Sydney Mug Shot Project

Dr Peter Doyle
Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University

Research

The project was to research 300 mysterious criminal portraits, or "mug shots", produced by Sydney police in the 1920s, now part of the Forensic Photography Archive (FPA) at the Justice & Police Museum, Sydney. This entailed locating the relevant glass plate mug shot negatives randomly distributed among the 130,000 strong FPA. The second and longest stage was to uncover what information could be found about the individuals portrayed (no information about the individual photos survives, save for a name and a date scratched onto each neg). More generally, the aim was to understand the historical, cultural and technical reasons for the distinctive, dramatic, often haunting and sometimes beautiful style and visual content of these images.

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SINTELLA

Associate Professor Colin A Wastell
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University

TEAM

Macquarie University
Ms Nicole Weeks, Doctoral candidate Psychology Department
Mr Piers Duncan, Associate of Macquarie University's Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism

University of Melbourne
Professor Alexander Wearing, Psychology Department

Research

SINTELLA is a computer mediated intelligence analysis simulation program. It represents the essential information characteristics inherent in the work of intelligence agencies which operate in complex, ambiguous and uncertain environments. The program consists of a number of web administered pages. These include instruction and questionnaire pages. The database page consists of 8x8 cells each containing between 50 and 130 words. The categories and information can be customised to suit a wide variety information environments, task situations and experimental contexts. The program is capable of enabling the development of agency customized selection, training and professional development programs for intelligence analysts.

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Developing New Treatments for Brain Arteriovenous Malformations

Professor Marcus Stoodley
Neurosurgery at Australian School of Advanced Medicine, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University

TEAM

Macquarie University
Dr Jian Tu, Australian School of Advanced Medicine

Prince of Wales Hospital
Associate Professor Robert Smee, Department of Radiation Oncology
Associate Professor Mark Molloy, Department of Radiation Oncology

Research

Arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) of the brain are abnormal blood vessels that are a leading cause of death and disability in children and young adults. Treatment is often high risk or impossible. We have developed an animal model of AVMs and a technique for treating this model with highly focussed radiation. We have shown that this radiation changes the molecular characteristics of the abnormal vessels, allowing them to be targeted with molecules that promote thrombosis selectively within the abnormal vessels. Our current work is refining this technique for translation into human studies.

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Human and Environomental Health Risks Associated with Metal Mining in and around Mount Isa, North-West Queensland, Australia

Associate Professor Mark Patrick Taylor
Environmental Science, Department of Environment and Geography, Faculty of Science, Macquarie University

TEAM

Macquarie University
Ms K. Alana Mackay, Department of Environment and Geography
Dr Carolyn A. Schniering, Department of Psychology
Ms Tabitha L. Kuypers, The Centre for Emotional Health

University of London, UK
Dr Karen K. Hudson-Edwards, Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences

Charles Darwin University, NT
Dr. Niels C. Munksgaard

Research

This research represents the only comprehensive peer-reviewed environmental investigation of sources, risks and implications of metal contaminants to human and ecosystem health in and around Mount Isa. It details the historic and ongoing impact of catchment land uses, primarily Xstrata's Mount Isa Mines operations, on the natural and urban environment. Environmental lead is a particular focus because of the recognized negative intellectual and socio-behavioural impacts on children. The findings have been published in national and international journals and media outlets. The findings have been instrumental in highlighting the environmental contaminant problem at Mount Isa to the public, industry and government stakeholders.

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Plunkett's Legacy: The Brogue and Burr in Australian Law

Tony Earls, PhD Candidate
Macquarie Law School, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie University

Research

This research is a study into the social beliefs, ideas and dispositions that Australia's first lawyers brought with them from England and Ireland. It argues that those understandings were magnified within early Australia's colonial public sphere in ways that shaped identifiably Australian features of our laws and politics. John Hubert Plunkett was an exemplar of this phenomenon. This monograph looks at not just the legal, but the social habitus of an early colonial lawyer, providing a new way of understanding the implementation of law, and the place of lawyers in society, that provides insights of relevance to Australia and internationally.

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Adaptive professional practice in ecosystem management: reflective practice experiments

Dr Greg Walkerden
Department of Environment & Geography, Graduate School of the Environment, Faculty of Science, Macquarie University

Research

This thesis develops new methods for explicating and modeling  practitioners' sensibilities - their 'feel' for kinds of situation – that enable disciplined explication of practice know-how and evoke the openness and flexibility that is fundamental to skillful practice. The sensibility models developed in it are a distinctive kind of 'decision support tool', one suited to ill-defined areas of practice. They function as "scaffolding" for astute, innovative practice. 

The thesis lays out models for practice research, for a number of general aspects of ecosystem management, and for some specific ecosystem management tasks, including developing strategies for water sensitive urban development.

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Modelling Study of Changes in Heart Ejection Pattern with Aging

Audrey Indrawati Adji, PhD Candidate
Australian School of Advanced Medicine, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University

Research

Changes in ejection pattern of the heart with age can be characterised through its relation with ascending aortic pressure and vascular impedance. I developed a simple and realistic mathematical model to investigate this change with aging process and disease, utilising the relative ease of non-invasive pressure measurement and the well-known changes in vascular (aortic) impedance with age. This is a novel cardiovascular hemodynamic approach in exploring the role of aging between the heart and blood vessels.

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A Reagent-Free method for diagnosing Urinary Tract Infection. The potential of Urine Autofluorescence

Sandeep Menon Perinchery, PhD Candidate
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Macquarie University

Research

In recent years, several novel approaches have been attempted to diagnose the urinary tract infection. However, all the current techniques are either reagent based or need sample preparation prior to measurement. We have recently demonstrated a simple (with no sample preparation and no reagents required), rapid, low cost technique for diagnosing urinary tract infection (UTI) using the fluorescence spectrum of urine, that is sensitive and amenable to automation.

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Enhancing climate change adaptation in the key professions

Professor Peter Nelson
Department of Environment & Geography, Faculty of Science, Macquarie University

TEAM

Macquarie University
Dr Marco Amati, Lecturer in Environmental Planning, Department of Environment & Geography
Jennifer George, Lecturer, Department of Environment & Geography
Wendy Goldstein, Lecturer in Sustainable Development, Department of Environment & Geography
Richard Horsfield, Visiting Fellow and Consultant
Sandra Nichols, Consultant

Research

In preparation for the implications of climate change (CC), key professionals need to develop new knowledge and skills. This research aimed to identify professional capabilities required by employers in government, community and industry to meet the challenge of climate change adaptation (CCA). The skills and knowledge that will be needed to be embedded in tertiary courses related to the key professions (such as environmental management and planning), to prepare graduates to work effectively and creatively in response to CC were evaluated. Employer views of the current importance of CCA in the workplace compared with other environmental imperatives were also investigated.

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Dr Linda Graham
ARC Discovery Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2010-2012)
Senior Lecturer (CORE)
Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, Faculty of Arts & School of Education, Faculty of Human Sciences

Dr Linda Graham is an ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer (CORE) in the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion (Faculty of Arts) and School of Education (Faculty of Human Sciences). Although graduating with her PhD less than 3 years ago, Graham has produced over 30 scholarly publications, including 6 book chapters, 1 edited book and 18 scholarly articles appearing in the most prestigious journals relating to her field of research (all but one are in journals ranked as A-A*). In the last 2 years, she has been awarded over $370,000 from external competitive grant funding bodies both here and overseas (ARC Discovery; SSHRC). While she already has an international profile for her work in ADHD and disruptive behaviour in schools, her current research on the increase in diagnosis of special educational needs has had a profound impact, informing government policy through the 2009 Review of Special Education in the ACT and the 2010 NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the Provision of Education to Children with Disability and Special Needs.

Graham is involved in a number of international research collaborations with partners in the UK, Finland, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Her comparative research has attracted an outstanding international doctoral candidate, Ms Jessica Pei Wen Chong, Macquarie's first Joint PhD with the University of Edinburgh.

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Dr Anina Rich
ARC Discovery Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2009-2011)
Senior Lecturer
Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science
Faculty of Human Sciences

Dr Anina Rich's research focuses on the way the brain integrates information, both across the senses, and within vision, to provide us with our seamless conscious experience of the world around us. She explores the role of attention in this 'binding' in both normal participants and in people with synaesthesia, an unusual phenomenon in which there is a 'mixing of the senses'. Rich has an ARC grant on attention and distraction and she is also a CI on a successful NHMRC Project Grant with other Core staff Members in the Cognitive Science and the Australian School of Advanced Medicine on brain plasticity. She provides quality supervision to HDR students (5 current PhDs, 1 completed), and her work is widely cited, with recent papers in top journals such as Psychological Science. Rich is frequently invited to speak on her research around Australia and internationally. Her work has featured in the media both in Australia and abroad, including 4 documentaries in 2010, and numerous interviews in print and on radio over the past 5 years.

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