Be in my corner: the students' voice on university support services' accommodation of their needs

Mode of access: World Wide WebTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 76-88.Chapter One: Introduction -- Chapter Two: Literature review -- Chapter Three: Methodology -- Chapter Four: Results -- Chapter Five: Discussion -- References -- Appendices.With increasing diversity in the tertiary student population, comes a growing necessity to ensure all students enrolled in university study are enabled to fulfil their potential. For those experiencing difficulties in their ability to participate and perform within the universities' structures, which may occur when students experience disability, illness or difficult personal circumstances, it is essential that the support services available can effectively accommodate their needs. There are suggestions that whilst many are benefiting from this support, others are having less positive experiences. Research in Australia is highlighting the need for a more student-centred approach in the provision of university support. As such, this study sought to explore and understand students' (n = 60) beliefs regarding the extent to which university support services accommodate their needs. An exploratory qualitative research design was adopted to unearth the insider's perspective, gaining insight into what students believe is effective, ineffective, and the ways in which the support they receive could be improved. Through Senge's (1990) theory of leverage, students' insights were examined to determine how services may enhance their ability to cater for students' diverse needs, and which aspects of these services may be most beneficial to focus upon. The findings reveal that effective support goes beyond the tangible to the affective. Students highlighted the importance of personalised support which cared about, and catered to, their particular needs and was timely and accessible. Furthermore, students noted that effective support could facilitate student agency and empowerment. Support was deemed ineffective when these positive aspects were lacking or absent. These aspects can, with minimal effort, be improved. When students with diverse needs feel they must work "twice as hard" as their peers (Moriña, 2017a, p. 220), at the very least they should feel their support services are in their corner, willing and able to assist them -- abstract.Mode of access: Internet.1 online resource (x, 112 pages

Olfactory capabilities of sharks: an anatomical and molecular comparative approach

Theoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 52-66.Chapter 1. General introduction -- Chapter 2. Anatomical characteristics of the olfactory organ of sharks -- Chapter 3. Molecular characteristics of the olfactory organ of sharks -- Chapter 4. General discussion -- Final conclusions and further directions -- Supplementary electronic material -- References.Sharks rely heavily on the sense of smell, and their olfactory apparatus has likely evolved to suit the differing lifestyle requirements of each species. Unfortunately, the selective pressures that shape the various physical traits of the olfactory organ of sharks, and their effect on olfactory capabilities, are poorly understood. Here, a multidisciplinary approach combining microscopic and transcriptomic techniques was used to characterise the olfactory organs of two shark species: the pelagic, shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) and the benthic blind shark (Brachaelurus waddi). The total sensory surface area of the olfactory organs-a traditional proxy of olfactory capabilities-is relatively larger in I. oxyrinchus due to greater coverage of sensory epithelium and more extensive secondary folding of the lamellae. However, examination of the de novo transcriptomes reveals a more diversified olfactory receptor repertoire in B. waddi. These findings suggest that sharks may rely on different olfactory strategies (i.e. more extensive olfactory organs and/or more diversified receptor repertoires) that may be related to the characteristics of the flow within their olfactory organs, their ecology or phylogeny. Consequently, multidisciplinary studies considering the anatomical and molecular traits of the olfactory system of sharks are required to fully comprehend the olfactory capabilities of this group -- abstract.Mode of access: Internet.1 online resource (x, 80 pages) illustration

Aspects of semantics and their influence on word production in language impaired and unimpaired individuals

Theoretical thesis."The work presented in this thesis was carried out as part of the joint International Doctorate for Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB)".Contains bibliographical references.Chapter 1. General introduction -- Chapter 2. Effects of semantic variables on word production in aphasia -- Chapter 3. Semantic variables both help and hinder word production: behavioural evidence from picture naming -- Chapter 4. Effects of semantic variables on processes during word planning for production: evidence from electrophysiological data -- Chapter 5: Are they really stronger? Comparing effects of semantic variables in speeded deadline and standard picture naming -- Chapter 6. General discussion.Spoken word production is semantically mediated, but debates remain regarding how the structure and complexity of semantic representations influence the spread of activation at the semantic level and co-activation of other items at the lexical level and how this affects the speed and accuracy of, and brain activity during, word production. This thesis focused on six feature-based semantic variables that capture aspects of semantics (number of semantic features, intercorrelational density, number of near semantic neighbours, semantic similarity, typicality, and distinctiveness) and investigated which of these variables affect picture naming performance. The underlying mechanisms of these variables were explored using a rich methodological approach focusing on different populations (participants with and without aphasia), types of data (behavioural and electrophysiological), and tasks (standard and speeded picture naming). The experimental study reported in Chapter 2 investigated effects of the semantic variables on picture naming in a large group of participants with aphasia. There were effects of number of semantic features, semantic similarity, and typicality on error types, some of which depended on the integrity of the participant's semantic system. A more homogeneous subgroup showed an effect of number of semantic features on naming accuracy. The results were interpreted in the context of current theories of semantics and word production and highlighted that these theories are underspecified regarding the mechanisms by which item-inherent semantic variables might operate. Chapter 3 explored effects of the same semantic variables on picture naming in neurotypical participants. Number of semantic features facilitated performance, while intercorrelational density and distinctiveness had inhibitory effects. These findings were interpreted as being due to spreading activation at the semantic level and competition at the lexical level. In Chapter 4, electrophysiological data collected during overt picture naming was analysed using waveform and microstate analyses. Number of semantic features was significant in the waveform analysis and in the microstate analysis number of semantic features, intercorrelational density, number of near semantic neighbours, and semantic similarity were found to influence activity in the semantic and lexical network involved in word production. This activity is suggested to be either related to the target word itself or distributed across a cohort of co-activated representations. Chapter 5 reports a comparison of effects of semantic variables in speeded deadline and standard picture naming to test whether their effects are systematically stronger in speeded naming. There was a stronger effect of distinctiveness in speeded naming and a stronger effect of number of semantic features in standard naming. These differences could not be explained by greater responsiveness to input in the speeded naming task. Overall, this thesis has resulted in a better understanding of the effects of semantic variables and underlying mechanisms in picture naming. To explain the effects, theories of word production require mechanisms of semantic facilitation and interference, which could be implemented as spreading activation at the semantic level and competition at the lexical level. However, most current theories of word production need further specification to explain these effects.Mode of access: Internet.1 online resource (xvi, 395 pages) illustration

Improving communication outcomes for children with hearing loss in their early years: tracking progress and guiding intervention

Theoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 204-232.Chapter 1. Improving communication outcomes for children with hearing loss in their early years: tracking progress and guiding intervention -- Chapter 2. The problem with intervention -- Chapter 3. Intervention and training programs to improve the communication skills of children with hearing loss: a systematic review -- Chapter 4. Approaches to improving communication outcomes through intervention -- Chapter 5. A review of existing measures and considerations for development -- Chapter 6. Validity of the FLI® -- Chapter 7. Clinical feasibility and viability of the FLI® -- Chapter 8. Conclusions and considerations -- Chapter 9. Postscript: the development, commercialisation and broader application of the Functional Listening Index -- References -- Appendices.A growing number of studies have examined predictive factors to language outcomes for children with hearing loss (Ching, Dillon, Leigh, & Cupples, 2018; Geers & Sedey, 2011; Tomblin, Oleson, Ambrose, Walker, & Moeller, 2014). Findings from these studies have led to best practice position statements and universal shifts in clinical practice, including the introduction of newborn hearing screening, early access to appropriate audiological and educational intervention, and family-centered partnerships with integrated teams of professionals (Joint Committee on Infant Hearing, 2000, 2007, 2013). The level of evidence for effective intervention, therapy and training programs though, still needs to be understood (beyond the comparison of outcomes for children taught using different communication approaches). Data on the use of communication approaches in published studies suggests the majority of child participants (52% to 98%) use a spoken component or oral communication system (Ching, Dillon, et al., 2013b; Gallaudet Research Institute, 2011; Niparko et al., 2010; Percy-Smith et al., 2013; Watson, Archbold, & Nikolopoulos, 2006; Yoshinaga-Itano, Sedey, Wiggin, & Chung, 2017). Despite considerable investment in research, design and development of hearing devices and coding strategies (Scollie et al., 2010; Vandali & van Hoesel, 2011; Wilson & Dorman, 2008), it is difficult to accurately evaluate the effect of device fitting and audibility levels over time in young children. Although there is a wide range of auditory measures available, in practice there are limitations to their use. These include a lack of versatility across age ranges, limited incorporation of real-world skills, minimal detail of how sound is used at a cognitive level, and the lack of ability to visually track progress and provide next steps. How a child with hearing loss detects, uses, and processes linguistic input in their everyday settings, that is, their 'functional listening skills', is critical to understanding how well they are able to develop oral language. As such, the development of an outcome measure, the Functional Listening Index (FLI®) was considered. It was suggested that such a measure could track the acquisition of a child's listening skills over time and provide a trajectory of developing listening competency. This information could be used by parents and caregivers to inform and guide early decisions, enabling and empowering choices regarding their child's intervention. Similarly, such information could be used by professionals to monitor progress and optimise intervention through targeted listening, learning and language experiences in a child's early and critical developmental years. Tracking functional listening acquisition through a tool such as the FLI may have the potential to improve a child's language and communication outcomes through informed, timely decisions, and individually, appropriately targeted intervention -- abstract.Mode of access: Internet.1 online resource (251 pages) graphs, diagram

A genre-based investigation of Introduction and Method sections of research articles in clinical psychology: a systemic-functional perspective

Theoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 274-284.Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Theoretical foundations -- Chapter 3. Deconstructing Introductions in clinical psychology RCT reports -- Chapter 4. Deconstructing Methods in clinical psychology RCT reports -- Chapter 5. Conclusion -- References -- Appendices.This thesis investigates language use in high-impact medical journal articles that report on randomised controlled trials within the field of clinical psychology. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are considered the gold standard for assessing the effectiveness of treatments. Since the 1990s, there have been growing concerns about the quality of RCT reporting, leading to the creation of The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement. Although this document provides a medical perspective on the reporting requirements, it does not provide explicit guidelines on language use. Thus, this study aims to examine the linguistic construction of a trial's justification and scientificity in Introduction and Method sections of RCT reports concerned with depressive and anxiety disorders. Following John Swales' Creating-a-Research-Space (CARS) model, the generic structure of research article (RA) Introductions has been widely explored in studies on English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Within the ESP tradition, there has also been an increasing interest into the generic structure of RA Methods, especially with reference to their comprehensiveness and ability to demonstrate scientific rigour and credibility. However, the lack of a functionally-oriented linguistic framework has limited ESP research to predominantly quantitative studies of lexicogrammatical forms. To conduct an in-depth qualitative analysis of genre-sensitive language use, this thesis has adopted a functional approach to genre grounded in systemic functional linguistics (SFL). More precisely, it employed the "Sydney School" perspective on genre and James Martin's modelling of discourse semantics to explore the language patterns that enact the social practices of justifying a trial and demonstrating its scientificity. The findings indicate that RCT Introductions and Methods are structured as research warrants and methodology recounts, respectively. Furthermore, additional genre embedding is used to deepen trial justification or zoom in on different aspects of RCT methodology. At the discourse semantic level, a balance between objectivity and persuasion is achieved through a wide range of implicit appraisal resources. The results of this research carry important theoretical implications for SFL genre theory and ideational discourse semantics. In addition, SFL pedagogical tools such as 'the teaching-learning cycle' and the '3x3 toolkit' can be used to recontextualise the findings with a view to scaffolding literacy in a (post-)tertiary environment -- abstract.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (xxiii, 390 pages) diagrams, table

Social organisation, social behaviour and collective movements in reef manta rays

Thesis by publication.Includes bibliographical references.Chapter 1. General introduction -- Chapter 2. Social preferences and network structure in a population of reef manta rays -- Chapter 3. Reef manta ray social dynamics depend on individual differences in movements and site fidelity -- Chapter 4. Reef manta ray cephalic lobe movements are modulated during social and inter-specific interactions -- Chapter 5. Investigating manta ray collective movements via drone surveys -- Chapter 6. Summary, conservation implications and future directions.Obtaining data on elasmobranch movements and behaviours in marine environments is a considerable challenge, but is urgently required to implement species management plans. It is important to understand patterns and mechanisms of group formation and cohesion, including social organisation and collective behaviour, that are likely to be adapted to current selective environments. These are key aspects of animal behaviour and behavioural ecology that influence population structuring. Reef manta rays (Mobula alfredi) are large and mobile pelagic elasmobranchs that occupy subtropical coastal areas in proximity to developing human populations. They form groups at shallow water aggregation sites, where they are vulnerable to exploitation and disturbance. In this thesis I show that M. alfredi: a) have structured societies with active social preferences between individuals, linked to site attachment; b) have strong behavioural heterogeneity that influences social dynamics; c) make gestural movements that may be a form of social communication; and d) alter their collective movements during foraging and courtship events. Our results suggest that conservation strategies should consider the social organisation and social behaviours of manta rays to better understand their spatial ecology and evolutionary dynamics, predict the impact of exploitation by fisheries, and mitigate disturbance from marine ecotourism. Local measures that consider groups as complex structures resulting from interactions between heterogenous individuals are likely to be most useful for ongoing management -- abstract.Mode of access: Internet.1 online resource (vi, 240 pages) illustrations (some colour), colour map

The distribution of star formation in the SAMI Galaxy Survey: the implications for quenching mechanisms and galaxy evolution

Theoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 109-1181 Introduction -- 2 Methods and derived quantities -- 3 Sample definition and global properties -- 4 Radial profiles of star formation surface density -- 5 Discussion and conclusionsThe distribution of the star formation across galaxy disks is examined with integral field spectroscopy to determine if the distribution varies according to the so-called 'main sequence' locus of galaxies on the plane of integrated star-formation rate and galaxy mass. Integral field spectroscopy allows the construction of radial profiles of star formation in the disks of star forming galaxies. The profiles are here used in the testing of various mechanisms that have been proposed for galaxy quenching and evolution. A goal is to determine whether processes local to each galaxy (such as a central process) or global environmental factors such as strangulation are the prime drivers of quenching. A sample of star forming galaxies from the SAMI Galaxy Survey is used, noting that only galaxies with a majority of spaxels in the central area that are star forming are suitable for construction of a radial profile. Galaxies have been classified as main sequence, above-, and below main sequence based on their location in relation to the star formation main sequence ridgeline. The radial profiles of star formation indicate that central suppression of star formation occurs in 16-20 percent of galaxies on, above or below the main sequence. The radial profiles are generally consistent with coherent star formation, whereby whatever the quenching process is that drives reduced SFR, it acts in such a way that SF remains largely coherent across the galaxy body. Coherent star formation favors several proposed quenching mechanisms including strangulation or cosmic web detachment. Central suppression is not a signature of a quenching process, but is consistent with a central process such as the compaction scenario, and cyclic central star formation. This study has been unable to distinguish between quenching from the inside out such as the 'compaction' scenario, and strangulation as a primary quenching mechanism. A weak positive correlation between bulge size and central SF radial profile slope has been detected, however the results do not support a major role of bulges in the initiation of central suppression of star formation.Mode of access: Internet.1 online resource (iv,120 pages) : illustration

A system of classifying and measuring personality, emotion, and behaviour

Mode of access: World Wide WebTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 81-97.Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: An atlas of personality, emotion, and behaviour -- Chapter 3: Metrology applied to personality, emotion, and behaviour -- Chapter 4: Discussion.This thesis addresses two long-standing dilemmas in personality psychology. The first dilemma is that of identifying the latent dimensions of personality. The second is to identify how best to measure psychological constructs. Novel solutions to both of these problems are presented in two articles. The first article (published), 'An atlas of personality, emotion, and behaviour' proposes a two-dimensional taxonomy, with strictly orthogonal dimensions affiliation and dominance. The second article (submitted for publication), 'Metrology applied to personality, emotion, and behaviour', proposes two quantitative measures. The measures are consistent with both the lexical hypothesis and metrology, the science of measurement. In study 1, methods included cataloguing adjectival descriptors of personality, abstract noun descriptors of feelings and emotion, and verb descriptors of behaviour. Sociobiological and neurobiological evidence was further used to identify two orthogonal dimensions, each of which was divided into five ordinal categories. Using the Delphi Method, 20% of the catalogued words were scored by clinical psychologists, whilst the remaining 80% of words were scored using a tailored network approach. A technique was then developed to visualise a wide range of existing psychological and social constructs in two dimensions. Finally, a simulation technique was then developed to identify an alternative approach to psychological testing. Results: The identified dimensions of affiliation and dominance were derived from the cataloguing of over 20,000 English language words, including 7,000 adjectival descriptors of personality, 3,000 abstract noun descriptors of emotion, and 8,000 verb descriptors of behaviour. All 20,000 catalogued words were able to be classified according to the ordinal scale. A wide range of psychological and social constructs was visualised and delineated, including the Dark Triad, Five-Factor Model, leadership, criminality, and many DSM-5 personality disorders. The simulation approach facilitated the formation of a psychological testing methodology that minimises the number of questions that must be asked to encompass a broad spectrum of personality, whilst minimising confounding and maximising statistical power. In study 2, two quantitative psychological measures were proposed that strictly conform to metrological standards and the lexical hypothesis. The first measures semantic distance, inspired by the small world problem more popularly known as 'six degrees of separation'. The second measures the geometric distance between constructs according to the atlas. Both measures are theory realistic and address known issues with existing measures of psychological constructs, such as definitional circularity and reification. The method involved a crowdsourcing study of all 1,506 IPIP items. Respondents (N=1,814) were asked to identify the single best adjectival descriptor relevant to each item. The responses were then measured according to both newly proposed quantitative measures. It was found that participant responses were significantly heterogeneous across many IPIP items, calling into question these items' suitability for psychological testing purposes. The crowdsource responses were further used to test the hypothesis that five-factor models are hierarchical. Results did not support the notion that the five-factor model is hierarchical, contrary to popular opinion. Considered together, the conclusion of both studies is that a two factor model of personality may have advantages over the prevailing five-factor model.Mode of access: Internet.1 online resource (97 pages) illustration

Gradual unfreezing transformer-based language models for biomedical question answering

Theoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 49-571 Introduction -- 2 Background and literature review -- 3 Approach -- Fine-tuning DistilBERT -- 5 Gradual unfreezing experiments -- 6 Conclusion and future workPretrained transformer-based language models have achieved state-of-the-art results on various Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. These models can be fine-tuned on a range of downstream tasks with minimalistic modifications. However, fine-tuning a language model may result in the problem of catastrophic forgetting and tend to overfit on smaller training datasets. Therefore, gradually unfreezing the pretrained weights is a possible approach to avoid catastrophic forgetting of the knowledge learnt from the source task. Multi-task fine-tuning is an intermediate step on a high-resource dataset that yields good results for low-resource tasks. In this project, we will be investigating the strategies of multi-task fine-tuning and gradual unfreezing on DistilBERT, which have not yet been applied for biomedical domain. First, we explore whether DistilBERT improves the accuracy of a low-resource dataset, BioASQ, with question answering (QA) task as our NLP use-case. Second, we investigate the effect that gradual unfreezing has on the performance of DistilBERT. We observe that despite being 40% smaller and without any domain-specific pretraining, DistilBERT achieves comparable results to a larger model, BERT on smaller BioASQ dataset. However, we observed that gradually unfreezing DistilBERT has no significant impact on the results of our QA task in comparison to standard non-gradual fine-tuning.Mode of access: Internet.1 online resource (xi, 61 pages) illustration

The role of cohesion in cricket journalism: parallelism and reference from a systemic functional linguistic perspective

Mode of access: World Wide WebTheoretical thesis.Bibliography: pages 92-951 Introduction -- 2 Foundations -- 3 Methodology, results and discussion -- 4 ConclusionsSports writing is an area that has not been widely studied, in particular from a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) perspective. The SFL model is known for analysing the relationship between language and its social context, both situational and cultural. It has traditionally been implemented in discourse analyses of service encounters, stories, elemental genres and, relevant to this thesis, media genres. In Australia, sports such as cricket and its discourse have been an ingrained part of the culture for generations. This is evident in the popularity of the sport and the proliferation of spoken and written cricket discourse, including, the focus of this paper, written cricketer profiles. All writers aspire to create a text for the reader that flows, and that is entertaining, informative, and easy to understand. Traditionally, analyses of texts, especially in educational settings, have focused on grammar, vocabulary, and organisation. However, in order to benefit pedagogy and future research, more rigorous discourse analyses need to be undertaken to capture the essence of meaning framed by purpose and culture in expert writers‟ texts. In this study, four cricketer profiles by two expert writers (n=4) are compared with one article each from two non-expert writers (n=2). All texts relate to a specific batsman. This research uses an SFL framework and analyses the characteristics of cohesion and coherence that make up experts‟ and non- experts‟ writing. The most significant findings relate to the cohesive devices of parallelism and reference. It is argued that these two cohesive devices, when used by the expert writers, assist in achieving cohesion and to a lesser extent coherence suitable for a literary description style of writing. It is hoped that this study will provide the impetus for more research into developing pedagogy related to cricket writing and other text types, with analyses of the link between language choices, social purpose, and genre.Mode of access: Internet.1 online resource ([6], 181 pages) illustration