Reassessing Malcolm Fraser

Overview: Malcolm Fraser, Australia’s 22nd Prime Minister, died on 20 March 2015 aged 84. This Strategic Insights, drawn from posts on ASPI’s blog The Strategist, examines Fraser’s foreign policy record as well as his approach to defence policy making and his evolving attitude to the US alliance. Fraser reorganised Australia’s defence establishment and the 1976 defence white paper foreshadowed the move towards the defence of Australia strategy adopted by the Labor government in the 1980’s. Fraser’s strong commitment to human rights and his support for the Commonwealth as a useful multilateral forum were enduring features of his prime ministership

Enacting Social Justice in Education through Spiritual Leadership

Promulgated by Nelson Mandela in December 1996, South Africa’s post-Apartheid Constitution draws on the Bill of Rights to affirm the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. As an emerging democracy, South Africa further seeks to address issues of social justice and equality in education through the South African Schools Act of 1996. This Act sets out policies and practices intended to redress past injustices and support the rights of learners, educators and parents. Drawing on critical feminist theory, this study explored the experiences of female educational leaders in South Africa’s disadvantaged rural school communities. This qualitative research adopted a case studies research design. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and observations. The aims of this paper are: (i) to investigate the principles of social justice and equity as expressed through spiritual leadership; and (ii) to interpret these principles in relation to education policies. Identifying connectedness and spirituality as prerequisites for spiritual leadership, the study found that spiritual leadership is a means through which social justice leadership can be enacted. While the South African Schools Act upholds the notion that public schools promote democracy through respect for all and a tolerance of diverse religious beliefs, this paper does not conflate spirituality with religion. It instead, explores alternative interpretations which explore spiritual leadership and restorative justice as vehicles through which equity and social justice can be understood and enacted.   https://doi.org/10.19108/KOERS.82.3.232

Gendered leadership stereotypes in disadvantaged rural school communities

Within rural contexts where patriarchal traditions and perspectives of leadership exist, the role of the school principal is typically associated with stereotypical male leadership traits. This study investigated traditional stereotypical views of leadership and how these might manifest in the leadership of schools in disadvantaged rural communities. The aim of this qualitative study was to determine if the gender specific stereotypical view of leadership existed in the Historical Schools which formed part of this study. Whilst there were some stereotypical leadership practices, the study found notable exceptions. The exceptions were specifically found with respect to a gender stereotypical view of spiritual and servant leadership

Computational framework for fracture in heterogeneous materials

There has always been an ambition from Structural Engineers to design structures which are as efficient as possible, yet meet current design requirements. In the modern era, this process has relied heavily on the use of computational packages to carry out detailed analyses. However, for the design requirements to be met, the materials being used must be accurately understood and their behaviour must be accurately captured. In materials such as concrete, this understanding can be obtained by carrying out detailed analyses of the material at the mesoscale. At this scale, capturing the behaviour of concrete can be accomplished by recognising three distinct phases. First, the heterogeneities themselves, which are stiff particles usually made of crushed rock; second, we have the cement matrix which surrounds the heterogeneities and third, we have the weak interfacial transition zone (ITZ) between the two. By accurately describing the behaviour and interaction of these three phases, the complex behaviour of concrete can be captured. This thesis brings together several novel contributions in order to create a computational modelling framework for modelling fracture in concrete at the mesoscale in three dimensions. All cracks are discrete in nature and restricted to element interfaces. As fracture can generally be considered to be a stress driven problem, an accurate description of the stress state in the model is essential. To achieve this, hybrid-Trefftz stress elements are used for the bulk elements in the mesh. The hybrid-Trefftz stress elements are characterised by their separate approximations of the stresses over the element domain and the displacements over the element boundary, allowing for a much higher order of approximation for the stresses to be utilised. The discrete cracks are modelled using continuous interface elements to allow the non-linear behaviour of concrete to be captured. The initiation and evolution of cracks was modelled using a plasticity model for the interface elements. This model followed the work of Winnicki and its implementation is presented in this thesis. Unlike the conventional method of using interface elements, where they are present in the mesh from the start of the analysis, in this work, interface elements are inserted dynamically as and when the material yield criterion is violated. A crack insertion methodology is presented for the inclusion of discrete cracks along element boundaries in 3D. The procedure takes advantage of properties of the hybrid-Trefftz stress elements to aid in its implementation. In particular, due to displacement continuity being enforced in the weak sense, faces of the same tetrahedron can be considered to be independent from each other but still produce statically admissible results. Results are presented showing that this methodology works well for different topological scenarios. To generate an accurate geometric representation of the mesostructure, a method called the Maximum Level Set method was developed. For a given geometry, this method generated the mesostructure by placing aggregates within the domain at a maximum distance from both the boundary of the specimen and existing particles in a sequential manner. A Level Set function is used to calculate these distances and is updated as each sequential particle was added. This procedure is compared to the standard Random Sequential Addition method, used throughout the literature, and shows favourable results both in terms of computational cost and the suitability of the geometry for use in the creation of finite element meshes. Finally, the application of the overall framework to realistic problems is presented. The procedure for carrying out an entire load step using a standard Newton-Rhapson procedure is outlined and the determination of the parameters used in the constitutive law is presented. Preliminary results are that demonstrated the performance of the overall framework. In these results, the softening of concrete due to fracture was captured

A powerful new light source for ultraviolet detection of scorpions in the field

We describe a new portable solid-state ultraviolet (UV) light that should greatly improve the ease and effectiveness of fluorescent detection of scorpions in the field. The design is based on an array of InGaN light emitting diodes (LEDs). It is in-expensive, lightweight, simple to implement, energetically efficient and mechanically rugged. Scorpion cuticular fluorescence excited by an LED array is 13-fold brighter than excitation by previously available fluorescent tube lamps drawing the same current from the battery

Age- and activity-related differences in the abundance of Myosin essential and regulatory light chains in human muscle

Traditional methods for phenotyping skeletal muscle (e.g., immunohistochemistry) are labor-intensive and ill-suited to multixplex analysis, i.e., assays must be performed in a series. Addressing these concerns represents a largely unmet research need but more comprehensive parallel analysis of myofibrillar proteins could advance knowledge regarding age- and activity-dependent changes in human muscle. We report a label-free, semi-automated and time efficient LC-MS proteomic workflow for phenotyping the myofibrillar proteome. Application of this workflow in old and young as well as trained and untrained human skeletal muscle yielded several novel observations that were subsequently verified by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM).We report novel data demonstrating that human ageing is associated with lesser myosin light chain 1 content and greater myosin light chain 3 content, consistent with an age-related reduction in type II muscle fibers. We also disambiguate conflicting data regarding myosin regulatory light chain, revealing that age-related changes in this protein more closely reflect physical activity status than ageing per se. This finding reinforces the need to control for physical activity levels when investigating the natural process of ageing. Taken together, our data confirm and extend knowledge regarding age- and activity-related phenotypes. In addition, the MRM transitions described here provide a methodological platform that can be fine-tuned to suite multiple research needs and thus advance myofibrillar phenotyping

Cross sectional analysis of the presence of airborne bacteria and fungi within the UJ Chiropractic Clinic

Abstract: In a previous study performed by Perdijk, Barnard, and Yelverton in 2017, it was found that there was bacteria and fungi present on the treatment beds within the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Doornfontein campus (DFC) Chiropractic Clinic. A follow up study conducted by Kingham, Barnard, Singh and Yelverton in 2019 showed that over a weekend period, when the clinic was inactive, there was an increase in the number of bacteria and fungi present on the beds. They proceeded to hypothesise that the potential source of this increase may be that bacteria and fungi were settling on the beds from the air. The research question became if there are any airborne bacteria and fungi as hypothesised in the previous study...M.Tech. (Chiropractic

No variation of physical performance and perceived exertion after adrenal gland stimulation by synthetic ACTH (Synacthen®) in cyclists

There is anecdotal evidence that athletes use the banned substance Synacthen® because of its perceived benefit with its associated rise in cortisol. To test the performance-enhancing effects of Synacthen®, eight trained cyclists completed two, 2-day exercise sessions separated by 7-10days. On the first day of each 2-day exercise session, subjects received either Synacthen® (0.25mg, TX) or placebo (PLA) injection. Performance was assessed by a 20-km time trial (TT) after a 90-min fatigue period on day 1 and without the fatiguing protocol on day 2. Plasma androgens and ACTH concentrations were measured during the exercise bouts as well as the rate of perceived exertion (RPE). Spot urines were analyzed for androgens and glucocorticoids quantification. Basal plasma hormones did not differ significantly between PLA and TX groups before and 24h after the IM injection (P>0.05). After TX injection, ACTH peaked at 30min and hormone profiles were significantly different compared to the PLA trial (P<0.001). RPE increased significantly in both groups as the exercise sessions progressed (P<0.001) but was not influenced by treatment. The time to completion of the TT was not affected on both days by Synacthen® treatment. In the present study, a single IM injection of synthetic ACTH did not improve either acute or subsequent cycling performance and did not influence perceived exertion. The investigated urinary hormones did not vary after treatment, reinforcing the difficulty for ACTH abuse detectio

Accurate Determination of Phenotypic Information from Historic Thoroughbred Horses by Single Base Extension

Historic DNA have the potential to identify phenotypic information otherwise invisible in the historical, archaeological and palaeontological record. In order to determine whether a single nucleotide polymorphism typing protocol based on single based extension (SNaPshot™) could produce reliable phenotypic data from historic samples, we genotyped three coat colour markers for a sample of historic Thoroughbred horses for which both phenotypic and correct geotypic information were known from pedigree information in the General Stud Book. Experimental results were consistent with the pedigrees in all cases. Thus we demonstrate that historic DNA techniques can produce reliable phenotypic information from museum specimens.© 2010 Campana et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.