Statistics computation over data streams is often required by many applications, including processing of relational type queries, data mining and high speed network management. Among various s tatistics, order statistics computation is one of the most challenging, and is employed in many real applications, such as web ranking aggregation and log mining, sensor data analysis, trends and fleeting opportunities detection in stock markets and load balanced data partitioning for distributed computation. In this thesis, we investige three important problems in computing order statistics over data streams: 1. Computing rank queries over data streams with relative error guarantee. 2. Computing rank queries over data streams with duplication. 3. Computing top-k ranked queries on the sliding window. We first consider the problem of continuously maintaining order sketches over data streams with a relative rank error guarantee ε. Two space-efficient and onescan randomised algorithms are developed. And they are immediately applicable to approximately compute quantiles over data stream with relative error guarantee ε and significantly improve the space bound of previous work. In many real applications including data streams, data elements may be observed and recorded multiple times. Without uniqueness assumption on observed data elements, many conventional statistics computation problems need to be reinvestigated. To address the problem of order statistics computation against data streams with duplicate, we develop a novel, space-efficient one scan theoretical framework, based on an existing technique for counting distinct elements, to continuously maintain sketches so that rank-based queries can be approximately processed with a relative error guarantee ε. Moreover, we also propose two timeefficient algorithms. Finally, we study the problem of computing top-k ranked queries over the sliding window. Based on the observation that the K-Skyband of the elements is the minimal candidate set for the top-k ranked queries with arbitrary monotone preference functions where k ≤ K, we develop novel algorithms to continuously maintain the K-Skyband over the sliding window. Efficient query algorithm is presented to support the massive top-k ranked queries in real time.

???Sing at the Moon: the contextual narrative of isolation and grief in Australia women???s writing??? comprises two complementary elements of a single thesis: a novel and a critical essay. My novel takes as its starting point the impact of unsolved murders on small regional communities and uses this to explore the effects of isolation and grief on subjectivities, particularly women???s. The novel represents an original contribution to that strand of contemporary Australian fiction, especially as written by women, which deals with the Australian bush myth and the effects on women of the masculinism of Australian national identity. The critical component of my thesis examines Thea Astley???s Drylands and Dorothy Hewett???s Neap Tide in terms of how each novel engages with Australian literary traditions and offers an explicit critique of Australian masculinist culture. I focus on the ways the novels represent violence against women and show how this violence works to underpin the masculinist myth of mateship - to reveal a more sinister underbelly of Australian culture. Their critique of Australian masculinist culture also works at the level of form where both writers subvert a traditional ???realist??? form for political as well as aesthetic purposes. I see myself primarily as a writer and feminist who uses theory and criticism as a way of reflecting on my own creative practice in the light of writing as social responsibility. My approach both to my own novel and to Drylands and Neap Tide is shaped by Susan Lever???s proposal that ???writing and reading lie at the heart of feminism; they are the means by which women can explore and communicate the deepest aspects of their condition??? (2000,132). In my essay I am interested in providing a critical context for the novel by exploring feminist theories of subjectivity and the ways these can be represented in fiction. As a result I will analyse some of the narrative conventions employed in Hewett???s and Astley???s novels. I will show that the work of both writers operates in the context of an Australian literary tradition ??? both past and present ??? and informs and negotiates new ways that accommodate feminist concerns with fictional practice.

Monumental Amnesia: Reading the Spatial Narratives Written by Contemporary Urban Landscapes This thesis analyses the spatial stories inscribed into urban landscapes by monuments. Differentiating between officially sanctioned, symbolic, and everyday monuments, this thesis theorises the narratological space composed by these objects: static, imagined and transitional, respectively. It argues that monumental sites are spaces of forgetting, rather than remembering, characterised through invisibility, opacity and mystification. Infused with paradox, monuments simultaneously reveal and conceal the histories and urban memories they are expected to commemorate. The discussion then turns to contemporary art, in particular memory installations, as a practice that counters the mystification inherent within urban space, actively exposing alternative pasts and memories. The thesis is divided into three chapters. The first analyses the contemporary, officially sanctioned monuments of Vilnius, Lithuania that celebrate an ancient nationalism, alongside two neighboring sculpture parks that display retired Soviet icons, with a particular focus on Gintaris Karosas?? sculpture Infotree LNK. The second chapter theorises symbolic monuments, and focuses on the Japanese theme park Tobu World Square as a curiosity cabinet where the contemporary spatial practice, identified by Anthony Giddens, of ??disembedding?? is performed in miniature. It concludes with a discussion of Susan Norrie??s DVD installation of the park ENOLA. The third chapter examines everyday monuments, focusing on the industrial ruins of Manchester to unravel the archival aspects of these monuments and their gentrification. It closes with a study of Cornelia Parker??s installation Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View. Through these urban case studies and accompanying memory installations, the thesis explores how urban monuments disguise certain histories and memories of a city, and how art can reclaim alternative stories and memories from urban amnesia.

This thesis is about the way memory and identity are continually reconstituted and how they shape and impinge upon each other. I use my own experience of growing up in Italian and Anglo Australian cultures as a primary source to examine the changing nature of memory affects and to consider they ways in which events of the past have formed and transformed my cultural identity. I also explore the intermingling of personal and collective memory and how ethnic groups negotiate community identity within national identity formations. Concepts of Deleuze and Guattari, particularly those of the rhizome, the refrain and territorialisation, are keys to understanding practices associated with memory and identity and I apply them throughout the thesis. Nostalgia and loss are emotions often tangled up with memory and identity and I use the work of Barthes, Stewart and Woodward in discussing these. I use other diverse theories to look at the ways memory is embedded in the body ?? manifested in gestures, performance and everyday practices ?? and mediated in rituals, film, photographs, documents and objects. The style of writing does not adhere to the conventions of academic discourse and diverts intermittently from scholarly argumentation. It assembles disparate memory events ?? both personal and collective ?? along with factual information, fragments of biography and autobiography, and reflection and analysis. It is written this way in part to resemble the process of thinking and remembering which is never a smooth, logically flowing stream of intelligence.

Carbon nanotube (CNT) polymer composites have attracted much attention since the extraordinary electrical and mechanical properties of CNTs were realised. However research into biomedical applications of CNT/polymer composites has received little attention. The aim of this thesis was to fabricate an electrically conductive, biocompatible polymer based on a poly(ether)urethane (PEU) with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) as the conductive filler. Paramount to achieving this was to obtain good dispersion and integration of MWNTs within the host polymer matrix. A number of different strategies were investigated including high energy mixing of MWNTs in PEU and covalent functionalisation of MWNTs with long chain hydrocarbons, poly(tetramethylene oxide) (PTMO) and poly(acrylic acid) (pAA) for enhanced miscibility with PEU. The impact of these strategies was assessed by testing the tensile properties, electrical conductivity as well as cytotoxicity of resulting MWNT/PEU composites. It was found that high energy mixing in the presence of MWNTs caused severe degradation of PEU, resulting in significant cytotoxicity and reductions in composite tensile strength. Covalent functionalisation of MWNTs was achieved by utilising defect group chemistry to attach a range of molecules. PTMO covalently attached to MWNTs was found to cause significant nanotube aggregation in PEU composites. Long chain hydrocarbons covalently attached to MWNTs exhibited enhanced dispersability in PEU with increasing molecular weight, attributed to disrupting intertube Van der Waals forces and providing favourable hydrophobic interactions with PEU. Additionally these composites exhibited increased conductivity and decreased cytotoxicity with increasing hydrocarbon length. However increasing long chain hydrocarbon molecular weight also caused significant reductions in MWNT conductivity. MWNTs surface modified with carboxylic acid groups exhibited favourable hydrophilic interactions with PEU but did not retain tensile properties at nanotube loadings where electrical conductivity was significant. Successful polymerisation of acrylic acid monomer initiated from MWNTs using a reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerisation was demonstrated. Resulting pAA-MWNTs exhibited enhanced dispersability in water but not in PEU composites, resulting in severe degradation in composite tensile properties. PAA-MWNTs also exhibited decreased conductivity with increasing pAA molecular weight. Incorporating MWNTs in PEU composites has been demonstrated to impart multi-functionality to existing biomaterials for potential uses in a range of biomedical applications.

Touch, as it is conventionally conceived, appears to be lacking in Japanese intimate relationships. Physical or visible forms of intimate touch are generally relegated to particular body practices or contexts such as co-bathing and co-sleeping, and are usually uncharacteristic of everyday experiences of intimacy. Instead, Japanese relationships are commonly defined in terms of subtle forms of communication, such as ishin denshin (heart-to-heart communication) and ittaikan (feelings of oneness), where feelings are expected to be inferred. However, it is unclear as to how such forms manifest feelings of closeness in the first place. This study opens up these feelings of closeness through exploring the embodied experience and tangible connection in the intimate spaces of the Japanese family. It describes a relational experience of space, depth and touch that is beyond the scope of conventional theories of the body. Drawing on Japanese sociologies of the body as well as other sociological tools that are relevant to everyday Japanese experiences, this study also offers universal contributions to the understandings of how touch can exist as a manifestation of intimacy. The first part of the thesis introduces the reader to the critical concepts and theories driving the study. The key ideas and understandings of Japanese relationships are also considered, leading to the suggestion that a conceptual understanding of embodiment will add to such literature. Part One concludes with a specific investigation of my field research on intimacy in Japan. The second part of the thesis explores how skinship (intimacy through touch) exists and feels in Japanese parent-child and marital relationships. A theory of touch is developed, via Japanese relationships, which is not restricted to physical or visible forms of touch. Described as touching at depth, this theory explores alternative ways of understanding experiences of intimacy that are not necessarily linked to tactile feeling or spatial closeness. Although bodily forms of touch exist in some relationships, other relational states become significant to feelings of connectedness, particularly as the child grows older. The third part of the thesis explores this shift, along with how the Japanese child adapts to the world, when their initial ways of touching no longer exist. Emphasis here is not just on primary 'home‘ relationships, but also on teacher-child relationships, and the way familial relationships shift as the child moves back and forth between the home and world. It becomes clear in Part Three that touch becomes felt differently as the child grows older and feels their significance and connection with the world in more encompassing ways.

Using written and studio research, the above research question is interrogated through a body of practical work, that evolved into a static exhibition titled Second skin: new knitting at The Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Paddington, New South Wales, Australia, in January/February 2008. This thesis examines knitting as a form of constructed textile in an historical and contemporary context and explores the integral relationship it has with fashion and textiles, as well as questioning the significance of interplay between fashion and art. The primary aim of this research is to explore contemporary knitwear designers working in the high-fashion’ area of design and investigate how they are challenging traditionally established rules and perceptions, and potentially blur the boundaries of what is considered fashion design, into art. While conceptual fashion design has always been a debateable issue among fashion scholars as to whether it can be viewed as fashion, antifashion or possibly art, this thesis examines the influences of modernity and deconstruction in relation to knitting, to establish a conclusion regarding the contemporary position and understanding of knitting in society at present. Through gathering both primary and secondary research nationally and internationally, knitting has been examined in relation to the ways in which contemporary designers working in the realm of knitting are unravelling these traditionally based preconceptions, and analysing what they are accomplishing through the use of mixed media applications, post-knitting treatments, yarn and stitch manipulation, and challenging sculptural form to create a new visual language through artisanal production. The body of work presented explores the concepts established in the written research relative to perception and deconstruction, and provokes questions which challenge the notion of knitting as fashion, art or both. Through hand and machine knitting techniques, Second skin: new knitting examines body scarification in the form of tribal markings, which allows each pieces to transform into a second skin that convey interpretive narratives and visual messages. The predominant medium utilised is 100% Australian wool and in conjunction, incorporates mixed media materials such as silk organza and semi precious stones, and technological processes include laser cutting and etching of Tasmanian oak veneer and leather.

Human Embryonic Stem (hES) cells will potentially have important applications in regenerative medicine, drug discovery and therapeutics. However, the current methods of hES cell culture limit their use in future applications due mostly to the inability to culture undifferentiated hES cells in sufficient numbers and the concern of animal derived products used in culture methods potentially implementing an immune rejection in transplantiation recipients. This project investigated two approaches for improving the culture of undifferentiated hES cells for future application in bioreactor systems. Firstly, proteins from the conditioned medium of three hES cell supportive fibroblast lines (human fetal, human neonatal and mouse embryonic fibroblasts) were identified using two-dimensional liquid chromatography, tandem mass spectrometry. This proteomic analysis identified 175 unique proteins including those from key pathways already implicated in the maintenance of human embryonic stem cell pluripotency including the Wnt, BMP/TGF-β1, activin/inhibin and insulin like growth factor-1 pathways. Identification of proteins in fibroblast conditioned medium will aid the development of a defined medium for undifferentiated hES cell culture. The second approach examined culture of hES cells in hypoxic conditions (5% O2) compared to standard normoxic conditions in CO2 incubators (20% O2). Feeder layer and feeder free culture conditions were examined in the two O2 concentrations. hES cell colonies grown in hypoxic culture had improved percentages of pluripotent cells (judged by increases in cells expressing SSEA-4, Tra-1-60 and nanog and reduction of BMP-4), stable karyotypes and increased proliferation. The maintenance of pluripotency, apoptosis and proliferation was complicated by the detection of the cell surface marker CD30. Proteomic identification and investigation into oxidative stress indicated the presence of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutases, catalases and peroxiredoxins in human fetal fibroblast conditioned medium and their regulation of redox homeostasis may play a significant role in the maintenance of hES cell pluripotency, apoptosis and proliferation. Together these investigations significantly contribute to the current body of knowledge for the undifferentiated culture of hES cells. Identification of conditioned medium proteins and the benefits of hypoxic culture of hES cells will aid the development of a defined, reproducible method of hES cell scale-up in bioreactor systems.

The Quaternary megafauna of Southeast Asia are among the world’s poorest known. Throughout the Pleistocene, continental collisions, active volcanic systems and fluctuations in sea level have had dramatic effects on the region's geography, from southern China to Indonesia. Many Southeast Asian megafauna experienced geographical range reduction or complete extinction during that interval. This thesis explores the relative influence of environmental change and human interaction in these extinctions. There is currently no direct evidence to suggest that humans had a negative impact on Southeast Asian megafauna until the Holocene. Rather, extinctions and geographical range reduction experienced by megafauna are likely to have resulted from of loss of suitable habitats, in particular the loss of more open habitats. Environmental change throughout the Pleistocene of Southeast Asia is reconstructed on the basis of discriminant functions analysis of megafauna from twenty-seven Southeast Asian Quaternary sites, as well as Gongwangling, an early Pleistocene hominin site previously interpreted as paleoarctic. The discriminant functions were defined on the basis of species lists drawn from modern Asian nature reserves and national parks, and were analysed using both taxonomic and phylogeny-free variables. Biases present in these species lists were mitigated against using a range of multivariate techniques. The reconstructions show that Pleistocene environments in Southeast Asia varied from open (e.g. savannah), mixed (woodland) and closed (e.g. rainforest) habitats. Changes in habitats through time are likely to have been driven, at least in part, by changes in sea-level, in turn related to oscillations between glacial and interglacial conditions. The environmental changes associated with these oscillations are likely to have adversely affected many of Southeast Asia’s megafauna. The Toba super-eruption (~74kya) is unlikely to have been responsible for any of the megafauna extinctions of the Late Pleistocene.

This thesis work has focused on the study of itaconate monomers and photo-initiation processes in acrylate, methacrylate and itaconate monomer systems. Novel information pertaining to photo-initiator derived radical species and their reactivity, as well as the behaviour of itaconate polymerization systems is presented in detail. The knowledge gained from the photo-initiation studies is utilized as a precursor to mark polymer chains using nitrones as radical spin traps and the applicability of this technique discussed. The sterically hindered monomers dimethyl itaconate (DMI), di-n-butyl itaconate (DBI) and dicyclohexyl itaconate (DCHI) were polymerized via reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) free radical polymerization. The RAFT mediated polymerization of these monomers displayed hybrid living behaviour (a mix of conventional and living free radical polymerization characteristics) of varying degrees depending on the molecular structure of the RAFT agent employed. DCHI was also polymerized using atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The resulting molecular weight distributions are broad for the RAFT mediated systems (1.2 ≤ PDI ≤ 3.4). The molecular weight distributions generated via the ATRP of DCHI are narrower (1.2 ≤ PDI ≤ 1.5). Chain transfer to monomer constants for the itaconate monomers DMI, DBI and DCHI have been determined at 60 ??C (CDMI = 1.4⋅10-3, CDBI = 1.3⋅10-3 and CDCHI = 1.0⋅10-3) and are relatively large in comparison to similar 1,1-disubstituted systems, suggesting that the transfer to monomer reaction is significant. PREDICI?? simulations confirm that a significant chain transfer to monomer step results in broad molecular weight distributions. Viscosity of the polymerizing system has also been shown to be an important factor in the resulting width of the molecular weight distributions. Chain extension of RAFT capped pDCHI and pDBI yield molecular weight distributions that progressively shift to higher molecular weights. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) of pDCHI-block-pStyrene copolymers indicates thermal degradation in two separate steps for the pDCHI and pStyrene blocks. Conventional pulsed laser polymerization coupled with size exclusion chromatography (PLP-SEC) as well as multi-pulse pulsed laser polymerization (MP-PLP) has been employed to study the depropagation kinetics of DMI, DBI DCHI and di(4-tert butylcyclohexyl) itaconate (DBCHI). The effective rate coefficient of propagation, kp eff, was determined for DMI, DBI and DCHI in bulk and solution of cyclohexanone (DCHI), N-methylformamide (DMI and DBI) and anisole (DBCHI) for monomer concentrations between 0.7 &lt cM 0 &lt 7.1 mol L-1 in a wide temperature range (0 &lt T &lt 90 ??C). The resulting Arrhenius plots (i.e. ln kp eff vs. 1/RT) displayed a significant curvature in the higher temperature regimes and were analyzed in their respective linear and curved sections to yield the activation parameters of the forward and reverse reaction. Mark-Houwink-Kahn Sakurada parameters for pDBI and pDBCHI were determined in tetrahydrofuran at 40 ??C using triple detection gel permeatation chromatography. High resolution Electrospray Ionization - Quadrupole Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry (ESIMS) was applied to study the polymeric product spectrum generated by the pulsed laser polymerization (PLP) of methyl methacrylate (MMA), methyl acrylate (MA), butyl acrylate (BA) and DMI at temperatures ≤ 0 ??C in the presence of various photo-initiators including 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenylacetophenone (DMPA), benzoin, benzil, benzoin ethyl ether (BEE) 2,2-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) and bis(2,4,6-trimethyl-benzoyl)- phenylphosphinoxide (Irgacure 819) to study the reactivity of primary and potential secondary derived radical fragments from photolytically induced fragmentation. Termination products, both combination and disproportionation, were identified with high accuracy. Results have been compiled in a user friendly table presenting the reactivity of the various photolysis product fragments towards the different monomers. Energy deposition into the MA/photo-initiator systems is found to have no influence on the product distributions of the MA polymers produced via photo-initiation under the conditions examined. For various photo-initiators employed, products congruent to that of chain transfer to monomer species in the DMI photo-polymerizations are observed, conclusively illustrating that chain transfer to monomer is a significant reaction pathway in itaconate free radical polymerizations. Both the benzoyl and acetal fragments generated as a result of DMPA photo cleavage were found to initiate and highly likely terminate polymerization. Under the conditions studied, the acetal radical produced upon DMPA photolysis fragment further to yield methyl radicals which seem to act predominantly as terminating moieties. Both the benzoyl and ether fragments produced as a result of benzoin photo cleavage were found to act as initiating and probable terminating species, indicating that the ether radical fragment does not act exclusively as a terminating species. Additionally, increasing laser intensity and/or irradiation repetition rate (i.e., energy deposition into the system) results in more complex product distributions of the MMA polymers produced via photo-initiation (with the exception of AIBN). Temperature was determined to have a minor influence on the resulting product distribution under the conditions examined. Polymerization systems utilizing Irgacure 819 give complex product spectra due to the formation of second generation radical species resulting in several initiator fragments incorporated into a single polymer chain. A novel method utilizing PLP in free radical polymerization has been developed for marking of polymer chains with radical spin traps. By introducing a so-called “marker” (nitroxide derived from a nitrone), which specifically terminates propagating radicals via combination, a polymer subdistribution is generated which can be measured by ESI-MS and may potentially be utilized to determine propagation rate coefficients of ultimate accuracy. The general methodology of the technique in which such marker radicals are generated via reaction of an initiating radical with a nitrone is demonstrated on the examples of butyl acrylate (BA) and vinyl acetate (VAc).