Constructing Australia : a companion to the ABC TV series

This engaging collection tells the story of how three of Australia's greatest man made-icons were built. The making of the Harbour Bridge, the creation of the Telegraph Line across Australia and the building of the pipeline from Perth to Kalgoolie.

A new approach to the investigation of allergenic respirable particles using a modified Anderson Impactor

Pollen allergens have been shown to occur in fine particles much smaller than pollen grains. As such allergenic particles have a high probability of entering the lower human airways, it is important to further investigate their origin and their biological and immunological properties. Accordingly, we have modified the particle collection surface of an Andersen Impactor using adhesive coated microscope slides to enable identification by high resolution microscopic analysis and immunodetection of allergenic particulates.

New approach to controllable nitrogen doping for improved nano-semiconductors

The data covers the following:
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) - to collect surface chemical structure changes (using RMIT instrument);
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) - to collect surface physical structure changes;
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) - to collect surface morphology changes;
Internal/External quantum efficiency (IQE/EQE) – to collect DSSC (Dye Sensitised Solar Cells) efficiency data;
Discharge/Charge capacity - to collect battery efficiency data.

A new method to warm up lubricating oil to improve the fuel efficiency during cold start

Cold start driving cycles exhibit an increase in friction losses due to the low temperatures of metal and media compared to normal operating engine conditions. These friction losses are responsible for up to 10% penalty in fuel economy over the official drive cycles like the New European Drive Cycle (NEDC), where the temperature of the oil even at the end of the 1180 s of the drive cycle is below the fully warmed up values of between 100°C and 120°C. At engine oil temperatures below 100°C the water from the blow by condensates and dilutes the engine oil in the oil pan which negatively affects engine wear. Therefore engine oil temperatures above 100°C are desirable to minimize engine wear through blow by condensate. The paper presents a new technique to warm up the engine oil that significantly reduces the friction losses and therefore also reduces the fuel economy penalty during a 22°C cold start NEDC. Chassis dynamometer experiments demonstrated fuel economy improvements of over 7% as well as significant emission reductions by rapidly increasing the oil temperature. Oil temperatures were increased by up to 60°C during certain parts of the NEDC. It is shown how a very simple sensitivity analysis can be used to assess the relative size or efficiency of different heat transfer passes and the resulting fuel economy improvement potential of different heat recovery systems system. Due to its simplicity the method is very fast to use and therefore also very cost effective. The method demonstrated a very good correlation for the fuel consumption within ±1% compared to measurements on a vehicle chassis roll.

A new way to nanostructure hydrogels : electrospun thermo-responsive islands-in-the-sea nanofibres

Islands-in-the-sea nanofibres are a very interesting system: one polymer (islands) is distributed in fibrillar domains within a second polymer (sea). This fibre geometry is often used in microfiber technologies to obtain very fine fibers, by removing the “sea” polymer. This geometry also allows to combine two polymers with very different properties. In this work this geometry is introduced applied to electrospun hydrogel nanofibers, in a novel fashion, and as a way to improve and stabilize the hydrogel nanofibers. Thermo-responsive islands-in-the-sea nanofibers are here produced by electrospinning solutions of a hydrogel-forming thermo-responsive polymer (crosslinked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), PNIPAM) and a reinforcing polymer (polyetherketone cardo, PEK-c). The two polymers are thermodynamically incompatible in solution and phase separation takes place, which allows the instant formation of islands-in-the-sea nanofibers upon electrospinning. PNIPAM was then crosslinked post-spinning using an oligomeric silsesquioxane. The formed nanocomposite nanofibers showed intrinsic nanostructure, where the fibril-like PNIPAM domains are intimately adjacent to the strong PEK-c domains. Upon contacting with water, the hydrogel domains became instantly highly swollen, while the PEK-c domains did not. As a result, very wrinkly, swollen fibers were obtained, with increased capillary action, as demonstrated through confocal microscopy. The composite nanofibers in water showed excellent swelling ratios and very fast responses to temperature variations (of the order of 1 second) with morphological and optical effects: variations in fiber-diameter were accompanied by optical transitions: transparent-opaque. The produced hydrogel nanofibers also presented improved mechanical properties (even with small amounts of PEK-c), when compared to their crosslinked-PNIPAM-only nanofibers. It will be also shown how these materials can be used as optical actuators and smart hydrogel platforms with tuneable contact angle and morphology. In brief, this work aims to demonstrate a new platform technology which can be applied to several hydrogel systems, to achieve hydrogel-based composites with new and improved properties, while retaining (and improving) the main properties of the hydrogel. Here this was demonstrated by showing that the composite materials showed thermo-responsiveness, and enhanced transition kinetics.

A new route to nanostructured thermosets with block ionomer complexes

We report a novel approach to prepare nanostructured thermosets using block ionomer complexes. Neither block copolymer polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene-ran- butylene)-block-polystyrene (SEBS) nor block ionomer sulfonated SEBS (SSEBS) is miscible with diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) type epoxy resin. It is thus surprising that the block ionomer complex of SSEBS with a tertiary amine-terminated poly(3-caprolactone) (PCL), denoted as SSEBS-c-PCL, can be used to prepare nanostructured epoxy thermosets. The block ionomer complex SSEBS-c-PCL is synthesized via neutralization of SSEBS with 3-dimethylamino- propylamine-terminated PCL. Sulfonation of SEBS yields the block ionomer SSEBS which is immiscible with epoxy. But the block ionomer complex SSEBS-c-PCL can be easily mixed with DGEBA. When the curing agent 4,4'-methylenedianiline (MDA) is added and the epoxy cures, the system retains the nanostructure. In cured epoxy thermosets containing up to 30 wt% SSEBS-c-PCL, the exclusion of the poly(ethylene-ran-butylene) (EB) phase forms spherical micro-domains surrounded by separated sulfonated polystyrene phase while the PCL side-chains of SSEBS-c-PCL are dissolved in the cured epoxy matrix. The spherical micro-domains are highly aggregated in the epoxy thermosets containing 40 and 50 wt% SSEBS-c-PCL. The existence of epoxy-miscible PCL side-chains in the block ionomer complex SSEBS-c-PCL avoids macro-phase separation. Hence, the block ionomer complex can act as an efficient modifier to achieve nanostructured epoxy thermosets.

New enhancements to cut, fade, and dissolve detection processes in video segmentation

We present improved algorithms for cut, fade, and dissolve detection which are fundamental steps in digital video analysis. In particular, we propose a new adaptive threshold determination method that is shown to reduce artifacts created by noise and motion in scene cut detection. We also describe new two-step algorithms for fade and dissolve detection, and introduce a method for eliminating false positives from a list of detected candidate transitions. In our detailed study of these gradual shot transitions, our objective has been to accurately classify the type of transitions (fade-in, fade-out, and dissolve) and to precisely locate the boundary of the transitions. This distinguishes our work from other early work in scene change detection which tends to focus primarily on identifying the existence of a transition rather than its precise temporal extent. We evaluate our improved algorithms against two other commonly used shot detection techniques on a comprehensive data set, and demonstrate the improved performance due to our enhancements.

New technologies to access lens-mediated effects of the cornea

Contact lenses can affect the cornea in a variety of ways. Corneal structure can be altered so that its thickness changes to involve the epithelium and the stroma. As a result, the curvature may be affected, but whether it is the front or the back surface that is affected depends on the type of lens used. If thickness increases sufficiently, corneal transparency may decrease. Contact lenses can also affect cellular structure of all layers of the cornea through mechanical trauma, hypoxia, or toxicity from solutions that are used in association with lenses. More serious complications, such as inflammation and infection, can arise. All these changes can be detected by clinicians using slitlamp biomicroscopes and keratometers if the changes are significant enough. Since the development of computers, optical instruments have become more sophisticated and have enabled the detection of subtle changes but have also facilitated more precise measurement of these conditions along with the ability to capture images of the alterations or defects. This article describes some of the newer techniques and, specifically, the application of optical coherence tomography, confocal microscopy, and esthesiometry.

The Edinburgh companion to the history of democracy

Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The 45 original essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. It sets a benchmark as the first collection on the history of democracy to present lesser known examples, such as those of ancient China, medieval Islam, colonial Africa or today's Burma, alongside more familiar cases like Athens, the English Parliament, the French Revolution and Women's Suffrage.

Undersdtanding where democracy comes from, and where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy's project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace and freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.

E-governance as digital ecosystem : a new way to think about citizen engagement and the internet?

There has been a long history of attempting to deploy networked information and communications – mostly in the form of the Internet – to support the broad goals of effective, efficient and responsible democratic government. While there has been considerable talk about the way such technologies might promote better governance – through increased citizen participation in debates and discussions about future outcomes – there has been, in contrast, much action that actually uses the Internet for more efficient government, by creating online and networked interfaces by which citizens can transact business with government. There has been only limited success in using the Internet and similar communications channels to allow citizens to participate in their own governance. Undoubtedly, the Internet does facilitate public consultation. For example, the European Commission used an Interactive Policy Making web tool for public consultation on legislation for regulation of chemicals. Over 6,500 contributions were received over a period of 2 months and the consultation process led to the identification of key flaws in proposals, saving billions of Euros (Timmers,2008). However, consultation of this kind tends to be a mechanism for gathering opinion and gaining citizen approval for change that is not different except in transmission form than previous approaches based on meetings and written submissions. While the European Commission example can be seen as successful, Internet-based consultation can too easily become promotional or marketing oriented, as in recent efforts in Australian by the Federal Communications Minister to use a blog to discuss proposed changes to Internet censorship regulations: in this case, discussion and debate from participants appears largely to have been ignored in favour of a pre-existing position. This paper aims to provide a solution to some of these problems by drawing on the idea of how the Internet can host and support a digital eco-system.