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Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL)

Session 7A-7C 10:30-12:00 // day one

7A Joint University of Warwick and Monash University, South Africa

Objective: Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBBS) is characterised by chronic pain in lower back and/or legs, occurring or persisting following an anatomically successful spinal surgery. A key treatment for patients with chronic back pain has been established as High-Frequency Spinal Cord Stimulation at 10kHz (HF10 SCS). The study purpose is to evaluate the potential of HF10 SCS for pain relief and quality of life outcome improvements when used in routine clinical practice for FBBS treatment. Materials and Methods: Thus far, 39 PBBS diagnosed patients are recruited. Assessed factors were measured at baseline, end of the HF-10 SCS device trial, and 3- and 6- months following HF10 SCS implant. Factors included Pain (VAS), Quality of Life (SF-36v2), disability (ODI), analgesic use, and psychometrics. Results: 32/39 (82%) FBBS patients following HF10 SCS device trial reported a positive outcome, resulting in 26 patients proceeding to permanent implant, and 6 awaiting implantation. Significant mean back pain reductions were reported (baseline VAS score 76.7±12.3; vs. end-of-trial, 3- and 6- months, respectively; 29.4±22.3, 34.8±22.7 and 23.2±12.6; p≤0.01). Results of the Quality of Life test post-implant revealed physical and mental component improvements;16.9±13.2 and 16.2±15.8 points, respectively, after 6 months. A positive trend was indicated in patient disability at 3 and 6 month time-points. Psychological state remained steady, whilst analgesic use decreased. Conclusion: The results indicate a new therapeutic options for chronic back pain, where surgery failed to adequately relieve.
One of the biggest debates in the field of psychology is the issue of quantitative versus qualitative data in psychological practices. Deciding between the two based on which one would benefit the research topic more can be difficult. Quantity versus quality is the simple version of it. Quantitative means a standardized and numerically based way of gathering as much data as possible in order to generalise conclusions to a population (i.e. surveys and questionnaires). Qualitative involves processes that rely on gathering textual data such as notes on people's own unique thoughts, feelings, opinions (i.e. focus groups or therapy sessions). By choosing either or, ultimately a sacrifice is made, be it quality over quantity or vice versa. However, in the field of psychology, therapists generally concentrate on gathering qualitative data from patients or participants. For example: 'Tell me about your childhood', 'Are you satisfied with your life?', and the infamous, 'How do you feel about that?'. With new software available such as text-mining, software that calculates, for instance, how many positive or negative words were used by a person, qualitative data can now be represented numerically. In psychology practices, by using this new software, textual notes on people's thoughts, feelings and opinions can further be accounted for, and progress within therapy sessions can be measured. This paper will focus on the integration of both qualitative and quantitative data via text-mining in order to improve focus on individual differences in psychological practices and its future in the field of psychology.

Background: Zimbabwe has one of the most astounding HIV prevalence rates evaluated at 15 percent among adults aged 15-49. The increase of Male circumcision has raised a remarkable worry that it may prompt an increment in high-chance sexual conduct, since circumcision could prompt a feeling of viable security against HIV, a sensation known as danger pay or behavioral dis-inhibition. As the danger of an undesirable result is lessened, individuals might remunerate by carrying on in less secure ways. In Zimbabwe, male circumcision is frequently advanced utilizing confirmation that it reduces the danger of HIV.

Purpose: This study looked to examine whether circumcised men in Zimbabwe are more prone to have engaged with unsafe sexual conduct. The study likewise researched the affiliation among uncircumcised men between taking male circumcision and taking part in high-chance sexual conduct.

Data and methods: The study utilized information gathered from men age 15-54 who were met amid the 2010-11 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey (ZDHS). An aggregate of 7,480 men were incorporated in the example for this study. Logistic relapse was utilized to evaluate the relationship in the middle of circumcision and dangerous sexual practices.

Findings: The findings of this study don't strengthen the danger pay theory. The study discovered no precisely remarkable relationship between male circumcision and risky sexual conduct.

Recommendations: An increase in campaigning is virtual as this leads to a growth in male circumcision in Zimbabwe, these outcomes propose a need to keep observing the connections between progressing MC campaigns and men's unsafe sexual conduct. Mass Media messages and data scattering on MC ought to emphasize advancing medicinal male circumcision to abstain from giving the feeling s in-susceptibility against HIV.

Our paper attempts to summarise the Australian legislative framework governing the use of insects and their derivatives in food for human consumption and animal feed. UNFAO has suggested that alternative sources of animal based proteins will be necessitated by a predicted global population of nine billion people in 2050. As such, insect derived products may prove to be a sustainable alternative to fish and stock animals because of insects’ high protein, diversity, shorter gestation periods, and lower land usage and impact. We have focused on State and Federal legislation in Australia to determine whether it is possible to use insects in food for human consumption. Regulatory frameworks are influenced by a variety of stakeholders including health inspection and food safety agencies, agriculture and livestock ministries, environmental bodies and consumer protection agencies. With competing interests often operating in light of the precautionary principle, ambiguity exists around key terms such as “insect”. Additionally, ambiguity exists around concepts of insects as “novel foods” under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, given aboriginal Australians have cultivated and consumed native insects for centuries. Given the varied complexities and ambiguities in legal drafting we outline in our paper, we submit that Australia should review its legislation governing the use of insects and their derivatives in food and animal feed for the benefit of agriculture, industry, food security and sustainability in our country.

7B Joint University of Warwick, Kyushu University and Nanyang Technological University

The problem of environmental migrants is a growing concern. A vast amount of people are forced to leave their homelands and move somewhere else due to environmental degradation. This is a relatively new phenomenon, which is being regulated by various policies in order to eliminate the consequences.

Accordingly the aim of this research is to introduce how different types of policies try to deal with this issue. The research is focused on the Asian and Pacific countries, which are in danger from environmental migration the most. Moreover the research also introduces the International Organization for Migrations, and investigates whether its existing policies are effective enough.

This concern has been regarded as an approaching future issue so far, however, due to the current natural disasters it is becoming a more urging problem.

There is a growing interest in renewable energy sources according to the acceleration of global warming. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have received attention as the renewable power source for transport and distributed power because of high-energy conversion efficiency and easier modulation. Performance, reliability and durability of the PEMFCs are important factors for commercialization. Among these, the durability is regarded as one of the most significant issues. However, loss of the liquid state phosphoric acid (PA) content during the operation is considered as one of the main failure modes from maintaining the high performance of the fuel cell. Hence, the aging test of high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (HT-PEMFCs) based on PA-doped polybenzimidazole has been widely investigated for commercialization. In this research, colorimetric method, using molybdenum blue method was tested to quantitatively evaluate the PA losses in the operation. Importantly, the colorimetric method for the detection of PA has shown better, highly reliable and sensitive detection of PA during the various operation modes. Our experimental work focuses on monitoring and the mechanism of the PA losses during various operational modes of the HT-PEMFCs. In this presentation, the importance of the field and the result of the research will be shown, as well as suggesting further topics.
In recent years, due to the global trend of conversion to renewable energy, the number of Wind turbines are rapidly rising all around the world. In this situation, Increasing numbers of wind turbines are located in areas where the wind is unstable. Many wind turbines now suffer from low efficiency and mechanical stress caused by sudden changes in wind direction. As a solution for this increasing problem, Optimization in yaw motion of the wind turbine has been a research task for many wind turbine engineers. Although, Wind direction variable Wind tunnel large enough (an experiment equipment to simulate wind flow) for this research has never been successfully developed. In this research, a new type of wind direction variable wind tunnel is developed. Compared with previously developed Wind direction variable Wind tunnel, this revolving type of wind tunnel showed outstanding cost performance and a significant increase in speed of wind direction fluctuation and presently is the largest Wind direction variable Wind tunnel existing. Using this Wind Tunnel, an operation test has been conducted, optimizing the yaw motion of a small sized wind power generator (AIR-40). As a result, the energy loss during wind direction fluctuation improved 20.7%, and the simulated gross generation increased up to nearly 10%. This yaw motion optimization costs less than 0.1% of the wind turbine price. This can be a highly-effective low cost improvement on wind turbines in unstable wind conditions.
Numerical methods have been carried out in the attempt of truly understanding the hydrodynamics in a granular filter bed. However, it has appeared that the numerical models designed, by far, were not emulating the actual filter bed effectively due to the employed tube to particle diameter ratio of less than 20. There were also little or no studies made on the investigations of a particle’s behavior in the domain of multiple spherical objects, which would be a more exact representation of physical phenomenon in the actual bed. As such, there were 2 objectives in this study: (a) to design a robust numerical domain which could emulate the actual filter bed to a good extent, and (b) to attempt to insert a Lagrangian particle into the designed numerical model, which comprised of multiple spherical objects, for investigating the particle’s behavior. For the first objective, there were 4 numerical domains, having periodic boundary conditions in the x and z directions, created with the OpenFOAM CFD software, for which domains 1 and 2 effectively represented an actual granular clean filter bed due to the 5-12% deviation between the simulated and theoretical head loss values. For domains 3 and 4, there were inaccuracies in the simulated head loss values which could be ascribed to the low quality meshes. For the second objective, there was a need to modify the underlying C++ coding in order to hybridize both the icoFoam solver and solidParticleCloud class, which was not achievable within the time frame of the project.

7C University of Warwick and University of Western Australia

The aim of this research is to explore the relationship between the novels of Jorge Amado and the city of Salvador in Brazil, a primary focus within Amado’s texts. This study will be undertaken in the city itself, where we will chart the impacts of Salvador's cultural heritage upon its contemporary socio-political situation both internally and within a wider global system. We are particularly interested in how the novels 'Jubiabá' (1935) and 'The Tent of Miracles' (1969), written at key moments in Brazil’s contemporary history, comment of the Afro-Brazilian history of the city and its subsequent development. Through our study we hope to contribute to the current debate of how literary criticism can engage with, and react to, the sphere of ‘global literature’. Works by authors such as Moretti and, more recently, the Warwick Research Collective suggest that new methods of analysis are required to tackle this issue. In attempting to contribute to this debate we intend to supplement a rigorous academic assessment of our subject with a range of other forms, notably illustration and photography. It is hoped that such an approach will broaden the contextual placement of our research, allowing us to situate it in a global context, as well as making our results more easily accessible.
The relation between lesbian gay bisexual, transsexual and queer (LGBTQ) sexual orientations and organised religion in Australia has been mostly characterized in public discourse as fraught. This is further reflected in a predominant non-religion affiliation pattern by the LGBTQ population which strikingly differs from the general Australian population. In this project I explored lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer (LGBQ) Australian university students’ perception of religion - particularly looking at organized forms of Christianity – to fill the qualitative gaps on the tensions between LGBQ sexualities and Christianity and how they are being played out at the individual level. To inform this study qualitative research methods were used that included online questionnaires and follow up semi-structured interviews. Research found that most participants didn’t identify with a specific religious tradition and that they perceived organized religion, particularly major Christian traditions, as antithetical to LGBQ sexual orientation; however ‘core’ Christian values were seen as compatible with LGBQ identities. This ambivalent relation between organized religion and personal understandings of faith reflects the complex interaction of religious belief in the 21st century.
Readers and critics of Lolita are often so horrified by the paedophilia at the core of the novel, or so seduced by the narratorial flourishes of Humbert Humbert, that they glaze over the troubled space occupied by desire within the text. Similarly, in Pale Fire readers and critics fixate so heavily upon the metafictional qualities of the text, the curiosities of its paratextual elements, or the unreliability of its narrator, that the submerged narrative of desire spun by the text has slipped by almost entirely unnoticed. Even more noticeably, there is an absence of attention paid to the interweaving of literary fantasy and desire in Nabokov’s works. Both texts meticulously construct fictional versions of reality as imagined by their narrators: the fantastical realms of kings, knights, and palaces. But these fantasies are perpetually warped by desire that can neither be fully explained by language, nor exist outside of language. It is this tension, an inability to translate desire to and from fantasy, which rests at the core of both texts. In short, I discuss how the narrators of Pale Fire and Lolita construct fantasies of desire, and how their doomed attempts to translate fantasy into reality, to fuse imaginative and bodily ecstasy, become the site of tragedy in both texts.
Research has suggested that people, particularly men, perceive there to be lower levels of gender discrimination in society than is really found. Social dominance theory suggests this is because men have a higher social dominance orientation, and so are more threatened by changes to the status quo. Kehn and Ruthig (2013) supported this theory by finding that men have a more zero-sum view of gender discrimination than women. This study presents a partial replication and extension of Kehn and Ruthig (2013). Participants completed a questionnaire, giving ratings for their perceived levels of gender discrimination against both males and females in five decades (1970s-2010s). The extension considered whether the ‘why I need feminism/ women against feminism’ campaigns are effective forms of activism against sexism by priming groups with these images before giving their ratings. The hypotheses were: 1) perceptions of gender discrimination against women will decrease over time; 2) for all time periods, perceptions of gender discrimination against women will be higher than against men; 3) men will take a more zero-sum view of gender discrimination than women; and 4) a priming condition (representing exposure to pro- and anti-feminist messages) will affect perceptions of gender discrimination. Hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported, hypotheses 3 and 4 were not. The study suggests that the priming condition used may not have been strong enough to produce an effect, or that this type of activism is ineffective. To accept either of these conclusions regarding hypothesis 4 as true, further research is needed.