JERAA@40: Towards a history of the professional association of Australian journalism academics

The professional association representing Australian journalism educators was established in 1975. This article, on the occasion of the association's 40th anniversary, traces the history and evaluates the role of the Australian Association for Tertiary Education in Journalism (AATEJ) and its successors, the Journalism Education Association (JEA) and the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA). It finds collegiality and a desire to improve standards of journalism teaching have endured as key features of the group's ethos. More recently, the association has taken a leadership role in the contested area of research development and, less consistently, adhered to a founding objective to champion free expression. The authors conclude that this repositioning of the association beyond its capacity as a support group for journalism educators raises the question of whether the time has come to renew the traditional mission statement and rejuvenate JERAA's public profile to account for its newfound disciplinary leadership

The presence of supposedly primitive human tools along the upper reaches of the Kizil Irmak in Anatolia

Die ersten Angaben über Flußterrassen in Ost-Anatolien wurden vor kurzem durch Izbirak (1962) und Ketin (1962) gemacht. Die Verfasser der vorliegenden Arbeit haben eine rasche und noch oberflächliche Exploration eines Terrassensystems von fünf bis sieben verschiedenen Niveaus ausgeführt entlang dem oberen Lauf des großen Kizil Irmak (des Roten Flusses) zwischen Sivas und Kayseri in Ost-Anatolien. Teilweise ist es die von Izbirak beschriebene Gegend, größtenteils geht sie aber über diese hinaus. Die Terrassenflächen sind ziemlich gleichmäßig entwickelt entlang des genannten Teils des Flusses, verschwinden aber plötzlich weiter unterhalb. Die Verfasser meinen mit Izbirak, daß die Entstehung dieser Terrassen wahrscheinlich in erster Linie tektonisch und erst an zweiter Stelle klimatisch bedingt ist. Die dritte Terrasse (von unten an gezählt) enthielt überall eine nur geringe Zahl vermutlicher primitiver Artefakten, unter ihnen einige „pebble-tools". Diese sind in vorliegendem Aufsatz beschrieben; sie stellen vielleicht einen Beweis für die Anwesenheit von frühpleistozänen Hominiden in der Türkei dar. In einem Fall wurde in dieser dritten Terrasse ein fossiler Molar eines Hipparion in situ gefunden, teilweise bedeckt mit demselben versteinerten roten Lehm, welcher auch einige der vermutlichen Artefakten einhüllte. Das Alter der Terrassen ist noch nicht genau bekannt. Es scheint aber, daß die ältesten und höchstgelegenen Tertiär sind, die Terrasse, welche die Artefakten enthält, vielleicht dem untersten Pleistozän angehört, und die untersten Terrassen in das junge Pleistozän oder gar Holozän zu stellen sind.researc

Detecting social change: an examination of the role of the Industrial Revolution on osteoporosis in London, United Kingdom

The period of the Industrial Revolution brought major changes in nutrition, lifestyle, and living conditions in London. These changes are conducive to the development of osteoporosis in the population. Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease, which is characterised by increased bone porosity, and may result in more fragile bones and fractures. The World Health Organisation has identified osteoporosis as one of the most prevalent diseases in the modern world, however archaeological sources remain mainly silent on the subject. Data from London provided by the Museum of Archaeology London (MOLA) is compared to observe whether there is a change in prevalence of osteoporosis between the Medieval and post-Medieval period. This research shows that if advanced techniques, such as radiography, are incorporated within the osteological analysis more osteoporosis cases are found within the archaeological record. Structural incorporation of modern techniques will provide new insights in past populations

Risk patterns and correlated brain activities. Multidimensional statistical analysis of FMRI data in economic decision making study

Decision making usually involves uncertainty and risk. Understanding which parts of the human brain are activated during decisions under risk and which neural processes underly (risky) investment decisions are important goals in neuroeconomics. Here, we analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data on 17 subjects who were exposed to an investment decision task from Mohr, Biele, Krugel, Li, and Heekeren (in NeuroImage 49, 2556–2563, 2010b). We obtain a time series of three-dimensional images of the blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) fMRI signals. We apply a panel version of the dynamic semiparametric factor model (DSFM) presented in Park, Mammen, Wolfgang, and Borak (in Journal of the American Statistical Association 104(485), 284–298, 2009) and identify task-related activations in space and dynamics in time. With the panel DSFM (PDSFM) we can capture the dynamic behavior of the specific brain regions common for all subjects and represent the high-dimensional time-series data in easily interpretable low-dimensional dynamic factors without large loss of variability. Further, we classify the risk attitudes of all subjects based on the estimated low-dimensional time series. Our classification analysis successfully confirms the estimated risk attitudes derived directly from subjects’ decision behavior

Cerebral processing of voice gender studied using a continuous carryover fMRI design

Normal listeners effortlessly determine a person's gender by voice, but the cerebral mechanisms underlying this ability remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate 2 stages of cerebral processing during voice gender categorization. Using voice morphing along with an adaptation-optimized functional magnetic resonance imaging design, we found that secondary auditory cortex including the anterior part of the temporal voice areas in the right hemisphere responded primarily to acoustical distance with the previously heard stimulus. In contrast, a network of bilateral regions involving inferior prefrontal and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex reflected perceived stimulus ambiguity. These findings suggest that voice gender recognition involves neuronal populations along the auditory ventral stream responsible for auditory feature extraction, functioning in pair with the prefrontal cortex in voice gender perception

Cortical topography of intracortical inhibition influences the speed of decision making

The neocortex contains orderly topographic maps; however, their functional role remains controversial. Theoretical studies have suggested a role in minimizing computational costs, whereas empirical studies have focused on spatial localization. Using a tactile multiple-choice reaction time (RT) task before and after the induction of perceptual learning through repetitive sensory stimulation, we extend the framework of cortical topographies by demonstrating that the topographic arrangement of intracortical inhibition contributes to the speed of human perceptual decision-making processes. RTs differ among fingers, displaying an inverted U-shaped function. Simulations using neural fields show the inverted U-shaped RT distribution as an emergent consequence of lateral inhibition. Weakening inhibition through learning shortens RTs, which is modeled through topographically reorganized inhibition. Whereas changes in decision making are often regarded as an outcome of higher cortical areas, our data show that the spatial layout of interaction processes within representational maps contributes to selection and decision-making processes

Lives before and after Stonehenge: An osteobiographical study of four prehistoric burials recently excavated from the Stonehenge World Heritage Site

Osteobiographies of four individuals whose skeletal remains were recovered in 2015–16 from the Stonehenge World Heritage Site are constructed, drawing upon evidence from funerary taphonomy, radiocarbon dating, osteological study, stable isotope analyses, and microscopic and biomolecular analyses of dental calculus. The burials comprise an adult from the Middle Neolithic period, immediately prior to the building of Stonehenge, and two adults and a perinatal infant dating from the Middle Bronze Age, shortly after the monument ceased to be structurally modified. The two Middle Bronze Age adults were closely contemporary, but differed from one another in ancestry, appearance and geographic origin (key components of ethnicity). They were nevertheless buried in very similar ways. This suggests that aspects they held in common (osteological analysis suggests perhaps a highly mobile lifestyle) were more important in determining the manner of deposition of their bodies than any differences between them in ethnicity. One of these individuals probably came from outside Britain, as perhaps did the Middle Neolithic adult. This would be consistent with the idea that the Stonehenge landscape had begun to draw people to it from beyond Britain before Stonehenge was constructed and that it continued to do so after structural modification to the monument had ceased