LA TROBE UNIVERSITY

SEPTEMBER 2004

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY

SEPTEMBER 2004

They’re smarter than we thought

FIGHTING HIV/AIDSin Papua New Guinea

FOUND:The real Leopold Bloom

MUSCLES:

FIGHTING HIV/AIDSin Papua New Guinea

FOUND:The real Leopold Bloom

By October 2006, a thousand youngpeacemakers – each one trained in conflictresolution skills – will be enhancingrelationships between children, teachers andparents in five Victorian primary schools.

And hopefully, their peacemaking skills will be used throughout their lives to makeAustralian society more peaceful and tolerant.

This is the aim of a two-year project – basedon techniques developed at La TrobeUniversity – to be launched this October.

Called ‘Enhancing Relationships in SchoolCommunities’, the project has beendeveloped, and will be supervised, by a five-person team. Much of it is based on a conflict

resolution model developed by La Trobe staffin the School of Psychological Science,including Dr Eleanor Wertheim.

Dr Wertheim is working with Ms ElizabethFreeman, Ms Pat Marshall and Dr Ann Sansonof the University of Melbourne and Ms MargotTrinder of Psychologists for the Promotion ofWorld Peace, an interest group of the AustralianPsychological Society, and the BrencorpFoundation. The Foundation has supported theproject with $63,000 for two years.

The project assists primary school teachers tohelp students learn to deal more effectivelywith issues ranging from everyday friendshipconflicts, peer pressure, conflicts betweengroups of students, bullying and aggressionand conflict with teachers and parents.

Dr Wertheim says conflict and differencesbetween people are part of life. They make for

an interesting and changing world and provideopportunities for learning and growth.However, if differences between people –particularly between children – are notaccepted or are handled badly, there can benegative consequences.

For children, poorly managed conflict canresult in bullying and aggression, increasedclassroom disruption, heightened anxiety,early school leaving, intolerance and racism.

Under the program, teachers from schools inmulti-cultural areas will be taught conflictresolution skills and then supported over twoyears. The teachers will then pass on theirskills to pupils so that by the end of 2006,

1,000 students will have effective conflictresolution skills.

The program includes active listening,perspective taking, challenging assumptionsand stereotype and consensus building.

Dr Wertheim said the conflict resolution modelused is based on the Harvard UniversityNegotiation Project. It has been developed forAustralian conditions by Dr Wertheim and DrAnthony Love, with colleagues Dr LynLittlefield and Dr Connie Peck.

Dr Wertheim is also helping develop posters for schools and other places wherechildren gather. ‘Our aim,’ she says, ‘is forchildren to become empowered and skilled inconflict resolution so that eventually ourwhole society is proficient at resolvingconflict constructively.’ �

NEWSLA TROBE UNIVERSITY

Bulletin

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLET IN2

Space eye across the Tasman 3

Pharmaceutical drug scheme for Croatia 4

Fighting HIV / AIDS in Papua New Guinea 5

Helping school students get ‘In2Science’ 6

Research in Action

Better internet services for the Bush 7

Muscles: They’re smarter than we thought 8

Found: The real Leopold Bloom 9

Searching for biological markers of autism 10

Migrant English: Understanding intelligibility 11

Behavioural change – from water use to family violence 12

Masters course boosts Global Business Law 13

People: Professorial appointments 14 & 15

New Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) 15

Good news in Vietnam 16

IN THIS ISSUE

The La Trobe Bulletin is published ten times a year by thePublic Affairs Office, La Trobe University.

Articles may be reproduced with acknowledgement.Photographs can be supplied.

Enquiries and submissions to the editor, Ernest Raetz,La Trobe University, Victoria. 3086 AustraliaTel (03) 9479 2315, Fax (03) 9479 1387Email: bulletin@latrobe.edu.au

Design: Campus Graphics, 57072La Trobe University.Photography: PDI COMET, La Trobe University.Printed by Print Management Group.Website: www.latrobe.edu.au/bulletin

Cover: Scientists at La TrobeUniversity and at the University ofAarhus in Denmark, have discoveredthe mechanism by which acidity helps prevent musclefatigue – see story page 8

Peacemaking startsIN THE PLAYGROUND

T he New Zealand component of theTasman International GeospaceEnvironment Radar (TIGER) will

become operational in November. Thisfollows the completion at La TrobeUniversity of a radar to be installed nearInvercargill, NZ, in October.

A ceremony was held at La Trobe’s mainMelbourne campus at Bundoora recently tomark the completion of the radar’sconstruction.

Headed by La Trobe’s PhysicsDepartment, TIGER is an importantAustralian contribution to space physics,facilitating research and providing services inspace physics and space weather. La Trobeoperates TIGER on behalf of a consortium ofuniversities, government departments andcommercial firms.

TIGER’s first component to go intooperation was a similar ionospheric radarwith a 300 metre long antenna, installed onBruny Island, Tasmania in 1999. It probes afifty-two degree sector in azimuth with arange from 200 km south of Tasmania to theAntarctic coast 3,000 km away.

The New Zealand component is a similarbut improved ‘stereo’ version of the BrunyIsland radar. The radar electronics has justbeen completed at La Trobe and the antennacomponent is already installed on a farmingproperty 15 km from Invercargill.

When the system becomes fullyoperational in November, TIGER’scapability will be greatly enhanced. Eachradar will emit beams that will cross, givingdifferent line of sight velocities that can becombined to provide scientists with accurate‘vector’ velocities of motions in the highlydisturbed auroral ionosphere.

TIGER is part of an international networkof similar radars called SuperDARN (SuperDual Auroral Radar Network) operated byten nations to provide simultaneous coverageof both southern and northern polar regions.

The head of La Trobe’s PhysicsDepartment, Professor Peter Dyson, and

Dr John Devlin, an Associate Professor inthe Department of Electronic Engineering,developed TIGER. Professor Dyson isTIGER’s principal investigator and DrDevlin its scientist-engineer and isresponsible for the development of theradar system.

The NZ radar has been named ‘Unwin’after New Zealander Dr Bob Unwin, whowas a pioneer in ionospheric studies. He setup an auroral radar in Southland in 1957 andlater explored the possibility of having asecond radar in Tasmania.

TIGER will explore the impact of solardisturbances on Earth by monitoring thelocation of aurora and related phenomenaoccurring in the ionosphere – 100 to 300 kmabove the earth.

It explores an area half the size of Australiaby directing HF radio signals via theionosphere towards Antarctica and detectingweak echoes from structures in theionosphere. These echoes are used to formimages of the ionospheric structures andmeasure their speed and direction of motion.

It also detects echoes from meteors which are used to calculate wind speeds atheights of around 100km. It can also detectsignals from the sea and methods ofdeducing the sea-state from these signals arebeing developed.

Results from the full operation of TIGERwill include greater knowledge of spacephysics and space weather processes whichis required to improve management of radiocommunications and navigation systemssuch as GPS. It also has relevance to satelliteoperations and magnetic surveying forminerals and electricity supplies.

When the sun’s corona ejects hugeamounts of matter that reach the Earth, thereare rapid changes in wind speed andtemperature in the ionosphere as well as themagnetosphere – that region where theearth’s magnetic field interacts with the solar wind.

Auroras are caused by electrons strikingmolecules and atoms after entering theearth’s atmosphere near the poles. Thelocation of aurora can move 500 km in lessthan a minute during magnetic storms andcan disrupt communication and navigationsystems. TIGER monitors such storms andcan provide real-time data on space weatherstorms.

TIGER uses HF radio waves in the 8 - 20MHz range. It consumes only 2 kW ofpower, the same as some electric kettles, andtransmits an average power of 200 W – thesame as two bright light globes. �

SEPTEMBER 2004 3

NEWS

Measuring the impact of solar disturbances and detecting echoes from meteors...

Space eye reaches across theTasman

Professor Dyson at La Trobe and, inset, the radar under construction in New Zealand.

La Trobe senior lecturer in Public Health, Dr Ken Harvey –a specialist in the design of public policy to optimise theuse of antibiotics and other medicinal drugs – has playeda major role in introducing a cost efficient pharmaceuticaldrug scheme in Croatia.

Dr Harvey was a member of an Australian Health InsuranceCommission (HIC) team which won a World Bank contract to helpthe Croatian Ministry of Health and the Croatian Institute for HealthInsurance reform the country’s pharmaceutical sector. Thisfollowed Croatian government concern about the relatively highcost of drugs and inappropriate prescribing habits by physicians.

Through research, commissioned policy papers and his inauguralmembership of the Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Health andRational use of Medicines (PHARM) Committee, Dr Harvey hashelped formulate Australian medicinal drug policy.

He has also worked in 12 Asian countries under the auspices ofthe World Health Organisation, AusAID and the Regional Office forAsia and the Pacific of Consumers International.

Dr Harvey said Australian medicinal drug policy was held inhigh regard internationally. In particular, he said Australia’s 55-

year-old Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was world renownedfor subsidising most of the cost of around 600 drugs forAustralian consumers and for using stringent pharmaco-economic analysis to negotiate drug prices two to three timeslower that that paid in the USA.

‘In addition, our “Quality Use of Medicines” policy encouragesrational prescribing and use by providing independent drug andtherapeutic information, analysis and feedback of drug utilisationdata, and educational programs run by the National PrescribingService,’ he said.

Dr Harvey spent three months in Croatia in 2003 and early 2004helping devise a national policy which encouraged the use ofpharmaco-economic principles in the selection and purchase of theCroatian national drug list.

The team with which he was working recommended newdrug funding and reimbursement options, reviewed drug usedata and developed prescribing guidelines and feedbacksystems to encourage physicians to practice in accord with thenational guidelines.

In addition, it developed and conducted education programs inpharmaco-economics for personnel involved in drug selection andpricing, courses in rational prescribing for clinical pharmacologistsand physicians, and reviewed plans for the establishment of aCroatian National Drug Agency. This culminated in an informationcampaign for the general public.

Specifically, Dr Harvey's role involved adapting and translatingAustralian therapeutic guidelines to suit local conditions, usinginsurance data to monitor doctors prescribing practice and devisingperformance indicators, linked to financial incentives, to encouragephysicians to follow the guidelines.

The Croatian Institute for Health Insurance accepted hisrecommendations, resulting in performance indicators and financialincentives being written into new contracts for Croatian generalpractitioners this year.

Dr Harvey also worked with a primary health care informationtechnology project which aims to incorporate the guidelines devisedinto prescribing software being piloted in Croatia. He also played aleading role in the educational program for clinical pharmacologistsand physicians.

Many countries, he said, face similar problems to thoseexperienced by Croatia. Neighbouring counties such as Bosnia,Montenegro and Serbia are very interested in the Croatianpharmaceutical project. The Australian HIC has won a similarcontract in Jordan and Dr Harvey is soon to return to Jordan as partof the team. �

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLET IN

GLOBAL HEALTH

4

BETTER PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG SCHEME

Dr Harvey, left, with Dr Karolina Kalanj, Croatian Project Manager.

FOR CROATIA

L a Trobe University’s National Centrefor Public Health Law is making asignificant contribution to combating

the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Papua NewGuinea. The Centre is also involved indeveloping legislative options to help delivera range of other health services in PNG.

Inaugurated in November 2002, theNational Centre for Public Health Law(NCPHL) has already completed oneassignment on HIV/AIDS for the PNGGovernment through AusAID, theAustralian Government's overseas aidprogram, and is engaged in another toimprove the delivery of all health services.

A legal intern at the Centre, Ms KarenFletcher, prepared a handbook on newHIV/AIDS laws with the support andassistance of Centre Director, Ms GenevieveHowse, who also developed andimplemented a training program for thoseusing the handbook.

As well as preparing the handbook whichwill be published later this year, Ms Howseand Ms Fletcher also conducted trainingsessions for people who will use it. Groupsinvolved included the staff of theOmbudsman’s Office, members of theRoyal PNG Constabulary, defence forcepersonnel and teachers.

Ms Fletcher spent three months in PNG andMs Howse made two visits of one week each.Their involvement in PNG follows thepassage of the HIV/AIDS Management andPrevention Act through the PNG parliament inAugust, 2003. The Act is designed to combatthe epidemic which some commentators saywill be as significant a problem in PNG in 10years as it is in Africa today.

‘It is a very progressive piece oflegislation,’ Ms Howse said. ‘It forbidsdiscrimination against, and vilification of,people with HIV/AIDS and is designed toprotect the rights of both those who have the infection and those who don’t.’

Nevertheless, it is still not socially orculturally acceptable to talk openly aboutHIV/AIDS and its transmission. Because ofthis, it is not possible to gauge accurately

how many people have the infection.

Despite the fact that the Act is now law,Ms Howse and Ms Fletcher witnessed anincident which demonstrated the need forthe Act and for promoting it among officialsand others.

Police raided a licensed club in PortMoresby, arrested 80 people and humiliatedthem during a one hour march to a policestation, making them inflate condoms asthey passed through crowds. Later all menwere released, but six girls under the age of18 were charged with prostitution becausethey had condoms in their possession. Thecharges were later withdrawn, following

legal advocacy for the women involved,sponsored by the National AIDS Council.

Ms Howse said she was concerned thatreligious and social attitudes could placeserious impediments on the operation of thenew Act.

‘A sex worker going to a clinic for aHIV/AIDS test can be so humiliated by staffwith personal prejudices that she often willnot return for her results. The new Actmakes such discrimination illegal – but it isnecessary to change attitudes as well aslaws,’ she said. �

GLOBAL HEALTH

Fighting HIV/AIDS in

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

SEPTEMBER 2004 5

Aprogram to encouragemore Victorian secondaryschool students to ‘getinto science’ was recentlylaunched by La TrobeUniversity and the

University of Melbourne in metropolitanMelbourne and regional Victoria.

A new joint venture in Victoria, theprogram – called ‘In2Science’ – is run bythe Science Faculties at the twouniversities. It has been funded by theWilliam Buckland Foundation.

‘In2Science’ places selected sciencestudents from La Trobe and Melbourne insecondary schools for up to three hours aweek in fourteen-week blocks.

The university students then act asmentors and role models for schoolstudents – especially those in the middleyears of their secondary education, years7-10. They also serve as an additionalresource for teachers to enhance existingscience programs.

La Trobe University Dean of the Facultyof Science, Technology and Engineering,Professor David Finlay – who is alsoPresident of the Australian Council ofScience Deans – said initially nine La Trobe students will take part in the program.

‘The aim is to promote enthusiasm forscience among secondary students,especially in key subjects like Chemistry,Mathematics and Physics, and to helpstudents make choices about future highereducation options which can lead torewarding and interesting career choices.’

Professor Finlay said the scheme alsobenefits university students by enhancingtheir skills in science communication.

Professor John McKenzie, Dean ofScience at the University of Melbourne,said: ‘In2Science will help broaden theexperiences and opportunities for

students in schools and universities toshare their passion and cultivate theircuriosity in science.’

‘We are most grateful for the supportfrom the William Buckland Foundation,which has enabled university students toassist the development of scienceeducation in schools.’

La Trobe University Peer Mentoring Co-ordinator, John McDonald, said the newVictorian program was based on asuccessful scheme called STAR which hasbeen run through Western Australia’sMurdoch University for the past 11 years.

Currently there are more than 300Australian university students involved insuch programs.

‘Schools have been very positive,’ MrMcDonald said. ‘They see its potentialvalue to both staff and students and, as the

program grows, we hope to involve moreschools and mentors each year.’

Nine metropolitan secondary schools,Eltham High School, St Helena SecondaryCollege, Mill Park Secondary College,East Doncaster Secondary College,Macleod College, Pascoe Vale Girls’Secondary College, Northcote HighSchool, Princes Hill Secondary Collegeand Melbourne Girls’ College, and oneregional school, Mitchell High School inWodonga, are participating in theinaugural year of the program. �

Further information from JohnMcDonald, telephone: 9479 2523 oremail: j.mcdonald@latrobe.edu.au

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLET IN

SCIENCE EDUCATION

6

GET ‘In2Science’

UNIVERSITY MENTORS ARE HELPINGSCHOOL STUDENTS

The scheme’s launch at Northcote High School with ‘In2Science’ chair, former Federal GovernmentScience Minister, Dr Barry Jones, and La Trobe’s Professor Finlay, both far right.

THE BUSH

RESEARCH IN ACTION

La Trobe University is playing a major rolein research designed to bring betterinternet services to remote rural areas.

Principal investigator, La Trobe’s DrBen Soh, leads a team that recently won anARC Linkage Grant to develop a newtransport layer protocol to provide securebroadband internet connection via satelliteto rural regions.

The team includes input from TelstraCountry Wide, URSYS Pty Ltd (Sydney)and Associate Professor Dr JeanArmstrong, a former La Trobe researcher,now at Monash University. Their $161,000grant also funds PhD student Mr Joel Singfrom La Trobe, Bendigo’s Information andCommunication Technology Centre. Inaddition, Telstra is contributing access toits satellite technology.

Dr Soh, senior lecturer in La Trobe’sDepartment of Computer Science andComputer Engineering, said satellite linkswere critical to connecting broadband toremote areas.

‘Effective use of the internet oversatellite links is essential if Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer E-commerce is todevelop in these areas. In manyapplication networks –particularly virtual privatenetworks (VPN) – securetransmission is important toavoid fraud and maintainprivacy. Satellite linksintroduce a long delay(latency) in the transmissionpath and existing secure internetprotocols do not handle this well.’

Dr Soh said transmission controlprotocol (TCP) over satellite VPN was

possibly the hottest research topic in therural economy today. Combined, these twotechnologies had the potential to provide thebest and most cost-effective ‘informationsuperhighways’ in remote areas.

TCP was part of the most widely usednetwork protocol. ‘We expect the totalmarket for satellite services provided bythese technologies and the accompaniedactivities to be worth billions of dollars.’

Dr Soh’s team aims to develop new TCPsecurity techniques for broadband internetconnections via satellite to a VPN.

Internet messages, he explained, arebroken into ‘packets’ at the TCP layer forrouting via the Internet Protocol layer tothe destination address. There, the packetsare reassembled at the TCP layer torecover the original messages. However,numerous problems remain.

A major one is the relativelyhigh latency when data istransmitted. The lengthof the latencydepends

on the satellite’s orbit. Geosynchronous-earth-orbit satellites have latency of about560 milliseconds over the earth-satellite-earth link, while low-earth-orbit satelliteshave 10 to 20 milliseconds one-way delay,depending on the satellite’s location in thesky and other factors. These delays makereal time systems impossible.

Another TCP issue being investigated isa method to ensure reliable end-to-end datatransmission by using ‘host-basedcongestion control mechanisms’. �

The team will present a paper on the research, TCP (TransmissionControl Protocol) Performance overGeostationary Satellite Links: Problemsand Solutions, at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’International Conference on Networks inSingapore in November.

SEPTEMBER 2004 7

Better internet services for

Scientists at La Trobe University and at theUniversity of Aarhus in Denmark, havediscovered the mechanism by whichacidity helps prevent muscle fatigue.

The discovery should be of great interestto elite athletes, physiologists andlaboratories around the world involved inmuscle research because it runs in the faceof a previously held belief that acidity –through a build up of lactic acid – is amajor cause of muscle fatigue.

Professors George Stephenson andGraham Lamb of La Trobe’s MuscleResearch Laboratory and Mr ThomasPedersen and Professor Ole Nielsen fromthe University of Aarhus, published theirfindings in the August issue of Science, thejournal of the American Association for theAdvancement of Science.

Mr Pedersen, a Danish PhD studentfrom the University of Aarhus, came to La Trobe for six months to carry out theproject with Professors Stephenson andLamb using a technique developed in theirlaboratory on the University’s mainMelbourne campus at Bundoora. Thetechnique involves peeling away thesurface membrane of single muscle fibres– which are half the thickness of a humanhair – without interfering with the abilityof the muscle fibre to contract normally toelectrical stimulation. This enabled theresearchers to change conditions inside themuscle cells and study the effects ofacidity on the force response.

‘We found that muscles play a clevertrick in which they use acidosis – thebuild-up of acid – to help ensure that theykeep responding properly to nerve signalsand so avoid the fatigue that wouldotherwise occur,’ said Professor Lamb.

Collaboration between La Trobe andAarhus universities started in 2002 whenProfessor Nielsen, then a DistinguishedVisiting Scholar at La Trobe’s Institute of

Advanced Study, came to work for amonth in the Muscle Research Laboratory.He had recently demonstrated for the firsttime that acidity could be beneficial tomuscle performance, although it was notclear how this occurred.

The La Trobe-Aarhus team identifiedthe underlying mechanism of why acidityis beneficial, discovering the ‘clever trick’used by muscles.

Professor Stephenson explains thatmuscle contraction in a skeletal musclefibre in response to a nerve impulse is theresult of a complex series of events knownas excitation-contraction-coupling. Anetwork of tiny tubes in muscle fibre (theT-system) allows electrical signals, set upon the muscle fibre’s surface in response tonerve signals, to move deep inside and‘excite’ the whole fibre.

‘Chloride ions play an important role inmuscle by dampening the excitability ofthe surface membrane and T-system,ensuring that they only respond whenstimulated by nerve signals and do notbecome spontaneously excited,’ ProfessorStephenson said. ‘When a muscle isworked hard, potassium ions come out ofthe fibres and make the membrane lessexcitable. The acidity generated inside aworking muscle helps counter thisdepressing effect by reducing the influenceof chloride, which helps the musclemembranes stay excitable.

‘It is a very clever trick because restedmuscles need the chloride effect normallyto prevent them from contractingspontaneously. The acidity produced bythe strenuous exercise reduces chloride’sstabilising effect, enabling the impulses tokeep exciting the muscle when they wouldotherwise fail. We have concluded thatintracellular acidosis increases theexcitability of the T-system, thuscounteracting fatigue at a critical step inexcitation-contraction-coupling.’ �

RESEARCH IN ACTION

MUSCLES:THEY’RE SMARTER

THAN WE THOUGHT

Professor Stephenson‘skinning’ a muscle fibre,

and, below, an illustrationof the process.

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLET IN8

T he hero of James Joyce’s book,Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, is perhapsone of English literature’s most

intriguing characters. Hundreds ofthousands of Joyce fans celebrate his ‘feastday’, Bloomsday, each June 16 – and thisyear was the centenary of that event.

So for many decades Bloom’s fame hasgiven rise to the question: on whom didJoyce base the Bloom character?

According to La Trobe UniversityProfessor of Italian and European Studies,John Gatt-Rutter, the enigmatic andlovable character is the Italian author, ItaloSvevo (1861-1928) whose work was notrecognised until late in his life.

Italo Svevo was the nom-de-plume of Ettore Schmitz, an Italian Jew from Austrian Trieste who published his first two long-neglected novels at his own expense and worked in a Trieste bank for 20 years and for another 20 years as factory managermanufacturing ships’ paint, with frequentspells at the firm’s London factory. Hecalled himself Italo Svevo (that’s Italianfor Italian Swabian) to signify his mixedJewish-Italian-German heritage.

Professor Gatt-Rutter, who occupies theVaccari Chair in Italian Studies within the

School of Historical and European Studies,recently co-produced the London writingsof Svevo in both an English translation andthe original Italian.

The English language volume wascompiled, translated, edited and introducedby Brian Moloney, formerly professor ofItalian at the universities of Hull andWollongong, and Professor Gatt-Rutterand published by Troubadour Press.

Professor Gatt-Rutter edited Svevo’sletters from London, mainly to his wife,which show a 40-year-old Italian-Austrianex-Jew coming to terms with life in a London industrial suburb from 1901 to 1926. The book also contains Svevo’sshrewd sociological essays on London and newspaper reports on post-warLondon, including the 1920 and 1921miners' strikes.

Both the English volume and the Italian,published in Svevo's home town of Trieste,came out in 2003 to mark the 75thanniversary of his death.

Professor Gatt-Rutter is author of awidely regarded biography of Svevo, alsopublished in English and Italian. It was hisstudy of Svevo’s writings and life that ledhim to the conclusion that Joyce based theBloom character on Svevo.

Svevo and the much younger Joycedeveloped a quizzical friendship whenJoyce lived in Trieste and Svevo waspretending to have given up writing whilemaking a fortune out of ships’ paint. Thetwo as yet obscure writers greatlyencouraged each other’s literary efforts.Joyce saw in Svevo a great writer andhelped him achieve celebrity for what isnow considered one of modernism's finestnovels, The Confessions of Zeno.

Svevo had gone to London in 1901 onbehalf of his firm to establish a factorybeside the Thames to supply paint for shipsof the Royal Navy. The paint inhibitedencrustations on a ship's hull, making agreat difference to its speed and thefrequency of overhauls.

This gave British ships an advantageover those of the German navy as the rivalnations built up their fleets. Svevo hadbeen to school in Germany and loved thatcountry, and was also a pacifist. He wasdeeply distressed when the Great War sawhis paint play a not insignificant part in thecarnage which also involved Italy. Hisguilt feelings seem to have found their wayinto his masterpiece.

Professor Gatt-Rutter told a recentconference in Sydney that Joyce wasseeking a model of human goodness andgreatness. ‘He saw something of what he was looking for in Svevo,’ ProfessorGatt-Rutter said.

‘So Svevo, unknowingly on his part,became the model for Leopold Bloom.’ �

9

RESEARCH IN ACTION

FOUND: g{x extÄ _xÉÑÉÄw UÄÉÉÅ

Svevo and one of his letters. Inset top: James Joyce in about 1917. Below: Professor Gatt-Rutter at work.

SEPTEMBER 2004

A multidisciplinary research group atLa Trobe University has made a major contribution in the

search for biological markers in autism spectrum disorders.

Developmental psychologist, Dr CherylDissanayake, medical geneticist, DrDanuta Loesch, and statisticians, DrRichard Huggins and Dr Quang Bui, havediscovered that children within the autismspectrum have faster physical growth ratesduring their first three years of life.

Recent publications on enlarged headcircumference and brain size in childrenwith autism aged between two and fouryears stimulated the interest of DrsDissanayake and Loesch. These findingswere outlined at the inaugural WorldAutism Congress in Melbourne in 2002 byAmerican autism authority, Professor EricCourchesne of the University of Californiaat San Diego.

Dr Loesch is a world authority on the effects of the genetic abnormality on physical, cognitive, and behaviouralmeasures in Fragile X disorder, thecommonest form of inherited mentalretardation.

She was intrigued by a similarity of Professor Courchesne’s findings on the pattern of brain growth of children with autism with her own published data on body growth in children around the age of puberty with Fragile Xsyndrome. However, there had been no

comparable studies of growth inchildren with autism.

Drs Dissanayake and Loeschundertook such a study in a pilot sample ofyoung children using standard physicalmeasurements collected by maternal andchild health nurses as routinedevelopmental check-ups between birthand three years – the period during whichbehavioural features which characteriseautism become evident.

‘We obtained infant and early childhoodmeasurements of head circumference andstature of 16 children with highfunctioning autism and 12 children withthe form of autism spectrum disorderdefined as Asperger’s Disorder – plus 19normally developing children as a controlgroup – to investigate whether growthabnormality in these groups is limited tothe head and brain or may be moregeneralised,’ Dr Dissanayake said.

The statisticians, Drs Huggins and Bui,used a ‘linear mixed effects approach’ tomodel growth over the three years. Theyfound that growth rates in both headcircumference and body height wereelevated in the two clinical groups relativeto the typically developing children,particularly between two to three years ofage. However, the growth rates of thechildren with high functioning autism andAsperger’s Disorder were identical.

One conclusion was that, because ofsimilarities in growth of headcircumference and body height and

similarities in their behaviour, Asperger’sDisorder was unlikely to be a discretediagnostic entity, separate from AutisticDisorder.

Dr Loesch: ‘The most exciting findinghowever, albeit preliminary, is that inautism, abnormal growth is not limited tothe brain but may involve other bodysystems, highlighting the possibility thatautism is associated with generalisedgrowth dysregulation. Generally thisfinding strongly supports the role ofbiological mechanisms in the developmentof autism.’

Dr Dissanayake said the group nowwanted to replicate these findings, andextend them by investigating growthduring pre-adolescence and adolescence.

‘This is a critical growth period, and wehave recently applied for major funding toconduct this study. If our results areconfirmed by replication on a larger scale,we can then start to look at the mechanismsthat control growth and attempt toascertain which candidate genes may beinvolved, enabling us to discover whichbiochemical and genetic mechanisms maybe associated with autism.’ �

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLET IN10

RESEARCH IN ACTION

AUTISM

SEARCHINGFORBIOLOGICALMARKERS OF

Thanks to La Trobe University researchers, teachers inAustralia’s Adult Migrant English Program will soon have availablea professional development package to help them assess theintelligibility of those at different stages of learning English.

Funded by the Commonwealth Department of Immigration andMulticultural Affairs, the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP)provides 510 hours of English language training to all peopleoffered permanent residence in this country.

According to Dr Lynda Yates of the AMEP Research Centre,assessing intelligibility has long been a problem as it lies as muchin ‘the ear of the hearer’ as the ‘tongue of the speaker’. The newprofessional development package will greatly assist teachers in the AMEP.

The AMEP Research Centre is a consortium of La Trobe’sInstitute for Education, and the National Centre for EnglishLanguage Teaching and Research at Macquarie University. It wasestablished in 2000 to provide professional developmentmaterials and information for AMEP providers and teachers.Other senior researchers in the Centre located at La Trobe’s mainMelbourne campus at Bundoora are Dr Howard Nicholas and DrAlan Williams.

To illustrate that intelligibility is in the ear of the hearer, Dr Yateshas studied reactions to the speech of beginner learners of English.She played tapes of the voices of five people learning English to 42listeners – half of them to TESOL teachers (teachers of English asa second language) and half non-TESOL teachers.

‘We found that, because of their experience, TESOL teachersunderstood much more of what the speakers were saying than the

non-teachers,’ Dr Yates said. ‘But, if you asked for a rating of howintelligible the speakers were, there was greater variation among theteachers than the non-teachers.’

Many factors influence intelligibility, including the hearer’sawareness of the subject matter, the volume of the voice,pronunciation, grammar – and even body language.

In a presentation to teachers at the National AMEP Conferenceheld in Darwin in July, Dr Yates reported on her research andillustrated the role of some of these different factors in assessingintelligibility.

‘Teachers were surprised to discover how much of theirunderstanding of different speech samples depended on body

language and the predictable nature of everyday conversations,rather than the clarity of the speech itself.’

This research, she said, underscored the need for a consensusabout what level of intelligibility was acceptable at different stagesof language learning in the AMEP, and highlighted an urgent needfor professional development for teachers working in the program.

Dr Yates’ new package comprises a CD of learner spokenperformances for use in professional development training sessionsand a fact sheet that can be downloaded free from the AMEPResearch Centre’s Professional Connections website. The packagewill join a range of other learning materials available from theCentre to AMEP teachers. �

Further information about these packages is available onwww.nceltr.mq.edu.au/resources.

MIGRANT ENGLISH

SEPTEMBER 2004 11

Tongue of the speaker and ear of the hearer

UNDERSTANDINGINTELLIGIBILITY

‘Much depends on body language and the predictable nature of conversation, rather than the clarity of speech itself.’

T he debate about water conservation – inwhich La Trobe University academicstaff have played prominent roles – is

just one of many dialogues about changingpublic attitudes and behaviour.

Successful campaigns for improved roadsafety practices like wearing seat belts,reducing speed, curtailing drink driving andestablishing accident black spots have givenVictoria a world reputation for changing forthe better the behaviour of its citizens.

Other successful local or nationalcampaigns that have enhanced Australia’sinternational reputation include Quit(anti-smoking) and Slip-Slop-Slap (anti-skin cancer).

‘Bold policy, guided by on-going,multidisciplinary research, has led toimmense public benefit, including saving oflife and suffering, not to mention money,’says La Trobe psychologist, Dr GeoffCumming. ‘Now we need to apply thisstrategy in further areas, such as thereduction of family violence, and waterconservation.’

A Reader in Psychological Science andspecialist in the field of public attitudes andbehaviour, Dr Cumming says changingattitudes and behaviour is complex andrequires multi-disciplinary research.

‘Law, engineering, economics, educationand social work are just some of the relevantfields. But attitudes and behaviour are theprimary business of psychology, sopsychologists need to play a prominent role.’

For example, Dr Cumming becameinterested in the question of waterconservation when the Kennett Governmentchanged the pricing structure of water to‘user pays’.

He says people make choices about how

they use water for a number of reasons, notjust price.

‘A policy of restricting water use in anumber of arbitrary ways runs the risk of beingregarded as so unfair that it lacks respect. Youcan water your roses for hours every day, but Ican’t put even a drop on my lawn!’

Dr Cumming says campaigns to influenceattitudes and behaviour are based on appliedpsychology, a science that took off during theSecond World War.

‘Then, for the first time we had largenumbers of humans in charge of highlycomplicated and lethal machinery likeaircraft and submarines. The behaviour indangerous situations of humans in controlof such complex systems became a vitalcomponent in their effectiveness as well assafety – so the science of trying tounderstand human attitudes and behaviourbecame very important.’

And it’s still a field Dr Cumming and manystudents find fascinating, partly because itoften produces community benefits.

‘Applied cognitive psychologists work toimprove the design and usability of all sortsof devices, and the ease of use of computersoftware and systems. But it is on majorissues like family violence and waterconservation that really notable practicaladvances can be made.

‘What we need is recognition of thepossibilities, and more support for appliedresearch in these and other areas.’ �

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From WATER USEto FAMILY VIOLENCE

How to change our attitudesand behaviour

L IBRARIANWINSHEARINGAWARENESSAWARD

La Trobe University reference librarian,Valerie Forbes, was up among the bignames when the Deafness Foundationhanded out its annual awards duringHearing Awareness Week recently.

Awards for clear speech went to AngelaPippos (sport), Jennifer Kyte (news), JonFaine (radio) – and to Val Forbes foroutstanding service to people withhearing loss.

Ms Forbes, who has worked in theBorchardt Library at La Trobe’sMelbourne (Bundoora) campus since1990, received recognition for her servicesto hearing impaired La Trobe students andvisitors using the library.

A reference librarian in the areas ofDeaf Studies, European Languages andLiterature, English, Linguistics, andCinema and Media Studies, Ms Forbes hasintroduced an online learning program atthe University to bring together in a virtualcommunity deaf students, lecturers andlibrary staff.

She has also established an e-maildistribution list to notify people about new books, websites, newspaper articlesand other items of interest to the deaf community. �

Dr Cumming: fascinating field for students.

Growth of La TrobeUniversity’s GlobalBusiness Law Programhas been rapid.

With an increasingly internationalemphasis on the practice of law, global lawcourses are becoming popular in the USand around the world, says ProfessorGordon Walker, who heads the La TrobeLaw program.

‘The US-Australia Free TradeAgreement, now ratified by the USlegislature, has given further impetus to theprogram, increasing the importance of ourgraduates having a global perspective.

‘The agreement has resulted in ademand from Australian law firms forlawyers with grounding in US law. Someunderstanding of the legal system of thecountry with which we do so much trade isa good thing for Australian lawyers.’

La Trobe Law offers a wide variety ofcourses and includes among its Faculty, asAdjunct Professor, the former DirectorGeneral of the World Trade Organisation,ex-Prime Minister of NZ, Mike Moore.

The program also attracts an increasingnumber of students from overseas, withseven enrolling this year from France,Germany and Switzerland. These studentsenrol via the LLM for InternationalStudents.

La Trobe Law’s Global Business Lawprogram has hired law professors fromUCLA, Duke University, the University ofKansas and the University of Hawaii. Stafffrom these universities, and other top lawschools in the US, are regular guest lecturersin the program. In July, Professor StephenMcAllister, Dean of the University ofKansas Law School taught a unit entitled‘Introduction to American Law’.

In December, Professor Gabriel Wilner,Dean and Executive Director of the DeanRusk Centre for Legal Studies at theUniversity of Georgia School of Law, willteach a unit on ‘International commercialarbitration’, while anti-trust law specialist,former Texas University Law Professor, PaulBartlett, will lecture on ‘US anti-trust law’.

Global Business Law units in 2005 and2006 will include a range of coursesdealing with USA law, including federaltax, negotiation, mergers and acquisitions,securities regulation, antitrust,entertainment, real property law, and assetsecuritisation as well as internationalbusiness transactions, and Chinesebusiness law and practice.

Professor Walker says La Trobe’s LLMprogram in Global Business Law is partlyaimed at law graduates seeking to upgradetheir qualifications part-time to aninternational standard. �

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INTERNATIONAL MASTERS COURSE BOOSTS

La Trobe GlobalBusiness Law

University of Kansas Law School Professor McAllister, seated left, and Professor Walker with threeinternational students after a lecture introducing American Law to La Trobe Global Law students. The

students are, from left, Bertil Maillet and Delphine Mouriot from Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University, France, and Maia Tacheva, a Bulgarian PhD student from the University Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Are we changing long-held valueswhich saw torture as abhorrent? Candemocracy be spread by violence?These questions were posed by Britishsociologist, Professor Keith Tester at aLa Trobe University seminar recently.

Professor Tester is researching theimplications of violent interrogationtechniques, particularly howtelevision determines relationshipsbetween viewers and those they seesuffering in news and other programs.

Chair of Cultural Sociology at theUniversity of Portsmouth, UK,Professor Tester spent six weeks as aDistinguished Visiting Fellow at theUniversity’s Thesis Eleven Centre. �

TORTUREI N I R A Q

La Trobe University has appointedtwo new professors. They are DrPaul Fisher, Professor ofMicrobiology, and Dr Peta Tait,

Professor of Theatre and Drama.

Professor Paul Fisher is Head of theDepartment of Microbiology and runs La Trobe University's Microbial CellBiology Laboratory. His main researchinterest is the molecular genetics ofsignalling pathways in the cellular slimemould, Dictyostelium discoideum.

Found in soil and leaf litter, Dictyosteliumis one of the few non-mammalian modelorganisms recognised by the US NationalInstitutes of Health for their importance inbiomedical research.

Professor Fisher’s research group isprobing the way the organisms behave,having discovered these behaviours arehighly sensitive to genetic defects affectingthe Dictyostelium’s mitochondria – tinyenergy centres also found in human cells.This work is important because humanmitochondrial diseases, which result in awide range of neuro-muscular disability,might be partially explained by defects insignalling pathways.

Professor Fisher holds a BSc (Hons) andMSc from the University of Queensland anda PhD from the Australian NationalUniversity. A Postdoctoral Fellow at theMax Planck Institut für Biochemie inGermany where he taught students from theUniversity of Tübingen, he taught at theUniversity of Queensland and the ANU,before joining La Trobe in 1985. Since then,he has held posts as Guest Scientist at theMax Planck Institut; at the University ofLeiden, Netherlands; and has worked inAustralia as part of the CooperativeResearch Centre for DiagnosticTechnologies.

A member of the Australian Society forMicrobiology, the Australia and NewZealand Society for Cell and DevelopmentalBiology, and the Australian Society forBiochemistry and Molecular Biology,

Professor Fisher has served as an assessor ofgrant applications for the AustralianResearch Council, National Health andMedical Research Council, CommonwealthAids Research Grants Scheme, the USANational Science Foundation and theWellcome Trust in the UK.

He was an invited speaker and member ofthe scientific advisory group for the ‘GeneticOlympics’, the major International GeneticsCongress held in Melbourne last year, andorganised the international Dictyosteliumconference, a satellite meeting of theCongress. With major articles on microbialphototaxis and microbial development, he isan invited contributor to the NaturePublishing Group's on line Encyclopedia ofLife Sciences and to Wiley-VCH'sprestigious Encyclopedia of Molecular CellBiology and Molecular Medicine.

Professor Peta Tait is an academic and creative artist with an extensivebackground in the practice and theory of theatre, drama and contemporaryperformance. She is a pioneer of the studyof Australian ‘physical theatre’ and genderidentity in Australian theatre.

Her research in performance studies dealswith the study of social languages ofemotions and theatrical emotions, and theanalysis of bodies and identity in physicaltheatre and circus performance, a projectwhich is supported by the AustralianResearch Council.

She is also working with South Koreancolleagues on the intercultural transaction ofemotions in theatre and in 2000 was avisiting scholar at New York University’sTISCH School of Arts.

Author of the first books on genderidentity and Australian theatre – OriginalWomen’s Theatre (1993) and ConvergingRealities: Feminism in Australian Theatre(1994) – Professor Tait has also co-edited ananthology of women’s plays, AustralianWomen’s Drama: Texts and Feminisms(1997/2000) and the first anthology onbody-based performance in Australia, Body

Show/s: Australian Viewings of LivePerformance (2002).

Her most recent book is PerformingEmotions: Gender, Bodies, Spaces inChekhov’s Drama and Stanislavski’s Theatre(2002), and she is completing CircusBodies: Cultural Identity in AerialPerformance (Routledge forthcoming).

Professor Tait has written for majorinternational publications including TheatreJournal, is a contributing editor toTheatreForum, and Australasian AdvisoryEditor for a soon to be publishedEncyclopedia of Modern Drama.

Five plays that she has written have beenproduced, and she worked for more than adecade with the Sydney-based professionalgroup, The Party Line, whose award-winning work was supported by fundingfrom the Australia Council. Her mostrecently co-written play, Breath by Breath,won a Green Room Award Nomination forbest fringe production and has been listed bythe Australian Script Centre.

Dr Tait has a BA from Monash, an MA from UNSW, and PhD from UTS, and was a member of the 1988 NIDA(National Institute of Dramatic Art)Playwright’s Studio. �

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NEW PROFESSORS LEADRESEARCH IN MICROBIOLOGYAND THEATRE

Professor Fisher, top, and Professor Tait

D r Randy LaPolla,formerly of the CityUniversity of Hong

Kong, has been appointed tothe Chair of Linguistics at LaTrobe University. He replacesProfessor Barry Blake whohas retired.

Two years ago, ProfessorLaPolla spent six months atLa Trobe as Visiting Professorat the Research Centre forLinguistic Typology, andfound his stay there extremelypleasant and productive. ‘Iresolved then that if I ever hadthe opportunity to come back,I would,’ he says.

Professor LaPolla bringswith him a vast knowledge of Sino-Tibetan languages,adding to the University’s existingstrengths in this field in the form of the expertise of Drs David Bradley andHilary Chappell.

Born and raised in Long Island, NewYork, Professor LaPolla received a BA inAsian Studies from the State University ofNew York at Stony Brook in 1978 and anMA in Applied Linguistics (TESOL) fromthe same university in 1980.

He then lived in China for three years,teaching for one year in Changsha andShanghai, and studying for two years inthe Linguistics Section of the ChineseDepartment of Peking University. He thenwent to the University of California,Berkeley, where he received an MA and in1990, a PhD in Linguistics.

After graduation he was given a positionat the Institute of History and Philology ofthe Academia Sinica in Taiwan – the firstwesterner so appointed – and remainedthere for six years, also teaching part-timeat Tsing Hua University as AdjunctAssociate Professor for two years.

In 1996 he moved to City University ofHong Kong, where he was an AssociateProfessor mainly working on the recordingand analysis, including comparativestudies, of Sino-Tibetan languages. This

involved attempting to answer the questionof why the languages of this languagefamily are the way they are.

A general interest in typology informsthis work from which he has alsodeveloped certain answers to more general theoretical questions, such as the nature of language and its function in communication.

He says an attraction of La Trobe wasthe opportunity to be heavily engaged inteaching as well as research. ‘My workat the Academia Sinica was purelyresearch but I prefer to combine researchwith teaching. I find that teachingbroadens your view, as students oftenbring up questions which force you toventure into areas about which you arenot all that clear.’

‘I appreciate the chance of working with both students and colleagues becausethe students and staff form a critical mass with which you can interact in aproductive way.’

On a personal level Professor LaPollawill continue his interest in Tai Chi andother internal martial arts, and also his loveof nature. ‘In this respect, I am going toenjoy this beautiful campus,’ he added. �

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Sino-Tibetan specialist to Chair in Linguistics

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NEW DEPUTYVICE-CHANCELLOR(RESEARCH) La Trobe University has appointedProfessor Brian Stoddart as its newDeputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) toreplace Professor Fred Smith, who isretiring later this year.

Professor Stoddart is currently Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) at VictoriaUniversity, and was previously Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research and International) at the University of New England where he had oversight of the introductionof the new federal research initiatives. Heis also the current chair of the Pro andDeputy Vice-Chancellors’ (International)Committee for the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC). He hasheld several research positions overseas,and has an international network ofresearch-related agencies.

Professor Stoddart took his first twodegrees in modern history at theUniversity of Canterbury in New Zealand,then a PhD in the modern history of Indiaat the University of Western Australia. Hehas been a pioneer in the study ofAustralian sports culture, a well knownmedia commentator and is aninternationally acknowledged authority insports history and sociology.

His best known works include SaturdayAfternoon Fever: Sport in the AustralianCulture, and several works on the culturalhistory of Caribbean cricket. Among hisrecent activities, he delivered the tenthFrank Worrell Memorial Lecture at theUniversity of the West Indies where hispredecessors included Prime MinistersMichael Manley and John Major.

Professor Stoddart will commence hisduties at on 1 November 2004. �

SEPTEMBER 2004

T he news is getting better in Ho ChiMinh City – thanks to La TrobeUniversity. Events that make news are

not necessarily happier, but the quality oftelevision news presentation is certainly onthe rise.

This is due to the nine courses in televisionproduction and presentation that La Trobe hasorganised in Vietnam over the past threeyears. Managed by the co-ordinator of La Trobe’s Media Studies Program, Dr Peter

White, and Ms Jane Tran of the InternationalPrograms Office, the training programsranging from one to two weeks have trainedmore than 250 employees of Ho Chi MinhCity Television (HTV) and other regionalstations in the south of Vietnam.

With an audience of 40 million viewers,HTV operates in the south of Vietnam and isindependent of the nation-wide VietnamNational Television (VTV) networkoperated from Hanoi.

Normally the courses are for peoplealready employed by HTV but the mostrecent course in July was for 20 youngpeople seeking careers in television whowon a national competition. Dr White saidsenior managers of HTV were keen toimprove the skills of their staff and to

modernise their program output.‘Construction of a new studio complex isunderway and the television station will beable to move out of the facilities theycurrently occupy – rather outdated premisesleft behind by the Americans.

‘Many of the older television managerswere trained in Russia using rather oldfashioned techniques. Our courses exposeVietnamese television station staff to newways of making and presenting televisionprograms in keeping with the updating ofHTV’s technical facilities,’ Dr White said.

‘Given that media studies and journalismtraining are in their infancy in Vietnam,these courses provide a significant entrypoint for co-operative activities with othereducational and media organisations inVietnam. As a result of this activity,memorandums of understanding have beensigned with the Ho Chi Minh PoliticalAcademy, Institute of Journalism andCommunication and the nationalgovernment television network, VTV. Wehave already completed one documentarytelevision course for VTV,’ Dr White said.

La Trobe often recruits well-knownAustralian television personalities to assistwith courses. For example Peter Adams,director of the musical The Producerscurrently running in Melbourne, and anexperience television producer, conductedthe course in Ho Chi Minh City in July.

Earlier this year, La Trobe Media StudiesProgram recruited National Nine Newspresenter, Hugh Riminton, to conduct a five-day training course on ‘Television NewsReporting’ for HTV. Courses on computeranimation and documentary film productionhave also been presented.

Dr White said the training courses wereregularly reported on HTV news. ‘Thismeans that La Trobe University activities arebeing promoted to a population ofapproximately 40 million people,’ he said. �

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With a little helpfrom La Trobe

Media students with National Nine’s Hugh Riminton, and, below, putting training

into practice. Photo by Kumi Taguchi

GOOD NEWS IN VIETNAM