UC EVENTS

It’s the day we celebrate the things that three in four Australians drink everyday! That of course would be coffee ? We are celebrating by pumping out $2 coffees* 9 am - 11 am on the concourse *Milk alternatives, flavoured syrups and extra shots will all be available at an extra cost

Navisens CEO Dr Ashod will discuss his journey from his PhD research in robotics to founding a venture-backed tech company in Silicon Valley. He’ll cover the reasons for moving from Australia to Silicon Valley and the challenges of starting a company from scratch, transitioning technology from the research lab to the real world, raising venture funding, and finding initial customers. ZOOM DETAILS: Meeting ID: 942 7063 5586 Passcode: 341982

Talk details: Causal identification is a challenging but fundamental task in many fields, including when studying complex dynamical systems wherein experiments or model-based regressions may not be available or appropriate. Dealing with the complexity of real-world phenomena requires tools that can characterise and test causality in nonlinear dynamical systems. One promising method is called empirical dynamic modelling (EDM), which allows distinguishing causation from mere correlation while making minimal assumptions about nonlinearity, stability, and equilibrium of the underlying complex system. This presentation introduces the key concepts of the empirical dynamic modelling and discusses some examples using the edm package in Stata.

Abstract - As digital media have become integral parts of children’s lives, their overdependence on digital media has raised numerous concerns. As primary socialisation agents, parents are expected to play an active role in guiding and managing children’s digital media use, which is a principal focus of “parental mediation” research. In this seminar, I will discuss key insights I have gained from 10 years of research on parental mediation reflected in a recently published book Screen-Obsessed: Parenting in the Digital Age (2019). Specifically, my talk will address (1) young people’s use of digital media; (2) the impact of parental mediation on digital youth’s risk-taking behaviours; (3) factors influencing parental mediation practices and effectiveness; and (4) challenges and gaps in current parental mediation research. Key findings from recent studies conducted in multiple countries and their implications will also be shared and discussed.

Abstract - This presentation, co-authored with Mahin Raissi and Bethaney Turner, critically engages with the Actor-network theory notion that human and nonhuman actants have symmetrical capacities. In contrast, we distinguish ‘actor-actants’ who have the capacity to care about other actants, from ‘issue-actants’, who do not. We operationalize the gathering together of matters of concern by mapping how similar Australian and Canadian bee-related websites connected to issues such as ‘colony-collapse’. Our symmetrical hypothesis is that major differences in Australian and Canadian geographies and exposure to parasites will lead to different rates of connection. This hypothesis is confirmed: all influential Canadian websites connected to ‘colony-collapse’, whilst no influential Australian websites did. Our findings also suggest an asymmetrical explanation: influential Australian bee-related websites were aware of the catastrophic disappearance of bees, but did not care. Denying some actor-actants have agency over others means it is impossible to form a moral opinion about connections, or about the rights of dominated actor-actants.

Abstract - Jenny will discuss her new book How Artifacts Afford: The Power and Politics of Everyday Things (MIT Press, 2020). Affordances are the ways design features enable and constrain user engagement and social action. This book introduces the mechanisms and conditions framework of affordances in which technologies request, demand, encourage, discourage, refuse, and allow in ways that vary across contexts and between different people. The framework shifts the question in affordance analysis from what technologies afford to how technologies afford, for whom, and under what circumstances? This talk will address the politics and power encoded in sociotechnical systems and demonstrate a simple framework for technological analysis and design.

After the most tumultuous period of their lives both personally and professionally, Boy & Bear are back with another national tour. Following the release of Suck On Light, the boys are excited to share their new album with audiences across Australia and New Zealand in 2020. Tickets on sale Thu 13th Dec18+ event