Rapidly solidified NiAl and FeAl

Melt spinning was used to produce rapidly solidified ribbons of the B2 intermetallics NiAl and FeAl. Both Fe-40Al and Fe-45Al possessed some bend ductility in the as spun condition. The bend ductility of Fe-40Al, Fe-45Al, and equiatomic NiAl increased with subsequent heat treatment. Heat treatment at approximately 0.85 T (sub m) resulted in significant grain growth in equiatomic FeAl and in all the NiAl compositions. Low bend ductility in both FeAl and NiAl generally coincided with intergranular failure, while increased bend ductility was characterized by increasing amounts of transgranular cleavage fracture

Provinciality and the Art World: The Midland Group 1961- 1977

This paper takes as its focus the Midland Group Gallery in order to first, make a case for the consideration of the geographies of art galleries. Second, highlight the importance of galleries in the context of cultural geographies of the sixties. Third, discuss the role of provinciality in the operation of art worlds. In so doing it explicates one set of geographies surrounding the gallery – those of the local, regional and international networks that connected to produce art works and art space. It reveals how the interactions between places and practices outside of metropolitan and regional hierarchies provides a more nuanced insight into how art worlds operated during the sixties, a period of growing internationalism of art, and how contested definitions of the provincial played an integral role in this. The paper charts the operations of the Midland Group Gallery and the spaces that it occupied to demonstrate how it was representative of a post-war discourse of provincialism and a corresponding re-evaluation of regional cultural activity

Photography as an act of collaboration

The camera is usually considered to be a passive tool under the control of the operator. This definition implicitly constrains how we use the medium, as well as how we look at – and what we see in – its interpretations of scenes, objects, events and ‘moments’. This text will suggest another way of thinking about – and using – the photographic medium. Based on the evidence of photographic practice (mine and others’), I will suggest that, as a result of the ways in which the medium interprets, juxtaposes and renders the elements in front of the lens, the camera is capable of depicting scenes, events and moments that did not exist and could not have existed until brought into being by the act of photographing them. Accordingly, I will propose that the affective power of many photographs is inseparable from their ‘photographicness’ – and that the photographic medium should therefore be considered as an active collaborator in the creation of uniquely photographic images

5th International Symposium for Farming Systems Design

Primary enterprises are expected to contend with more frequent climate crises, environmental degradation and even climate-related regulatory change (IPCC, 2014). These stressors occur against an existing backdrop of conventional drivers including economic, biophysical, institutional, cultural and political pressures (Marshall et al., 2012). Australia’s primary industries have historically operated in a highly variable climate and this has posed significant challenges to production, requiring sound and responsive risk management practices. Climate change, brings with it a number of new challenges not yet accounted for by Australian primary producers, and so understanding the scale of these impacts is of importance in undertsanding the changing nature of agricultural risk in the near future. Western Australia with about 4 million ha of wheat production is a major contributor to the Australian agrifood sector and economy. Like cereal production, pastures in WA play a major role in agricultural enterprises and contribute over $3 billion annually through animal production, improvements to crop rotations and conserved fodder (The Department of Agriculture and Food, 2014). Farming profitably in the Western Australia in recent years has been a challenge due in part to declines in annual rainfall as well as exposure to both heat and cold teperature extremes (McConnell & O’Hare, 2013), although lower production might be still profitable. Climate drives the productivity, profitability and environmental health of these systems as they often have to respond to low and variable rainfall. Here we identify the likely effect of climate change in 2030 on mixed farm systems of the Western Australia across a climate transect in terms of production, profit, and environmental impacts for projected climate scenarios in 2030 relative to the baseline of 1980-1999. This work will give insight for designing strategies to respond to changes in climate such as optimized shift towards more intensive livestock systems, dual-purpose cropping, etc

Hedgehog signaling regulates dental papilla formation and tooth size during zebrafish odontogenesis

Intercellular communication by the hedgehog cell signaling pathway is necessary for tooth development throughout the vertebrates, but it remains unclear which specific developmental signals control cell behavior at different stages of odontogenesis. To address this issue, we have manipulated hedgehog activity during zebrafish tooth development and visualized the results using confocal microscopy. Results: We first established that reporter lines for dlx2b, fli1, NF-κB, and prdm1a are markers for specific subsets of tooth germ tissues. We then blocked hedgehog signaling with cyclopamine and observed a reduction or elimination of the cranial neural crest derived dental papilla, which normally contains the cells that later give rise to dentin-producing odontoblasts. Upon further investigation, we observed that the dental papilla begins to form and then regresses in the absence of hedgehog signaling, through a mechanism unrelated to cell proliferation or apoptosis. We also found evidence of an isometric reduction in tooth size that correlates with the time of earliest hedgehog inhibition. Conclusions: We hypothesize that these results reveal a previously uncharacterized function of hedgehog signaling during tooth morphogenesis, regulating the number of cells in the dental papilla and thereby controlling tooth size

Predicting the seasonal evolution of southern African summer precipitation in the DePreSys3 prediction system

We assess the ability of the DePreSys3 prediction system to predict austral summer precipitation (DJF) over southern Africa, defined as the African continent south of 15°S. DePresys3 is a high resolution prediction system (at a horizontal resolution of ~ 60 km in the atmosphere in mid-latitudes and of the quarter degree in the Ocean) and spans the long period 1959–2016. We find skill in predicting interannual precipitation variability, relative to a long-term trend; the anomaly correlation skill score over southern Africa is greater than 0.45 for the first summer (i.e. lead month 2–4), and 0.37 over Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia for the second summer (i.e. lead month 14–16). The skill is related to the successful prediction of the El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the successful simulation of ENSO teleconnections to southern Africa. However, overall skill is sensitive to the inclusion of strong La-Nina events and also appears to change with forecast epoch. For example, the skill in predicting precipitation over Mozambique is significantly larger for the first summer in the 1990–2016 period, compared to the 1959–1985 period. The difference in skill in predicting interannual precipitation variability over southern Africa in different epochs is consistent with a change in the strength of the observed teleconnections of ENSO. After 1990, and consistent with the increased skill, the observed impact of ENSO appears to strengthen over west Mozambique, in association with changes in ENSO related atmospheric convergence anomalies. However, these apparent changes in teleconnections are not captured by the ensemble-mean predictions using DePreSys3. The changes in the ENSO teleconnection are consistent with a warming over the Indian Ocean and modulation of ENSO properties between the different epochs, but may also be associated with unpredictable atmospheric variability

Foucault, the museum and the diagram

Foucault’s work on the museum is partial and fragmentary but provides an interesting opportunity through which to explore issues of power, subjectivity and imagination. Following a discussion of Deleuze’s reading of Foucault and his introduction of the issue of diagram as a way of understanding the discursive and visual operation of power, the paper explores some of Foucault’s work from the period around 1967-9 on the non-relation to explore how he engaged with the question of seeing/saying that Deleuze identifies as a key problematic in his work. Through analysis of Foucault’s discussions of the themes of the outside, heterotopia and the work of the painter Manet, in the context of the museum, the paper explores how power operating through the diagram of the museum allows us to understand the space of imagination as one in which subjectivity is constituted