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Genomic and flow cytometric studies of Clostridium sporogenes, a non-toxigenic surrogate for Clostridium botulinum

- Bradbury, Mark

Authors: Bradbury, Mark
Date: 2014
Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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Description: Clostridium sporogenes and Group I Clostridium botulinum are two bacterial species belonging to the same phylogenetic group, primarily differentiated by the expression of botulinum neurotoxin. Both organisms are of significant commercial importance in regards to the spoilage of and/or disease in thermally processed food products due to their ability to form heat resistant spores. As such, these species are often used as the target organism for the design of thermal inactivation processes, particularly in regards to thermal sterilisation. Two specific aspects pertaining to these organisms were investigated to further enhance knowledge with respect to their use in thermal processing studies: the genetic relationship between C. sporogenes and Group I C. botulinum; and the mechanism of heat resistance in spores of C. sporogenes. The first part of this thesis describes the assembly, annotation and analysis of the draft genome of C. sporogenes PA 3679 (the most widely used surrogate for Group I C. botulinum). These data allowed identification of unique variants genes related to spore germination, analogous toxin regions and mobile elements between species. MLST analysis revealed that phylogeny was an ineffective indicator of toxigenicity in this group and thus prompted a pan-genomic analysis. The pan-genome of C. sporogenes/Group I C. botulinum was found to consist of 8799 coding sequences (CDS’s) and a core genome consisting of 1590 CDS’s. Analysis of this pan-genome revealed the significant role that mobile genetic elements have played in genetic diversity within this group of organisms. The second part of this thesis investigated the heat inactivation of C. sporogenes PA 3679 spores in regards to structural variation and population heterogeneity. A novel flow cytometric approach was developed and utilised to investigate isothermal spore inactivation; and implications of the impact of NaCl on the intrinsic variability throughout this process and during a subsequent recovery period. Based on these approaches a possible mechanistic description for the thermal inactivation of spores was developed. Together, these studies present significant evidence supporting the continued suitability of C. sporogenes as a surrogate for Group I C. botulinum, whilst also enhancing the understanding of clostridial spore inactivation during a moist heat process.
Description: Doctor of Philosophy

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.comUnity : A study on the adoption and diffusion of internet technologies in a regional tourism network

- Braun, Patrice

Authors: Braun, Patrice
Date: 2003
Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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Description: This thesis describes the initiation and evolution of an action research project, which investigates the adoption and diffusion of Internet technologies in a regional Australian tourism network. The research evolved out of a portal development consultancy. The aim of the study was two-fold: to investigate the nature of the change process when a collaborative network seeks to adopt e-commerce; and to determine how the change process differed in the face of incremental change (adding some e-commerce solutions to the network), or radical change (changing the overall business model). The purpose of the study was to gain a better understanding of the economic, strategic and social potential of regional business networks in the current techno-economic climate. The study builds on Rogers' (1995) seminal work on the diffusion of innovations and makes a unique contribution to existing diffusion studies by its focus on the nature of the network links as the unit of analysis; and by its application of an action-oriented methodology to untangle the effects of the embedded network structure on diffusion. The study suggests a strong relationship between diffusion and network positioning, both in terms of place (status and position in the network) and space (the geographic make-up of the network). Diffusion further hinged on network cohesion, actors' trust in and engagement with the network. Adoption of e-commerce was obstructed by actors’ worldview; lack of time, reflexive learning, and commitment to change. The incorporation in the study’s diffusion framework of contextual moderators such as network position, worldview, trust, time and commitment considerably extends Rogers’ traditional diffusion framework. Based on its emergent analysis framework, the study introduces a dynamic change model towards sustainable regional network development. It is suggested that both the diffusion framework and the regional innovation model developed in this study may, either jointly or separately, be applicable beyond the tourism and service sector.
Description: Doctor of Philosophy

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Epidemiology, injury and illness prevention in Olympic combat sports

- Bromley, Sally

Authors: Bromley, Sally
Date: 2018
Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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Description: Background: Olympic combat sports are commonly considered dangerous, however injury rates for these sports are not well understood. Isolated studies in combat sports have investigated injury, however these are mainly during competition, and therefore are unlikely to include significant or persistent injury which prevents athletes competing and participating in data collection. This thesis was undertaken as a series of linked studies, to provide further detail into the types, mechanisms and aetiology of injuries in combat sports. Methods: Study 1 was a systematic review that utilised the PRISMA guidelines to investigate the current evidence. Study 2 was a repeated measures study to examine the reliability of training load measures. Study 3 employed a longitudinal study design to assess the feasibility of injury, illness and training load monitoring. Finally, Study 4 was a cross-sectional cohort study that gathered perspectives of combat sport coaches and managers before and after an injury and illness prevention workshop. Results: Study 1 found one high-quality epidemiological study with low risk of bias in Judo. Variation in injury and illness definitions prevented cross-sport comparisons, however the injury incidence was comparable to other sports. In Study 2, rating of perceived exertion (RPE) was shown to have good stability across sessions (ICC=0.84), and no significant differences were found between coach (observed) and athlete (experienced) RPE (ordered logistic regression coefficient = 0.47 [1.51–0.57 95%CI]). Study 3 found that athlete engagement with the monitoring system was low, with only 13% of athletes entering data across a 12-week period. Irrespective of low engagement, 62 injuries and illnesses were recorded. In Study 4, combat sport coaches and managers were found to be generally well informed of the risk and seriousness of injury and illness, however, illness risk perceptions changed after the workshop (p=0.048). Discussion and Conclusion: Currently, cross-sport comparisons are not possible due to varying data methodology and study quality. Based upon the results presented in this thesis, RPE can be used as a tool to quantify training load in the sport of judo. Longitudinal surveillance of training load, injury and illness in combat sport is not currently feasible within the Australian system, due to low uptake and engagement. However, the collection of data on a large number of injuries and illnesses indicates that athletes are experiencing multiple, repeated health problems. Coaches and managers are well informed about injury and illness risk and seriousness, indicating that injury and illness prevention education alone may not translate to a decrease in injury and illness incidence in combat sport.
Description: Doctor of Philosophy

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"That fella paints like me" : exploring the relationship between Abstract art and Aboriginal art in Australia

- Brooks, Terri

Authors: Brooks, Terri
Date: 2005
Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
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Description: "This research project explores the possibility of a relationship between Abstract art and Aboriginal art in Australia from the mid twentieth century to present. [...] The investigation commences with background information on the history and origins of Abstraction, including the influence of 'primitive art' upon leading practitioners in this field during the movement's formation, before moving to Australia and focussing on two Australian painters. [...] The text also reflects on the rise of the perception of Aboriginal art from being seen as cultural curios in the mid 20th century to its current status as an internationally recognised art movement."--p. 2.
Description: Master of Arts (Visual Arts)

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‘Rough and ready’ : Makeshift, abstraction and the Australian patina

- Brooks, Terri

Authors: Brooks, Terri
Date: 2009
Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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Description: Ned Kelly’s armour, the Eureka flag, and the premise that underlies the title of the most famous exhibition in Australian art history; the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition held in Melbourne in 1889, are makeshift. This exegesis records the spirit of ‘making do’ or ‘makeshift’ in Australia’s post-settlement history including its manifestation in art. As this history is traced, the role of the harsh Australian landscape, and assertions of cultural convergence in post-settlement history, raised by historians including Russel Ward and Philip Jones are explored. Makeshift maps this country’s history of adversity, and popular bush story tellers, including Henry Lawson, contributed to makeshift flourishing in Australia and developing ‘everyday’ cultural associations.
Description: Doctor of Philosophy

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'I can be this' : Image, identity and investment in physical education

- Brown, Leann

Authors: Brown, Leann
Date: 2004
Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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Description: This study investigated how student expectations, experiences and involvement in physical education teacher education impacted upon and shaped identity development. The research focused on student social interactions and identified a range of behaviours and practices which reinforced student notions of what it means to be a physical educator. [...] The research itself was conducted within a creative analytical practice framework resulting in the following research products: the thesis text; a collection of one act plays titled, 'Plays from the identity playground', written about student social experiences; a CD which includes the filmed production of one of the plays 'Boys' training', and 'I can be this: a phototext', which presents key 'photographic' themes as insights into PETE student social events and activities.
Description: Doctor of Philosophy

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Learning to Lead : The social nature of women's development in sport leadership

- Brown, Suzanne

Authors: Brown, Suzanne
Date: 2014
Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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Description: Despite the ubiquitous political and educational strategies aimed at redressing gender inequality in sport in Australia for the past 30 years, the number of women in sport in decision-making and leadership positions has remained low when compared to men. While a number of studies have explored women’s under-representation in sport leadership roles, there is limited understanding of how women practice sport leadership and how they develop as leaders. To address this gap in the literature, this study took a humanistic approach to account for, and consider, the nature of experience and the influence of context. This study sought to provide a more personal, nuanced, and socially situated understanding of how women practiced and learned to lead in sport. An interpretive qualitative research design framed by a social constructivist lens was used for this study to examine 23 women’s accounts of what constituted and framed their leadership practices, including how they learned leadership from their engagement in day-to-day social practices and life experiences over time. Data for this study were generated through in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with each of the participants over a period of two years. A multi-case study approach was used to analyse the data. It was found that the participants’ leadership practice featured distinctive feminine characteristics. However, for those participants at the elite level their approaches to leadership were characterised by interaction that seemed to be traditional masculine features of leadership with the participants’ “core” feminine approaches to leadership. The participants’ leadership practice focused on social interaction and relationship building underpinned by a strong sense of moral and ethical values. Key features included collaborative decision-making, taking a team-oriented approach, using open dialogue, valuing relationships and caring about others, and positive modelling. The model of authentic leadership offered a useful way of conceptualising how the participants’ approached their practice of leadership. An examination of the participants’ accounts of their experiences of the ways they learned their leadership highlighted that leadership development for these women was a relational and social process of learning over a lifelong journey that was influenced by individual, personal experience situated within larger socio-cultural contexts. The relational nature of the participants’ learning of leadership was fundamentally connected to, and drawn from their interactions and interplay within their day-to-day social practices and life experiences from their early childhood through to their adulthood. The findings of study revealed that a range of past and present experiences and social factors influenced and shaped the participants’ values and beliefs about their leadership practice such as the development of their awareness and self-belief in their ability, the value of relationship building, and development of strength of character associated with resilience. This study also identified the significance of the informal social nature of the development of leadership through the participants’ “lived” experiences but also recognised the importance of some formal learning in developing the human capital aspects of the participants’ leadership. Findings from this study have contributed to the relatively small body of literature concerned with the examination of leadership practice and learning leadership for women in a context of sport. This study has drawn attention to the different sets of relationships that women draw on to develop their leadership practice from a young age through to their adulthood, and has highlighted the multidimensional role of relational dynamics in the construction of leadership. This study has also illustrated the importance of experiential and situated learning that occurs during the formative years through to adulthood in terms of developing women’s social skills and social awareness. These findings have implications for the way in which women’s sport leadership practice is viewed and encourages a rethinking on how affirmative action policies address the leadership developed for women in sport in Australia.
Description: Doctor of Philosophy

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Extremality and stationarity of collections of sets : metric, slope and normal cone characterisations

- Bui, Hoa

Authors: Bui, Hoa
Date: 2019
Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
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Description: Variational analysis, a relatively new area of research in mathematics, has become one of the most powerful tools in nonsmooth optimisation and neighbouring areas. The extremal principle, a tool to substitute the conventional separation theorem in the general nonconvex environment, is a fundamental result in variational analysis. There have seen many attempts to generalise the conventional extremal principle in order to tackle certain optimisation models. Models involving collections of sets, initiated by the extremal principle, have proved their usefulness in analysis and optimisation, with non-intersection properties (or their absence) being at the core of many applications: recall the ubiquitous convex separation theorem, extremal principle, Dubovitskii Milyutin formalism and various transversality/regularity properties. We study elementary nonintersection properties of collections of sets, making the core of the conventional definitions of extremality and stationarity. In the setting of general Banach/Asplund spaces, we establish nonlinear primal (slope) and linear/nonlinear dual (generalised separation) characterisations of these non-intersection properties. We establish a series of consequences of our main results covering all known formulations of extremality/ stationarity and generalised separability properties. This research develops a universal theory, unifying all the current extensions of the extremal principle, providing new results and better understanding for the exquisite theory of variational analysis. This new study also results in direct solutions for many open questions and new future research directions in the fields of variational analysis and optimisation. Some new nonlinear characterisations of the conventional extremality/stationarity properties are obtained. For the first time, the intrinsic transversality property is characterised in primal space without involving normal cones. This characterisation brings a new perspective on intrinsic transversality. In the process, we thoroughly expose and classify all quantitative geometric and metric characterisations of transversality properties of collections of sets and regularity properties of set-valued mappings.
Description: Doctor of Philosophy

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Pandemic Influenza at Oodnadatta, 1919 : Aspects of treatment and care in a multiracial community

- Bullen, Heatheranne

Authors: Bullen, Heatheranne
Date: 2018
Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
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Description: On 24 January 1919, a thirty-two-year-old nurse from Sydney, Jean Williamson, disembarked at the railway station at Oodnadatta in the far north of South Australia to commence her new role as sister in charge of the Australian Inland Mission (AIM) hostel. On 18 April that year, Williamson greeted thirty-four-year-old minister from Melbourne, Coledge Harland, who had arrived by train to take up a three-year post as padre for the AIM’s central Australian parish. Just over a month later, an influenza pandemic that had already killed untold numbers of people worldwide reached the isolated township. Drawing on primary documents, including an extensive collection of previously unseen photographs, letter and diaries from Harland and Williamson, this thesis examines the management and care of pandemic influenza at Oodnadatta from May to late July 1919. Intercultural aspects of the management and care of European, Afghan, Chinese and Aboriginal patients are examined in the context of the health and lifestyle of local residents, nursing practices, medicines, foods, accommodation and the contribution of individuals, groups and their roles. This intimate microhistory sheds light on a relatively unknown, yet important group of people in Australia’s frontier history: the missioners and others who cared for seriously ill Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal patients at Oodnadatta, provided culturally sensitive care that afforded respect, dignity and compassion to all. At the time, the gravity of the world wide situation and the sheer need to provide care saw individual efforts go unnoticed; however, in hindsight, it is possible to see and appreciate the significance of what they achieved under the most difficult of circumstances.
Description: Masters by Research

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Copper loss into rotary holding furnace slag

- Burrows, Alistair

Authors: Burrows, Alistair
Date: 1999
Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
Full Text: false
Description: The Rotary Holding Furnace (RHF) is used in combination with the Copper Isasmelt Furnace as a settling vessel. This study investigated the phenomenon of entrained copper losses into RHF slag. Research work was conducted by laboratory-scale flow modelling, and by plant sampling of the RHF at Mount Isa Mines Limited. Laboratory fold modelling was conducted to measure the residence time distribution of a simulated slag layer in a l;'0 -scale model of the RHF. A novel technique, involving a copper tracer dissolved in an organic solvent extractant solution, was used for these experiments. Plant trials complemented the laboratory work with a variety of slag sampling campaigns. Residence time tests were also attempted on the RHF slag. In combination, the laboratory and plant scale experimental work performed in this investigation helped to highlight some likely causes of entrained copper loss in the RHF. Laboratory cold modelling of the RHF suggests that the depth of the upper liquid layer is • likely to affect the fluid flow patterns, and therefore the residence time distribution expected of the layer. A stratification of the flow was prevalent in thick upper liquid layers, but absent when thin upper layers were used. A stagnant region within the upper layer0 0f the model was identified. The introduction of gas injection through porous plugs caused mixing within the upper liquid layer. Stable waves were produced at the liquid liquid interfate. ' .. Plant experiments were constrained by commercial operating schedules. Several parameters were investigated during two different periods of experimental work. Granulated slag sampling indicated a link between the duration of continuous slag discharge and the copper content of the slag. Evidence was found that suggests the presence of interfacial waves.
Description: Doctor of Philosophy

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A polarographic study of lignin reactions in soda pulping liquors

- Burton, Peter

Authors: Burton, Peter
Date: 1986
Type: Text , Thesis , Masters
Full Text: false
Description: Oxidation-reduction reactions between carbohydrates, lignin and quinone additives in Pinus radiata soda pulping liquors have been investigated. A reduction peak at -0.72 V (Vs SCE) was observed using differential pulse polarography when Pinus radiata wood is heated in alkaline solution in the presence of oxygen, and has been shown to result from the oxidation of lignin structures. The results of this study indicate that the electroactive species present in Pinus radiata soda pulping liquors is an oxidation product, resulting from the formation of phenoxy radicals and /or quinone methides. Although reduction potentials for anthraquinone, carbohydrates and the electroactive lignin structure fit the general redox mechanism propsed for accelerated delignification, the species observed by polarography in this study has been shown not to be involved in the main pulping reactions due to its low concentration.
Description: Master of Applied Science

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Anti-war, radical youth revolt, Victoria, 1965-1975

- Butler, Nicholas

Authors: Butler, Nicholas
Date: 2018
Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
Full Text:
Description: This thesis is a political history of the emergence and evolution of selected radical, left, student and workers movements in Victoria between 1965 and 1975. It examines the development of radical alliances, demonstrations and public actions using documentary materials and oral accounts provided during interviews. It argues that the radical left movement in Victoria began within the Monash University Labor Club, which subsequently generated radical groups outside the university. During this timeframe, both military conscription for the Vietnam War and the war itself became focal points for oppositional political mobilisation in Victoria. In 1967, the Monash Labor Club’s disruptive campaign against university authority was sufficiently popular for the club to turn its attention to disrupting the war effort. Soon, its locus of operations shifted into the general anti-war movement and the Labor Club established new, non-student, and avowedly communist and revolutionary organisations. Roughly termed the “Maoists,” by 1970 these organisations coalesced into the Worker Student Alliance (WSA), which grew rapidly to become a “left-wing” body that challenged the leadership of the established “left” organisations. The cessation of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War removed a major cause for radical action and, despite the generation of some important campaigns to replace it, the WSA dissolved itself in 1974.
Description: Doctor of Philosophy

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