The Son of God and Trinitarian Identity Statements

Classical Trinitarians claim that Jesus—the Son of God—is truly God and that there is only one God and the Father is God, the Spirit is God, and the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct. However, if the identity statement that ‘the Son is God’ is understood in the sense of numerical identity, logical incoherence seems immanent. Yet, if the identity statement is understood according to an ‘is’ of predication then it lacks accuracy and permits polytheism. Therefore, we argue that there is another sense of ‘is’ needed in trinitarian discourse that will allow the Christian to avoid logical incoherence while still fully affirming all that is meant to be affirmed in the confession ‘Jesus is God.’ We suggest a sense of ‘is’ that meets this need

Audio and screen visual feedback to support student learning

Feedback has been highlighted as the most powerful influence on student achievement, but students are often less satisfied with feedback than with other aspects of the student experience. It is hence important that ways of offering feedback are found that are useful both for improving learning and for gaining student satisfaction. This ongoing study was designed to explore and to improve feedback in a variety of differing contexts, two of which are reported here: i) audio feedback on a first year undergraduate written assignment in Geography (product-oriented feedback); and ii) video feedback from ongoing laboratory sessions with first-year Biosciences students (process-oriented feedback). These contexts have been selected as offering different ways of working and for highlighting a number of issues and areas for further development. Student and staff views have been gained via surveys, focus groups, individual interviews and ‘stimulated recall’ sessions. Findings suggest that students have high expectations in relation to feedback; many anticipate the kinds of individual face-to-face interaction they experienced in school and are not easily satisfied by other ways of working. In addition, offering audio or video feedback that is supportive to learning in both affective and cognitive terms is not necessarily easy. In the context of written assignments there is still much to be learned about appropriateness of length, tone, the register of language, the balance between praise and criticism, and the best contexts and timing for audio feedback. In the context of large classes for laboratory sessions, further research is needed on how lecturers and demonstrators can give ongoing feedback that is useful when captured for replay in video form, and also about how effective video taken in class might be then used for training purposes in order to enable student demonstrators to be more effective and knowledgeable when offering feedback to student

Artist-In-Residence Recital

Program listing performers and works performe

A novel activation mechanism for Clostridial bacteriophage endolysins

Bacteriophage-encoded endolysins are produced at the end of the phage lytic cycle for the degradation of the host bacterial cell. Endolysins offer the potential as alternatives to antibiotics as biocontrol agents or therapeutics. The lytic mechanisms of three bacteriophage endolysins that target Clostridium species living under different conditions were investigated. For these endolysins a trigger and release mechanism is proposed for their activation. During host lysis, holin lesion formation suddenly permeabilises the membrane which exposes the cytosol-sequestered endolysins to a sudden environmental shock. This shock is suggested to trigger a conformational switch of the endolysins between two distinct dimer states. The switch between dimer states is proposed to activate a novel autocleavage mechanism that cleaves the linker connecting the N-terminal catalytic domain and the C-terminal domain to release the catalytic domain for more efficient digestion of the bacterial cell wall. Crystal structures of cleaved fragments of CD27L and CTP1L were previously obtained. In these structures cleavage occurs at the stem of the linker connected to the C-terminal domain. Despite a sequence identity of only 22% between 81 residues of the C-terminal domains of CD27L and CTP1L, they represent a novel fold that is identified in a number of different lysins. Within the crystal structures the two distinct dimerization modes are represented: the elongated head‐on dimer and the side-by‐side dimer. Introducing mutations that inhibit either of the dimerization states caused a decrease in the efficiency of both the autocleavage mechanism and the lytic activity of the endolysins. The two dimer states were validated for the full-length endolysins in solution by using right angle light scattering, small angle X‐ray scattering and cross-linking experiments. Overall, the data represents a new type of regulation governed by the C-terminal domains that is used to activate these endolysins once they enter the bacterial cell wall

Digital news report: Australia 2015

This report gives a clear picture of how the Australian news consumer compares to eleven other countries surveyed in 2015: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, UK, USA and urban Brazil. The Digital News Report: Australia is part of a global survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. Further in-depth analysis of Australian digital news consumption has been conducted and published by the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra

Vector boson fusion searches for dark matter at the LHC

The vector boson fusion (VBF) event topology at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) allows efficient suppression of dijet backgrounds and is therefore a promising target for new physics searches. We consider dark matter models which interact with the Standard Model through the electroweak sector: either through new scalar and pseudoscalar mediators which can be embedded into the Higgs sector, or via effective operators suppressed by some higher scale, and therefore have significant VBF production cross-sections. Using realistic simulations of the ATLAS and CMS analysis chain, including estimates of major error sources, we project the discovery and exclusion potential of the LHC for these models over the next decade.Comment: 16 pages, 2 tables, 12 figure

Patterns of Duality in N=1 SUSY Gauge Theories

We study the patterns in the duality of a wide class of N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions. We present many new generalizations of the classic duality models of Kutasov and Schwimmer, which have themselves been generalized numerous times in works of Intriligator, Leigh and the present authors. All of these models contain one or two fields in a two-index tensor representation, along with fields in the defining representation. The superpotential for the two-index tensor(s) resembles A_k or D_k singularity forms, generalized from numbers to matrices. Looking at the ensemble of these models, classifying them by superpotential, gauge group, and ``level'' -- for terminology we appeal to the architecture of a typical European-style theatre -- we identify emerging patterns and note numerous interesting puzzles.Comment: 34 pages, 4 figures, uses harvmac and table

Learning from humans: combining imitation and deep reinforcement learning to accomplish human-level performance on a virtual foraging task

We develop a method to learn bio-inspired foraging policies using human data. We conduct an experiment where humans are virtually immersed in an open field foraging environment and are trained to collect the highest amount of rewards. A Markov Decision Process (MDP) framework is introduced to model the human decision dynamics. Then, Imitation Learning (IL) based on maximum likelihood estimation is used to train Neural Networks (NN) that map human decisions to observed states. The results show that passive imitation substantially underperforms humans. We further refine the human-inspired policies via Reinforcement Learning (RL), using on-policy algorithms that are more suitable to learn from pre-trained networks. We show that the combination of IL and RL can match human results and that good performance strongly depends on an egocentric representation of the environment. The developed methodology can be used to efficiently learn policies for unmanned vehicles which have to solve missions in an open field environment.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figure

Effect of New Zealand Blackcurrant Extract on Force Steadiness of the Quadriceps Femoris Muscle during Sustained Submaximal Isometric Contraction

Intake of anthocyanin-rich New Zealand blackcurrant (NZBC) can alter physiological responses that enhance exercise performance. In two studies, we examined the effects of NZBC extract on force steadiness during a sustained submaximal isometric contraction of the quadriceps femoris muscle. With repeated measures designs, male participants in study one (n = 13) and study two (n = 19) performed a 120 s submaximal (30%) isometric contraction of the quadriceps femoris muscle following a 7-day intake of NZBC extract and placebo (study one) and following 0 (control), 1-, 4- and 7-day intake of NZBC extract (study two). Participants for both studies were different. In study one, NZBC extract enhanced isometric force steadiness during the 120 s contraction (placebo: 6.58 ± 2.24%, NZBC extract: 6.05 ± 2.24%, p = 0.003), with differences in the third (60–89 s) and fourth quartile (90–120 s) of the contraction. In study two, isometric force steadiness was not changed following 1 and 4 days but was enhanced following 7-day intake of NZBC extract in comparison to control. In study two, the enhanced isometric force steadiness following 7-day intake did occur in the second (30–59 s), third (60–89 s) and fourth (90–120 s) quartiles. Daily supplementation of anthocyanin-rich NZBC extract can enhance force steadiness of the quadriceps femoris muscle during a sustained submaximal isometric contraction. Our observations may have implications for human tasks that require postural stability