Learning Through Multimedia Interaction: The Construal of Primary Social Science Knowledge in Web-based Digital Learning Materials

This thesis is concerned with the construal and the recontextualisation of primary social science knowledge in hypermedia texts. More specifically, it provides an account for the relations between verbiage and image in web-based multimodal interactive leaning materials, known as Multimodal Interactives (MIs). Based on the linguistic description, the thesis offers insights into the ways in which knowledge is construed and recontextaulised in the emerging electronic multimodal discourses. The general theoretical orientation of this thesis is that of systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA). Within the framework of SF-MDA, the thesis proposes a complementary perspective on intersemiosis, which treats relations between verbiage and image as patterns formed during the unfolding of a text. To capture this type of intersemiotic relations, the thesis develops a logogenetic model for SF-MDA. The defining feature the model is the temporal axis (time), which serves as the main reference point for determining semiotic units (logogenetic units) and describing semiotic patterns (logogenetic patterns). The logogenetic model is applied in studying five MIs. The basic logogenetic unit used in analysis is Critical Path, the shortest traversal through a MI. Two types of logogenetic patterns along the Critical Paths in the five MIs are examined in detail, including intersemiotic ideational coupling and clustering. There are five basic types of verbiage-imaged coupling emerged from the analysis, including Naming & Identifying, Representing, Classifying & Co-classifying, and Circumstantiating. The analysis of ideational clustering shows the different ways in which participants and activities form clusters in each MI. By analysing intersemiotic coupling and clustering, the thesis shows that language and image construe the keys notions of primary social science such as people, place and community through three fundamental principles—abstraction, generalisation and specification. The study also demonstrates the possibility of achieving different degrees of pedagogic framing in hypermedia environments

Interference of circulating azathioprine but not methotrexate or sulfasalazine with measurements of interleukin-6 bioactivity

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Review of Program 1: Diagnostics, and Program 3: Genomics and Proteomics

Established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre Progra

All the choice and all the responsibilities: an exploration of the agency perceived by women with children around their childbearing

Findings from an exploratory study of agency around childbearing perceived by women with children from a feminist perspective are presented. Contemporary women‘s childbearing has confusedly been portrayed as chosen but constrained and also a duty. Most recently women have been considered to have a duty to reproduce to stimulate economic growth. Furthermore, a plethora of fertility theories have been put forward to explain recent declining fertility but these have found to be incapable of explaining fertility trends and the complexity of childbearing negotiations. Amongst these deliberations women‘s interests tend to get lost. This research attempts to reverse that tendency. Taking part in this research were 26 women each of whom had at least one child of nine years of age or younger from in and around Orange, NSW. Data was collected using in-depth semi-structured interviews and focus groups. As agency is ill-defined within sociology, seven criteria for recognising agency were constructed from a review of sociological theory. These criteria were used as a series of lenses through which the data were viewed; allowing for the explanatory powers of theories to be compared. The findings show that women‘s agency around childbearing was intermittent and imperfect but not completely absent. Important to the discourse of choice prevalent in the popular media and expounded by economic rationalists, the concept of choice was shown to be simplistic. Rather the women described complex negotiations between biological factors, social influences and personal preferences. This research demonstrates that despite making some progress in workforce participation, women‘s expected role in the home curtailed what they could achieve. The thesis furthers understanding of women‘s childbearing agency, has implications for public policy, provides insights into the relevance of sociological theories to women who have children and provides a novel methodological approach for assessing agency

Astronomical Observations

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the role of Fcg receptor (FcgR) genes in susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using family based studies, to examine possible interactions between FcgR genotypes and the shared epitope (SE), and to assess linkage disequilibrium between FcgR loci. METHODS: Association studies were performed in 95 Caucasian, single-case, nuclear Caucasian families with both parents alive using haplotype based haplotype relative risk (HHRR) and transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) statistics. Three FcgR polymorphisms (FcgRIIA-131H/R, FcgRIIIA-158V/F, and FcgRIIIB-NA1/NA2) were genotyped using polymerase chain reaction methods. Linkage analysis was performed using 3 microsatellite markers (D1S498, D1S2844, D1S2762) flanking the FcgR region in an independent set of 90 Caucasian, multiple-case families. Potential effects of disease heterogeneity, including sex and the presence of rheumatoid factor, SE, and erosive or nodular disease, were taken into account in the analysis. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine whether FcgR alleles are independent risk factors for the susceptibility to and/or severity of RA. Linkage disequilibrium was calculated using pairwise linkage disequilibrium statistics. RESULTS: HHRR and TDT analysis showed no evidence of preferential transmission of any FcgR alleles studied, and there were no important associations with any given disease phenotype. Moreover, neither linkage to microsatellite markers close to the FcgR genes on chromosome 1 nor linkage disequilibrium between FcgR loci was present in our population. The distribution of inherited genotypes provided evidence for an interaction between the SE and the FcgRIIIA-158V allele and between the SE and the FcgRIIIA-158V-FcgRIIA-131H 2-locus haplotype since the combined presence of these factors increased the susceptibility to RA (OR 4.13, 95% CI 1.6-10.62 and OR 2.83, 95% CI 1.25-6.38, respectively). However, regression analysis showed that neither the 158V allele nor the 158V-131H haplotype contributed as independent factors to susceptibility or severity of RA. CONCLUSION: Isolated FcgR genes do not play a major independent role in susceptibility to RA. To a limited extent, the presence of high-binding alleles at the FcgRIIIA locus or at the FcgRIIIA-FcgRIIA haplotype might predispose to RA in SE positive individuals

Effect of methotrexate alone or in combination with sulphasalazine on the production and circulating concentrations of cytokines and their antagonists. Longitudinal evaluation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

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Circulating soluble tumor necrosis factor receptors, interleukin-2 receptors, tumor necrosis factor-á, and interleukin-6 levels in rheumatoid arthritis. Longitudinal evaluation during methotrexate and azathioprine therapy

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KinOath Kinship Archiver Version 1.4

This talk will introduce a new tool for Humanities research, in particular Ethnology, Linguistics, Law, History, but also Genetics and Archiving. This tool is KinOath Kinship Archiver which is an application for collecting and analysing kinship data. It is designed to be flexible and culturally nonspecific, which is important to prevent extraneous concepts being imposed onto the data being recorded. The kinship data can be linked to external resources such as archive data. Graphical representation of the data is a key feature, it produces publishable quality diagrams that can be exported to SVG, PDF and JPG formats. Data can be imported from GEDCOM, CSV and TIP files. Data can be exported into CSV format, with additional formats becoming available as plugins. KinOath provides very flexible data fields for each individual / entity recorded in the kinship data, this is combined with customisable relation types, customisable symbols and customisable kin types. This means, for example, that any number of genders and kinship relations can be defined and represented on a diagram. The most common format, GEDCOM (Family History Department, 1999), can be imported into KinOath. However this GEDCOM format exhibits cultural specificities because it has a predetermined set of kinship types, genders and initiation ceremonies. We know that there is a wider array of kinship types (e.g. suckling relations (Altorki, 1980)) and genders (e.g. the Māhū of Hawaiʻi (Matzner, 2001)). There are also initiation ceremonies beyond the Christian and Jewish ceremonies that are predefined in GEDCOM. However once this data is imported, all the flexibility of KinOath will be available. KinOath has project based diagrams and freeform diagrams. Freeform diagrams are like a quick sketch; while project diagrams each have a database of kinship data which can be shared across multiple diagrams. Project based diagrams also allow kin type string queries, such that individuals to be found based on their relations to others. Individuals in a project diagram can be duplicated and merged, which can be useful, for example, in correcting data, or merging multiple data sets where some individuals overlap. In freeform diagrams kin terms can be defined with kin type strings and shown on the diagram, organised in groups, imported and exported. In the future it will be possible to overlay these kin terms onto project diagrams. In order to perform statistical analysis, the kinship data for each project or freeform diagram can be exported for use in R or SPSS. This combined with queries based on kin types and other search parameters, provides great potential in the analysis of both the kin data and the archive data that has been recorded. The intended users of Kinoath are any researchers that collect data in a context of social relations. Kinship data is often not systematically included in the metadata of archives, however these kin relations provide a context that enriches that archived data. KinOath is in active development and new features are regularly being added. The plugin framework that KinOath shares with Arbil has made it possible for external developers to add features. The various versions and the manual are available at: http://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tlatools/kinoath/ REFERENCES Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, 1999, THE GEDCOM STANDARD DRAFT Release 5.5.1 http://www.phpgedview.net/ged551¬5.pdf Matzner, Andrew. 2001. 'O au no keia: voices from Hawaii's Mahu and transgender communities. Bloomington, Indiana: Xlibris. Altorki, Soraya. 1980. MilkKinship in Arab Society: An Unexplored Problem in the Ethnography of Marriage. Ethnology 19(2): 233-24

Citrulline is an essential constituent of antigenic determinants recognizid by rheumatoid arthritis-specific autoantibodies

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