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In recent years, scholars have increasingly recognised that thinking and feeling are not abstract or immaterial processes, but take place through bodies, objects, and the physical environment. This thesis is a contribution to this literature. It examines emotions and the lifecycle in Renaissance Prague – a vibrant, intriguing, and often-overlooked city that had housed Europe’s first Reformation only a century before. In Prague, as elsewhere in Europe, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period in which the emergence of consumerism transformed the fabric of domestic life and filled homes with stuff. My thesis focuses on objects that were acquired or abandoned by families during the life cycle stages of birth, courtship, marriage, and death – all transitions where individuals either united or separated. It draws on psychology and psychoanalytic theory to illuminate the early modern domestic world, paying attention to the everyday joys and pains of attachment to others as much as the broader cultural, social, and political structures that shaped the nature of relationships. Using criminal court records, probate inventories, and surviving objects from museums, I construct narratives that imagine the emotional experiences of Prague’s inhabitants and seek to flesh out the early modern psyche. In the process, this thesis presents a new interpretation of Prague’s history, showing how the emotions of the urban community drove and determined the Renaissance and the Reformations.

Magnetic resonance imaging of $^{13}$C-labeled metabolites enhanced by parahydrogen-induced polarization (PHIP) can enable real-time monitoring of processes within the body. We introduce a robust, easily implementable technique for transferring parahydrogen-derived singlet order into 13C magnetization using adiabatic radio-frequency sweeps at $μ$T fields. We experimentally demonstrate the applicability of this technique to several molecules, including some molecules relevant for metabolic imaging, where we show significant improvements in the achievable polarization, in some cases reaching above 60%. Furthermore, we introduce a site-selective deuteration scheme, where deuterium is included in the coupling network of a pyruvate ester to enhance the efficiency of the polarization transfer. These improvements are enabled by the fact that the transfer protocol avoids relaxation induced by strongly coupled quadrupolar nuclei.

Section 65DAA of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (‘FLA’) is the focus of this thesis. The thesis argues that this provision should not have been enacted and advocates for its repeal. Section 65DAA was introduced as part of the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006 (Cth) (‘the SP reforms’), which made substantial changes to the part of the FLA that deals with post-separation parenting arrangements. This thesis examines the aspects of the SP reforms which relate to the time to be spent by children with each of their parents. In particular, it focuses on section 65DAA, which requires courts to consider ordering that children spend equal or substantial and significant time with each of their parents in many cases. In order to assess whether the SP reforms, particularly section 65DAA, should have been enacted, this thesis considers the legal and social context in which the reforms emerged, the reform process and the attendant debate, the terms of the legislation enacted, and the legal and social consequences of the shared parenting aspects of the reforms. In so doing, the thesis draws on legal and social science research from before and after the reforms in relation to children’s best interests, shared parenting, social trends and parenting laws, and examines the parliamentary process by which the SP reforms were enacted and the accompanying debate. It also examines judgments from both before and after the enactment of the reforms, in cases of the type to which section 65DAA was designed to apply. The thesis argues that, based on the social and legal context in which the reforms emerged and the state of empirical research at that time, legislative changes to encourage courts to favour shared parenting outcomes were not warranted. It further argues that the reform process leading to the enactment of the relevant provisions was flawed, with inappropriate weight given to the claims of fathers’ rights activists ahead of the arguments and evidence presented by most legal and social science experts. Having established that the SP reforms were ill-advised, the thesis moves on to examine the outcomes of the legislation, including its consequences for the community at large and its implementation in judicially determined cases, with a focus on outcomes for children rather than for parents. The thesis argues that the largely negative legal and social consequences of the reforms, which include the imposition of shared parenting arrangements in many circumstances in which the relevant research suggests they are unlikely to operate to the benefit of children, cannot be justified and that reconsideration is warranted. Finally, the thesis examines the responses to the identified negative outcomes of the SP reforms which have emerged to date and proposes a number of further responses designed to address the outcomes of the legislation. These include the repeal of section 65DAA and the enactment of further related legislative reforms, and non-legislative measures including the enhancement of public education in relation to post-separation parenting and the promotion of increased paternal involvement in intact families.

Supplemental material, AIC880904 Supplemental material for Post-surgical opioid stewardship programs across Australia and New Zealand: Current situation and future directions by Megan L Allen, Kate Leslie, Anna V Parker, Charles C Kim, Sally L Brooks, Sabine Braat, Stephan A Schug and David A Story in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care

Neurons can adjust their ionic currents to maintain a stable output. The homeostatic mechanisms that produce compensatory changes in ionic currents operate over multiple time scales. The rapid mechanisms that act over minutes are mostly unknown. We have been characterizing a fast homeostatic mechanism that stabilizes activity phase in the rhythmically active lateral pyloric neuron (LP) of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion. LP activity phase is invariant. It is determined, in part, by the balance between the hyperpolarization-activated current (Ih) and the transient potassium current (IA). When LP IA is experimentally decreased, activity phase is initially disrupted, but then it recovers over minutes. This is because the decrease in IA modifies LP activity, which in turn alters cytosolic Ca2+ levels. Ca-dependent enzymes then mediate a reduction in LP Ih to restore the balance between the two conductances. We have been studying the molecular mechanisms that correlate LP IA and Ih in an activity- dependent fashion. We have found that neuronal activity adjusts the level of ion channel post- translational modification by Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO), a peptide which when conjugated to target proteins alters their protein-protein interactions. Using a heterologous expression system, we showed that enhancing SUMOylation of HCN or Kv4 ion channels that mediate Ih and IA, respectively, produced opposite effects on the amplitudes of Ih and IA. We also demonstrated that a given change in activity produced the opposite effect on SUMOylation levels associated with each current. Thus, activity-dependent regulation of ion channel SUMOylation specified a positive correlation between the two currents. We have also demonstrated that activity-dependent regulation of ion channel SUMOylation is conditional; it only occurs in the presence of the appropriate modulatory tone. We showed this is because modulators, like dopamine, specify the targets of the SUMOylation machinery. In sum, we have discovered a novel mechanism that acts over minutes to correlate ionic conductances and thereby stabilize neuronal output.

One of the most remarkable properties of the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is that optical illumination initializes its electronic spin almost completely, a feature that can be exploited to polarize other spin species in their proximity. Here we use field-cycled nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to investigate the mechanisms of spin polarization transfer from NVs to 13C spins in diamond at room temperature. We focus on the dynamics near 51 mT, where a fortuitous combination of energy matching conditions between electron and nuclear spin levels gives rise to alternative polarization transfer channels. By monitoring the 13C spin polarization as a function of the applied magnetic field, we show 13C spin pumping takes place via a multi-spin cross relaxation process involving the NV- spin and the electronic and nuclear spins of neighboring P1 centers. Further, we find that this mechanism is insensitive to the crystal orientation relative to the magnetic field, although the absolute level of 13C polarization - reaching up to ~3% under optimal conditions - can vary substantially depending on the interplay between optical pumping efficiency, photo-generated carriers, and laser-induced heating.

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jad-10.1177_1087054721997553 for Psychoeducation Intervention Effectiveness to Improve Social Skills in Young People with ADHD: A Meta-Analysis by Lauren Amy Powell, Jack Parker, Anna Weighall and Valerie Harpin in Journal of Attention Disorders

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jad-10.1177_1087054721997553 for Psychoeducation Intervention Effectiveness to Improve Social Skills in Young People with ADHD: A Meta-Analysis by Lauren Amy Powell, Jack Parker, Anna Weighall and Valerie Harpin in Journal of Attention Disorders