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wilderness, preserved and protected from human impact by International Treaty. However, modern technology has made it faster and cheaper to bring more people to Antarctica and today there are more than 60 active Research Stations on the continent. Despite careful management practices, occasional fuel spills have occurred in the vicinity of Antarctic Research Stations. It is important to protect the unique Antarctic environment and Australian research is at the forefront of science to determine appropriate bioremediation techniques for fuel spills in Antarctica. Currently, comprehensive remediation strategies, utilising naturally occurring bacteria, are implemented at Australia’s Antarctic Research Station Casey and at the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island Research Station to clean up a number of old fuel fuels.
Bachelor of Science (Chemistry Hons) student Gabriella Macoustra will be using seed germination trails to determine which species are most impacted by fuel contamination. She is currently working with seeds from Macquarie Island plants collected last summer by Corrine De Mestre (a technical officer in School of Biological Sciences). Both students attended a scientific conference in Hobart this year to present their research findings to other Antarctic Scientists from around the world. In addition their contribution to scientific publications, their work will thus have immediate practical application for the Australian Antarctic Program and help protect the natural environment directly. Antarctic remediation research is being conducted by scientists from the University of Wollongong, Australian Antarctic Division, CSIRO, University of Tasmania, University of Melbourne, University of Western Sydney and Deakin and Southern Cross Universities.
NEWS
ATSE Fellowship for Clean Energy Innovator
Clean energy materials scientist, Professor Hua Kun Liu, is one of eight prominent women to be made a 2013 Fellow of Australia’s peak industry body for engineers and scientists. The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) announced (17 October) that Professor Liu is among a handful of key business and academic leaders, prominent commercial innovators and high-ranking public sector figures to be elected into the prestigious organisation, which aims to apply technology in smart, strategic ways for Australia’s social, environmental and economic benefit. Prof Liu, from UOW’s Institute of Superconducting Materials (ISEM), is an international leader in the development and commercialisation of energy materials. She established ISEM’s energy materials program in 1994 and is now recognised as one of the foremost energy materials research teams in the world, Prof Liu’s team recently had a breakthrough in energy storage of lithium-ion batteries for use in electric vehicles, as well as portable
devices like mobile phones. The team developed a new lithium iron phosphate cathode material using a solvent assisted modified solid state reaction method.The development of this
Prof Liu’s team recently had a breakthough in energy storage of lithium-ion batteries for use in electric vehicles inexpensive manufacturing technique allows for much faster charging time. To put it into perspective, after 10 hours of charging, the 2013 Holden Volt can only travel 87km, whereas a lithium iron phosphate battery would take just minutes to charge and could travel hundreds of kilometres. Over a three decade long career, Prof Liu
has established an international network of academic and industry partners and contributed to commercialisation and industry development via technology transfer, and spin-off companies, including Australian Superconductors, which was incorporated into Zenergy Power Ltd in 2002 and subsequently listed on the London stock exchange for $160 million. Professor Liu has also worked tirelessly to promote female postgraduates in science and technology and has trained many dedicated leaders in the clean energy field, who went onto work for renowned institutions such as the University of Cambridge and Max Planck Institute. Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Judy Raper, an ATSE fellow herself, said Professor Liu was an innovator in the energy storage materials field and has published more than 230 papers in the last 10 years alone. “Professor Liu is an international leader in materials energy research. Her election into the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering is well deserved,” Prof Raper said. R ese a rch & I nnov a tion N ews
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NEWS
New resource tributes work of radiation expert contribution to radiation protection of pilots and astronauts where the radiation environment is not easy to predict, however its application extends further with uses for cancer treatment quality assurance and in mining and accelerator facilities. ‘The Science of Microdosimetry’ is a collection of all the scientific papers associated with a joint NASA-National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) grant that later followed, drawing on Australian and international teams to progress knowledge in the field of medical and avionics radiation. The book is edited and produced by US Naval Academy Professor Jim Ziegler who, with Prof Vince Pisacane led the American group as part of the NSBRI grant. “The book is a comprehensive summary of relevant simulations, approaches, development and applications of silicon microdosimetry, as well as nanodosimetry for characterization of radiobiological properties of radiation fields in hadron radiotherapy , space and avionics,” Prof Rozenfeld said. A collection of scientific papers relating to the many years UOW Professor Anatoly Rozenfeld spent developing a space and avionics microdosimetry instrument has been put together in the US. Invention of the microdosimetry instrument, a device
that measures radiation at a cellular level, began back in 1996 when Prof Rozenfeld received his first grant from the NHMRC and was subsequently funded with a number of Australian Research Council Discovery Grants. The device is an essential
>>Limited numbers of the book are available for purchase http://bit.ly/1bgPVmb >>Read more about Prof Anatoly’s work at UOW’s Centre for Medical Radiation Physics http://bit.ly/12IDSYI
Ancient poo points to Bolivia’s earliest inhabitants Hunter-gatherers from the last Ice Age left something behind for archaeologists to uncover in Bolivia some 10,400 years later, shattering long-held ideas about how the land formed. The chance discovery of faecal chemical remains is proof that humans inhabited the Amazonia region, moving through the area on a nomadic hunting route across its grasslands. Over time, refuse built up to form mounds or ‘forest islands’ that sat elevated above the floodplain. The international team of researchers to make the find included UOW’s Associate Professor Katherine Szabó, whose primary research focus is faunal remains, and Dr Jan-Hendrick May. Excavation in the forest islands revealed layers of freshwater snail shells, animal bones and charcoal, sitting beneath newer layers of human bones, bone tools and pottery. Using geomorphology,
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geochemistry and distinctive chemical signatures, researchers established that the animal bones and shells were the remains of ancient human meals. According to A/Prof Szabó the study shows these early human groups were able to adapt to difficult environments. “It was a watery habitat, which has a major effect on the distribution of animals they would be hunting. Any humans groups living there necessarily would have to be really mobile as well,” she said. “Because it’s such a difficult location, no one thought there would be early human occupation there. Other sites where evidence of human occupation had been found were close to coasts, river banks, forests and places with plentiful resources.” A/Prof Szabó said the prehistoric discovery is even more incredible because the landscape of the low-lying desolate
wetlands wasn’t an ideal place for humans. Regularly flooded savannah landscapes such as those surrounding Isla del Tesoro have long been thought to be an inhospitable environment for early hunter gatherers because of its low density of animal prey. What’s more, South American archaeological sites are typically found in coastal areas, near stable watercourses or in forested areas. Previously, the forest islands were thought to be relict landforms cut away by shifting rivers, or possibly longterm bird rookeries or termite mounds but the latest discovery has turned all those assumptions on their head. Scientists say even more mounds are likely to be buried beneath. >>Read the PLOS ONE paper about early Bolivian humans co-authored by A/Prof Szabó http://bit.ly/16TBdxk
Living treasure in the Library The works of celebrated Australian author and historian Thomas Keneally are of special interest to Associate Professor Paul Sharrad, who has been awarded one of seven Fellowships by the National Library of Australia to investigate the novelist’s extensive archives. The Harold White Fellowship offers A/Prof Sharrad privileged access to the Library’s materials, facilities and staff and uninterrupted time to work with its collection of books, journals, newspapers, manuscripts and oral histories.
Sir Harold White (1905-1992) was appointed Australia’s first National Librarian in 1960 and the fellowships scheme aims to promote scholarship drawing from its collections. Fellows are senior scholars with a strong publication track record, including full length monographs. Based in Canberra for three months next year (February-April 2014), A/Prof Sharrad will explore the literary and cultural production of the figure Thomas Keneally has become. His time in Canberra is an
opportunity to further flesh out an ARC Discovery Project, exploring whether being a ‘living national treasure’ is compatible with being a serious literary figure. The project examines who actually reads Tom Keneally’s fiction and whether facts accord with critical assessments of his work, both in Australia and overseas. Answers will clarify how Australian constructs its literary culture and writes literary history. A/Prof Sharrad specialises in literary history, reflections and canon formation.
Oceans expert joins International Advisory Board
The oceans and associated coastal zones are critically important to sustaining life on earth – they are also increasingly under threat. Australia has both the third longest coastline, and third largest maritime zone in the world. Additionally, around 85% of the population live within the coastal zone, so defining maritime zones is of particular importance. Following over a decade of engagement with the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and the International Advisory Board on the Law of the Seas (ABLOS), UOW’s Professor Clive Schofield has been appointed to the Board. There are 17 members on the ABLOS in total and Prof Schofield said that it was a great honour to represent Australia in this forum. “Whilst the international law of the sea is clearly a body of law, this tells only part of the story. In reality the international legal framework for the oceans has to deal with the practical and physical realities of the vast maritime spaces involved and the complex marine environments, resources and activities that exist therein,” Prof Schofield said.
“Clarifying rights over maritime space is vital to the realisation and protection of what maritime spaces offer us. Having detailed legal rules is a great step forward but it is vital to be able to define the limits to rights and responsibilities in a robust manner. My involvement in ABLOS helps to address these issues whilst simultaneously furthering our national interests as well as resonating with UOW’s Global Challenge theme Sustaining Coastal and Marine Zones,” he said. The central objective of ABLOS is to provide expert advice and guidance on scientific and technical aspects of the international law of the sea and understanding the law of the sea requires multidisciplinary approaches. In particular, a range of geoscientific disciplines and techniques are required to properly assess and analyse the composition (geology) of seabed areas, their shape (geomorphology), the depth (bathymetry) and nature of the waters overlying the seabed (oceanography). Defining where the
land ends and the sea begins is frequently a challenging and complex task, requiring an integration of technical (especially hydrographic) and legal approaches. “I have had a longstanding interest in how legal regimes and regulatory frameworks are realised and visualised in practice. That led to exploring spatial and technical issues against and international legal backdrop,” Prof Scholfield said. Last month Prof Schofield travelled to Muscat, Oman for a meeting of the ABLOS. As the number of maritime activities continues to grow, oceans management challenges escalate and the importance of clarifying rights and responsibilities offshore becomes more critical. Prof Schofield is based at UOW’s Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS). He presented research and ideas on the law of maritime claims at the Big Ideas Festival in 2012. >>Watch ‘Washed away? Implications of sea level rise’ http://bit.ly/1acFZaL
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PROFILE
Wild at heart Born and bred on the cusp of South Africa’s wild, it is no surprise that a love for natural history runs deep in Zenobia Jacobs. Her mother, a piano teacher and father, a minister, reared their brood of four children in a town at the gateway of Kruger National Park – an engulfing wild that spans almost 2 million hectares of African grassland the size of Israel. “I absolutely keep a connection with that place. When you grow up in a place like that, you can’t disconnect. It’s always there, it’s a completely different childhood from what you’d have growing up in a city, it’s a different social environment, it’s almost deplete of people and what you do is you have to entertain yourself and you have wildlife around you,” Dr Jacobs said. Although her parents have now retired to live in Cape Town’s big smoke, Dr Jacobs, a Principal Fellow in UOW’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, tries to revisit her hometown every second year. She finds the call of the animals, and her affinity with the wilderness irresistible. “When you live in that environment, you don’t realise how much you love animals, you take it for granted, but when you are taken out of that environment you realise your passion and interest for those things. When I go back I try to spend a week or so in Kruger National Park to relax, enjoy the surroundings and meet a couple of old friends.” “When you grow up there, you have this innate ability to find the animals but people who didn’t grow up in that environment; they just look in front of them and wonder where the animals are. I even find myself in Australia, scanning the bush, looking for something when I drive. I don’t know what I’m going to find here in the day – not much – but you always scan,” she said. When she’s not on holidays soaking up the rugged scapes of Africa, Dr Jacobs’ Saturdays are spent volunteering at Symbio Wildlife Park in Helensburgh. Caring and keeping native Australian animals as well as a collection of exotic fauna species, is all part of her determination to carve out a meaningful hobby. “I volunteer at Symbio every Saturday from 7am-5pm. It’s different but I guess it’s those basic principles of really caring, conservation, and education that resonate with me. I think it’s quite a privilege to be part of that sort of environment where you can make a contribution - there’s no other way of really doing it - and besides that, it makes me feel really good looking after an animal,” Dr Jacobs said.
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“It has been almost 10 years since I’ve done my PhD and at the end of last year I had down time. I was always working and if I wasn’t working I was too tired to do something else, so I thought ‘I need a hobby’.” In fact, she loved the experience so much that Dr Jacobs, an award-winning geochronologist, has gone on to enrol herself in an Animal Studies course run by the Taronga Training Institute (TTI). She dutifully travels into Sydney every second Wednesday evening to sit amongst a class of 18-20-year-olds and learn about animal handling and making presentations to the public. “It’s a busy life, but it’s enjoyable,” she adds modestly. Dr Jacobs has one and a half years of an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship remaining to look at Neanderthals in Europe and modern humans in Africa, when we first originated about 150200,000 years ago. Her focus has been on debunking the long-held view that Neanderthals were out-witted by modern humans to the point of extinction. In September she was part of an international team to report the first clear evidence that Neanderthals independently developed a new technology, which modern humans went to later adopt. “They’re actually quite similar to us. And genetically we know there was some interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals. We know from our anatomy that Neanderthals had the ability to speak, they had the gene to be able to use language. There were very little differences between us and there was no reason why they couldn’t do what we did. It’s just a matter of finding the archaeological evidence for it,” Dr Jacobs said. “People always think of Neanderthals being stupid and that’s why we out-competed them and our species survived while they reached a dead-end. I don’t think it’s been that straight forward. What we’ve been looking at is trying to better understand the behaviour and abilities, especially the cognitive abilities, that Neanderthals had and whether they were really so stupid as previously portrayed. I think we have made a lot of progress in that area and I think we are starting to shift the general ideal of ‘dumb Neanderthals’.” The team discovered that 50,000 year-old bone tools called ‘lissoirs’ or ‘smoothers’ were used by Neanderthals to fashion leather, in fact the legacy of the tool has lasted well into modern times with today’s luxury leatherworkers using the very same
People always think of Neanderthals being stupid and that’s why we outcompeted them and our species survived while they reached a dead-end. tool (made from different materials). “The actual design and purpose of the lissoir is still exactly the same as what Neanderthals developed it for over 50,000 years ago,” Dr Jacobs said. “We were able to show that behaviours previously thought to be exclusively modern human were actually Neanderthal and that modern humans learned them from Neanderthals. The Neanderthals that these tools date to are from a period when only Neanderthals lived in Europe, well before modern humans migrated from Africa. It’s only maybe about 5000 or 7000 years later that they came into Europe and adopted that technology,” she said. Dr Jacobs’ academic efforts have added considerably to our knowledge of early human history. As a pioneering geochronologist, she has led the development of a dating technique known as single-grain optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), which measures the length of time that individual grains of sand have been hidden from sunlight in archaeological deposits, enabling the accurate ages of artefacts and fossils to be determined. Her contribution has this year been acknowledged with the Scopus Award for Best Young Researcher in the Humanities and Social Sciences, part of a global initiative to support early career researchers. Scopus Awards are based on a researcher’s average number of citations and H-index, in addition to external impact and esteem measures.
FEATURE
TEDxUWollongong enlivens ideas about the future The theme was Liveability and the challenge was how to infuse tomorrow with more of it.
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Professor Pascal Perez, TEDxUWollongong 2013 Program Director, held the audience captive with his Tale of Two Cities, using the infamy of Mosman’s 1989 ‘Granny Killer’ to show that onceupon-a-time Sydney’s eastern suburbs
were considered unsafe to live in.
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FEATURE
TEDxUWollongong 2013 | Liveability With the world’s growing population, planning and designing more liveable cities is one of the most important challenges of the 21st Century. This year, TEDxUWollongong looked at liveability through a local and global lens, with the voices of architects, scholars and designers – each one innovators in their field. As part of the independently organised TEDx program, the University of Wollongong invited a mix of engaging speakers to construct their vision of tomorrow and discuss what takes to build a sustainable, happy future. The result was a veritable kaleidoscope of ideas. According to 2013 Program Director Professor Pascal Perez, ‘liveable’ cities, like his hometown of Gerringong – with its small community, rolling hills and coastal scapes -- may be a thing of the past as the number of city-dwellers pushes beyond 50% of the world’s total population. ‘Liveability’ relies on a number of factors that affect the overall quality of life and relates to the physical environment, as well as cultural and social possibilities of a community. “I would argue that some of the tools and methods and models that urban planners are using to develop these new cities are lagging behind. This is particularly true for socio-economic and demographic forecasts,” Professor Perez said. “These forecasts haven’t changed very 16
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much for a very long time and they use simple assumptions: you take an employment target that will drive a population growth, which will trigger a specific demand for housing mix and associated urban amenities – this is how traditional strategic urban planning works. But the reality is far more complicated than that.” The SMART Infrastructure Facility Research Director led the TEDx line-up with his case for urban planning models that support complex and adaptive city design. “With our research team, we took a simple lay-person definition of liveability. It’s very simple: Live – in a place I like; and Ability – to perform my tasks. Whoever we are, wherever we live, at whichever stage of our life we are, we tend to rank six factors in order to assess whether we’re satisfied with our life and living environment.” “We tend to play with these factors again and again and again depending where we live and which stage in our life we are, we’re going to change the ranking. What we are saying in our framework is ‘this is your problem, not mine. I won’t impose on you my criteria’. So each of us, with this framework, should be able to tell us why we’re happy or not.” The six factors included home, neighbourhood, transport options, opportunities for entertainment, available
services and access to places of work and education. Understanding the way people think and act, is as much about experimentation as it is forecasting. Urban architect Rasmus Frisk took to the stage to explain why. His talk toyed with ideas of participatory design and letting communities plan, develop organically. Interacting with his young son’s Lego blocks, Rasmus realised that cities without people were merely “display without play”. Take away the emphasis from buildings, vehicles and money, he explained, and your town will be better for it. Stamp out the architect’s ego and be done with making buildings, instead make spaces for people, he said. Transformed buildings, which use less space, energy and material for construction, are the only way forward according to Lloyd Niccol. The engineering student led Team UOW Australia to victory in the Solar Decathlon China competition in September with a unique retrofit concept that saw the iconic Australian ‘Fibro’ modified and re-designed in the spirit of sustainability. Lloyd’s talk tracked the journey of his team to Datong, China, and his hopes for the legacy of the Illawarra Flame in Australian building and design. UOW Human Geographer, Professor Gordon Waitt, explored the intimate and essential role that cars play in peoples’ lives – not
only as an extension of us, but as spaces for us to escape, connect with others and be restored. Because being in vehicles helps people juggle and deal with the stresses of everyday life, he said, it is one of the few changes that citizens are prepared to make, even among those most environmentally conscientious among us. “There are more emotional forces at play in terms of our mobility choices and driving the car,” Prof Waitt said. “Mobile, yet immobile bodies, strapped in close proximity in the intimate cocoon spaces of the car: this opens up our possibilities to do the emotional labour as friends, parents and partners. The emotional work that is conducted in the car in terms of social relationships makes it an incredibly important space,” he said. Transport is one component of infrastructure in a city that makes it a liveable place. Driving on the roads and down the rabbit hole beneath them, the often overlooked services that network, criss-cross and buoy our cities was the emphasis of Engineering Policy expert Professor Brian Collins’ talk. The former Scientific Adviser to the UK
Department of Transport canvassed all the services and facilities so often taken for granted – transport, energy, water, waste – reminding the TEDx crowd that all the cables, pipes and trenches supporting these utilities cannot be forgotten. “They deliver the capability for services on which we depend,” Prof Collins said. “In most developed countries, those utilities, those infrastructure services have been in place for hundreds of years. Most of the developed world is realising that we need to do something about renewing them, replacing them and modernising them.” “Because they are all buried and we take them for granted, the idea that we need leadership to improve these utilities has proved an extremely difficult process,” he said. Sometimes debate and discourse can become background noise. According to Dr Sara Adhitya, people need to stop talking and simply listen: to the birds, the planes, and the quality of our acoustic environment. “There’s more that meets the ear,” Dr Adhitya said. “There’s a music we can’t always hear – the music that we move to.”
Launching off the theory of rhythm analysis, Dr Adhitya made her case for understanding a city through its rhythm. Imagining the environmental rhythm of seasons, tides, night, day and transport flow Dr Adhitya let the crowd meditate on the idea that their bodies were metronomes for all the city’s aural reverberations. Suddenly, she said you can wander, search for the lively streets and discover the kind of liveable rhythm you want from life. Over 180 viewers also enjoyed the show from the comfort of home, tuning in online to the event live stream. Last year UOW hosted its inaugural TEDx event, focusing on medial bionics. Photos and video from the evening can be viewed at www.tedxuwollongong.com
Opposite page: Rasmus Frisk Top: (L-R) Lloyd Niccol, Dr Sara Adhitya and Prof Gordon Waitt Below: (L-R) Rasmus Frisk, Gordon Waitt, Pascal Perez, Lloyd Niccol, Sara Adhitya, Brian Collins & Ian Buchanan (Master of Ceremonies)
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NEWS
Intervention on alcohol
A local underage drinking project aimed at addressing the social norms around drinking including the supply of alcohol to teenagers is an ambitious initiative for UOW’s Professor Sandra Jones and Kelly Andrews. The Kiama ‘Stop Underage Drinking Project’ evolved after many years of research projects and community engagement activities, with a particular focus on the role of alcohol advertising and marketing, and the messages conveyed about the role of alcohol in young people’s lives. This year Prof Jones, Director of UOW’s Centre for Health Initiatives (CHI), has been awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship to develop and implement the intervention with her CHI team community partners in Kiama. “Our studies have consistently shown not only that marketing has a powerful impact on young people’s drinking but that young people (and older people) interpret the consistent presence of pro-alcohol messages to mean that drinking is an essential part of Australian culture and socialisation. I have spent a lot of time in the last ten years talking to teenagers, parents, and community members. At each of these community events the conclusion has been that most teenagers don’t want to drink and most parents don’t want them to drink,” Prof Jones said. “The Kiama ‘Stop Underage Drinking Project’ aims to start this conversation at a community level and support people to make the choice to keep our young people safe.”
Researchers have observed encouraging trends for the choices young people are making in regards to drinking, the most recent Australian Secondary Schools Alcohol and Drug (ASSAD) survey showing a decrease in alcohol consumed.
Most teenagers don’t want to drink and most parents don’t want them to drink “In 2011 only 33% of 16-17 year olds were regular drinkers, (down from 50% in 1984) and only 11% of 12-15 years olds (down from 30% in 1984) were regular drinkers,” Prof Jones said. “This information is really important, but isn’t being communicated to teenagers and their families. The truth is that the vast majority of teenagers don’t drink, the actual normative behaviour is not to drink, and that is why this is the perfect time to launch this program.” The project will run in Kiama until the end of 2014, after which time it will rolled out across Wollongong. To date, there has been meaningful engagement with community. “This is not us as researchers doing something to a community, but us working to do something with the community. So far over 1,100 students, parents and community members have been involved
Above: Kelly Andrews with SGT Gary Keever at the launch of ‘Stop Underage Drinking’. Right: NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and Prof Sandra Jones with (back row from left) 2014 Kiama High School captains Rachael Malin and Michael Swain, Gareth Ward and Neil Reilly
in helping us to understand community attitudes and develop the intervention components. We have had amazing support from individual organisations within the community,” Prof Jones said. Project Leader Kelly Andrews believes the program will help start conversations and ensure young people feel supported in making the choice not to drink. It is an important discussion to have – in particular with Schoolies week just around the corner. “The main objective in the short term is to reinforce to young people that there are others like them who don’t want to drink alcohol. Schoolies for NSW students commences on November 23. It’s a chance to celebrate the end of their high school career with their friends – but there are alternatives – young people don’t have to get blind-drunk just because they think that’s ‘what you do at Schoolies’. The perception that ‘everyone is doing it and therefore I have to in order to ‘fit in’ needs to change,” Ms Andrews said. On board with the project are Olympians Casey Eastman (Hockey) and David McKeon (Swimming), who at the launch of the project, publicly talked about their own decisions not to drink as adolescents and how this was respected by their peers.
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STUDENT PROFILE
Candice Visser ANCORS PhD candidate Candice Visser explores policies of the deep-sea, where big money lies and international rights collide.
until taking it as an elective subject during my undergrad studies at UOW. Since then, I’ve definitely held an interest but I always thought I’d become a practising solicitor. I really have to thank one of my supervisors, Warwick, for first introducing me to the topic and being kind enough to supervise my undergrad research, including my honours thesis – which was a challenging, but rewarding experience. Still, I didn’t seriously consider further study until after I finished the extra course to become an admitted lawyer. I discovered that legal practice wasn’t for me at the time and I soon started work at ANCORS as a research assistant. Everyone at ANCORS was (and is) so supportive and lovely – I didn’t want to leave. I thought that starting a PhD would be a great way to work on some of my own research. What do you hope to do in the future? What are you studying? I work under the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS). My supervisors are Professor Clive Schofield and Professor and Dean of Law Warwick Gullett. What does your research focus on? My research explores the interaction of legal regimes at the ‘edge’ of the continental shelf. Under international law, the ocean is divided into a number of maritime zones extending from the shores of a coastal State. There is a legal mess waiting to be untangled at the edge because it is a point where several zones converge and different stakeholders have different rights and responsibilities in each of zone. It is important to study this because billions of dollars are being poured into emerging deep-sea industries each year, but very little academic attention has focused on the problem of who can do what at the edge. Debate has traditionally focused on determining the limits of the continental shelf or on managing the international seabed area that lies beyond the continental shelf – I think it’s time to change that.
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What has been the highlight of your career so far? I think the highlight of my career so far has been seeing my name on a paper. It was very exciting to be published. The title of the paper is ‘Assessment of Eco-Labelling Schemes for Pacific Tuna Fisheries’. It evaluates various fisheries ecolabelling schemes against modern international fisheries governance principles and discusses the potential conservation benefits of certifying Pacific tuna fisheries under those schemes. Contributing involved a lot of research about ecolabels, collaborating with ANCORS Senior Researchers Dr Quentin Hanich and Dr David Kirby and then editing and revising together. We found that schemes with a whole-ecosystem approach to conservation met the principles better than those focused on conserving a single species. However, certification of a fishery does not necessarily mean it is more sustainable than other fisheries because the process is usually voluntary, high costs can be involved, and the criteria used for certification tends to be ambiguous. Have you always had an interest in maritime law? I’ve always loved the ocean, but I didn’t know that law of the sea existed as an area
I hope to finish my PhD by the end of 2015. I’m really not sure about what comes after yet. It’s only my first year so I’m happy enjoying the time here at the moment – but I’d love to combine my work with travel later.
>>Read the paper that Candice coauthored, ‘Assessment of Eco-Labelling Schemes for Pacific Tuna Fisheries’ at: http://bit.ly/15U82AC
NEWS
Professor Croft unearths mobile mysteries Concern about the risk to our health posed by mobile phones has been the subject of recent international scrutiny. In all four corners of the world mobiles can be found. From pensioners to pre-schoolers, access to a mobile device is within reach and technological advances that have improved the function that they bring to our lives have also seen human exposure to the electromagnetic fields (EMF) increase. Although human populations have been subject to radio frequency fields for many years -- with the transmission of radio and television content, in building as a component of heating and seating materials, and use in medical treatment devices – it is exposure to near field radiofrequency from mobile antennae that has lobby groups worried. To fill the gap in scientific knowledge about the prolonged effects of EMF exposure the World Health Organisation commenced the International EMF Project in 1996, with the hope that concrete findings could assist in public health decision-making and develop international standards for EMF exposure. On the domestic front the NHMRC has awarded a number of grants to investigate the impact of electromagnetic energy on human health and physiology. UOW’s Professor Rodney Croft will be working with the newest ARC Centre for Research Excellence for Population Health Research in Electromagnetic Energy based at Monash University, while also heading the Wollongong-based Centre of Excellence for Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research. One of his postdoctoral investigators will be conducting sleep research to see the neuro-physiology effect of EMF on children.
According to Professor Croft, sleep spindle activity -- which includes sleep efficiency, how quickly someone gets to sleep and how long they sleep for-- has been shown to be elevated after mobile phone exposure in adults. “Certainly in adults we don’t see evidence of clinical consequence to the elevated levels of sleep spindle activity,” Professor Croft said. “Even where we found there was a sleep spindle change, we did not see a change in things that are relevant to health -- but if we were to find an enhancement in children, then there is a real possibility that it could be clinically relevant.” “In the study, we will expose children to EMF before they go to bed. Using an electroencephalogram, which measures brain activity during sleep, we look at
whether there’s a change in sleep spindle,” he said. Bioelectromagnetics expert Dr Sarah Loughran recently joined the team at UOW, bringing with her particular experience using the electroencephalogram. She comes to Australia having completed a postdoctoral appointment at leading University of Zurich sleep laboratory in Switzerland. “Dr Loughran’s background in bioelectromagnetics fits very nicely with our work at the UOW and Monash Centres. She will be running a lot of the human neurophysiology experiments for the first grant and play a prominent role in the Monash one as well. We want to really try to bring the researchers together and treat them as one big group, with a lot of crossover between them,” Professor Croft said.
Mentors mean everything when “learning to teach” In many countries, university students complete a compulsory practicum as part of their Bachelor of Education studies before graduating as a qualified teacher. The need for adequate training to mentor these students is the subject of a paper co-authored by UOW’s Dr Wendy Nielsen for the Review of Educational Research journal. Mentors or “cooperating teachers” are widely viewed as the most important aspect of programs for learning to teach. These people are called “supervising teachers” in Australia. The paper highlights the need to cultivate mentoring skill among supervising
teachers who guide university students in the workplace. According to the authors, current practices for preparing mentorteachers in their role during practicums – a time acknowledged to be critical in the development and learning of student teachers – are inadequate. “[The] situation is untenable if we wish to provide the best preparation for the next generation of teachers.
The paper theorises patterns of participation by drawing on extensive literature, which has been produced on cooperating teachers, with 400 papers and articles on the topic examined, spanning 60 years of research on supervising teachers the world over. Importantly, it offers a deconstruction of generalities tied to long-held assumptions about the studentteacher practicum experience.
“Without a clear understanding of the ways in which cooperating teachers participate – or are expected to participate in teacher education, it is difficult to know how best to support that work,” the paper explains.”
>>Read ‘Cooperating Teacher Participation in Teacher Education: A Review of the Literature’ http://bit.ly/18sP52E R ese a rch & I nnov a tion N ews
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Over $19,000 was raised by TeamUOW for the Sydney to Gong bike ride in support of people living with multiple sclerosis. The neurological condition affects more
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than 23,000 people in Australia.
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AWARDS
Photo: John Paul Janke
Manuscript on Aboriginal identity wins 2013 Stanner Award Indigenous academic writer, Dr Bronwyn Carlson has been presented with the 2013 Stanner Award by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).
and tablets is a wonderful way to engage on issues of concern to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly on issues such as health and education,” Dr Carlson said.
Her manuscript ‘The politics of identity: Who counts as Aboriginal today’ uses a range of historical and research literature as well as interviews, surveys and a range of social networking sites to explore this complex and timely subject.
The Stanner Award, sponsored by AIATSIS in Canberra, was established in 1985 as part of the Institute’s support for Indigenous academic writers.
“I’m very excited about the award, and very humbled to be acknowledged by my peers. The Stanner Award gives me the opportunity to disseminate my research more widely.
AIATS Chairperson Prof Mick Dodson presents Dr Carlson with her award
“One of the findings of my research shows that Aboriginal people are active social media participants, and engage online to communicate their identity and community. The growth of smart phones
Named in honour of the late Emeritus Professor W.E.H. (Bill) Stanner, the award recognises the significance of his contribution to the establishment and development of the Institute.
>>Watch Dr Carlson being presented with her Stanner Award http://vimeo.com/71781510
Royal Institute gives nod to ‘Trojan Horse’ Chemist The Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) has announced UOW’s Dr Michael Kelso, from the School of Chemistry, as this year’s Biota Award recipient for best drug design and development publication or patent. The coveted annual prize celebrates early-career chemists for their published contribution exploring the use of small molecules as potential therapeutic agents. Winning Dr Kelso the Institute’s gong was his 2012 paper published in the Angewandte Chemie journal, that outlined a new approach to treating antibioticresistant infections. In collaboration with UNSW’s School of Biotechnology, Dr Kelso rationally engineered a new technology known as ‘Trojan Horse’ drugs. The new technology has been patented and researchers are in commercialisation discussions with two French pharmaceutical companies. In their experiments, the scientists focused on the pathogens that were able to resist antibiotic treatments through the formation of biofilms – a phenomenon which occurs when bacteria grow, usually on surfaces, as communities. Biofilms are the cause of most chronic infections including those occurring on medical in-dewelling devices such as urinary, venous and arterial catheters. “Trojan Horse drugs [cephalosporins]
are recognised by biofilm bacteria as dangerous and, to defend themselves, they produce an enzyme [beta-lactamase] which would normally degrade the molecules leading to their inactivation,” Dr Kelso said. “However, when the bacteria degrade the Trojan Horse molecules, a second molecule called nitric oxide, previously hidden within the molecular structure, is released into the biofilm milieu.”
The nitric oxide then acts as a signal to trick the bacteria into dispersing from their easy-going biofilm state in search of somewhere else to go. It is when biofilms disperse that they are more susceptible to traditional antibiotics, Dr Kelso explains. “To put it another way, you need to think like bacteria to defeat bacteria.” >> More information on the Biota Award can be found at the RACI website http://bit.ly/17403lq R ese a rch & I nnov a tion N ews
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TRAVEL TALE
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Scientists take to the skies in airborne NASA experiment
Photo courtesy NASA
Field work reached new heights in Houston, USA, as NASA’s SEAC4RS venture saw the formation of a special squadron of scientists to investigate the composition and behaviour of our atmosphere. School of Chemistry’s Dr Jenny Fisher reports.
Houston in August is hot (upwards of 30°C), humid (frequently 90-100%), and prone to thunderstorms and hurricanes – not an ideal destination for most people. Nonetheless, this past August I was amongst a few hundred scientists who descended on NASA’s aircraft base in Houston. We were there to take part in an ambitious airborne experiment designed to improve our understanding of the atmosphere, its current composition, and the changes it is undergoing. The experiment was called SEAC4RS, short for Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds, and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys. Our goal was to answer several diverse but related questions: How much material do we put into the atmosphere through human activity, natural vegetation, and bushfires, and how do these different sources interact to form air pollution? How do storms move this pollution from the lowest part of the atmosphere to the highest part, and what does that mean for the otherwise clean upper atmosphere? How do particles from pollution and bushfires interact with clouds, and how do those interactions impact climate change? To address these questions, three separate airplanes were loaded with scientific instruments. The first plane (an ER-2) was
designed to measure the atmosphere from above. It flew so high that the only person onboard was the pilot, who wore a special pressurised flight suit for protection. The role of the second plane (a Learjet) was to fly through stormy convection. While most of us have flown through convection before (usually triggering an illuminated seatbelt sign and some unpleasant bumps), commercial airline pilots try their best to avoid it. The Learjet pilots did the opposite, flying right through it as many times as possible. The third plane (a DC-8) served as the main “flying laboratory” of the campaign. Picture an old passenger plane (circa 1970) with most of the seats removed and replaced by high-tech equipment and you’ll have a pretty good image of the DC-8 lab. Inlets that stuck out of the wings and windows sucked air from outside the plane to the main cabin, where the scientists could measure its components. There was even a laser on board that mapped particles and clouds in the air above and below the plane. Accomplishing our ambitious objectives required flying through the “right” environments, but knowing where those were each day was a challenge. That’s where my colleagues and I came into the picture. I was part of the “theory team,” responsible for using forecasts of weather,
pollution, and fire activity to determine where to send the planes. My role was to perform “near-real-time” analysis using the newly collected data (usually only 1-2 days after each flight) along with a state-of-the art simulation of the atmosphere. This analysis helped us figure out what we had learned so far and where we still had big questions, enabling us to focus the flight hours on achieving our goals. The experiment was a resounding success. The planes stayed in Houston from 7 August to 24 September, with each plane completing between 17 and 24 independent flights. They covered large swaths of the U.S., from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and from California to Georgia. They sampled smoke from the Yosemite Rim Fire (the third largest in California’s history), pollution over Atlanta and Houston (America’s 4th largest city), and pristine air over national parklands. They flew through storms, clouds, and calm weather. Analysis of this uniquely comprehensive dataset is just beginning. Soon, it will provide us exciting new knowledge about the links between pollution, weather, and climate. Report by Dr Jenny Fisher >>View the NASA image gallery of SEAC4RS R ese a rch & I nnov a tion N ews
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Opinion
The health benefits of eating nuts
The case for a handful of nuts a day hinges on how the human body metabolises nut energy - Director of UOW’s Smart Foods Centre Professor Linda Tapsell explains. Eating food is part of survival but nutrition research is demonstrating there are big differences in the effects on health depending on the type of foods consumed. These effects are examined in a number of ways by the scientific community. In the development of practice guidelines and nutrition policy there is general agreement that the best form of evidence comes from measuring direct effects of food consumption on health in clinical trials, and by identifying associations between food consumption and health outcomes in population surveys. Research from the basic sciences adds to the plausibility of these observations. In the case of nut consumption, the body of evidence from trials and observational research strongly supports links with health benefits. Nuts have suffered from ‘bad press’ in the past because on face value they have a high fat and energy content, but things
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are not always as they seem. Thoughtful research questions and advances in scientific methods have shown that not all the available energy in nuts is metabolised, and the traditional culinary uses of nuts has tended to place them in healthy eating patterns which are not associated with overconsumption of calories. In addition, nuts contain far more than fat and calories. Their overall nutritional properties reflect the plant physiology of the natural organism, and while much of this has been exposed through scientific investigation, there will always be more to discover. The evidence for the health effects of nuts was examined in detail at a recent symposium at the International Congress of Nutrition held in Granada, Spain (September 2013). This meeting of the International Union of Nutrition Scientists has been referred to as the Olympic Games of Nutrition, with over 4,000 delegates presenting in multiple
concurrent sessions and addressing topics ranging from molecular genetics to food production systems. The symposium on Nuts in Health and Disease represented a partnership between science and industry, with researchers from the Universities of Harvard, Loma Linda and Wollongong joining colleagues from Spain to present the latest research in a single session. The symposium heard that the position of food consumption in health is perhaps best viewed from the perspective of health protection and disease prevention. Achieving energy and nutrient balance in the total diet aligns well with the concept of homeostasis in which a systems balance is maintained within the body. Lifestyle related diseases such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes represent the end points of a system break down in which dietary habits play a major role, in particular when these habits lead to overweight and
Studies linking dietary patterns to disease outcomes and metabolic syndrome risk factors have consistently shown that foods forming the basis of the traditional Mediterranean cuisine appear protective. Nuts are one of these foods, and the strongest evidence to date shows the impact of nut consumption on blood lipid levels. The situation is complex, as the total diet remains an important factor, but methodologies have been well developed to assure confidence in these findings. For example, a recent pooled analysis of 25 intervention trials showed reductions in triglyceride levels in the group of people who ate nuts, but the significant effects were seen in those with already raised levels (10% change). Similarly, reductions were seen in (bad) LDLcholesterol levels in the groups consuming nuts, with effects greater in those with higher LDL-C levels to begin with. A greater response was seen in those with a lower body mass index (BMI) and in those consuming Western-style diets (seen as the antithesis of the traditional Mediterranean style diet). These latter nuances remind us that body weight and overall dietary habits also have an influence on the ability to see effects of individual foods on health. Nevertheless, studies consistently show that people who consume nuts as part of their diet do not appear to gain weight and a recent meta-analysis of clinical trials showed that enriching diets with nuts did not increase body weight. In terms of overall disease risk, data from the large PREDIMED multi centre trial in Spain showed a reduction in Metabolic Syndrome after one year in the people who were given nuts to eat in conjunction with the Mediterranean diet. The effects size was about 14% compared to the group given olive oil (7%) - who also received advice on the Mediterranean diet - and compared to the group advised on the control, low fat diet
(2%). What this all means is that, despite the energy value of nuts, people seem to be able to include them in the diet without over consuming total calories. This may have to do with the satiety value of nuts and the cuisines in which they are being eaten. It may be that choosing certain foods such as nuts helps us to align other food choices with more nutritious foods so the total diet comes out better.
Photo: Mark Newsham
obesity. The term ‘metabolic syndrome’ encompasses this understanding and is defined as a cluster of risk factors including excess body fat, dyslipidaemia (in particular high blood triglyceride levels, and low (good) HDL-Cholesterol levels), hypertension (high blood pressure), insulin resistance (pre-diabetes) and inflammation, related to the basal immune response. Overweight is the product of the total diet, so all food is implicated, but this is where the interesting part begins – which foods are best to include and why?
dietary behaviour. This requires the input of a range of methodologies and research perspectives, which put together, provide valuable information on the quandary of which foods are best to eat for health. >>By Professor Linda Tapsell.
Top: Professor Tapsell at the launch ‘Food Nutrition and Health’ Below: One of Australia’s best-known nutritionists, Dr Rosemary Stanton (left), attended the launch.
UOW launches innovative nutrition book
It may be that choosing certain foods such as nuts helps us to align other food choices with more nutritious foods
From what we know of human metabolism and nutrition, the chemical composition of nuts is favourable for many reasons in particular the type of fat nuts deliver. There is ample room for more research, to better understand the effects of other components in nuts such as polyphenolics, to appreciate the synergy between nutrients within this staple food and to expose the effects of choosing a single food such as nuts on total
Linda Tapsell is Director of UOW’s Smart Foods Centre and Professor in the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health. She is the Editor of ‘Food Nutrition and Health’, an Oxford University Press textbook launched at UOW in October. Food, Nutrition and Health takes students of nutrition through the basic science of nutrition, its applications in the human lifecycle and pathways for practice. The book serves as an introductory text for nutrition, health, nursing and medical students across Australia. Along with Professor Tapsell, 17 other researchers contributed to the book, mostly from UOW’s Food and Health Strategic Research Initiative, including Eleanor Beck, Karen Charlton, Deanne Condon-Paoloni, Vicki Flood, Sara Grafenauer, Jimmy Louie, Barbara Meyer, Jane O’Shea, Yasmine Probst, Joanne Russell, Rebecca Thorne, Karen Walton, Peter Williams and Heather Yeatman. “Health practitioners need to bring knowledge of rapid scientific advances (sic) together in a way that is meaningful, and can be shown to have an impact on health. It is particularly critical in nutrition, because eating food is so fundamental to survival,” Professor Tapsell said.
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NEW STAFF
Shelly Crowther recently joined the Graduate School of Medicine as a Lecturer with the Research & Critical Analysis team. Her role as Area Clinical Pharmacist Educator for the Illawarra Shoalhaven local Health District sees her implementing a simulation-based training tool, which aims to improve inter-professional collaboration and communication. She leads a “leanthinking” team who are working on processes to improve the delivery of pharmacy services to patients of Wollongong Hospital, as well as investigating the role of technology in improving education for pharmacists in regional and rural hospitals. She is also heavily involved in the registration and regulation of health practitioners, having been a member of the Pharmacy Board of the Northern Territory from 20042009 and a current NSW Pharmacy Board examiner. Shelley graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelor of Pharmacy in 1993. After working in senior clinical and management positions in Australia, the UK and Ireland she worked for eight years in the Northern Territory, focused on improving the quality use of medicines in Aboriginal communities. In 2004 she gained a Masters in Public Health from James Cook University. She has won many awards as a result of her work as Chief Executive Officer of an organisation that improved medication management in remote aboriginal communities and was named as one of the ‘20 Women of Influence’ by the Australian Institute of Management in 2006. Shelly maintains her connection to rural and remote practice as Chair of the Central Australian Remote Health Practitioners Association Medicines Group Committee. Her varied research interests include health literacy, simulation training and models for inter-professional education, indigenous health and quality use of medicines, public health and health service management.
Joanna Russell’s research interests are in the area of nutritional epidemiology analysing large datasets, such as the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial and the Blue Mountains Eye Study, to assess relationships between lifestyle behaviours and chronic diseases. She has joined the School of Health & Society in the Faculty of Social Sciences as an Associate Lecturer whilst finishing her PhD at UOW. Originally from the UK, Jo returned to full time study as a mature-age student and completed her undergraduate degree in Nutrition at the King’s College, London. This was followed by a Masters in Public Health (Nutrition) from the University of Washing, Seattle, USA where she became actively involved in research at the Harbourview Injury Prevention and Research Center. Rather than return to the UK she decided to undertake her PhD in Australia at the University of Wollongong in 2010. Her PhD research focused specifically on the assessment of food security and diet quality in older adults. Jo has guestlectured and tutored a range of Public Health and Nutritition courses for both undergraduate and graduate classes throughout her PhD.
Mia Fedele works for the National Institute of Applied Statistics Research Australia (NIASRA) as the administrative assistant for one of the world’s most cited applied statisticians, Distinguished Professor Noel Cressie. Based in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, she provides administrative support to Prof Cressie’s Jet Propolsion Laboratory (JPL) Distinguished Visiting Scientist projects, which includes work studying global precisions and accuracies of column-integrated CO2 from the OCO2 instrument -- a mission that essentially “watches how the Earth breathes” and maps surface fluxes (the sources and sinks) of CO2. Mia is in her second year undertaking a Bachelor of Commerce (Human Resources Management) at UOW. She made the decision to pursue her studies part time after stepping away from work with a private organisation to work closer to home and spend time with her family and three daughters. Mia’s career spans 15 years working in the fields of Accounts and Office Administration, predominantly in a financial context. Mia has a Certificate in Business Administration, Certificate in Management, Service Marketing and Quality Management, as well as experience in secretarial and business administration processes.
Rachael Nolan has begun work as an Associate Research Fellow with the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, under the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health. She is involved with the Bushfire CRC project that aims to develop models to predict the flammability of forests as a result of changes in fuel moisture content. Over time, fuel moisture content changes in response to the weather such as rain and exposure to sunlight. In this way reliable estimates of fuel moisture content are crucial when predicting the risk of bushfires and also planning controlled bushfires. Part of the CRC project involves sampling changes in fuel moisture over a period of time at a number of locations across NSW and Victoria. The research is a collaboration between UOW’s Prof Ross Bradstock and Dr Matthias Boer and Dr Victor Resco de Dios from the University of Western Sydney. It is funded through the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries. Rachael recently completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne where her focus was also on bushfires, but looking at the changes in forest water use as they recover from fire. Any changes in streamflow have important implications for the supply of water to industry, agriculture or urban water supply, with much of southeastern Australia’s water source coming from forest water catchments. During her PhD she was given rare access to Melbourne’s water catchments that are closed to the general public, and over a two year period had a unique opportunity to observe the remarkable recovery of the forests following the 2009 Black Saturday fires.
Alanna Holloway joined UOW as a statistician for the Australian Health Services Research Institute (ASHRI). She is currently working on the Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC) project, using standardised validated clinical assessment tools to benchmark and measure outcomes in palliative care. PCOC is a national collaborative program that collects data from a number of palliative care providers throughout Australia and draws on the expertise of Flinders University, Queensland University of Technology, the University of Western Australia and University of Wollongong. Before joining the University, she worked as a metallurgical engineer at BlueScope Steel in Port Kembla for seven years, in which time she completed her undergraduate engineering studies at the University of New South Wales. After some time at the steelworks, Alanna decided that numbercrunching and data analysis was more to her taste and undertook a Masters of Applied Statistics at Macquarie University. She completed her masters last year and landed a job as an Applied Statistician at UOW in July, 2013.
Teacher and Graphic Designer Angelina Marcon-Jones has been appointed as a Lecturer for the School of Creative Arts, having worked as a casual academic for UOW since 2010. Her professional background boasts over 20 years spent in the design industry with clients from all over the world and across multiple platforms including advertising, branding and identity development, publication design, the music industry and not-for-profit and community based projects. Last summer she instructed a design subject whose students were directly involved in shaping the marketing and communications strategies for the China Solar Decathlon winners Team UOW Australia. She currently teaches the Foundation Studies that is common to visual arts and graphic design students, Design Innovation for second year design students; and Design Principles, which is open to all students on campus. Angelina is an expert in visual communication,wwith a Masters of Secondary Education (2009) and BA, Design (1995). She is most passionate about design thinking and is constantly trying to find ways to reach diverse audiences to encourage an understanding of the role design thinking plays in our daily lives. According to Angelina, Design and Education are both very much about the process of collaboration and idea-exchange. She views both her roles as an educator and designer as an alliance. She is interested in research about models of communication for the visual learner and working to understand the concept of visual communication is a tool to help students’ in their own cognitive approaches to learning.
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EVENTS
Global Challenges Networking Event Living Well, Longer Leader, Professor Lorna Moxham and an opportunity to discuss what the core problems facing the challenge of the GC branch are, as well as how individuals and groups can contribute to projects addressing these challenges. All attendees will be asked to provide a brief (100 word) summary and a photograph of themselves (soft copy) to be uploaded onto the Global Challenges Visualisation Tool to help colleagues identify and contact one another.
SYMPOSIUM: AGEING IN THE ILLAWARRA Friday 8 November | 9am-3pm McKinnon Building (67), UOW INFO & RSVP: http://bit.ly/1aFSUo1 OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
LIVING WELL, LONGER Wednesday 13 November | 9.30pm– 12.30pm (followed by lunch) Room 105, SMART Building (6), UOW INFO: http://bit.ly/1crIgqh RSVP by 6 Nov: globalchallenges@uow.edu.au REGISTRATION ESSENTIAL
ISCAR Congress THE 4TH CONGRESS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR CULTURAL & ACTIVITY RESEARCH 29 September - 3 October 2014 Sydney, Australia INFO & RSVP: www.iscar2014.com REGISTRATION ESSENTIAL Researchers from a cross-section of disciplines, both experienced and earlycareer, will explore the traditional, fundamental ideas of cultural-historical, sociocultural and activity approaches. The Congress aims to promote new concepts and theoretical developments >>View the Congress program
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This event is an informal opportunity for researchers with an interest in Living Well, Longer to meet, discuss and build networks. An opportunity will be provided for Researchers and/or Research Groups to introduce themselves and their work. This session will also include an introduction to the Challenge, by the
The Australian Association of Gerontology event, in conjunction with University of Wollongong’s Global Challenges Program and Illawarra Retirement Trust will feature a number of prominent speakers from across the academic community to examine the issues affecting older people in the Illawarra and how research can be used to improve the aged care sector. The symposium will highlight the role research plays in creating longer, healthier lives and how it is making a difference for elderly people.
EVENTS
Communications community to visit Sydney 2014 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMMUNICATIONS Tuesday 10 - Saturday 14 June Sydney, Australia INFO & RSVP: h.sweeney@comsoc.org WEBSITE: www.ieee-icc.org/2014 ‘Communications: The Centrepoint of the Digital Economy’ is the theme of this year’s IEEE International Conference on Communications, boasting a lineup of symposia on various aspects of communications. There will be one keynote plenary session and three industrial forum sessions for each day of the conference, which also includes its own exhibition. On the days before and after the main conference 15 different workshops will be held on emerging topics. Among the technical topics to be explored will be: mobile and wireless networking, communication theory, optical networks and systems and cognitive radio networks. UOW ICT Research Institute Director Professor Farzad Safaei (right) is the General Chair for the event and says it is one of two flagship IEEE conferences to be held outside the USA. Previous IEEE Conferences have been held in France, Germany and China. “This is the first time ICC will be held in Australia - it will bring a large number of researchers in the communications research community to the country,” Prof Safaei said. “We invite communications professionals from around the globe to join us at this wondrous locale and help forward the next wave of innovations that are sure to
shape and continually reshape our lives for decades to come,” he said. The IEEE Communications Society has over 50,000 members. Founded in 1952, it has become the major international forum for the exchange of ideas on communications and information networking.
Anyone interested in attending or presenting at IEEE 2014 is invited to visit the conference website for updates and submission details. >> Website: www.ieee-icc.org/index.html
2014 Applied Statistics Conference ASEARC RESEARCH CONFERENCE 4-5 February, 2014 University of Wollongong, Australia INFO & RSVP: miaf@uow.edu.au The 7th Annual Applied Statistics Education and Research Collaboration (ASEARC) Research Conference is scheduled to be held at UOW from 4-5th February, 2014. Hosted by the National Institute for Applied Statistics Research Australia (NIASRA), the Conference will explore
current research and industry trends. The two day UOW event will be preceded by a Spatio Temportal workshop delivered by NIASRA Director and Distinguished Professor Noel Cressie and the University of Lancaster’s Professor Peter Diggle. Prof Diggle is founding co-editor of the journal Biostatistics, specialising in real-time disease surveillance and tropical disease prevalence mapping. The National Institute for Applied Statistics Research Australia or ‘NIASRA’ is committed to developing and applying
innovative statistical methods to important problems. Its applied statistics research focuses particularly on Biometry and Bioinformatics, Environmental Informatics, and Survey Methodology. Following the ASEARC Conference, a course about non-parametrics will be given by UOW Honorary Professor Oliver Thas. His methodological work is on goodness-offit testing, probabilistic index models, rank methods and high dimensional data.
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Research Services Office, Building 20, Level 1, University of Wollongong, Northfields Ave, Wollongong, NSW, Australia, 2522 research@uow.edu.au | +61 2 4221 3386 | www.uow.edu.au/research