Melbourne Conference Research Articles

Moving beyond our borders to inspire education change

Purpose This paper contextualises a keynote address delivered at the 2022 Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in Melbourne, Australia. The paper aligns with the conference theme of Beyond Borders from the perspective of moving beyond borders of regular practice to develop strong partnerships and networks within our communities to advocate and support necessary change. Method Change or enhancement to current practice is necessary if we are to reduce current inequities in education experienced by many children in our communities, including those with communication challenges. Strengths-based and culturally responsive literacy approaches to supporting children within the context of their family and community are increasingly gaining support as we address this challenge. The Better Start Literacy Approach (Te Ara Reo Matatini), currently being implemented in junior school classrooms across New Zealand is described. It is one example of large-scale implementation of a strengths-based and culturally responsive early literacy approach, based on the science of reading. Result Data support the effectiveness of the Better Start Literacy Approach in significantly enhancing the foundational literacy skills of 5- and 6-year-old children, including those who commence school with lower levels of oral language ability. Conclusion Through establishing strong partnerships within communities, speech pathologists have much to offer in motivating systems level change to enhance early literacy success for all learners.

Achieving Professional and Personal Goals At the Beginning of the Year 2023

Welcome to the first issue of the College’s Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management for 2023. I trust the year is treating you well and you are well on your way to achieving professional and personal goals set at the beginning of the year. The College is moving forward with a successful year, too. In March we held a hugely successful Health Leadership Conference in Melbourne with well over 200 attendees. The focus on the common issues of leadership, workforce concerns and health system sustainability as well as aged care leadership and management was appreciated by all who participated. These issues of Workforce and Sustainability will be explored in more detail at the ACHSM Asia-Pacific Health Leadership Congress to be held in Canberra, 11-13 October, 2023. Please put a hold on those dates in your diary and register for this Congress.....

AusME 2022 Melbourne conference

AusME 2022 Melbourne conference

Cystic malformation (lymphangioma) of the thoracic lymphatic duct (peculiarities of clinical and radiological diagnosis, a brief review)

Introduction. The thoracic lymphatic duct in the upper half of the body collects lymph from the left lung, the left half of the heart, the walls of the left half of the chest, from the left upper limb and the left half of the neck and head. Therefore, the left-sided localization of the revealed pathological changes, with the involvement of the mediastinum and neck in the process at the same time, can be a sign of damage to the thoracic lymphatic duct (at the location), and therefore the key to a successful diagnosis of the disease. Aim. Demonstration of modern possibilities of clinical and radiological diagnosis of cystic malformation of the thoracic lymphatic duct (CMTLD). Results. In the literature, the pathology of the thoracic lymphatic duct is designated by two terms: “lymphangioma” and “cystic malformation of the thoracic lymphatic duct”. According to the generally accepted classification of vascular formations ISSVA (adopted at the 20th ISSVA conference in Melbourne in April 2014, last revised in May 2018), the term “lymphangioma” with regard to lymphatic malformations is considered obsolete, its use is recommended for true benign tumors of the lymphatic vessels. CMTLD – benign, extremely rare lymphovascular lesions resulting from embryological disorders (weakness of the duct wall and valve mechanism) in the development of the lymphatic system. The median prevalence is less than 1 % among all mediastinal cystic formations. Effective non-invasive diagnostics at the initial visit of the patient already at the outpatient stage deserves professional evaluation. We present the own clinical and radiological observation of a 26-year-old patient without any special clinical manifestations, in whom volumetric changes in the mediastinum on the left were detected during routine fluorography. The nature (X-ray semiotics) of preoperative imaging using computed tomography has been clarified. The revealed X-ray and pathoanatomical changes were compared. Conclusion. CMTLD – congenital lymphatic anomalies, more frequent and symptomatic in children. In older patients, acquired and asymptomatic CMTLD are most often diagnosed. The logistics of modern imaging technologies makes it possible to successfully diagnose such a rare disease as CMTLD already at the stage of the patient’s initial visit to the doctor.

Our Own Backyard: Can Virtual Reality Help Us (And Others) Understand the CCUS Chain?

Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) as a set of activities have been undertaken in various forms for many tens of years to separate CO2 from natural gas or for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The role of CCUS as a tool to mitigate emissions has been increasingly studied and applied, for example at this series of conferences and through coordinated research around the world (e.g. Carbon Capture and Storage Flagship Program in Australia, Regional Carbon Sequestration partnerships in the US, and a whole range of projects in Norway such as Sleipner). The overall value chain and processes typically encompass: • Capture technology (e.g. natural gas clean-up, coal combustion, industrial processes, hydrogen production) • Utilisation (e.g. EOR, production of chemicals, geothermal) • Transportation by pipeline and shipping • Geological storage (aquifer, depleted hydrocarbon fields, EOR, coal, basalts etc.) • Monitoring of storage over the longer term (leakage, environmental impacts) These activities are underpinned by regulatory frameworks, international standards, government policy/legislation and social license to operate. While it is not expected that everyone employed or facing CCUS has expert levels of understanding of all facets of CCUS, few may be familiar or comfortable with the (a) technology (b) footprint (c) scale (d) impacts of the different parts of the CCUS process. How were these observations made? The CSIRO booth at the GHGT-14 Conference in Melbourne (2018) was set up to accommodate two virtual reality (VR) stations with a virtual tour of a carbon capture and storage journey (Figure 1). This was navigated in part by the visitor (i.e. wearing the VR headset) or controlled by the tour guide (operator) or both. The tour provides the visitor with a reasonable proxy for a carbon capture and storage plant. The use of VR can make significant steps in overcoming this lack of built project in the early stages of full-scale development of CCUS (or other large-scale emerging industries) globally. VR could be used in obtaining social license as it could provide much clearer context for community groups where new developments might take place. Some aspects of the tour are highly conceptualized, in particular the space in the base of the well, the diameter of the well bore and the use of bubbles to mimic CO2 movement. Typically, the CO2 would be injected as a supercritical fluid, not bubbles, but that is harder to render for the purposes of the tour. Key observations from running the tours over the course of the conference were that prior to taking part in the VR tour most attendees had not really considered what their levels of understanding of the whole of the CCUS process might be. After the tour they felt much more enlightened and comfortable to discuss those aspects; they understood better the challenges in areas that they were not so familiar with and felt better informed to discuss the different steps in the process with non-specialists. Geological storage has been much more challenging to convey through other imagery, description and information/education [1]. The perception of depth and presence of geological rock overburden as a seal to retard CO2 mobility was therefore much better understood. Areas where the visitor could interact with the location and environment were more engaging and the sense of being transported to another location or environment to interact at a site without induction training, personal protective equipment and no change in climate was not lost on those participating. The tours have now been used in a few Open House activities in relation to the CSIRO In-Situ Laboratory field trial to provide a sense of context for the local community, but a more systematic approach to testing the role of VR tours in social license is required to evaluate this approach as a mechanism to better inform the public of CCUS and its impact locally.

Preface

The tenth International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC'19, took place at the Melbourne Conference and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia from Sunday to Friday, May 19 to 24, 2019. IPAC’19 was attended by 1,186 delegates from 32 countries on all continents. The total includes 146 industry and exhibitor delegates. Hosted by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). ANSTO was established in 1953 (originally as the AAEC) and is the home of Australia's most significant landmark and national infrastructure for research. ANSTO's infrastructure incudes the nuclear research reactor, OPAL; neutron beamlines; the National Imaging Facility Research Cyclotron; the Centre for Accelerator Science and in 2016 the Australian Synchrotron was integrated as a division of ANSTO. The Local Organising Committee (LOC) consisted of 12 staff from ANSTO as well as representatives from Industry and the University of Melbourne.158 young scientists from all over the globe attended the conference. 67 of these students received travel grants thanks to the sponsorship of societies, institutes and laboratories worldwide. The Americas region grants were sponsored by APS-DB. The Europe region sponsors are: EPS-AG, GSI, CNRS/IN2P3, INFN/LNL, CERN, DESY, PSI, CEA Saclay, ELETTRA, CELLS/ALBA, HZB, ESS, Cockcroft Institute, KIT, SOLEIL, ESRF, STFC/DL/ASTeC, MAX IV, and FZJ. The Asian region was sponsored by IPAC’19 and the Victorian State Government. The organisers of IPAC’19 are grateful to all sponsors for their valued support of students.

Volume 10 Issue 2 2019

We were pleased to hold the 2019 Students, Transitions, Achievement, Retention and Success (STARS) Conference in Melbourne, Australia as a celebration of the fifth anniversary of one of Australasia’s most welcoming and collegial academic communities of practice. This year’s Conference confirmed that STARS is now firmly established as a collaborative and inclusive annual event for tertiary educators and leaders. Delegates —a mix of professional, academic and administrative practitioners and leaders—attended and participated in a range of presentations and activities which included, refereed papers, Good Practice Reports and Emerging Initiatives, along with Poster presentations and the STARS Network meetings.

From Detection of Individual Metastases to Classification of Lymph Node Status at the Patient Level: The CAMELYON17 Challenge.

Automated detection of cancer metastases in lymph nodes has the potential to improve the assessment of prognosis for patients. To enable fair comparison between the algorithms for this purpose, we set up the CAMELYON17 challenge in conjunction with the IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging 2017 Conference in Melbourne. Over 300 participants registered on the challenge website, of which 23 teams submitted a total of 37 algorithms before the initial deadline. Participants were provided with 899 whole-slide images (WSIs) for developing their algorithms. The developed algorithms were evaluated based on the test set encompassing 100 patients and 500 WSIs. The evaluation metric used was a quadratic weighted Cohen's kappa. We discuss the algorithmic details of the 10 best pre-conference and two post-conference submissions. All these participants used convolutional neural networks in combination with pre- and postprocessing steps. Algorithms differed mostly in neural network architecture, training strategy, and pre- and postprocessing methodology. Overall, the kappa metric ranged from 0.89 to -0.13 across all submissions. The best results were obtained with pre-trained architectures such as ResNet. Confusion matrix analysis revealed that all participants struggled with reliably identifying isolated tumor cells, the smallest type of metastasis, with detection rates below 40%. Qualitative inspection of the results of the top participants showed categories of false positives, such as nerves or contamination, which could be targeted for further optimization. Last, we show that simple combinations of the top algorithms result in higher kappa metric values than any algorithm individually, with 0.93 for the best combination.

A pilot study for utilizing additive manufacturing and responsive rewards in physical activity gamification

Health related issues from being overweight or obese are significant global challenges, and whilst increased activity is known to reduce the health risks associated with these conditions, current wearable and activity tracking devices alone are insufficient to motivate everyone over the long-term necessary to make significant change. This paper explores novel gamified systems as part of a pilot study to leverage additive manufacturing and Internet of Things technologies to increase motivation for physical activity, creating new ways for people to be rewarded in the physical world, and for activity data to be communicated in more abstract and customizable ways. These systems were exhibited and discussed at the 2017 Design 4 Health conference in Melbourne, Australia, and are intended to contribute to research by designers and fitness companies in thinking beyond the digital interface, and in particular to engage young people in the physical world.

Extending a Hand/Lending an Ear

This essay is a partial transcript of a public lecture by Rebecca Schneider, combined with a reflection on audition by a member of her audience, Paul Rae. Schneider's transcribed talk, ‘Extending a Hand,’ asks about the geologic time of climate change in relationship to the human time of racialization and other damaging by-products of the Capitalocene. If Schneider's talk performs a call, Rae's companion commentary performs a response that is, simultaneously, a reflection on the ways and means of academic labour on and as performance. In Schneider's talk, Paleolithic negative hand stencils are read beside contemporary protest acts and both are considered as ‘hails’, suggesting a reverberatory, ongoing, and even ‘live’ duration to gesture. Call and response is thus considered both in terms of geologic time and in terms of human time. ‘Extending a Hand’ was delivered as a keynote address to the 2016 Performance Studies international (PSi) conference in Melbourne, Australia, the theme of which was ‘climate change’. In order to recover and examine aspects of the ‘climate’ of its initial presentation and reception, the format overlays portions of the initial transcript of the talk with the interpolative interjections made by the speaker, as well as a series of thumbnails drawn from the accompanying PowerPoint presentation. In ‘Lending an Ear’, Rae offers a parallel commentary on where and how Schneider, as speaker, departed from the written text, and considers what this tells us about the oral qualities of academic presentation, and how these in turn inflect the issues raised by the paper.

‘The Thin Air of Reality’

As a gesture applause is both a demonstration of etiquette and an expression of feeling. This article asks how applause can help to conceptualize affective atmospheres in academic performance genres, focusing on the undergraduate lecture and the conference keynote. Historical and theoretical accounts of applause in theatre illuminate its expressive, evaluative and mannered modalities, which are relevant to but distinct from the conventions of applause in the lecture theatre. I analyse anecdotal evidence from social media and my own experience as a lecturer and conference organizer in dialogue with these accounts. The lecture genre raises and sometimes thwarts expectations of seriousness, affirming, in Erving Goffman’s terms, ‘that organized talking can reflect, express, delineate, portray—if not come to grips with—the real world’. That the lecture raises such expectations conditions audiences’ affective responses. One important function of lectures in disciplines concerned with fiction and aesthetics, then, is to challenge what constitutes the real.I conclude by examining Rebecca Schneider’s keynote, ‘Extending a Hand: Gesture, Duration, and the Posthumous Turn’, which was delivered at the 2016 Performance Studies international Conference in Melbourne. ‘Extending a Hand’ was a political intervention into new materialism, a strain of interdisciplinary scholarship that seeks to counter anthropocentrism. Schneider modified her keynote in response to Black Lives Matter protests in the United States during the conference. The lecture’s content and the political and affective climate of its delivery activated peripheral conventions of Australian conference hospitality—the Acknowledgement of Country and the presence of Auslan interpreters—as relational performances. The thunderous applause that followed the keynote marked its felt convergence with a ‘real world’ inclusive of history, hospitality and performance.

Economic rationalism in Canberra 25 years on?

This article, based on an edited transcript of a speech at The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) conference in Melbourne in December 2016, summarises the criticisms of ‘economic rationalism’, cum neoliberalism, that emerged from the ‘economic rationalism debate’ in Australia of the early 1990s to the present. Economic rationalism reversed Australia’s historic nation-building legacy. Free market neoliberal doctrines have captured the central Canberra policy-making apparatus and radically reduced the coordinating role of the state in most areas of public policy. Economic ‘reform’ is seen primarily as a political project led by international and domestic corporate interest groupings and aimed at the transformation of Australia’s institutions. The neoliberal orthodoxy continues to distort the policy process as it has become functionally indispensable for the process of policy making and government, despite its failing intellectual legitimacy.

40th Anniversary Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment Guest Editorial

The Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment (ASSBI) celebrated its 40th anniversary at the annual conference in Melbourne this year. The conference theme was apposite: ‘Looking Back to Look Ahead’ and we have decided that this celebratory edition of the journal should continue that theme.

Therapeutically Supporting Children to Recover from the Impact of Family Violence

Family violence (also referred to as Domestic Violence and Intimate Partner Violence) describes violence that occurs within an intimate relationship, whether a current or former partner. Children can experience a range of abuses (emotional, physical, sexual and neglect) within the context of family violence, and harm is cumulative and may present as complex trauma. This paper is based on a practice presentation delivered at the International Childhood Trauma Conference in Melbourne (Australia) in June 2016. The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness of the impacts for children who have experienced family violence, to enhance understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to their trauma presentation, and to highlight the specific practice issues and considerations in providing therapeutic support to this client population, with the ultimate aim of improving diagnostic and treatment outcomes for children impacted by family violence. Sufficient safety and stability are required for children to experience therapeutic change, and if family violence is current, the initial response needs to be protective. Identification of family violence should prompt practitioners to use trauma-informed assessment and trauma-focused evidence-based treatments within a family therapy and systems framework. Family violence is complex and there are many barriers to treatment and practice considerations. Expansion of practitioner knowledge and skills in family violence trauma will enhance outcomes for children who have experienced family violence.

Special report of the first Australasian Diagnostic Error in Medicine Conference from 23 to 25 May, 2017.

We attended the first Australasian Diagnostic Error in Medicine Conference (Aus DEM) in Melbourne from 23 to 25 May, 2017. We believe hosting the DEM conference in Japan is vital in promoting diagnostic error prevention initiatives in our region. We hope all the stakeholders in health care will join the DEM conference to be hosted in our country to address issues surrounding diagnostic errors.

P173 Artistic representations of HIV in northern ireland: how the arts can contribute to HIV awareness, prevention and stigma-reduction in a conservative environment

IntroductionThe International AIDS conference in Melbourne in 2014 gave rise to a diverse set of cultural responses around HIV and AIDS, including my own practice-as-research performance installation,GL RY, in a public square throughout the conference. Using the concept of a hole as metaphor for transmission and transformation, it asked what histories, secrets, stigma, information, art, affects might slip through a small hole?MethodsIn 2016 the work had a new iteration in Belfast for the Outburst Queer Arts Festival. We worked closely with people living with HIV in Northern Ireland to find ways to convey their experiences safely in a public arena. It took up the challenge from 2014 where, working alongside long-time HIV activist and artist Kim Davis, it became clear that women are particularly marginalised in the public discourses and representations of HIV and AIDS. This resulted in a performance installation in a shopfront in Belfast city centre, focusing on the experience of women and asking for solidarity with women living with HIV through participation.ResultsThree new works on HIV and AIDS made in Belfast in November 2016 with collection of data including audience and participant feedback.DiscussionThe paper argues that art can intercede in powerful ways in public discourses, in modes that other forms of information and education cannot. In creating a sound archive based on interviews with people living with HIV, I suggest that this work could productively be used in therapeutic use in clinics and in HIV agencies and medical training.

Learning Together Through International Collaborative Writing Groups

The International Collaborative Writing Groups (ICWG) initiative creates a space for ongoing collaboration amongst scholars of teaching and learning who co-author a manuscript on a topic of shared interest. The second ICWG, linked to the 2015 International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference in Melbourne, Australia, involved 59 scholars from 11 countries. In this piece, we describe the aims, process, and outcomes for the ICWG, comparing it with the first ICWG in 2012. While international collaboration around a topic of shared interest is generally viewed positively, the realities of collaborating online with limited face-to-face interactions to complete a manuscript can be challenging. We argue, despite such challenges, that ongoing collaboration amongst scholars is vital to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) movement. Drawing on our experience of leading the overall ICWG initiative and our research into participants’ experiences, we suggest there are individual dispositions toward collaboration that enrich and enable successful participation in ICWG experiences. We end by highlighting the final products arising from almost two year of collaborative thinking and writing from six groups.

Connected Community

Connected Community

The ITU 1988 Melbourne Conference: Economic Factors in International Cooperation and the Growth of the Internet

This paper reviews the revisions to the data communications parts of the International telecommunications Regulations adopted at this conference. These two bedrock normative rules: 1) open interconnection of devices of all kinds; and 2) resale and sharing of dedicated facilities allowed many alternative methods of international data communications to flourish. This network openness enabled but did not guarantee the ultimate success of the Internet. The paper indicates that the linage of the internet to the norms of open science.was strongly complementary to it ultimate success.

Barrier interactions: The good, the bad and the ugly!

Dr Marlène Läubli Loud was a keynote speaker at the 2015 international Australasian Evaluation Society Conference in Melbourne, Australia. She gave an address reflecting on her own experiences and that of others in managing an internal evaluation unit—particularly noting how boundaries can be overcome to ensure that the commissioning, management and use of evaluation is instrumental. This article provides an overview of Marlène's conference address. While much of the article is grounded in the context of Switzerland, Marlène also shares insights from internal evaluation managers in a range of different settings, and applies these learnings to advance the discipline of evaluation.