The Campaign to Arrest Ed Shann’s Influence in Western Australia

Shann towered over the discipline of economics in the state of Western Australia in the first third of the twentieth century. He was the foundation professor in history and economics from 1913 to 1931 and inaugural professor of economics from 1931 to 1934 at the University of Western Australia (UWA); he set the curriculum for the subjects that constituted the economics major that was offered at UWA over this period and ensured that it had a market-driven, policy-oriented and historical flavour; he trained a generation of bright young men and women—such as John La Nauze, Nugget Coombs, Merab Harris, Paul Hasluck, Arthur Tange and Alexander Reid—who drew upon his teachings (even when they disagreed with certain elements of it) to guide their actions as servants of the public; he exploited his contacts in the commercial and professional world of Perth to draw men of intellect, but not formal economic training, into the newly established local branch of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand in 1925; he established close contacts with local men of finance, including Alfred Davidson of the Bank of New South Wales, in a way that eventually allowed him (and his students!) to provide policy advice at a national level; and he used his power as an administrator, at one time acting as the Vice Chancellor of the university, to establish a faculty of law and a diploma in journalism, both of which thereafter had close associations with the economics discipline at UWA. Shann, in short, created the discipline of economics in Western Australia in his own image. Unfortunately, however, a number of powerful identities in Perth resented the free-market commentaries that Shann dispensed in the public domain and before his students, and hence orchestrated a public campaign to arrest his influence. In this paper I provide an account of Shann’s influence in Western Australia from 1913 to 1934 and trace the campaign waged against him (and economics) which eventually induced him to leave this state

The magnetic fields of forming solar-like stars

Magnetic fields play a crucial role at all stages of the formation of low mass stars and planetary systems. In the final stages, in particular, they control the kinematics of in-falling gas from circumstellar discs, and the launching and collimation of spectacular outflows. The magnetic coupling with the disc is thought to influence the rotational evolution of the star, while magnetised stellar winds control the braking of more evolved stars and may influence the migration of planets. Magnetic reconnection events trigger energetic flares which irradiate circumstellar discs with high energy particles that influence the disc chemistry and set the initial conditions for planet formation. However, it is only in the past few years that the current generation of optical spectropolarimeters have allowed the magnetic fields of forming solar-like stars to be probed in unprecedented detail. In order to do justice to the recent extensive observational programs new theoretical models are being developed that incorporate magnetic fields with an observed degree of complexity. In this review we draw together disparate results from the classical electromagnetism, molecular physics/chemistry, and the geophysics literature, and demonstrate how they can be adapted to construct models of the large scale magnetospheres of stars and planets. We conclude by examining how the incorporation of multipolar magnetic fields into new theoretical models will drive future progress in the field through the elucidation of several observational conundrums.Comment: 55 pages, review article accepted for publication in Reports on Progress in Physics. Astro-ph version includes additional appendice

Dissipation-Scale Turbulence in the Solar Wind

We present a cascade model for turbulence in weakly collisional plasmas that follows the nonlinear cascade of energy from the large scales of driving in the MHD regime to the small scales of the kinetic Alfven wave regime where the turbulence is dissipated by kinetic processes. Steady-state solutions of the model for the slow solar wind yield three conclusions: (1) beyond the observed break in the magnetic energy spectrum, one expects an exponential cut-off; (2) the widely held interpretation that this dissipation range obeys power-law behavior is an artifact of instrumental sensitivity limitations; and, (3) over the range of parameters relevant to the solar wind, the observed variation of dissipation range spectral indices from -2 to -4 is naturally explained by the varying effectiveness of Landau damping, from an undamped prediction of -7/3 to a strongly damped index around -4.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in AIP Conference Proceedings on "Turbulence and Nonlinear Processes in Astrophysical Plasmas

Re-thinking the Legacy 2012: The Olympics as commodity and gift

This paper opens discussion about the nature of Olympic ‘legacy’ and articulates a contradiction in the way ‘legacy’ is conceived - between ’gift’ and ’commodity’ (Mauss 1954).The The paper argues that establishing working definitions and parameters for ‘legacy’ is a difficult task. Defining ‘legacy’ is problematic especially if conceived as an entirely predictable or measurable set of objectives. Indeed, the definition of ‘legacy’ is partly constitutive of the legacy itself, a component of achievements that the city might make. Such a ‘legacy definition’ will become a functional term in the complex planning and evolving conceptions underpinning urban change for some time—if successfully negotiated and if governable. As such, ‘legacy’, and the activities and values entailed to it, can come to provide a catalytic ‘vocabulary of motives’ and a legitimating discourse enabling politicians, communities and their individual representatives to justify investments, evolving strategies and activities connected to and connecting developmental gains in a more or less healthy fashion. It is because of this that legacy and its various meanings come to matter

Apollo Saturn 511 effluent measurements from the Apollo 16 launch operations: An experiment

An experiment was performed in conjunction with the Apollo 16 launch to define operational and instrumentational problems associated with launch-vehicle exhaust effluent monitoring. Ground and airborne sampling were performed for CO, CO2, hydrocarbons, and particulates. Sampling systems included filter pads and photometers for particulates and whole-air grab samples for gases. Launch debris was identified in the particulate samples at ground level(taken immediately after launch) and in the airborne measurements (taken 40 to 50 minutes after launch approximately 40 km downwind of the pad). Operational problems were identified and included the need for higher instrumentation mobility and the need for real-time sampling instrumentation as opposed to collection-type samples such as the whole-air grab sample

Launch vehicle effluent measurements during the May 12, 1977, Titan 3 launch at Air Force Eastern Test Range

Airborne effluent measurements and cloud physical behavior for the May 21, 1977, Titan 3 launch from the Air Force Eastern Test Range, Fla. are presented. The monitoring program included airborne effluent measurements in situ in the launch cloud, visible and infrared photography of cloud growth and physical behavior, and limited surface collection of rain samples. Airborne effluent measurements included concentrations of HCl, NO, NOx, and aerosols as a function of time in the exhaust cloud. For the first time in situ particulate mass concentration and aerosol number density were measured as a function of time and size in the size range of 0.05 to 25 micro meters diameter. Measurement results were similar to those of earlier launch monitorings. Maximum HCl and NOx concentrations ranged from 10 ppm and 500 ppb, respectively, several minutes after launch to about 1 ppm and 100 ppb at 45 minutes after launch

Airborne measurements of launch vehicle effluent: Launch of Space Shuttle (STS-1) on 12 April 1981

Launch vehicle effluent environmental impact activities from the first space shuttle (STS-1) included airborne measurements within the exhaust cloud from about 9 min after launch (T + 9) to T + 120 min. Measurements included total hydrogen chloride (gaseous plus aqueous) concentrations, particulate concentrations, temperature, and dewpoint temperature. The airborne measurements are summarized. The physical growth and behavior of exhaust clouds is presented as well as the results of laboratory analysis of elemental composition of particulate samples collected by the aircraft. Observed results from the STS-1 launch are compared with earlier Titan III results. Shuttle effluent concentrations are found to be within the range of Titan III observations

Teaching Economics within John Henry Cardinal Newman’s Ideal University: A Nineteenth Century Vision for the Twenty-first Century Scholar

Now, please, let me bring out what I want to say, while I am full of it. I say then, that the personal influence of the teacher is able in some sort to dispense with an academical system, but that the system cannot in any sort dispense with personal influence. With influence there is life, without it there is none; if influence is deprived of its due position, it will not by those means be got rid of, it will only break out irregularly, dangerously. An academical system without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils, is an arctic winter; it will create an ice-bound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else. You will not call this any new notion of mine; and you will not suspect, after what happened to me a long twenty-five years ago, that I can ever be induced to think otherwise. No! I have known a time in a great School of Letters, when things went on for the most part by mere routine, and form took the place of earnestness. I have experienced a state of things, in which teachers were cut off from the taught as by an insurmountable barrier; when neither party entered into the thoughts of the other; when each lived by and in itself; when the tutor was supposed to fulfil his duty, if he trotted on like a squirrel in his cage, if at a certain hour he was in a certain room, or in hall, or in chapel, as it might be; and the pupil did his duty too, if he was careful to meet his tutor in that same room, or hall, or chapel, at the same certain hour; and when neither the one nor the other dreamed of seeing each other out of lecture, out of chapel, out of academical gown. I have known places where a stiff manner, a pompous voice, coldness and condescension, were the teacher\u27s attributes, and where he neither knew, nor wished to know, and avowed he did not wish to know, the private irregularities of the youths committed to his charge. Cardinal John Henry Newman, [1854] 1872, “1. The Rise and Progress of Universities”. Historical Sketches. v3. London. Longmans, Green and Co. (New Impression 1909) 74-5. Emphasis added

Unveiling the Crucial Intermediates in Androgen Production

Significance: The human enzyme cytochrome P450 17A1 (CYP17A1) catalyzes the critical step in the biosynthesis of the male sex hormones, and, as such, it is a key target for the inhibition of testosterone production that is necessary for the progression of certain cancers. CYP17A1 catalyzes two distinct types of chemical transformations. The first is the hydroxylation of the steroid precursors pregnenolone and progesterone. The second is a different reaction involving carbon–carbon (C-C) bond cleavage, the mechanism of which has been actively debated in the literature. Using a combination of chemical and biophysical methods, we have been able to trap and characterize the active intermediate in this C-C lyase reaction, an important step in the potential design of mechanism-based inhibitors for the treatment of prostate cancers. Abstract: Ablation of androgen production through surgery is one strategy against prostate cancer, with the current focus placed on pharmaceutical intervention to restrict androgen synthesis selectively, an endeavor that could benefit from the enhanced understanding of enzymatic mechanisms that derives from characterization of key reaction intermediates. The multifunctional cytochrome P450 17A1 (CYP17A1) first catalyzes the typical hydroxylation of its primary substrate, pregnenolone (PREG) and then also orchestrates a remarkable C17–C20 bond cleavage (lyase) reaction, converting the 17-hydroxypregnenolone initial product to dehydroepiandrosterone, a process representing the first committed step in the biosynthesis of androgens. Now, we report the capture and structural characterization of intermediates produced during this lyase step: an initial peroxo-anion intermediate, poised for nucleophilic attack on the C20 position by a substrate-associated H-bond, and the crucial ferric peroxo-hemiacetal intermediate that precedes carbon–carbon (C-C) bond cleavage. These studies provide a rare glimpse at the actual structural determinants of a chemical transformation that carries profound physiological consequences