THE ROLE AND IMPORTANCE OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN THE POLICY PROCESS

Academic freedom, Policy process, policy decision-making, policy advice, research, research institute, Political Economy, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

On disinflation since 1982: an application of change-point tests

An examination of recent changes in the statistical properties of alternative measures of core inflation, identifying statistically significant change points in the fixed mean and finding that for all measures considered, changes in the inflation rate trend have been infrequent and, for the most part, rather abrupt.Inflation (Finance)

'A Hydrological Imaginary’

My work questions the ongoing dialogue between technology and nature. This dialogue is most evident in landscapes and their respective ecosystems, specifically rivers. These bodies of water are a fluid mirror reflecting a wavering view of ourselves, a constructed human presence within the natural environment. This thesis offers a way of understanding these pipelines, dams, canals and attendant infrastructures in a conceptual manner. These encapsulating forms that interrupt, shape and utilise the natural realm are the facades of a hydrological imaginary. ‘A Hydrological Imaginary’ addresses this field of tension between the river and its artificial counterparts - canals, pipelines and human-made containments. The core of the thesis is a discussion of rivers, dams and water-based infrastructure that illustrates how environmentally engaged art discourses respond to the technological and sociocultural elements of water. This paper discusses the strategies of artists that work with bodies of water through photography, such as Australian artist David Stephenson and German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher along with my own photographic work. Multi-disciplinary artists such as UK artists Simon Starling and Rachel Whiteread are also discussed, along with the work of American artist Robert Smithson and American artist John Roloff. These conceptual art practices are to be connected to American writer David E. Nye and Scandinavian Professor Terje Tvedt’s ideas on the underlying histories of geopolitics, the technological sublime and Australian writer Martin Thomas’ ideas on the role of environmentalism in art. Thus, this thesis illustrates how art agitates the hydrological realm and contributes to the creation of new reflections, meanings and possibilities from the narratives of contained water, submerged histories and sociocultural attributes to the landscape. I have used my practice to bring context to these concepts around the ideas of contained nature and the movement of water in two solo exhibitions that featured video, photographic and kinetic sculptures created in a range of staged encounters with rivers in Eastern Australia. Alongside my previous work based on the Yangtze River in China in 2012, and work made within the Blue Mountains in 2012 – 2015 prior to commencing this Masters project, this thesis is a distillation of these seemingly disparate bodies of water. It is a narrative on historic systems, aesthetics and possibilities of the natural and the assisted movement of water

The Lambda-structure Of The Representation Rings Of The Classical Weyl Groups

First, we introduce a class of operations, called {dollar}\phi{dollar}-operations, on the representation rings of the classical Weyl groups {dollar}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k{rcub}){dollar} and {dollar}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(D\sb{lcub}k{rcub}){dollar}. These operations are shown to generate the exterior power operations in the representation rings {dollar}R({lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k{rcub})){dollar} and {dollar}R({lcub}\cal W{rcub}(D\sb{lcub}k{rcub})).{dollar} Given integers l, h satisfying {dollar}l + h=k{dollar}, let {dollar}\beta{dollar} be a partition of l and {dollar}\alpha{dollar} be a partition of h. The main theorem shows that induced representations of the form {dollar}{dollar}Ind\sbsp{lcub}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}\sb{lcub}\beta,\alpha{rcub}{rcub}{lcub}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k{rcub}){rcub}1,{dollar}{dollar}where {dollar}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}\sb{lcub}B,a{rcub}=\prod{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}B{rcub})\times\prod{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(A\sb{lcub}a{rcub}),{dollar} can be expressed as an algebraic combination of {dollar}\phi{dollar}-operations acting on the two canonical induced representations {dollar}{dollar}\eqalign{lcub}X\sb{lcub}k{rcub}&= Ind\sbsp{lcub}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k-1{rcub})\times{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb1){rcub}{lcub}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k{rcub}){rcub}1\cr\cr Y\sb{lcub}k{rcub}&= Ind\sbsp{lcub}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k-1{rcub}){rcub}{lcub}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k{rcub}){rcub}1.\cr{rcub}{dollar}{dollar};Next, we show that the set {dollar}{dollar}\left\{lcub}1 \otimes Ind\sbsp{lcub}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}\sb{lcub}\beta,a{rcub}{rcub}{lcub}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k{rcub}){rcub}1\right\{rcub}{dollar}{dollar}is a basis of {dollar}\doubq \otimes R({lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k{rcub})){dollar}. Since the {dollar}\phi{dollar}-operations generate the {dollar}\lambda{dollar}-operations, one can deduce that {dollar}\doubq\otimes R({lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k{rcub})){dollar} is generated as a {dollar}\lambda{dollar}-ring over {dollar}\doubq{dollar} by the elements {dollar}1 \otimes X\sb{lcub}k{rcub}{dollar} and {dollar}1 \otimes Y\sb{lcub}k{rcub}{dollar}. By applying a result of Lusztig which characterizes the irreducible representations of the Weyl groups {dollar}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(B\sb{lcub}k{rcub}){dollar} and {dollar}{lcub}\cal W{rcub}(D\sb{lcub}k{rcub}){dollar} it follows, as a corollary, that {dollar}\doubq\otimes R({lcub}\cal W{rcub}(D\sb{lcub}k{rcub})){dollar} is generated by two elements as a {dollar}\lambda{dollar}-ring over {dollar}\doubq{dollar}

THEORETICAL AND POLICY BACKGROUND TO THE TOP-MARD PROJECT (TOWARDS A POLICY MODEL OF MULTIFUNCTIONAL AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT)

The TOP-MARD project is a 3-year, 11 country, project supported by the EU’s Framework 6 Programme for Research and Technology Development1. The aim of the research project was to build a policy model of multifunctional agriculture and rural development which would link the multiple functions of agriculture with the development and quality of life of rural regions, and explore the influence of different policies on rural development outcomes. In order to deal with both market and non-market outputs, and to explore dynamics over time, a systems modelling approach was adopted.Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Building artificial personalities: expressive communication channels based on an interlingua for a human-robot dance

The development of artificial personalities requires that we develop a further understanding of how personality is communicated. This can be done through developing humanrobot interaction (HRI). In this paper we report on the development of the SpiderCrab robot. This uses an interlingua based on Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) to intermediate a human-robot dance. Specifically, we developed measurements to analyse data in real time from a simple vision system and implemented a simple stochastic dancing algorithm on a custom built robot. This shows how, through some simple rules, a personality can emerge by biasing random behaviour. The system was tested with professional dancers and members of the public and the results (formal and anecdotal) are presented herein

Underlying socio-political processes behind the 2016 US election

Recently we have witnessed a number of rapid shifts toward populism in the rhetoric and policies of major political parties, as exemplified in the 2016 Brexit Referendum, 2016 US Election, and 2017 UK General Election. Our perspective here is to focus on understanding the underlying societal processes behind these recent political shifts. We use novel methods to study social dynamics behind the 2016 Presidential election. This is done by using network science methods to identify key groups associated with the US right-wing during the election. We investigate how the groups grew on Twitter, and how their associated accounts changed their following behaviour over time. We find a new external faction of Trump supporters took a strong influence over the traditional Republican Party (GOP) base during the election campaign. The new group dominated the GOP group in terms of new members and endorsement via Twitter follows. Growth of new accounts for the GOP party all but collapsed during the campaign. While the Alt-right group was growing exponentially, it has remained relatively isolated. Counter to the mainstream view, we detected an unexpectedly low number of automated ‘bot’ accounts and accounts associated with foreign intervention in the Trump-supporting group. Our work demonstrates a powerful method for tracking the evolution of societal groups and reveals complex social processes behind political changes

Institutions and Sustainable Development: The case of Water, Waste and Food

publishedVersio

A SYSTEM DYNAMICS MODEL OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE TOPMARD CORE MODEL

The goal of the TOPMARD project is to develop a model of agriculture and rural development to better understand the agronomic, ecological, economic and social dimensions of rural regions. The resulting model, (Policy Model of Multifunctional Agriculture and Rural Development) was built collaboratively and hierarchically by the research teams from the 11 countries. The model features eight subsectors (Land, Agriculture, Tourism, Region, Human Resources, Non-commodities, Capital, and Quality of Life). Imbedded in the model are a complete dynamic input-output model, and an agecohort education demographic model. The model has both supply-side and demand-side drivers. Land use is the key supply-side driver. Land use, coupled with production system choices, determine agricultural and non-commodity outputs. The Quality of Life sector incorporates the coefficients from a regression analysis of migration behaviour to develop a supply-side population response to local quality of life which is added to the demand-side response to job growth.Multifunctionality, system dynamics, policy, model, rural development, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

A New Offset Debris Ring around a Nearby Star Observed with the HST/STIS

We are conducting an HST/STIS coronagraphic imaging study of nearby stars that have Spitzer-measured infrared excesses indicating that they are surrounded by debris disks. Around one of the stars we have imaged a debris ring with a sharp inner edge and extending from about 165 AU to 250 AU. The ring center is offset from the star by -8 AU with a visually estimated intrinsic ellipticity of e-0.1 , suggestive of gravitational perturbation of the disk by a planet, like the Fomalhaut disk. Assuming a neutral disk color, the mean surface brightness of V=22.3 mag/square arcsec makes this the second faintest disk yet imaged in scattered light, second to HD 207129