The Last Whale

Stor

Review of Encyclopedia of Exploration: Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel Raymond J. Howgego.

Review of Encyclopedia of Exploration: Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel Raymond J. Howgego

Brand Credibility Through Web Design

Websites act as a first impression of a company that users use to judge and form opinions on. Therefore, it is crucial to implement an appealing design with straightforward navigation. However, for small businesses or freelancers, good web design is hard to achieve without a web designer. Small businesses rely heavily on e-commerce and digital advertising but are more likely to lack the resource and knowledge to develop a good website. Cristina Ruales Co is a personal brand belonging to an independent designer who uses her website to market and sell her products and services. The current brand website is confusing, cluttered, and full of outdated information and content. In this project, I will explore how web design can be used to add credibility to a company and redesign the website accordingly. The goal of this project is to improve users’ perception of the brand to attract new customers and increase business

Fine-scale analysis of biomineralized mollusc teeth using FIB and TEM

When it comes to mineral synthesis, there is a lot we can learn from nature. Although we can synthesize a range of materials in the laboratory, the experimental conditions are often constrained to particular ranges of temperature, pH, etc. Biological systems, on the other hand, seem to be able to produce individual minerals and complex composite mineral structures under a variety of conditions, many of which are far from those applied to create their synthetic counterparts. Understanding how nature does this could provide a means to produce novel biomimetic materials with potential applications in a diverse range of fields from medicine to materials engineering

Nature's conveyor belt - the matrix mediated biomineralization of magnetite in chitons (Mollusca)

Chitons are marine molluscs that use a variety of iron and calcium based minerals to harden their teeth, which they use to scrape algae growing upon, and within, rocks. The teeth are mounted on a long ribbon-like organ termed the radula, with immature, unmineralized teeth at the posterior end and the hardened iron-mineralized teeth at the anterior end (Fig. 1). At any one time, up to 80 individual tooth rows can be observed, with each row becoming progressively mineralized as it moves forward in a conveyor belt-like manner. The ability to study the entire mineralization process in a single animal makes these creatures ideal for the study of matrix mediated biomineralization. The chiton’s ability to mineralize iron has inspired researchers who believe that new biomimetic materials and technologies can be developed based on the principles of biomineral formation

Global diversity patterns in marine fouling communities - exploring latitudinal effects and the local-regional richness relationship

Fouling communities are distributed worldwide, particularly in shallow and exposed marine systems. Due to their fast growth and their capacity to settle on artificial surfaces, these assemblages represent a suitable study system for ecologists and are therefore often used to investigate ecological models. Investigating broad scale ecological models has been of key interest since the time of the famous naturalist Charles Darwin. Two examples of well recognized macro-ecological patterns are i) the ‘latitudinal gradient of species richness’ and ii) the ‘relationship between local and regional diversity’. The first is the oldest paradigm about a large-scale ecological pattern and simply states that the tropical regions are richer in species than temperate and polar regions at higher latitudes. However, when exploring global diversity patterns, it is essential to comprehend not only the importance of differences in spatial scale for the observed patterns, but also how diversity at one scale may relate to diversity at a different scale. Indeed, several studies have shown that the number of species within small localities may increase either linearly or asymptotically with regional species richness (relationship between local and regional diversity). Exploring global diversity patterns still constitutes an important challenge for ecologists because it reflects the need to determine the current status of biodiversity. With the knowledge of today’s biodiversity, we can predict its future status and, as a consequence, be able to provide new answers to its probable response to phenomena such as climate change. In the present work, I investigate global diversity patterns in marine fouling communities, mainly by examining the previously mentioned macro-ecological patterns, i.e. the latitudinal gradient of species richness and the relationship between local and regional diversity. Previous studies investigating the local-regional diversity relationship have often assessed the number of species in a region by consulting available species lists. However, regional species pools based on such inventories may include species not susceptible to recruit into the community considered because they are restricted to different habitats and seasons. With the purpose of dealing with these difficulties, a few investigations have estimated regional richness based on local samples but confirmed a strong bias in relation to sampling effort. In order to optimize the quality of regional richness estimations, the current study develops a new statistical tool for estimating regional richness based on a limited number of replicates. Using three data-sets with a large number of replicates from different temperate shallow water habitats, I compare common richness estimators against the asymptote of the species accumulation curve, which was used as a reference for true regional richness. Subsequently and more importantly, the mis-estimation was quantified as a function of sampling effort. To complete this work, the relationship between local and regional diversity was expanded by integrating two categories of diversity (taxonomic and functional) and different successional stages at two different scales: European and global. At the European scale, the shape of the pattern was compared for different methods in assessing regional richness: species colonizing during a given period (transient regional richness) versus species colonizing during any phase of the experiment (total regional richness). At the global scale, I further examine whether the diversity of local communities is affected by parameters other than regional richness, such as number of functional groups or availability of resources. The results of this investigation support a clear influence of latitude on local species richness in marine fouling communities. In Chapter I, I show that tropical regions hold more marine fouling species when compared to areas at higher latitudes. In what concerns the regional richness assessment, I conclude that regional richness can be estimated based on a limited number of samples and that the quality of the estimation increases with sample effort. Moreover, the strength of the inevitable mis-estimation can be quantified (Chapter II). In addition, at the European scale (Chapter III), it was found that the shape of the relationship between local and regional diversity is sensitive to successional stage, the way regional richness is estimated and the dimension of diversity considered. The relevant regional richness, i.e. the regionally available colonizers, seems to vary in time and is larger when pooling all sampling events. As a consequence, the relationship between local and regional diversity is also influenced by the method in which regional richness is estimated. At a global scale (Chapter IV), the relationship between local and regional diversity in fouling assemblages is also affected by the succession process, if either taxonomic or functional diversity are considered. Local taxonomic diversity exhibits saturation at early stages of succession while saturation of local functional richness occurs later. In addition, functional groups were reported as the most influential predictor for local species richness

Genotypic And Phenotypic Characterisation Of Isolates Of <i>Burkholderia cepacia</i> From Cystic Fibrosis

Burkholderia cepacia has become an important cause of lung infections in cystic fibrosis sufferers of whom approximately 20% succumb to severe and often fatal necrotizing pneumonia and septicaemia. The factors which cause this are largely unknown as are those factors predisposing to epidemic spread. At present, published data only confirms that certain strains notably the UK epidemic strain EX 12 can spread amongst the CF population. Another problem facing scientists which also impinges on patients and their carers, is the difficulty in isolating B. cepacia in mixed specimens and its subsequent identification and differentiation from closely related species which may also colonise the CF lung. Identification has recently been compounded by the identification of more than one species or genomovar of B. cepacia. This study compared traditional phenotypic methods of identifying B. cepaciawith PGR methods and also evaluated direct detection of the organism in sputum by PGR. The presence of B. cepacia in the natural environment was determined by culturing environmental samples on selective media. Putative epidemic markers in B. cepacia were detected and this was correlated with genomovar group and RAPD fingerprint. Finally, the distribution of various virulence markers including serum sensitivity and presence of EPS were monitored and were also correlated with genomovar group. The results of this study showed that PGR methods for the identification of B. cepacia are more sensitive and specific than traditional methods and allow for its direct detection in sputa. Only the UK epidemic strain appears to spread epidemically in the UK and this strain is most reliably identified by the presence of the cable pili gene (cblA). Serum sensitivity and correlation with strain-type and presence of EPS was significant as was the presence of intracellular enzymes and strain or genomovar group. However the significance of these enzymes in pathogenicity remains uncertain

Critical celebrations : metatheatre in Australian drama of the late twentieth and early twenty-first Centuries

This thesis is a study of the importance of metatheatrical strategies in Australian drama from 1979 to the present. While some attention has been paid previously to the use of metatheatrical techniques, in the work of individual playwrights such as Louis Nowra for example, there has been no study which foregrounds metatheatre as a distinctive dimension of Australian playwriting and playmaking in the last forty years. Applying arguments about metatheatre by scholars such as Hornby, Fisher and Greiner, Feldman and Boireau, the thesis argues for the importance of a distinctively Australian metatheatre that is multivalent in its capacity to illuminate the wider social, cultural and artistic contexts in which Australian drama has been produced. Adapting Hornby's arguments about the value of considering metatheatre holistically, the study deploys a range of critical approaches, combining textual and production analysis, archival research, interviews and reflections gained from the researcher's presence at rehearsals and as an audience member/participant in productions. Using these techniques, the study analyses four plays and their Australian productions, identifying them as vital to Australian metatheatre. These include: Dorothy Hewett's The Man from Mukinupin (1979), Louis Nowra's hitherto unexamined Royal Show (1982), Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good (1988) and a recent metatheatrical work, Peta Murray's epic celebration of women's theatre, Things That Fall Over: an (anti-)musical of a novel inside a reading of a play, with footnotes, and oratorio as coda (2014). Through these four detailed case studies, the thesis demonstrates the ways in which metatheatre has been used to generate powerful elements of critique, particularly of Indigenous/non-Indigenous relations during times of national "celebration" such as the Bicentenary of 1988. It argues that metatheatre is a strategy for comment on the marginalisation of Indigenous people and on the position of women as creative writers, as well as a self-reflexive mechanism via which Australian theatre is able to celebrate its own (meta)theatrical heritage. Situating these canonical and lesser-known plays in relationship to each other and their respective production histories illuminates the particular effectiveness of metatheatre in Australian Drama in holding social and cultural critique in powerful tension with the affirmation of theatre as cause and vehicle for celebration