The effects of selected modern technological concepts on the performance and handling characteristics of LTA vehicles

The results of an airship design sensitivity study are presented. A wide variety of airship design concepts, including the classical and high aero-lift augmented-hybrids are examined with regard to specific technological improvements, and consequent gains in performance, stability and control and flying qualities. Variations in size, payload, power required and airspeed are quantitatively analyzed for airships representing aero-to-buoyant lift ratios of zero to 3.0 over a range of technology improvements implying reduced drag, reduced structural weight fractions and lighter, more efficient propulsion systems. Qualitatively, future airships are discussed in terms of stability, control and flying qualities requirements dictated by projected demands for vastly improved operational effectiveness and ease of handling. Such topics include stability augmentation systems, load-alleviation systems and total computer state-sensing and controls management systems. It was shown that, for the most part, highly refined conventional designs offer attractive gains in both performance and ease of handling. Hybrid airships represent a good potential for missions requiring the transport of heavy payloads at higher airspeeds over shorter ranges without the capability for sustained hover and vertical flight

The Albanian and an accompanying exegesis : place and form in The Albanian

This thesis takes the form of a novel titled The Albanian and an exegesis, “Place and Form in The Albanian . The novel spans the period from October 1989 to the end of 1991 and is set against a backdrop of Eastern European change and its effect on a small group of Albanian refugees and Rosa, a young woman from Western Australia. Rosa narrates the tale in first person, present tense. The novel begins with her arrival in Dubrovnik, where she meets a young Albanian man on the verge of exiling himself in order to survive ethnic persecution. He fascinates Rosa, because of his mixture of aggression and deep feeling and she sympathises with his plight. Rosa travels through the Balkans, passing through Bucharest during the early stages of the Communist overthrow and learning about history and politics, love and her sense of who she is. She is often dreaming of finding the young man again and eventually returns to Dubrovnik, Rosa is disappointed by the difference between what she has imagined during their time apart and who he is in reality but she accompanies him in search of political asylum in Sweden. This journey is a pivotal point in the relationship and Rosa leaves Europe, having begun to love him. Rosa returns home, to Bunbury, where life is unchanged and ordinary and she is torn by concurrent feelings of alienation and belonging. Again, she travels to meet the Albanian in Sweden. This time she learns about his culture, and the truth of his presence there. The novel ends in London in 1999. The exegesis is divided into three sections, all exploring issues of belonging and not belonging and how they relate to different aspects of The Albanian. The first section considers belonging, displacement and transit in the novel and how these states of being are used to explore Australian and refugee identity issues, meanings of home and exile. The second and third sections of the exegesis consider the placement of the novel within and outside established genres. The second section demonstrates the extent to which the novel fulfils the criteria of traditional autobiography through an exposition of sources, and then discusses variations in the genre and the novel\u27s fictional elements. The third section of the exegesis demonstrates the adherence of the novel to traditional narrative form using Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale, and goes on to explore postmodern elements which hybridise the text

Genuine Non-Self-Averaging and Ultra-Slow Convergence in Gelation

In irreversible aggregation processes droplets or polymers of microscopic size successively coalesce until a large cluster of macroscopic scale forms. This gelation transition is widely believed to be self-averaging, meaning that the order parameter (the relative size of the largest connected cluster) attains well-defined values upon ensemble averaging with no sample-to-sample fluctuations in the thermodynamic limit. Here, we report on anomalous gelation transition types. Depending on the growth rate of the largest clusters, the gelation transition can show very diverse patterns as a function of the control parameter, which includes multiple stochastic discontinuous transitions, genuine non-self-averaging and ultra-slow convergence of the transition point. Our framework may be helpful in understanding and controlling gelation.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Busselton Jetty Sculpture Walk Signage

Research Background: Sculptures were commissioned for Jetty from Safehaven Studio who provided a professional workshop to local writers in order to commission writing. I was invited to attend. Workshops included a marine biologist specialising in Geographe Bay and local historian, internationally renowned nature writer Mark Tredinnick and facilitator Donna Ward from Indigo Journal. Research involved site visits and discussions with these local experts with the intention of producing well considered literary works. This poem was produced in 2011 for the jetty installation and considers the question of permanence and change in the life of the jetty, which is subject to natural forces. It also considers the historic context of the railway line on the jetty. This fits within the burgeoning field of ecological literature. Research Contribution: The poem was one of 12 chosen for etching into steel or glass along the jetty. It considers the cultural significance of the railway in the history of the jetty and its role in the timber industry. It contributes to the understanding of history and sense of place. The poem is etched into the steel rails on the jetty. Research Significance: The project was Highly Commended as an outstanding interpretation project that enhances place in the Western Australian Heritage Awards 2012. (http://stateheritage.wa.gov.au/awards-pages/2012-western-australian-heritage-award-winners) The Busselton Jetty is the major tourist attraction in the South West, attracting over 400,000 visitors each year (http://www.busseltonjetty.net/about-jetty.aspx). The poem is on permanent display as part of the interpretive writing and sculpture with attribution to me

Kinks and waterfalls as signatures of competing order in angle-resolved photoemission spectra of La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4

We show that the so-called kinks and waterfalls observed in angle-resolved photoemission spectra of La2-xSrxCuO4, a prototypical high-Tc superconducting cuprate, result from the coupling of quasiparticles with two distinct nearly critical collective modes with finite characteristic wave vectors, typical of charge and spin fluctuations near a stripe instability. Both phonon-like charge and spin collective modes are needed to account for the kinked quasiparticle dispersions. This clarifies the long-standing question whether kinks are due to phonons or spin waves and the nature of the bosonic mediators of the electron-electron effective interaction in La2-xSrxCuO4.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Separating risk in education from heterogeneity: a semiparametric approach

Returns to education are variable within the same educational group. If uncertain payoffs are a concern to individuals when selecting education, wage variance is relevant. It is the resultant of unobserved heterogeneity and pure uncertainty. The first element is known to the individual, but unknown to the researcher, the second is unknown to both. If individuals exploit private information to select their level of education the variance observed in the data will overestimate the real magnitude of educational uncertainty and the impact that risk has on educational decisions. In this paper we will apply a semi parametric estimator to tackle the selectivity issues. This method does not rely on the joint normality of errors in the selection and wage equations and is robust to misspecification of the errors distribution. Results suggest that pure risk tends to increase with education. Private information accounts for a bigger share of total wage variance observed in the data than previously thought