Next Week In Focus

The University of Auckland | 1

Weekly newsletter for University staff | 8 April 2013

Diary Monday 8 April Student Jazz Ensemble Concert 7pm, Studio One, Kenneth Myers Centre, 74 Shortland Street. Also 9 April. Free. Jazz Performance students perform a mix of jazz standards, modern pieces and original work prepared over one term. Queries to concerts@auckland.ac.nz

Tuesday 9 AprilCommuniqué 2013Jonty Valentine: Index. 12noon-1pm, Auckland Art Gallery Auditorium. Jonty will discuss graphic design as a sphere for developing a research practice and speculate on Index’s involvement in The Lab at the 5th Auckland Triennial. Jonty Valentine lives in Auckland, working as a graphic designer, lecturer, curator and sometimes as a writer. Jonty received an MFA in graphic design from Yale University. He is co-editor of the graphic design journal The National Grid with Luke Wood, and co-director of Index design with Amy Yalland. Recent significant projects include: co-authoring the book River Road with David Cook and Wiremu Puke; catalogue design for Leonhard Emmerling’s international exhibition Out of This World at the Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern, Germany; curating a collection of New Zealand publications for the exhibition Forms of Enquiry: The Architecture of Critical Graphic Design at London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture; curating the exhibitions Printing Types: New Zealand Type design Since 1870 and Just Hold Me: Aspects of NZ Publication Design, both at Auckland’s Objectspace gallery and curating Design and Designers: Artefacts from the National Grid at Wintec’s Ramp Gallery. Queries to events-archplan@auckland.ac.nz PhD Exit Seminar Pau Medrano-Gracia, Auckland Bioengineering Institute: Shape and function analysis in large cardiac MRI datasets: statistical atlasing of the heart. 4-5pm Ground Floor Seminar Room G010, UniServices House, 70 Symonds Street. Since the invention of magnetic resonance imaging, the development of specific cardiac

sequences has allowed radiologists to study the anatomy and function of the heart in a non-invasive fashion. In this talk, I will discuss the problem of comparing the mathematical models derived from these images. This is often termed building an atlas of the heart which, in this context, represents a collection of maps or a compendium of knowledge derived from a population of models. Statistical atlases are important because they define standard distributions of normality and pathology. The aim of my Thesis was to investigate the power of finite-element models derived from cardiac magnetic resonance images to encode and describe such distributions. To that end, different state-of-the-art statistical analyses were applied to symptomatic and asymptomatic cohorts. Asymptomatic patients were drawn from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) study and patients with myocardial infarct were provided by the Defibrillators To Reduce Risk By Magnetic Resonance Imaging Evaluation (DETERMINE) clinical trial, both available through the Cardiac Atlas Project. FTVMS/School of Asian Studies seminarJihye Kim, PhD student, Asian Studies and Curt Fu, PhD student, FTVMS: Sweating together with the others, and growth through competition. 4-5pm, Pat Hanan Room 501, Arts 2.1) Jihye Kim. The Argentinian garment industry has evolved into a dynamic and complex inter-ethnic environment. This presentation discusses Korean business patterns and labour articulations with other groups in the industry. 2) Curt Fu. Through the use of primary data from studio archives and theatre records this paper argues that the growth of a Chinese national cinema in the 1920s and 1930s was achieved through competition, both direct and indirect, with Hollywood. Refreshments to follow.

Wednesday 10 April Classics and Ancient History seminarTasha Dobbin-Bennett, Yale University: The dot is a papyrologist’s conscience: Greek Papyri from Egypt. 4pm, Room 203, Arts 1.Papyrology is the study of ancient texts, from Egypt, written in a wide variety of languages including ancient Egyptian, Coptic, Latin, and Greek. Because Greek papyri comprise the largest corpus of texts, both excavated and translated, the Greco-Roman society in Egypt is one of the best known in the ancient Mediterranean world. Greek papyri deal with almost every element of life during the Greco-Roman period. As we are studying the original documents, we can step into peoples’ lives, be privy to their personal conversations, the taxes they paid, their military service, how they disposed of their dead. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, at Yale University, contains a large collection of papyri, many of which are still to be published. Using several of these papyri, we will open a window onto the Greco-Roman period in Egypt, examine how people composed and wrote their missives, what we can learn from palaeographic studies, the difficulties in transcribing and translating original sources.

Thursday 11 April Political Studies seminarAssociate Professor Natasha Hamilton-Hart: Southeast Asia and American Power. 4-5pm, Federation of University Women Room, Old Government House. Although the United States attracted much popular condemnation in the years after 2001, foreign policy elites in much of Southeast Asia still view the country as a relatively benign international power. Their beliefs about the relative trustworthiness of the U.S. shape patterns of alignment and are a factor sustaining U.S. preeminence in the region. I argue that such foundational foreign policy beliefs do not simply reflect objective facts and reasoning processes, but are driven by both interests—in this case the political and economic interests of ruling groups in Southeast Asia—and illusions, or beliefs that are formed despite, rather than because of, their externally-verifiable accuracy.

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Faculty of Engineering Dean’s seminarSeelye Fellow Mr Paul Wessel, CEO of Innovation Consulting Partners, Minnesota: Developing a medical device company – an eight year personal journey. 4-6pm Lecture Theatre 403.403, Faculty of Engineering, 20 Symonds Street. Paul Wessel has spent the past 25 years involved in different disciplines of industrial and health care automation. He has held different executive leadership roles in sales, marketing, and new product and intellectual property development within large and medium sized corporations. As an inventor and entrepreneur, he has successfully built and sold several medical device companies. This lecture traces the journey undertaken to develop one of them, guidance interactive healthcare, which stemmed from his original idea to develop a blood glucose measurement device for diabetic children which integrated into a Nintendo DS gaming device. Paul Wessel’s lecture will cover his motivation for becoming involved in such a venture, the development of patents, raising money, getting through regulatory approval, commercialisation, the launch of the product, the sale of the company to multinational Bayer, and his ultimate decoupling from the business. Paul’s visit was made possible through a visiting fellowship from the Ralph and Eve Seelye Charitable Trust. We would like to extend our thanks. FTVMS seminarChris Brickell, Gender Studies, Otago: A travelling gay picture show: Photography, community & spatiality. 4.15pm, Pat Hanan Room 501, Arts 2.Photographs reveal a lot about social worlds, especially the lives of ‘ordinary’ people. They tell of connection, emotion, feeling, community and location. This seminar explores three private photo collections to explore aspects of gay New Zealand men’s lives during the 1940s and ’50s. ‘A Travelling Gay Picture Show’ will consider these photos’ stories of mobility and connectedness, along with the interlinkages between private lives and the development of pre-liberation gay cultures. Chris will talk about a new publishing project in which he brings together these images and his textual analysis in a more reflexive, mutually-informing way than is usually possible. Drinks and snacks to follow.

Friday 12 April School of Music lunchtime concerts Flute and guitar students. 1.05-1.55pm, Music Theatre, School of Music, 6 Symonds Street. A series of lunchtime concerts showcasing School of Music students in both individual and ensemble settings. Queries to concerts@auckland.ac.nz Masters drop-in information sessions 3.30-4.30pm Business School, Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road. Please wait at reception and we will collect you. Runs until 1 November. Free. Are you thinking of starting a Master of Management, Master of International Business or Master of Professional Accounting? Coming to our weekly information session and hear what the Graduate School of Management has to offer. The professional coursework Masters are designed to make students ‘business ready’. They are suitable for students with an unrelated undergraduate degree like arts, law, engineering, technology or science, and little or no work experience. The curriculum will cover core business theory as well as develop commercial skills like project management, communication and team work. This informal session will involve a short presentation and question and answer session. For further information please contact the Student Services Centre on 923 5022 (within Auckland); 0800 61 62 65 (outside Auckland); +64 9 373 7513 (overseas) or email gsm@auckland.ac.nz

Saturday 13 April Gallery talk 1pm, Gus Fisher Gallery, 74 Shortland Street. Gilbert van Reenen, award-winning landscape photographer from Wanaka, talks about retracing John Buchanan’s footsteps with a digital camera. Queries to a.tyler@auckland.ac.nz Visit www.gusfishergallery.auckland.ac.nz