The Australian Memory Project: Postcards from the Edge of South Australia. [abstract].

This paper will establish the purpose, reasoning, research context, and initial findings of the Australian Memory Project’s “Postcards in South Australia” digital archive and exhibition. Placing our project in the framework of similar “memory” projects, and describing some of the theoretical underpinnings and outcomes of such projects, goes some way towards building a picture of memory work in the Australian context and the place of our project within that broader framework

Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely

Mapping the Body Electric: Digital Authors in the Blogosphere. [abstract].

Since blogs are very different in many respects than the established literary forms, there is plenty of room for new exploration. Academic discussion is currently limited by the lack of shared terminology and critical ideas that can assist discussion of the structure and purpose of blogs. When print models are pulled directly into new media, confusion is caused by attempts to match the existing vocabulary to the new techniques and styles of writing. This paper proposes that blogs can usefully be separated into several categories; blogs used as diaries, blogs used as networking/community building tools, blogs used professionally for self-promotion or public journalism. This paper proposes to further refine this model by suggesting theoretical frameworks and utilising examples to assist with carrying the discussion of blogs into the academic and life narrative realms. There is a tremendous upsurge in the number of voices available through the new digital publishing models; it is time to try to make some sense of the digital chatter

Comments in the margins - life narrative, publishing, credibility and blogs

[Broadway, NSW