Making a success of ‘failure’: a Science Studies analysis of PILOT and SERC in the context of Australian space science

This thesis presents an in-depth empirical investigation, based on participant observation, interviews and publicly available materials, of PILOT and SERC, two recent Australian space science projects that were both connected to the problem of space debris. While PILOT’s proposal for funding failed, SERC was successfully funded yet failed to reach its initially stated goal of demonstrating the possibility of Active Debris Removal (ADR) using a ground-based high power laser combined with laser guide star adaptive optics. My analysis illustrates that the Australian space science funding and policy environment changed significantly in the brief period between PILOT’s unsuccessful proposal and SERC’s formation, marking the period of time in which dual-use space capability development was recognised as a political strategic priority. In SERC’s case, dual-use technology has been developed through (substantially) publicly funded institutions and by civil scientists. I argue that the current arrangement of policy and funding structures in the Australian space sciences sector facilitates engagement in dual-use technology development in such a way that two outcomes emerge: first, that moral responsibility for the products of such research is institutionally and individually avoided by distributing it ‘up the chain’ to national governmental entities, and second, that international legal responsibility is likewise avoided at a national level by distributing it ‘down the chain’ to institutions. I demonstrate how policy and funding conditions in Australia allowed individuals working in, and adjacent to, the space sciences to maintain, unchallenged, the convenient fiction that science is itself amoral and, to some extent, apolitical

Rock Art Documentation in the Digital Age: The Rafter Z Site (24RB2809) in Rosebud County, Montana

The Rafter Z site was a previously unrecorded rock art site located on private land in Rosebud County, Montana. The resulting thesis provided an opportunity to systematically document the site and conduct important rock art research within southeastern Montana. The thesis project was sectioned into two phases. The first phase provided the documentation of the Rafter Z site, surveying of 170-acres of private land, documentation of three additional cultural sites, and a comprehensive analysis of the Rafter Z site. This research showed that the Rafter Z site constitutes one of the larger rock art sites in Rosebud County and the greater southeastern Montana region. Housing 36 shield-bearing warriors and 14 freestanding shields, the site offers a unique perspective into the Plains warrior ethos from the Late Prehistoric period. In addition, the site provides insight into early Crow and the Kiowa/ Kiowa Apache use of the region during the mid-to-late Prehistoric period with its mixture of Castle Garden and Timber Creek style rock art figures. The second phase of the proposed project utilized two digital techniques recently applied to rock art documentation: photogrammetry and reflectance transformation imaging (RTI). Several variables were tested to ascertain the best methods to effectively render 3D models using photogrammetry and conduct RTI on the sandstone substrate. Overall, these digital documentation methods heightened the interpretive and archival quality of the site documentation and data collected. Enhancing the archival quality of rock art will allow future research to occur when access may be limited

DragonflEYE: a passive approach to aerial collision sensing

"This dissertation describes the design, development and test of a passive wide-field optical aircraft collision sensing instrument titled 'DragonflEYE'. Such a ""sense-and-avoid"" instrument is desired for autonomous unmanned aerial systems operating in civilian airspace. The instrument was configured as a network of smart camera nodes and implemented using commercial, off-the-shelf components. An end-to-end imaging train model was developed and important figures of merit were derived. Transfer functions arising from intermediate mediums were discussed and their impact assessed. Multiple prototypes were developed. The expected performance of the instrument was iteratively evaluated on the prototypes, beginning with modeling activities followed by laboratory tests, ground tests and flight tests. A prototype was mounted on a Bell 205 helicopter for flight tests, with a Bell 206 helicopter acting as the target. Raw imagery was recorded alongside ancillary aircraft data, and stored for the offline assessment of performance. The ""range at first detection"" (R0), is presented as a robust measure of sensor performance, based on a suitably defined signal-to-noise ratio. The analysis treats target radiance fluctuations, ground clutter, atmospheric effects, platform motion and random noise elements. Under the measurement conditions, R0 exceeded flight crew acquisition ranges. Secondary figures of merit are also discussed, including time to impact, target size and growth, and the impact of resolution on detection range. The hardware was structured to facilitate a real-time hierarchical image-processing pipeline, with selected image processing techniques introduced. In particular, the height of an observed event above the horizon compensates for angular motion of the helicopter platform.

ASTRAL PROJECTION: THEORIES OF METAPHOR, PHILOSOPHIES OF SCIENCE, AND THE ART O F SCIENTIFIC VISUALIZATION

This thesis provides an intellectual context for my work in computational scientific visualization for large-scale public outreach in venues such as digitaldome planetarium shows and high-definition public television documentaries. In my associated practicum, a DVD that provides video excerpts, 1 focus especially on work I have created with my Advanced Visualization Laboratory team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (Champaign, Illinois) from 2002-2007. 1 make three main contributions to knowledge within the field of computational scientific visualization. Firstly, I share the unique process 1 have pioneered for collaboratively producing and exhibiting this data-driven art when aimed at popular science education. The message of the art complements its means of production: Renaissance Team collaborations enact a cooperative paradigm of evolutionary sympathetic adaptation and co-creation. Secondly, 1 open up a positive, new space within computational scientific visualization's practice for artistic expression—especially in providing a theory of digi-epistemology that accounts for how this is possible given the limitations imposed by the demands of mapping numerical data and the computational models derived from them onto visual forms. I am concerned not only with liberating artists to enrich audience's aesthetic experiences of scientific visualization, to contribute their own vision, but also with conceiving of audiences as co-creators of the aesthetic significance of the work, to re-envision and re-circulate what they encounter there. Even more commonly than in the age of traditional media, on-line social computing and digital tools have empowered the public to capture and repurpose visual metaphors, circulating them within new contexts and telling new stories with them. Thirdly, I demonstrate the creative power of visaphors (see footnote, p. 1) to provide novel embodied experiences through my practicum as well as my thesis discussion. Specifically, I describe how the visaphors my Renaissance Teams and I create enrich the Environmentalist Story of Science, essentially promoting a counter-narrative to the Enlightenment Story of Science through articulating how humanity participates in an evolving universal consciousness through our embodied interaction and cooperative interdependence within nested, self-producing (autopoetic) systems, from the micro- to the macroscopic. This contemporary account of the natural world, its inter-related systems, and their dynamics may be understood as expressing a creative and generative energy—a kind of consciousness-that transcends the human yet also encompasses it

Spacelab mission 1 experiment descriptions, third edition

Experiments and facilities selected for flight on the first Spacelab mission are described. Chosen from responses to the Announcement of Opportunity for the Spacelab 1 mission, the experiments cover five broad areas of investigation: atmospheric physics and Earth observations; space plasma physics; astronomy and solar physics; material sciences and technology; and life sciences. The name of the principal investigator and country is listed for each experiment

Photonic Jet: Science and Application

Photonic jets (PJs) are important mesoscale optical phenomena arising from electromagnetic waves interacting with dielectric particles. PJs have applications in super-resolution imaging, sensing, detection, patterning, trapping, manipulation, waveguiding, signal amplification and high-efficiency signal collection, among others. This reprint provides an overview of the field and highlights recent advances and trends in PJ research

The Rebirth of Utopia in 21st-century Cinema: Cosmopolitan Hopes in the Films of Globalisation

Esta tesis doctoral explora discursos utópicos cosmopolitas—ecológicos e igualitarios—en el cine en lengua inglesa del siglo XXI. El primer capítulo examina el estado de la cuestión de la utopía en los estudios utópicos, la sociología y los estudios fílmicos. El segundo capítulo aborda una revisión de expresiones de utopismo cosmopolita en películas de tres periodos históricos distintos con el fin de contextualizar el renacimiento de la utopía en el cine contemporáneo. En concreto, se analizan una selección de textos fílmicos del periodo comprendido entre los inicios de la industria cinematográfica a finales del siglo XIX hasta la década de 1920, el cine reivindicativo de los años sesenta y la inclinación antiutópica del cine producido desde 1970 hasta el fin de la década de los noventa. Los tres capítulos siguientes combinan el análisis teórico y textual de películas contemporáneas, partiendo de perspectivas concretas—espacial, ontológica y política. El capítulo tres trata el renacimiento de horizontes utópicos cosmopolitas en los espacios ecocríticos de películas apocalípticas contemporáneas como Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006). El capítulo cuatro se centra en protagonistas fílmicos que representan transformaciones ontológicas guiadas por ideales ecológicos y de compromiso social, como es el caso del personaje principal en The East (Zal Batmanglij, 2013). Por último, el capítulo cinco analiza estrategias políticas ecofeministas y cooperativas en la serie fílmica The Hunger Games (2012-2015) dentro del marco contextual de los movimientos sociales globales contemporáneos. En su conjunto, la tesis argumenta que, tras un fin de siglo marcadamente antiutópico, cinematográficamente hablando, un gran número de películas contemporáneas articulan discursos utópicos cosmopolitas que plantean la necesidad de desarrollar marcos sociopolíticos, modelos de progreso y modos de comportamiento individuales que nos conduzcan a un futuro global sostenible e igualitario. Este horizonte cosmopolita se presenta de forma recurrente en las películas analizadas como una alternativa a filosofías y paradigmas político-económicos neoliberales y patriarcales, basados en lógicas dialécticas, opresivas y extractivas.<br /

LASER Tech Briefs, Winter 1994

Topics include: Electronic Components and Circuits. Electronic Systems, Physical Sciences, Materials, Computer Programs, Mechanics, Machinery, Fabrication Technology, Mathematics and Information Sciences, Life Sciences, and Books and report

Multimodal Content Delivery for Geo-services

This thesis describes a body of work carried out over several research projects in the area of multimodal interaction for location-based services. Research in this area has progressed from using simulated mobile environments to demonstrate the visual modality, to the ubiquitous delivery of rich media using multimodal interfaces (geo- services). To effectively deliver these services, research focused on innovative solutions to real-world problems in a number of disciplines including geo-location, mobile spatial interaction, location-based services, rich media interfaces and auditory user interfaces. My original contributions to knowledge are made in the areas of multimodal interaction underpinned by advances in geo-location technology and supported by the proliferation of mobile device technology into modern life. Accurate positioning is a known problem for location-based services, contributions in the area of mobile positioning demonstrate a hybrid positioning technology for mobile devices that uses terrestrial beacons to trilaterate position. Information overload is an active concern for location-based applications that struggle to manage large amounts of data, contributions in the area of egocentric visibility that filter data based on field-of-view demonstrate novel forms of multimodal input. One of the more pertinent characteristics of these applications is the delivery or output modality employed (auditory, visual or tactile). Further contributions in the area of multimodal content delivery are made, where multiple modalities are used to deliver information using graphical user interfaces, tactile interfaces and more notably auditory user interfaces. It is demonstrated how a combination of these interfaces can be used to synergistically deliver context sensitive rich media to users - in a responsive way - based on usage scenarios that consider the affordance of the device, the geographical position and bearing of the device and also the location of the device