Sep 2004 PDF - La Trobe University

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY
SEPTEMBER 2004
FIGHTING HIV/AIDS
in Papua New Guinea
FOUND:
The real Leopold Bloom
MUSCLES:
They’re smarter
than we thought

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY
Bulletin
IN THIS ISSUE
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
2
Cover: Scientists at La Trobe
University and at the University of
Aarhus in Denmark, have discovered
the mechanism by
which acidity helps prevent muscle
fatigue – see story page 8
The La Trobe Bulletin is published ten times a year by the
Public 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 Australia
Tel (03) 9479 2315, Fax (03) 9479 1387
Email: bulletin@latrobe.edu.au
Design: Campus Graphics, 57072
La Trobe University.
Photography: PDI COMET, La Trobe University.
Printed by Print Management Group.
Website: www.latrobe.edu.au/bulletin
NEWS
Peacemaking starts
IN THE PLAYGROUND
By October 2006, a thousand young
peacemakers – each one trained in conflict
resolution skills – will be enhancing
relationships between children, teachers and
parents in five Victorian primary schools.
And hopefully, their peacemaking skills
will be used throughout their lives to make
Australian society more peaceful and tolerant.
This is the aim of a two-year project – based
on techniques developed at La Trobe
University – to be launched this October.
Called ‘Enhancing Relationships in School
Communities’, the project has been
developed, and will be supervised, by a fiveperson
team. Much of it is based on a conflict
resolution model developed by La Trobe staff
in the School of Psychological Science,
including Dr Eleanor Wertheim.
Dr Wertheim is working with Ms Elizabeth
Freeman, Ms Pat Marshall and Dr Ann Sanson
of the University of Melbourne and Ms Margot
Trinder of Psychologists for the Promotion of
World Peace, an interest group of the Australian
Psychological Society, and the Brencorp
Foundation. The Foundation has supported the
project with $63,000 for two years.
The project assists primary school teachers to
help students learn to deal more effectively
with issues ranging from everyday friendship
conflicts, peer pressure, conflicts between
groups of students, bullying and aggression
and conflict with teachers and parents.
Dr Wertheim says conflict and differences
between people are part of life. They make for
LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN
an interesting and changing world and provide
opportunities for learning and growth.
However, if differences between people –
particularly between children – are not
accepted or are handled badly, there can be
negative consequences.
For children, poorly managed conflict can
result in bullying and aggression, increased
classroom disruption, heightened anxiety,
early school leaving, intolerance and racism.
Under the program, teachers from schools in
multi-cultural areas will be taught conflict
resolution skills and then supported over two
years. The teachers will then pass on their
skills to pupils so that by the end of 2006,
1,000 students will have effective conflict
resolution skills.
The program includes active listening,
perspective taking, challenging assumptions
and stereotype and consensus building.
Dr Wertheim said the conflict resolution model
used is based on the Harvard University
Negotiation Project. It has been developed for
Australian conditions by Dr Wertheim and Dr
Anthony Love, with colleagues Dr Lyn
Littlefield and Dr Connie Peck.
Dr Wertheim is also helping develop
posters for schools and other places where
children gather. ‘Our aim,’ she says, ‘is for
children to become empowered and skilled in
conflict resolution so that eventually our
whole society is proficient at resolving
conflict constructively.’ �

The New Zealand component of the
Tasman International Geospace
Environment Radar (TIGER) will
become operational in November. This
follows the completion at La Trobe
University of a radar to be installed near
Invercargill, NZ, in October.
A ceremony was held at La Trobe’s main
Melbourne campus at Bundoora recently to
mark the completion of the radar’s
construction.
Headed by La Trobe’s Physics
Department, TIGER is an important
Australian contribution to space physics,
facilitating research and providing services in
space physics and space weather. La Trobe
operates TIGER on behalf of a consortium of
universities, government departments and
commercial firms.
TIGER’s first component to go into
operation was a similar ionospheric radar
with a 300 metre long antenna, installed on
Bruny Island, Tasmania in 1999. It probes a
fifty-two degree sector in azimuth with a
range from 200 km south of Tasmania to the
Antarctic coast 3,000 km away.
The New Zealand component is a similar
but improved ‘stereo’ version of the Bruny
Island radar. The radar electronics has just
been completed at La Trobe and the antenna
component is already installed on a farming
property 15 km from Invercargill.
When the system becomes fully
operational in November, TIGER’s
capability will be greatly enhanced. Each
radar will emit beams that will cross, giving
different line of sight velocities that can be
combined to provide scientists with accurate
‘vector’ velocities of motions in the highly
disturbed auroral ionosphere.
TIGER is part of an international network
of similar radars called SuperDARN (Super
Dual Auroral Radar Network) operated by
ten nations to provide simultaneous coverage
of both southern and northern polar regions.
The head of La Trobe’s Physics
Department, Professor Peter Dyson, and
Dr John Devlin, an Associate Professor in
the Department of Electronic Engineering,
developed TIGER. Professor Dyson is
TIGER’s principal investigator and Dr
Devlin its scientist-engineer and is
responsible for the development of the
radar system.
The NZ radar has been named ‘Unwin’
after New Zealander Dr Bob Unwin, who
was a pioneer in ionospheric studies. He set
up an auroral radar in Southland in 1957 and
later explored the possibility of having a
second radar in Tasmania.
TIGER will explore the impact of solar
disturbances on Earth by monitoring the
location of aurora and related phenomena
occurring in the ionosphere – 100 to 300 km
above the earth.
It explores an area half the size of Australia
by directing HF radio signals via the
ionosphere towards Antarctica and detecting
weak echoes from structures in the
ionosphere. These echoes are used to form
images of the ionospheric structures and
measure their speed and direction of motion.
It also detects echoes from meteors
which are used to calculate wind speeds at
heights of around 100km. It can also detect
signals from the sea and methods of
deducing the sea-state from these signals are
being developed.
NEWS
Measuring the impact of solar disturbances and detecting echoes from meteors...
Space eye reaches across the
Tasman
Professor Dyson at La Trobe and, inset, the radar under construction in New Zealand.
Results from the full operation of TIGER
will include greater knowledge of space
physics and space weather processes which
is required to improve management of radio
communications and navigation systems
such as GPS. It also has relevance to satellite
operations and magnetic surveying for
minerals and electricity supplies.
When the sun’s corona ejects huge
amounts of matter that reach the Earth, there
are rapid changes in wind speed and
temperature in the ionosphere as well as the
magnetosphere – that region where the
earth’s magnetic field interacts with the
solar wind.
Auroras are caused by electrons striking
molecules and atoms after entering the
earth’s atmosphere near the poles. The
location of aurora can move 500 km in less
than a minute during magnetic storms and
can disrupt communication and navigation
systems. TIGER monitors such storms and
can provide real-time data on space weather
storms.
TIGER uses HF radio waves in the 8 - 20
MHz range. It consumes only 2 kW of
power, the same as some electric kettles, and
transmits an average power of 200 W – the
same as two bright light globes. �
SEPTEMBER 2004 3

4
GLOBAL HEALTH
BETTER PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG SCHEME
FOR CROATIA
Dr Harvey, left, with Dr Karolina Kalanj, Croatian Project Manager.
La Trobe senior lecturer in Public Health, Dr Ken Harvey –
a specialist in the design of public policy to optimise the
use of antibiotics and other medicinal drugs – has played
a major role in introducing a cost efficient pharmaceutical
drug scheme in Croatia.
Dr Harvey was a member of an Australian Health Insurance
Commission (HIC) team which won a World Bank contract to help
the Croatian Ministry of Health and the Croatian Institute for Health
Insurance reform the country’s pharmaceutical sector. This
followed Croatian government concern about the relatively high
cost of drugs and inappropriate prescribing habits by physicians.
Through research, commissioned policy papers and his inaugural
membership of the Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Health and
Rational use of Medicines (PHARM) Committee, Dr Harvey has
helped formulate Australian medicinal drug policy.
He has also worked in 12 Asian countries under the auspices of
the World Health Organisation, AusAID and the Regional Office for
Asia and the Pacific of Consumers International.
Dr Harvey said Australian medicinal drug policy was held in
high regard internationally. In particular, he said Australia’s 55-
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year-old Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was world renowned
for subsidising most of the cost of around 600 drugs for
Australian consumers and for using stringent pharmacoeconomic
analysis to negotiate drug prices two to three times
lower that that paid in the USA.
‘In addition, our “Quality Use of Medicines” policy encourages
rational prescribing and use by providing independent drug and
therapeutic information, analysis and feedback of drug utilisation
data, and educational programs run by the National Prescribing
Service,’ he said.
Dr Harvey spent three months in Croatia in 2003 and early 2004
helping devise a national policy which encouraged the use of
pharmaco-economic principles in the selection and purchase of the
Croatian national drug list.
The team with which he was working recommended new
drug funding and reimbursement options, reviewed drug use
data and developed prescribing guidelines and feedback
systems to encourage physicians to practice in accord with the
national guidelines.
In addition, it developed and conducted education programs in
pharmaco-economics for personnel involved in drug selection and
pricing, courses in rational prescribing for clinical pharmacologists
and physicians, and reviewed plans for the establishment of a
Croatian National Drug Agency. This culminated in an information
campaign for the general public.
Specifically, Dr Harvey's role involved adapting and translating
Australian therapeutic guidelines to suit local conditions, using
insurance data to monitor doctors prescribing practice and devising
performance indicators, linked to financial incentives, to encourage
physicians to follow the guidelines.
The Croatian Institute for Health Insurance accepted his
recommendations, resulting in performance indicators and financial
incentives being written into new contracts for Croatian general
practitioners this year.
Dr Harvey also worked with a primary health care information
technology project which aims to incorporate the guidelines devised
into prescribing software being piloted in Croatia. He also played a
leading role in the educational program for clinical pharmacologists
and physicians.
Many countries, he said, face similar problems to those
experienced by Croatia. Neighbouring counties such as Bosnia,
Montenegro and Serbia are very interested in the Croatian
pharmaceutical project. The Australian HIC has won a similar
contract in Jordan and Dr Harvey is soon to return to Jordan as part
of the team. �

Fighting HIV/AIDS in
La Trobe University’s National Centre
for Public Health Law is making a
significant contribution to combating
the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Papua New
Guinea. The Centre is also involved in
developing legislative options to help deliver
a range of other health services in PNG.
Inaugurated in November 2002, the
National Centre for Public Health Law
(NCPHL) has already completed one
assignment on HIV/AIDS for the PNG
Government through AusAID, the
Australian Government's overseas aid
program, and is engaged in another to
improve the delivery of all health services.
A legal intern at the Centre, Ms Karen
Fletcher, prepared a handbook on new
HIV/AIDS laws with the support and
assistance of Centre Director, Ms Genevieve
Howse, who also developed and
implemented a training program for those
using the handbook.
As well as preparing the handbook which
will be published later this year, Ms Howse
and Ms Fletcher also conducted training
sessions for people who will use it. Groups
involved included the staff of the
Ombudsman’s Office, members of the
Royal PNG Constabulary, defence force
personnel and teachers.
Ms Fletcher spent three months in PNG and
Ms Howse made two visits of one week each.
Their involvement in PNG follows the
passage of the HIV/AIDS Management and
Prevention Act through the PNG parliament in
August, 2003. The Act is designed to combat
the epidemic which some commentators say
will be as significant a problem in PNG in 10
years as it is in Africa today.
‘It is a very progressive piece of
legislation,’ Ms Howse said. ‘It forbids
discrimination against, and vilification of,
people with HIV/AIDS and is designed to
protect the rights of both those who have
the infection and those who don’t.’
Nevertheless, it is still not socially or
culturally acceptable to talk openly about
HIV/AIDS and its transmission. Because of
this, 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 an
incident which demonstrated the need for
the Act and for promoting it among officials
and others.
Police raided a licensed club in Port
Moresby, arrested 80 people and humiliated
them during a one hour march to a police
station, making them inflate condoms as
they passed through crowds. Later all men
were released, but six girls under the age of
18 were charged with prostitution because
they had condoms in their possession. The
charges were later withdrawn, following
GLOBAL HEALTH
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
legal advocacy for the women involved,
sponsored by the National AIDS Council.
Ms Howse said she was concerned that
religious and social attitudes could place
serious impediments on the operation of the
new Act.
‘A sex worker going to a clinic for a
HIV/AIDS test can be so humiliated by staff
with personal prejudices that she often will
not return for her results. The new Act
makes such discrimination illegal – but it is
necessary to change attitudes as well as
laws,’ she said. �
SEPTEMBER 2004 5

6
SCIENCE EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY MENTORS ARE HELPING
SCHOOL STUDENTS
GET ‘In2Science’
Aprogram to encourage
more Victorian secondary
school students to ‘get
into science’ was recently
launched by La Trobe
University and the
University of Melbourne in metropolitan
Melbourne and regional Victoria.
A new joint venture in Victoria, the
program – called ‘In2Science’ – is run by
the Science Faculties at the two
universities. It has been funded by the
William Buckland Foundation.
‘In2Science’ places selected science
students from La Trobe and Melbourne in
secondary schools for up to three hours a
week in fourteen-week blocks.
The university students then act as
mentors and role models for school
students – especially those in the middle
years of their secondary education, years
7-10. They also serve as an additional
resource for teachers to enhance existing
science programs.
La Trobe University Dean of the Faculty
of Science, Technology and Engineering,
Professor David Finlay – who is also
President of the Australian Council of
Science Deans – said initially nine
La Trobe students will take part in
the program.
‘The aim is to promote enthusiasm for
science among secondary students,
especially in key subjects like Chemistry,
Mathematics and Physics, and to help
students make choices about future higher
education options which can lead to
rewarding and interesting career choices.’
Professor Finlay said the scheme also
benefits university students by enhancing
their skills in science communication.
Professor John McKenzie, Dean of
Science at the University of Melbourne,
said: ‘In2Science will help broaden the
experiences and opportunities for
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students in schools and universities to
share their passion and cultivate their
curiosity in science.’
‘We are most grateful for the support
from the William Buckland Foundation,
which has enabled university students to
assist the development of science
education in schools.’
La Trobe University Peer Mentoring Coordinator,
John McDonald, said the new
Victorian program was based on a
successful scheme called STAR which has
been run through Western Australia’s
Murdoch University for the past 11 years.
Currently there are more than 300
Australian university students involved in
such programs.
‘Schools have been very positive,’ Mr
McDonald said. ‘They see its potential
value to both staff and students and, as the
program grows, we hope to involve more
schools and mentors each year.’
Nine metropolitan secondary schools,
Eltham High School, St Helena Secondary
College, Mill Park Secondary College,
East Doncaster Secondary College,
Macleod College, Pascoe Vale Girls’
Secondary College, Northcote High
School, Princes Hill Secondary College
and Melbourne Girls’ College, and one
regional school, Mitchell High School in
Wodonga, are participating in the
inaugural year of the program. �
The scheme’s launch at Northcote High School with ‘In2Science’ chair, former Federal Government
Science Minister, Dr Barry Jones, and La Trobe’s Professor Finlay, both far right.
Further information from John
McDonald, telephone: 9479 2523 or
email: j.mcdonald@latrobe.edu.au

La Trobe University is playing a major role
in research designed to bring better
internet services to remote rural areas.
Principal investigator, La Trobe’s Dr
Ben Soh, leads a team that recently won an
ARC Linkage Grant to develop a new
transport layer protocol to provide secure
broadband internet connection via satellite
to rural regions.
The team includes input from Telstra
Country Wide, URSYS Pty Ltd (Sydney)
and Associate Professor Dr Jean
Armstrong, a former La Trobe researcher,
now at Monash University. Their $161,000
grant also funds PhD student Mr Joel Sing
from La Trobe, Bendigo’s Information and
Communication Technology Centre. In
addition, Telstra is contributing access to
its satellite technology.
Dr Soh, senior lecturer in La Trobe’s
Department of Computer Science and
Computer Engineering, said satellite links
were critical to connecting broadband to
remote areas.
‘Effective use of the internet over
satellite links is essential if Businessto-Business
and Business-to-
Consumer E-commerce is to
develop in these areas. In many
application networks –
particularly virtual private
networks (VPN) – secure
transmission is important to
avoid fraud and maintain
privacy. Satellite links
introduce a long delay
(latency) in the transmission
path and existing secure internet
protocols do not handle this well.’
Dr Soh said transmission control
protocol (TCP) over satellite VPN was
RESEARCH IN ACTION
Better internet services for
THE BUSH
possibly the hottest research topic in the
rural economy today. Combined, these two
technologies had the potential to provide the
best and most cost-effective ‘information
superhighways’ in remote areas.
TCP was part of the most widely used
network protocol. ‘We expect the total
market for satellite services provided by
these technologies and the accompanied
activities to be worth billions of dollars.’
Dr Soh’s team aims to develop new TCP
security techniques for broadband internet
connections via satellite to a VPN.
Internet messages, he explained, are
broken into ‘packets’ at the TCP layer for
routing via the Internet Protocol layer to
the destination address. There, the packets
are reassembled at the TCP layer to
recover the original messages. However,
numerous problems remain.
A major one is the relatively
high latency when data is
transmitted. The length
of the latency
depends
on the satellite’s orbit. Geosynchronousearth-orbit
satellites have latency of about
560 milliseconds over the earth-satelliteearth
link, while low-earth-orbit satellites
have 10 to 20 milliseconds one-way delay,
depending on the satellite’s location in the
sky and other factors. These delays make
real time systems impossible.
Another TCP issue being investigated is
a method to ensure reliable end-to-end data
transmission by using ‘host-based
congestion control mechanisms’. �
The team will present a paper
on the research, TCP (Transmission
Control Protocol) Performance over
Geostationary Satellite Links: Problems
and Solutions, at the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers’
International Conference on Networks in
Singapore in November.
SEPTEMBER 2004 7

8
RESEARCH IN ACTION
Professor Stephenson
‘skinning’ a muscle fibre,
and, below, an illustration
of the process.
LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN
MUSCLES:
THEY’RE SMARTER
THAN WE THOUGHT
Scientists at La Trobe University and at the
University of Aarhus in Denmark, have
discovered the mechanism by which
acidity helps prevent muscle fatigue.
The discovery should be of great interest
to elite athletes, physiologists and
laboratories around the world involved in
muscle research because it runs in the face
of a previously held belief that acidity –
through a build up of lactic acid – is a
major cause of muscle fatigue.
Professors George Stephenson and
Graham Lamb of La Trobe’s Muscle
Research Laboratory and Mr Thomas
Pedersen and Professor Ole Nielsen from
the University of Aarhus, published their
findings in the August issue of Science, the
journal of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science.
Mr Pedersen, a Danish PhD student
from the University of Aarhus, came to
La Trobe for six months to carry out the
project with Professors Stephenson and
Lamb using a technique developed in their
laboratory on the University’s main
Melbourne campus at Bundoora. The
technique involves peeling away the
surface membrane of single muscle fibres
– which are half the thickness of a human
hair – without interfering with the ability
of the muscle fibre to contract normally to
electrical stimulation. This enabled the
researchers to change conditions inside the
muscle cells and study the effects of
acidity on the force response.
‘We found that muscles play a clever
trick in which they use acidosis – the
build-up of acid – to help ensure that they
keep responding properly to nerve signals
and so avoid the fatigue that would
otherwise occur,’ said Professor Lamb.
Collaboration between La Trobe and
Aarhus universities started in 2002 when
Professor Nielsen, then a Distinguished
Visiting Scholar at La Trobe’s Institute of
Advanced Study, came to work for a
month in the Muscle Research Laboratory.
He had recently demonstrated for the first
time that acidity could be beneficial to
muscle performance, although it was not
clear how this occurred.
The La Trobe-Aarhus team identified
the underlying mechanism of why acidity
is beneficial, discovering the ‘clever trick’
used by muscles.
Professor Stephenson explains that
muscle contraction in a skeletal muscle
fibre in response to a nerve impulse is the
result of a complex series of events known
as excitation-contraction-coupling. A
network of tiny tubes in muscle fibre (the
T-system) allows electrical signals, set up
on the muscle fibre’s surface in response to
nerve signals, to move deep inside and
‘excite’ the whole fibre.
‘Chloride ions play an important role in
muscle by dampening the excitability of
the surface membrane and T-system,
ensuring that they only respond when
stimulated by nerve signals and do not
become spontaneously excited,’ Professor
Stephenson said. ‘When a muscle is
worked hard, potassium ions come out of
the fibres and make the membrane less
excitable. The acidity generated inside a
working muscle helps counter this
depressing effect by reducing the influence
of chloride, which helps the muscle
membranes stay excitable.
‘It is a very clever trick because rested
muscles need the chloride effect normally
to prevent them from contracting
spontaneously. The acidity produced by
the strenuous exercise reduces chloride’s
stabilising effect, enabling the impulses to
keep exciting the muscle when they would
otherwise fail. We have concluded that
intracellular acidosis increases the
excitability of the T-system, thus
counteracting fatigue at a critical step in
excitation-contraction-coupling.’ �

The hero of James Joyce’s book,
Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, is perhaps
one of English literature’s most
intriguing characters. Hundreds of
thousands of Joyce fans celebrate his ‘feast
day’, Bloomsday, each June 16 – and this
year was the centenary of that event.
So for many decades Bloom’s fame has
given rise to the question: on whom did
Joyce base the Bloom character?
According to La Trobe University
Professor of Italian and European Studies,
John Gatt-Rutter, the enigmatic and
lovable character is the Italian author, Italo
Svevo (1861-1928) whose work was not
recognised 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 manager
manufacturing ships’ paint, with frequent
spells at the firm’s London factory. He
called himself Italo Svevo (that’s Italian
for Italian Swabian) to signify his mixed
Jewish-Italian-German heritage.
Professor Gatt-Rutter, who occupies the
Vaccari Chair in Italian Studies within the
School of Historical and European Studies,
recently co-produced the London writings
of Svevo in both an English translation and
the original Italian.
The English language volume was
compiled, translated, edited and introduced
by Brian Moloney, formerly professor of
Italian at the universities of Hull and
Wollongong, and Professor Gatt-Rutter
and published by Troubadour Press.
Professor Gatt-Rutter edited Svevo’s
letters from London, mainly to his wife,
which show a 40-year-old Italian-Austrian
ex-Jew coming to terms with life in
a London industrial suburb from 1901
to 1926. The book also contains Svevo’s
shrewd sociological essays on London
and newspaper reports on post-war
London, including the 1920 and 1921
miners' strikes.
Both the English volume and the Italian,
published in Svevo's home town of Trieste,
came out in 2003 to mark the 75th
anniversary of his death.
Professor Gatt-Rutter is author of a
widely regarded biography of Svevo, also
published in English and Italian. It was his
study of Svevo’s writings and life that led
him to the conclusion that Joyce based the
Bloom character on Svevo.
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.
Svevo and the much younger Joyce
developed a quizzical friendship when
Joyce lived in Trieste and Svevo was
pretending to have given up writing while
making a fortune out of ships’ paint. The
two as yet obscure writers greatly
encouraged each other’s literary efforts.
Joyce saw in Svevo a great writer and
helped him achieve celebrity for what is
now considered one of modernism's finest
novels, The Confessions of Zeno.
Svevo had gone to London in 1901 on
behalf of his firm to establish a factory
beside the Thames to supply paint for ships
of the Royal Navy. The paint inhibited
encrustations on a ship's hull, making a
great difference to its speed and the
frequency of overhauls.
This gave British ships an advantage
over those of the German navy as the rival
nations built up their fleets. Svevo had
been to school in Germany and loved that
country, and was also a pacifist. He was
deeply distressed when the Great War saw
his paint play a not insignificant part in the
carnage which also involved Italy. His
guilt feelings seem to have found their way
into his masterpiece.
Professor Gatt-Rutter told a recent
conference in Sydney that Joyce was
seeking a model of human goodness and
greatness. ‘He saw something of what
he was looking for in Svevo,’ Professor
Gatt-Rutter said.
‘So Svevo, unknowingly on his part,
became the model for Leopold Bloom.’ �
SEPTEMBER 2004
9

10
RESEARCH IN ACTION
Amultidisciplinary research group at
La Trobe University has made
a major contribution in the
search for biological markers in
autism spectrum disorders.
Developmental psychologist, Dr Cheryl
Dissanayake, medical geneticist, Dr
Danuta Loesch, and statisticians, Dr
Richard Huggins and Dr Quang Bui, have
discovered that children within the autism
spectrum have faster physical growth rates
during their first three years of life.
Recent publications on enlarged head
circumference and brain size in children
with autism aged between two and four
years stimulated the interest of Drs
Dissanayake and Loesch. These findings
were outlined at the inaugural World
Autism Congress in Melbourne in 2002 by
American autism authority, Professor Eric
Courchesne of the University of California
at San Diego.
Dr Loesch is a world authority on
the effects of the genetic abnormality
on physical, cognitive, and behavioural
measures in Fragile X disorder, the
commonest form of inherited mental
retardation.
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 X
syndrome. However, there had been no
LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN
comparable studies of growth in
children with autism.
Drs Dissanayake and Loesch
undertook such a study in a pilot sample of
young children using standard physical
measurements collected by maternal and
child health nurses as routine
developmental check-ups between birth
and three years – the period during which
behavioural features which characterise
autism become evident.
‘We obtained infant and early childhood
measurements of head circumference and
stature of 16 children with high
functioning autism and 12 children with
the form of autism spectrum disorder
defined as Asperger’s Disorder – plus 19
normally developing children as a control
group – to investigate whether growth
abnormality in these groups is limited to
the head and brain or may be more
generalised,’ Dr Dissanayake said.
The statisticians, Drs Huggins and Bui,
used a ‘linear mixed effects approach’ to
model growth over the three years. They
found that growth rates in both head
circumference and body height were
elevated in the two clinical groups relative
to the typically developing children,
particularly between two to three years of
age. However, the growth rates of the
children with high functioning autism and
Asperger’s Disorder were identical.
One conclusion was that, because of
similarities in growth of head
circumference and body height and
SEARCHING
FOR
BIOLOGICAL
MARKERS
OF
AUTISM
similarities in their behaviour, Asperger’s
Disorder was unlikely to be a discrete
diagnostic entity, separate from Autistic
Disorder.
Dr Loesch: ‘The most exciting finding
however, albeit preliminary, is that in
autism, abnormal growth is not limited to
the brain but may involve other body
systems, highlighting the possibility that
autism is associated with generalised
growth dysregulation. Generally this
finding strongly supports the role of
biological mechanisms in the development
of autism.’
Dr Dissanayake said the group now
wanted to replicate these findings, and
extend them by investigating growth
during pre-adolescence and adolescence.
‘This is a critical growth period, and we
have recently applied for major funding to
conduct this study. If our results are
confirmed by replication on a larger scale,
we can then start to look at the mechanisms
that control growth and attempt to
ascertain which candidate genes may be
involved, enabling us to discover which
biochemical and genetic mechanisms may
be associated with autism.’ �

Thanks to La Trobe University researchers, teachers in
Australia’s Adult Migrant English Program will soon have available
a professional development package to help them assess the
intelligibility of those at different stages of learning English.
Funded by the Commonwealth Department of Immigration and
Multicultural Affairs, the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP)
provides 510 hours of English language training to all people
offered 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 much
in ‘the ear of the hearer’ as the ‘tongue of the speaker’. The new
professional development package will greatly assist teachers in
the AMEP.
The AMEP Research Centre is a consortium of La Trobe’s
Institute for Education, and the National Centre for English
Language Teaching and Research at Macquarie University. It was
established in 2000 to provide professional development
materials and information for AMEP providers and teachers.
Other senior researchers in the Centre located at La Trobe’s main
Melbourne campus at Bundoora are Dr Howard Nicholas and Dr
Alan Williams.
To illustrate that intelligibility is in the ear of the hearer, Dr Yates
has studied reactions to the speech of beginner learners of English.
She played tapes of the voices of five people learning English to 42
listeners – half of them to TESOL teachers (teachers of English as
a second language) and half non-TESOL teachers.
‘We found that, because of their experience, TESOL teachers
understood much more of what the speakers were saying than the
MIGRANT ENGLISH
Tongue of the speaker and ear of the hearer
UNDERSTANDING
INTELLIGIBILITY
non-teachers,’ Dr Yates said. ‘But, if you asked for a rating of how
intelligible the speakers were, there was greater variation among the
teachers than the non-teachers.’
Many factors influence intelligibility, including the hearer’s
awareness of the subject matter, the volume of the voice,
pronunciation, grammar – and even body language.
In a presentation to teachers at the National AMEP Conference
held in Darwin in July, Dr Yates reported on her research and
illustrated the role of some of these different factors in assessing
intelligibility.
‘Teachers were surprised to discover how much of their
understanding of different speech samples depended on body
‘Much depends on body language and the predictable nature of conversation, rather than the clarity of speech itself.’
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 consensus
about what level of intelligibility was acceptable at different stages
of language learning in the AMEP, and highlighted an urgent need
for professional development for teachers working in the program.
Dr Yates’ new package comprises a CD of learner spoken
performances for use in professional development training sessions
and a fact sheet that can be downloaded free from the AMEP
Research Centre’s Professional Connections website. The package
will join a range of other learning materials available from the
Centre to AMEP teachers. �
Further information about these packages is available on
www.nceltr.mq.edu.au/resources.
SEPTEMBER 2004 11

12
NEWS
LIBRARIAN
WINS
HEARING
AWARENESS
AWARD
La Trobe University reference librarian,
Valerie Forbes, was up among the big
names when the Deafness Foundation
handed out its annual awards during
Hearing Awareness Week recently.
Awards for clear speech went to Angela
Pippos (sport), Jennifer Kyte (news), Jon
Faine (radio) – and to Val Forbes for
outstanding service to people with
hearing loss.
Ms Forbes, who has worked in the
Borchardt Library at La Trobe’s
Melbourne (Bundoora) campus since
1990, received recognition for her services
to hearing impaired La Trobe students and
visitors using the library.
A reference librarian in the areas of
Deaf Studies, European Languages and
Literature, English, Linguistics, and
Cinema and Media Studies, Ms Forbes has
introduced an online learning program at
the University to bring together in a virtual
community deaf students, lecturers and
library staff.
She has also established an e-mail
distribution list to notify people about
new books, websites, newspaper articles
and other items of interest to the
deaf community. �
LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN
FromWATER USE
to FAMILY VIOLENCE
How to change
our attitudes
and behaviour
The debate about water conservation – in
which La Trobe University academic
staff have played prominent roles – is
just one of many dialogues about changing
public attitudes and behaviour.
Successful campaigns for improved road
safety practices like wearing seat belts,
reducing speed, curtailing drink driving and
establishing accident black spots have given
Victoria a world reputation for changing for
the better the behaviour of its citizens.
Other successful local or national
campaigns that have enhanced Australia’s
international reputation include Quit
(anti-smoking) and Slip-Slop-Slap (antiskin
cancer).
‘Bold policy, guided by on-going,
multidisciplinary research, has led to
immense public benefit, including saving of
life and suffering, not to mention money,’
says La Trobe psychologist, Dr Geoff
Cumming. ‘Now we need to apply this
strategy in further areas, such as the
reduction of family violence, and water
conservation.’
A Reader in Psychological Science and
specialist in the field of public attitudes and
behaviour, Dr Cumming says changing
attitudes and behaviour is complex and
requires multi-disciplinary research.
‘Law, engineering, economics, education
and social work are just some of the relevant
fields. But attitudes and behaviour are the
primary business of psychology, so
psychologists need to play a prominent role.’
For example, Dr Cumming became
interested in the question of water
conservation when the Kennett Government
changed the pricing structure of water to
‘user pays’.
He says people make choices about how
Dr Cumming: fascinating field for students.
they use water for a number of reasons, not
just price.
‘A policy of restricting water use in a
number of arbitrary ways runs the risk of being
regarded as so unfair that it lacks respect. You
can water your roses for hours every day, but I
can’t put even a drop on my lawn!’
Dr Cumming says campaigns to influence
attitudes and behaviour are based on applied
psychology, a science that took off during the
Second World War.
‘Then, for the first time we had large
numbers of humans in charge of highly
complicated and lethal machinery like
aircraft and submarines. The behaviour in
dangerous situations of humans in control
of such complex systems became a vital
component in their effectiveness as well as
safety – so the science of trying to
understand human attitudes and behaviour
became very important.’
And it’s still a field Dr Cumming and many
students find fascinating, partly because it
often produces community benefits.
‘Applied cognitive psychologists work to
improve the design and usability of all sorts
of devices, and the ease of use of computer
software and systems. But it is on major
issues like family violence and water
conservation that really notable practical
advances can be made.
‘What we need is recognition of the
possibilities, and more support for applied
research in these and other areas.’ �

Growth of La Trobe
University’s Global
Business Law Program
has been rapid.
With an increasingly international
emphasis on the practice of law, global law
courses are becoming popular in the US
and around the world, says Professor
Gordon Walker, who heads the La Trobe
Law program.
‘The US-Australia Free Trade
Agreement, now ratified by the US
legislature, has given further impetus to the
program, increasing the importance of our
graduates having a global perspective.
‘The agreement has resulted in a
demand from Australian law firms for
lawyers with grounding in US law. Some
understanding of the legal system of the
country with which we do so much trade is
a good thing for Australian lawyers.’
La Trobe Law offers a wide variety of
courses and includes among its Faculty, as
Adjunct Professor, the former Director
General of the World Trade Organisation,
ex-Prime Minister of NZ, Mike Moore.
The program also attracts an increasing
number of students from overseas, with
seven enrolling this year from France,
Germany and Switzerland. These students
enrol via the LLM for International
Students.
La Trobe Law’s Global Business Law
program has hired law professors from
UCLA, Duke University, the University of
Kansas and the University of Hawaii. Staff
from these universities, and other top law
schools in the US, are regular guest lecturers
in the program. In July, Professor Stephen
McAllister, Dean of the University of
Kansas Law School taught a unit entitled
‘Introduction to American Law’.
In December, Professor Gabriel Wilner,
Dean and Executive Director of the Dean
Rusk Centre for Legal Studies at the
University of Georgia School of Law, will
teach a unit on ‘International commercial
arbitration’, while anti-trust law specialist,
former Texas University Law Professor, Paul
Bartlett, will lecture on ‘US anti-trust law’.
Global Business Law units in 2005 and
2006 will include a range of courses
dealing with USA law, including federal
tax, negotiation, mergers and acquisitions,
securities regulation, antitrust,
entertainment, real property law, and asset
securitisation as well as international
business transactions, and Chinese
business law and practice.
Professor Walker says La Trobe’s LLM
program in Global Business Law is partly
aimed at law graduates seeking to upgrade
their qualifications part-time to an
international standard. �
NEWS
INTERNATIONAL MASTERS COURSE BOOSTS
La Trobe Global
Business Law
University of Kansas Law School Professor McAllister, seated left, and Professor Walker with three
international 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.
TORTURE
IN IRAQ
Are we changing long-held values
which saw torture as abhorrent? Can
democracy be spread by violence?
These questions were posed by British
sociologist, Professor Keith Tester at a
La Trobe University seminar recently.
Professor Tester is researching the
implications of violent interrogation
techniques, particularly how
television determines relationships
between viewers and those they see
suffering in news and other programs.
Chair of Cultural Sociology at the
University of Portsmouth, UK,
Professor Tester spent six weeks as a
Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the
University’s Thesis Eleven Centre. �
SEPTEMBER 2004 13

14
PEOPLE
NEW PROFESSORS LEAD
RESEARCH IN MICROBIOLOGY
AND THEATRE
La Trobe University has appointed
two new professors. They are Dr
Paul Fisher, Professor of
Microbiology, and Dr Peta Tait,
Professor of Theatre and Drama.
Professor Paul Fisher is Head of the
Department of Microbiology and runs
La Trobe University's Microbial Cell
Biology Laboratory. His main research
interest is the molecular genetics of
signalling pathways in the cellular slime
mould, Dictyostelium discoideum.
Found in soil and leaf litter, Dictyostelium
is one of the few non-mammalian model
organisms recognised by the US National
Institutes of Health for their importance in
biomedical research.
Professor Fisher’s research group is
probing the way the organisms behave,
having discovered these behaviours are
highly sensitive to genetic defects affecting
the Dictyostelium’s mitochondria – tiny
energy centres also found in human cells.
This work is important because human
mitochondrial diseases, which result in a
wide range of neuro-muscular disability,
might be partially explained by defects in
signalling pathways.
Professor Fisher holds a BSc (Hons) and
MSc from the University of Queensland and
a PhD from the Australian National
University. A Postdoctoral Fellow at the
Max Planck Institut für Biochemie in
Germany where he taught students from the
University of Tübingen, he taught at the
University of Queensland and the ANU,
before joining La Trobe in 1985. Since then,
he has held posts as Guest Scientist at the
Max Planck Institut; at the University of
Leiden, Netherlands; and has worked in
Australia as part of the Cooperative
Research Centre for Diagnostic
Technologies.
A member of the Australian Society for
Microbiology, the Australia and New
Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental
Biology, and the Australian Society for
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN
Professor Fisher has served as an assessor of
grant applications for the Australian
Research Council, National Health and
Medical Research Council, Commonwealth
Aids Research Grants Scheme, the USA
National Science Foundation and the
Wellcome Trust in the UK.
He was an invited speaker and member of
the scientific advisory group for the ‘Genetic
Olympics’, the major International Genetics
Congress held in Melbourne last year, and
organised the international Dictyostelium
conference, a satellite meeting of the
Congress. With major articles on microbial
phototaxis and microbial development, he is
an invited contributor to the Nature
Publishing Group's on line Encyclopedia of
Life Sciences and to Wiley-VCH's
prestigious Encyclopedia of Molecular Cell
Biology and Molecular Medicine.
Professor Peta Tait is an academic
and creative artist with an extensive
background in the practice and theory
of theatre, drama and contemporary
performance. She is a pioneer of the study
of Australian ‘physical theatre’ and gender
identity in Australian theatre.
Her research in performance studies deals
with the study of social languages of
emotions and theatrical emotions, and the
analysis of bodies and identity in physical
theatre and circus performance, a project
which is supported by the Australian
Research Council.
She is also working with South Korean
colleagues on the intercultural transaction of
emotions in theatre and in 2000 was a
visiting scholar at New York University’s
TISCH School of Arts.
Author of the first books on gender
identity and Australian theatre – Original
Women’s Theatre (1993) and Converging
Realities: Feminism in Australian Theatre
(1994) – Professor Tait has also co-edited an
anthology of women’s plays, Australian
Women’s Drama: Texts and Feminisms
(1997/2000) and the first anthology on
body-based performance in Australia, Body
Professor Fisher, top, and Professor Tait
Show/s: Australian Viewings of Live
Performance (2002).
Her most recent book is Performing
Emotions: Gender, Bodies, Spaces in
Chekhov’s Drama and Stanislavski’s Theatre
(2002), and she is completing Circus
Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial
Performance (Routledge forthcoming).
Professor Tait has written for major
international publications including Theatre
Journal, is a contributing editor to
TheatreForum, and Australasian Advisory
Editor for a soon to be published
Encyclopedia of Modern Drama.
Five plays that she has written have been
produced, and she worked for more than a
decade with the Sydney-based professional
group, The Party Line, whose awardwinning
work was supported by funding
from the Australia Council. Her most
recently co-written play, Breath by Breath,
won a Green Room Award Nomination for
best fringe production and has been listed by
the 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. �

Sino-Tibetan specialist
to Chair in Linguistics
Dr Randy LaPolla,
formerly of the City
University of Hong
Kong, has been appointed to
the Chair of Linguistics at La
Trobe University. He replaces
Professor Barry Blake who
has retired.
Two years ago, Professor
LaPolla spent six months at
La Trobe as Visiting Professor
at the Research Centre for
Linguistic Typology, and
found his stay there extremely
pleasant and productive. ‘I
resolved then that if I ever had
the opportunity to come back,
I would,’ he says.
Professor LaPolla brings
with him a vast knowledge
of Sino-Tibetan languages,
adding to the University’s existing
strengths in this field in the form of
the expertise of Drs David Bradley and
Hilary Chappell.
Born and raised in Long Island, New
York, Professor LaPolla received a BA in
Asian Studies from the State University of
New York at Stony Brook in 1978 and an
MA in Applied Linguistics (TESOL) from
the same university in 1980.
He then lived in China for three years,
teaching for one year in Changsha and
Shanghai, and studying for two years in
the Linguistics Section of the Chinese
Department of Peking University. He then
went to the University of California,
Berkeley, where he received an MA and in
1990, a PhD in Linguistics.
After graduation he was given a position
at the Institute of History and Philology of
the Academia Sinica in Taiwan – the first
westerner so appointed – and remained
there for six years, also teaching part-time
at Tsing Hua University as Adjunct
Associate Professor for two years.
In 1996 he moved to City University of
Hong Kong, where he was an Associate
Professor mainly working on the recording
and analysis, including comparative
studies, of Sino-Tibetan languages. This
involved attempting to answer the question
of why the languages of this language
family are the way they are.
A general interest in typology informs
this work from which he has also
developed 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 was
the opportunity to be heavily engaged in
teaching as well as research. ‘My work
at the Academia Sinica was purely
research but I prefer to combine research
with teaching. I find that teaching
broadens your view, as students often
bring up questions which force you to
venture into areas about which you are
not all that clear.’
‘I appreciate the chance of working
with both students and colleagues because
the students and staff form a critical
mass with which you can interact in a
productive way.’
On a personal level Professor LaPolla
will continue his interest in Tai Chi and
other internal martial arts, and also his love
of nature. ‘In this respect, I am going to
enjoy this beautiful campus,’ he added. �
PEOPLE
NEW DEPUTY
VICE-CHANCELLOR
(RESEARCH)
La Trobe University has appointed
Professor Brian Stoddart as its new
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) to
replace Professor Fred Smith, who is
retiring later this year.
Professor Stoddart is currently Pro Vice-
Chancellor (International) at Victoria
University, and was previously Pro Vice-
Chancellor (Research and International)
at the University of New England
where he had oversight of the introduction
of the new federal research initiatives. He
is also the current chair of the Pro and
Deputy Vice-Chancellors’ (International)
Committee for the Australian Vice-
Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC). He has
held several research positions overseas,
and has an international network of
research-related agencies.
Professor Stoddart took his first two
degrees in modern history at the
University of Canterbury in New Zealand,
then a PhD in the modern history of India
at the University of Western Australia. He
has been a pioneer in the study of
Australian sports culture, a well known
media commentator and is an
internationally acknowledged authority in
sports history and sociology.
His best known works include Saturday
Afternoon Fever: Sport in the Australian
Culture, and several works on the cultural
history of Caribbean cricket. Among his
recent activities, he delivered the tenth
Frank Worrell Memorial Lecture at the
University of the West Indies where his
predecessors included Prime Ministers
Michael Manley and John Major.
Professor Stoddart will commence his
duties at on 1 November 2004. �
SEPTEMBER 2004
15

16
NEWS
GOOD NEWS IN VIETNAM
With a little help
from La Trobe
The news is getting better in Ho Chi
Minh City – thanks to La Trobe
University. Events that make news are
not necessarily happier, but the quality of
television news presentation is certainly on
the rise.
This is due to the nine courses in television
production and presentation that La Trobe has
organised in Vietnam over the past three
years. Managed by the co-ordinator of
La Trobe’s Media Studies Program, Dr Peter
White, and Ms Jane Tran of the International
Programs Office, the training programs
ranging from one to two weeks have trained
more than 250 employees of Ho Chi Minh
City Television (HTV) and other regional
stations in the south of Vietnam.
LA TROBE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN
With an audience of 40 million viewers,
HTV operates in the south of Vietnam and is
independent of the nation-wide Vietnam
National Television (VTV) network
operated from Hanoi.
Normally the courses are for people
already employed by HTV but the most
recent course in July was for 20 young
people seeking careers in television who
won a national competition. Dr White said
senior managers of HTV were keen to
improve the skills of their staff and to
modernise their program output.
‘Construction of a new studio complex is
underway and the television station will be
able to move out of the facilities they
currently occupy – rather outdated premises
left behind by the Americans.
Media students with National Nine’s
Hugh Riminton, and, below, putting training
into practice. Photo by Kumi Taguchi
‘Many of the older television managers
were trained in Russia using rather old
fashioned techniques. Our courses expose
Vietnamese television station staff to new
ways of making and presenting television
programs in keeping with the updating of
HTV’s technical facilities,’ Dr White said.
‘Given that media studies and journalism
training are in their infancy in Vietnam,
these courses provide a significant entry
point for co-operative activities with other
educational and media organisations in
Vietnam. As a result of this activity,
memorandums of understanding have been
signed with the Ho Chi Minh Political
Academy, Institute of Journalism and
Communication and the national
government television network, VTV. We
have already completed one documentary
television course for VTV,’ Dr White said.
La Trobe often recruits well-known
Australian television personalities to assist
with courses. For example Peter Adams,
director of the musical The Producers
currently running in Melbourne, and an
experience television producer, conducted
the course in Ho Chi Minh City in July.
Earlier this year, La Trobe Media Studies
Program recruited National Nine News
presenter, Hugh Riminton, to conduct a fiveday
training course on ‘Television News
Reporting’ for HTV. Courses on computer
animation and documentary film production
have also been presented.
Dr White said the training courses were
regularly reported on HTV news. ‘This
means that La Trobe University activities are
being promoted to a population of
approximately 40 million people,’ he said. �