Orbiculum

 One of three works commissioned by Experimenta, Orbiculum was part of House of Tomorrow, 30 international works curated by Liz Hughes, Shiralee Saul and Helen Stuckey. Attracting some 47000 in Melbourne (Black Box Gallery, Victorian Arts Centre) it toured major Australian galleries: Artspace, Adelaide: Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; WA Maritime Museum; Bendigo, Warrnambool and Gippsland Art Galleries and Mildura Arts Centre. Orbiculum is a kinetic, interactive sculpture where users can manipulate and view a responsive 3D virtual environment. 'In this nostalgic recreation of the archetypal Australian backyard, Lycette Bros. speculate on the fate of the suburban dream. Constructed from machine parts and electronic components, Orbiculum takes the form of a strange ornamental device. Orbiculum sits within the Cyberpunk and Gothic realm of art that has seen a resurgence of interest around technology fetishists and the like. It harks back to the work of Giger and contemporaries such as Chris Conte and Stephane Halleux. The utilisation of junk collage and sculpture combined with techno intrigue and Steam Punk obsession. This work expresses the continuing interest of the artists with these subjects - merging a physical object with the virtual. While based in an established genre its innovation fall into the developing scene of such themed artists in Australia. No matter how technologically advanced we are, there is little to distinguish us from the many that have come before. Every period - including the future - will reassess, analyse and classify the times preceding with responses ranging from condemnation to nostalgia. How will the (already threatened) great Australian dream of a home on a quarter acre block, surrounded by a paling fence be seen in the future? As a humourous, kitsch even folksy object to be mocked or a nostalgic symbol of freedom and private space long removed and regretted by those in the future

Cinebugs

"A phenomenon of the late 90s, branded entertainment morphed from advertising into the world of social networking and beyond. Cinebugs explores the question of what branded entertainment is and how it intersects the artistic and commercial worlds without corrupting either. The work was commissioned by ACMI essentially as a response to this phenomenon - to display their innovation and engagement with contemporary media thought and practice. This animated opening trailer served as an identity for the ACMI cinema brand and was shown at the opening of every ACMI Cinema screening for a year. <br />This work reflects the idea of cinema encapsulating not the brand, but the concept behind it ie a place where all screen media is possible. It was presented in forums such as the Resfest Australia conference forum on branded entertainment event, Sydney Opera House 05 as a successful example of the genre. With themes consistent with Lycette's artistic history, the work has provided the conceptual and practical basis for further works both artistic and commercial. <br />A broad creative brief enabled the work to encompass the idea of cinema, from its foundations to current methodologies as a short sequence exploring the ideas of ""context"" in making film. A key theme is the ""frame"". The ""frame"", constructed within a formal man-made world of methodology and tools. It showed a unique eco-system of animated creatures made from camera and projector parts, evoking the development of cinema technology and the magic of the screen. The imagination and beauty of the physical and natural world is expressed through the boundaries of the frame - mirroring the cinema screen boundaries, and before that, the frame as edge of canvas or paper for an artwork.<br />Cinebugs exhibited at: LUME, Melb, 05, SIGGRAPHNZ 05, Resfest, Digital Projections, Syd & Melb 05, Japan Media Arts Festival Tokyo 05, Holland Animation Festival, 06 Bimini IFAF Latvia, 06 and was a finalist in the Desktop Magazine Awards, Australia."<br /&gt

Hiding spot

 "This work was commissioned by All Rights Reserved (HK) in celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Hello Kitty. High profile international artists, including Norbert Bayer, Experimental Jetset, PowerGraphixx and miyukiohashi, were invited to make an animation with the theme 'Hide & Seek'. The 'Hiding Spot' project was an artistic challenge in translating the idea of a pop icon such as Hello Kitty into an artwork that reinterpreted it as an alternate visual form or exploration within the rigid boundaries of a controlled brand. The finished work literally and visually translates the exhibition title 'Hiding Spot' by using spots, ie large black and white circles, that have hidden within them characters from the Hello Kitty universe. The continual zoom of the camera into the spots, or dots, reveals the characters in motion. The world of Hello Kitty resides within the dots that go to form the visual of Hello Kitty itself. <br />The work could be interpreted as slightly dark, through the limited colour palette, an obvious contrast to the brightly coloured world of Hello Kitty. However its intention was to be a simple visual experiment in abstraction and movement. These characteristics certainly made the work sit outside interpretation by other artists.<br />Interestingly, involvement in the project raised the question of the motivations of the promoter in what could have been a cynical use of a very wealthy brand to attract visual designers to produce content for no monetary return. The obvious temptation of using such a recognised icon in a creative work often overcomes such reservations or suspicions. The opportunity outweighs such concerns. The final work was influenced by previous Lycette Bros. work, ie use of limited palette and scaling components. It has influenced further work with brands and the music track has been re-employed. 'Hiding spot' premiered at the Arts Centre launch and exhibited at The Arts House, Singapore in 2007.&quot

Frequent type 2 neurofibromatosis gene transcript mutations in sporadic intramedullary spinal cord ependymomas.

OBJECTIVE: To further investigate the role of Type 2 neurofibromatosis (NF2) gene transcript mutations in the sporadically occurring counterparts of NF2-associated tumors. METHODS: Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction followed by agarose gel electrophoresis, single strand conformation polymorphism analysis, and automated deoxyribonucleic acid sequence analysis were used to screen for mutations in the NF2 gene transcript in seven unrelated patients with sporadic intramedullary spinal cord ependymomas. RESULTS: Five of seven intramedullary spinal cord ependymomas harbored detectable mutations. All of these mutations occurred in the region of the transcript that is homologous to known cytoskeletal proteins and resulted in significant truncation of the predicted protein product. CONCLUSION: Mutations of the NF2 transcript occur in the majority of sporadic intramedullary spinal cord ependymomas. These mutations are frequent in a region of the transcript that is homologous to a family of cytoskeletal proteins, and they probably render the protein product inactive. These results add to the body of knowledge concerning the role of the NF2 gene transcript in tumorigenesis

Joint hypermobility and autonomic hyperactivity: relevance to neurodevelopmental disorders

Objective To test the hypothesis that Joint hypermobility and autonomic dysfunction are over-expressed within neurodevelopmental disorders. Joint hypermobility is a widespread poorly recognized connective tissue condition with affected individuals overrepresented among panic and anxiety disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue. The relevance of hypermobility to neuropsychiatric disorders of developmental origin is currently unknown, despite anecdotal case reports and clinical suspicion of a link. Autonomic nervous system dysregulation, typically postural tachycardia syndrome is often found in hypermobile individuals. Interestingly, differences in amygdala and superior temporal cortex anatomy have been reported in hypermobile populations and functional abnormalities in patients with autism.Method Thirty-seven adults with neurodevelopmental disorder, 205 patients attending general psychiatric clinics without neurodevelopmental diagnosis and 29 healthy controls were recruited. Hypermobility was assessed using the Beighton scale (BS) and autonomic symptoms using the Autonomic Symptoms and Quality of Life Score (ASQoLS: orthostatic, gastrointestinal, bladder, secretomotor, sudomotor and sleep domains.Results The neurodevelopmental cohort had a mean age of 34.6 years (27 male). Nineteen had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), 4 Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), 1 Tourette Syndrome (TS) and the remainder combinations of ADHD, ASD and TS. Nine had co-morbid affective disorder. Eighteen patients (48.6%) were classified as hypermobile (BS>=4) compared to 67/204(32.7%) in the general psychiatric group (p=0.048) and 3/29(10.3%) in healthy controls (p=0.007) and this prevalence was also significantly higher that reported in a large general population cohort (1156/6022, 19.19%, p=<0.001). Mean autonomic dysfunction score was significantly higher in the neurodevelopmental cohort compared to controls (mean±SEM: neurodevelopmental disorder patients, 45.8±4.86; controls, 8.5±1.62). This effect was seen across all sub-scales of the ASQoLS. Total autonomic dysfunction score did not differ significantly between neurodevelopmental cohort and the general psychiatric group, however neurodevelopmental disorder patients had significantly higher scores on orthostatic and gastrointestinal disturbance subscales.Conclusion We demonstrate for the first time that rates of hypermobility and symptoms of autonomic dysfunction are particularly high in adults with neurodevelopmental diagnoses. It is likely that the importance of hypermobility and autonomic dysfunction to the generation and maintenance of psychopathology in neurodevelopmental disorders is poorly appreciated. Work underway(autonomic testing, fMRI) will test the hypothesis that autonomic reactivity and interoceptive sensitivity predispose to the expression of psychiatric symptoms, particularly anxiety. It is further hypothesized that inefficient neural co-ordination of efferent autonomic drive with imprecise interoceptive representations may be amplified in hypermobile individuals. In hypermobility, this mechanism might explain increased vulnerability to stress sensitive and developmental neuropsychiatric conditions

Research on stable, high-efficiency amorphous silicon multijunction modules

This report describes the progress made during Phase 1 of research and development program to obtain high-efficiency amorphous silicon alloy multijunction modules. Using a large-area deposition system, double-and triple-junction cells were made on stainless steel substrates of over 1 ft{sup 2} area with Ag and ZnO predeposited back reflector. Modules of over 1 ft{sup 2} were produced with between 9.2% and 9.9 initial aperture-area efficiencies as measured under a USSC Spire solar simulator. Efficiencies as measured under the NREL Spire solar simulator were found to be typically 15% to 18% lower. The causes for this discrepancy are now being investigated. The modules show about 15% degradation after 600 hours of one-sun illumination at 50{degrees}C. To optimize devices for higher stabilized efficiency, a new method was developed by which the performance of single-junction cells after long-term, one-sun exposure at 50{degrees}C can be predicted by exposing cells to short-term intense light at different temperatures. This method is being used to optimize the component cells of the multijunction structure to obtain the highest light-degraded efficiency