Gray Whales, Green Indians, and Sea Shepherds

In recent years, scholars in disciplines outside the field of religious studies have attempted to explain the behavior of anti-whaling activists opposing the Makah tribe's attempts to being whaling in this contemporary era in terms of theories of totemism. This thesis questions the conclusions reached by those scholars and argues the following: 1) analysis of contemporary anti-whaling activism as "totemism" is ineffective because of the problematic and outdated nature of the concept; 2) contemporary scholars who employ the concept also fail to make the more general argument that anti-whaling activism is an endeavor informed by religious beliefs; 3) the fact that scholars have attempted to rehabilitate the term may tell us more about their own ideas regarding religion than those of the people whom they study. Specifically, it is the argument of this thesis that such application of the totemism concept illustrates the ideological bias that perceived human-animal relationships on the part of indigenous peoples are permissible, but are not permissible among non-indigenous individuals or groups

Joining the dots between teacher education and widening participation in higher education

In England and Australia, higher education institutions are required to widen participation in higher education by including students from under-represented and non-traditional groups. Widening participation is most effective when it starts early – during compulsory education and other forms of pre-tertiary education. Higher education institutions are providers of pre-service and in-service teacher education, and therefore have the potential to ‘join the dots’ between teacher education and widening participation. Two approaches are identified: recruiting more diverse cohorts of students to teacher education through targeted, relevant and engaging pre-entry experiences in schools and communities with low rates of progression to higher education, and preparing all teachers to better support the tenets of widening participation through their professional roles in schools, colleges and communities. This paper focuses on the former, using a structural theoretical lens to understand low participation by particular groups of students. This framework is used to analyse two empirical examples, one from Australia and one from England. The paper concludes by recommending a more systemic approach to widening participation through teacher education, and makes practical suggestions informed by theory, practice and research

Elementary and topological excitations in ultracold dipolar Bose gases

PhD ThesisQ uantum gases are an exemplar for exploring quantum phenomena; dipolar quantum gases only enriches the pool of potential experiments, exhibiting long-range and anisotropic interactions. In this thesis, we perform extensive numerical and theoretical studies of the dipolar Gross-Pitaevskii equation, exposing new intriguing phenomena of solitons and vortices in these systems. Firstly, we map out the stability diagram as a function of strength and polarisation direction of the atomic dipoles in a quasi-one-dimensional dipolar gas, identifying both roton and phonon instabilities. Then we obtain the family of dark soliton solutions supported in this system. Away from these instabilities dark solitons collide elastically. Varying the polarisation direction relative to the condensate axis enables tuning of this nonlocal interaction between repulsive and attractive; the latter case supports unusual dark soliton bound states. Remarkably, these bound states are themselves shown to behave like solitons, emerging unscathed from collisions with each other. In trapped gases the oscillation frequency of the dark soliton is strongly dependent on the atomic interactions, in stark contrast to the non-dipolar case. Considering parameter regimes allowing the existence of bright solitons we map out the existence of the soliton solutions and show three collisional regimes: free collisions, bound state formation and soliton fusion. We examine the solitons in their full three-dimensional form through a variational approach; along with regimes of instability to collapse and runaway expansion, we identify regimes of stability which are accessible to current experiments. Then, we undertake a theoretical analysis of the stability of a Thomas-Fermi density pro le for a dipolar gas in a rotating frame of reference and nd that the theoretical prediction for "anti-dipoles" is only experimentally realisable for short periods of time. We compare this theory against numerical simulations of the governing equation for these systems and nd excellent agreement. Finally, we study the elementary characteristics of turbulence in a quantum ferro uid through the context of a dipolar Bose gas condensing from a highly non-equilibrium thermal state. Our simulations reveal that the dipolar interactions drive the emergence of polarised turbulence and density corrugations. The super uid vortex lines and density uctuations adopt a columnar or strati ed con guration, with the vortices tending to form in the low density regions to minimise kinetic energy. When the interactions are dominantly dipolar, the decay rate of vortex line length is enhanced. This system poses exciting prospects for realising strati ed quantum turbulence and new levels of generating and controlling turbulence using magnetic elds.EPSR

Reappraisal of Contemporary Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Principles for Informing Aminoglycoside Dosing

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147085/1/phar2193.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147085/2/phar2193_am.pd

Vortices in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates

Quantized vortices are the hallmark of superfluidity, and are often sought out as the first observable feature in new superfluid systems. Following the recent experimental observation of vortices in Bose-Einstein condensates comprised of atoms with inherent long-range dipole-dipole interactions [Nat. Phys. 18, 1453-1458 (2022)], we thoroughly investigate vortex properties in the three-dimensional dominantly dipolar regime, where beyond-mean-field effects are crucial for stability, and investigate the interplay between trap geometry and magnetic field tilt angle.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

Superconducting Diamond on Silicon Nitride for Device Applications

Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) grown nanocrystalline diamond is an attractive material for the fabrication of devices. For some device architectures, optimisation of its growth on silicon nitride is essential. Here, the effects of three pre-growth surface treatments, often employed as cleaning methods of silicon nitride, were investigated. Such treatments provide control over the surface charge of the substrate through modification of the surface functionality, allowing for the optimisation of electrostatic diamond seeding densities. Zeta potential measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to analyse the silicon nitride surface following each treatment. Exposing silicon nitride to an oxygen plasma offered optimal surface conditions for the electrostatic self-assembly of a hydrogen-terminated diamond nanoparticle monolayer. The subsequent growth of boron-doped nanocrystalline diamond thin films on modified silicon nitride substrates under CVD conditions produced coalesced films for oxygen plasma and solvent treatments, whilst pin-holing of the diamond film was observed following RCA-1 treatment. The sharpest superconducting transition was observed for diamond grown on oxygen plasma treated silicon nitride, demonstrating it to be of the least structural disorder. Modifications to the substrate surface optimise the seeding and growth processes for the fabrication of diamond on silicon nitride devices