Automatic grain texture analysis using integral transforms

Tonewood for musical instruments is quarter-sawn and frequently quality-graded based on visual appearance, mechanical and acoustic properties. The assessment uses simple human (subjective) observation, and two ‘‘experts’’ can rate the same sample differently. This paper describes the application of integral transforms (Fourier and Radon) for automatic (objective) assessment of the visual appearance of 10 Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) sample images. This work considers surface classification on the basis of grain orientation, count, spacing, and evenness or uniformity.

Haptic control of multi-axis robotic systems

Control of tele-operated remote robot’s is nothing new; the public was introduced to this 'new' field in 1986 when the Chernobyl cleanup began. Pictures of weird and wonderful robotic workers pouring concrete or moving rubble flooded the world. Integration of force feedback or 'haptics' to remote robot's is a new development and one that is likely to make a big difference in man-machine interaction. Development of haptic capable tele-operation schema is a challenge. Often platform specific software is developed for one off tasks. This research focussed on the development of an open software platform for haptic control of multiple remote robotic platforms. The software utilises efficient server/client architecture for low data latency, while efficiently performing required kinematic transforms and data manipulation in real time. A description of the algorithm, software interface and hardware is presented in this paper. Preliminary results are encouraging as haptic control has been shown to greatly enhances remote positioning tasks.

Taxonomy and biology of two new species of gall midge (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) infesting Sarcocornia quinqueflora (Chenopodiaceae) in Australian salt marshes

Two new species of gall midge associated with two distinct galls on the succulent creeping shrub Sarcocornia quinqueflora are described from salt marshes in south-eastern Australia. The infestations caused by the new species hinder the growth of S. quinqueflora, the seeds of which are the major food of the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot Neophema chrysogaster. Asphondylia floriformis sp. n. Veenstra-Quah & Kolesik transforms leaf segments into flower-like galls, whereas Asphondylia sarcocorniae sp. n. Veenstra-Quah & Kolesik produces simple swellings on branches. Both galls have fungal mycelium growing in the apoplast of the gall tissue and lining the inner surface of the larval chamber where it is presumably grazed by the larva. Descriptions of the larvae, pupae, males, females and the geographical distribution of the two gall midges in south-eastern Australia are given.

Studio enquiry and new frontiers of research

Given the growing complexity of human existence, there is a need for new ways of representing ideas and of illuminating the world and domains of knowledge. A growing recognition of the limits of traditional ways of representing the world has given rise to a search for alternative approaches to transform and represent the contents of consciousness or what can be known of lived experience. Researchers are recognising that scientific inquiry is just one type of research and that ‘research is not merely a species of social science’ (Eisner 1997: 261). Dissatisfaction with positivism and behaviourism as reductive modes of knowing has also come from within the science disciplines themselves. In his work entitled, The Discontinuous Universe, (1972) Werner Heisenberg states that the knowledge of science is applicable only to limited realms of experience and the scientific method is but a single method for understanding the world. Moreover, the notion of scientifically-based knowledge as statements of ultimate truth contains an inner contradiction since ‘the employment of this procedure changes and transforms its object’ (Heisenberg 1972: 189). The work of Heisenberg and others including: Lincoln and Denzin (2003), Schwandt, (2001) and Schon (1983) reveals that knowledge is relational and that different models of inquiry will yield different forms of knowledge.

Stability and convergence analysis of transform-domain LMS adaptive filters with second-order autoregressive process

In this paper, the stability and convergence properties of the class of transform-domain least mean square (LMS) adaptive filters with second-order autoregressive (AR) process are investigated. It is well known that this class of adaptive filters improve convergence property of the standard LMS adaptive filters by applying the fixed data-independent orthogonal transforms and power normalization. However, the convergence performance of this class of adaptive filters can be quite different for various input processes, and it has not been fully explored. In this paper, we first discuss the mean-square stability and steady-state performance of this class of adaptive filters. We then analyze the effects of the transforms and power normalization performed in the various adaptive filters for both first-order and second-order AR processes. We derive the input asymptotic eigenvalue distributions and make comparisons on their convergence performance. Finally, computer simulations on AR process as well as moving-average (MA) process and autoregressive-moving-average (ARMA) process are demonstrated for the support of the analytical results.

On performance of transform domain adaptive filters with Markov-2 inputs

In this paper, the analysis for the performance of the discrete Fourier transform LMS adaptive filter (DFT-LMS) and the discrete cosine transform LMS adaptive filter (DCT-LMS) for the Markov-2 inputs is presented. To improve the convergence property of the least mean squares (LMS) adaptive filter, the DFT-LMS and DCT-LMS preprocess the inputs with the fixed orthogonal transforms and power normalization. We derive the asymptotic results for the eigenvalues and eigenvalue distributions of the preprocessed input autocorrelation matrices with DFT-LMS and DCT-LMS for Markov-2 inputs. These results explicitly show the superior decorrelation property of DCT-LMS over that of DFT-LMS, and also provide the upper bounds for the eigenvalue spreads of the finite-length DFT-LMS and DCT-LMS adaptive filters. Simulation results are demonstrated to support the analytic results.

Inclusive schooling : contexts, texts and politics

The title ‘Inclusive schooling: contexts, texts and politics’, names a thesis which critically analyses the development of inclusive schooling in the small Australian Island state of Tasmania between 1996 and 1998. The ‘Inclusion of Students with Disabilities’ policy, introduced in 1995 by the Tasmanian Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development, provides an opportunity to understand the cultural context and politics of change in schooling over this period. The qualitative methodology deployed here is informed by poststructuralism and captures the everyday experiences of university teaching as a research site. The teacher/researcher as the visible maker of the research use metaphors of fibre and textile practice, techniques of textual juxtaposition and her positioned subjectivity as a female academic to tell a 'big story'. The researcher develops a 'double method' as a possible model for Inclusive research practice and educational policy analysis. Using a critical ethnographic method, derived from the work of Carspecken (1996), 'data stories' (Lather & Smithies 1997, p.34) are produced from the narratives of five key informants – a parent, two teachers, a policy-maker and the researcher. Assembled as the data of the thesis the multi-voiced texts provide an account of the sociocultural, professional and systemic context of Inclusive schooling over a three-year period. In the analysis these data are interpreted from a feminist poststructural standpoint. A deconstructuive reading of the data stories interprets the discourse of inclusive schooling emphasising the dominant foundation of the special education knowledge tradition. The idea of author function (after Foucault 1975, 1984b and Grundy and Hatton 1995) is used to interpret the 'texts' of the key Informants as discursive constructions. The researcher theorises inclusive schooling as an entangled, multiple and contradictory discourse, embedded in the social, cultural and material contexts, rather than a singular unitary Idea of the progress within the special education knowledge tradition. The study contributes a fine-grained analysis of the constructed knowledge of inclusive schooling in one locality. The thesis advocates continuing engagement with questions of epistemology and social transformation in inclusive schooling, rather than persisting with technical rationality and the status quo. The researcher takes the position that the opportunities to theorise inclusive schooling lie within the multiple and disparate constructed texts of the micro world of everyday practice and the macro understanding of understandings of contemporary social justice. The poststructuralist writing/reading questions traditionalist theorising in the special education field. Central to the negotiations of power and truth inclusive schooling research and practice is a communicative theory that transforms populist conceptions of inclusion.

New way of seeing things : Ernst Troeltsch and the theological agenda

The aim of this thesis, as set out in the Introduction, is to assess the (seminal) significance of Troeltsch as one who set the agenda for twentieth century theology, particularly modern sociopolitical theology, and whose thought still has a special relevance. The first main chapter deals with the implications of the philosophy of history for theology. The Protestant theological orthodoxy of Troeltsch's time was essential ahistorical: he thought this to be untenable. Theology had to come to terms with the historical method, which was ‘a leaven which transforms everything, and finally bursts all previous forms of theological method.’ This chapter discusses Troeltsch's work concerning the principles, the cultural matrix, and the philosophy of history. The second main chapter examines another main concern of Troeltsch, namely, the status of Christianity vis-a-vis other religions. The background to this was the increasing awareness of the existence of other religions and the question of relativity and universality which this posed. Troeltschfs major response was Die Absolutheit des Christentums in which the ideas of essence, Europeanism, and absolutism were discussed, The third, and longest, chapter looks at the impact of social theory on theology. Sociology gave Troeltsch ‘a new way of seeing things’, and this new perspective is to be seen pre-eminently in The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches. Discussion of this centres on the three main concepts that Troeltsch delineated, compromise, natural law, and church/sect typology.

Surrender to the market : thoughts on anthropology, the body shop, and intellectuals

The direction of anthropology over the last century is tied to the shifts from colonialism to postcolonialism and from modernism to postmodernism. These shifts have seen the thoroughgoing incorporation of the world population into the economic, political and juridical domain established through the last throes of colonialism and the transmutations of capitalism and the State. Anthropology, a discipline whose history shows close and regular links with colonial government, also transforms in association with the world it describes and partly creates. Two dominant trends in contemporary anthropology--applied consultancy and historicist self-reflexivity--are compared for the ways they represent the transmutation, which is characterised, following Fredric Jameson as 'the surrender to the market'. In this way it is asserted that just as the discipline had hitherto revealed its links to colonialism, it now reveals its links to globalisation through a form of commodified self-obsession. To illustrate this quality the paper considers the global chain of cosmetics stores, The Body Shop, as an example of 'late capitalism' and the moral juridical framework of globalisation. Finally, it treats these developments in anthropology as more generally affecting intellectuals and knowledge production through the promotion of intellectual 'silence'.

63Cu NMR investigation of effect of small additions of Sn to Al-1.7 at.%Cu in promoting accelerated phase transformations on aging

Very recently 63Cu NMR has been shown to be extremely sensitive in detecting and differentiating between the precipitate phases that form in Al-Cu alloys during heat treatment. This technique is now used to quantify the effectiveness of small additions of Sn to the alloy Al-1.7 at.% Cu in promoting the rapid nucleation and growth of the θ'-phase precipitate. Two parallel series of 63Cu NMR spectra were recorded for Al-1.7 at.% Cu and Al-1.7 at.% Cu-0.01 at.% Sn: (i) aged at 130° C to observe the comparative rate of phase evolution and (ii) aged at 200° C to observe the rate of growth of θ'-phase and to compare with the Vickers hardness of the alloys aged at 200° C for similar periods. Evidence is presented that a metastable precursor phase to θ' (labelled TPHM2757math001) is formed in Al-Cu-Sn which transforms to θ' on further aging.

Structure and transport properties in an N,N-substituted pyrrolidinium tetrafluoroborate plastic crystal system

The structure and transport of N-propyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium tetrafluoroborate (P₁₃BF₄) has been investigated over a wide temperature range in consequence to exhibiting properties suitable for potential solid-state superionic electrolyte applications. Prior to melting, the organic salt, P₁₃BF₄, transforms into a plastic crystal phase. Intrinsic conductivity in this solid, phase I (45–65 °C), is comparable to that in the melt (_~10⁻³ S cm⁻¹). Ionic motion and transport properties were investigated by ¹H and ¹¹B nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Pressure-induced plastic flow in this system may accommodate volume changes in device application and to this extent, X-ray diffraction (XRD) has been used. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed complex surface morphology and lattice imperfections associated with the strong orientational disorder of the plastic state.

A method for stereo-vision-based tracking for robotic applications

Vision-based tracking of an object using perspective projection inherently results in non-linear measurement equations in the Cartesian coordinates. The underlying object kinematics can be modelled by a linear system. In this paper we introduce a measurement conversion technique that analytically transforms the non-linear measurement equations obtained from a stereo-vision system into a system of linear measurement equations.We then design a robust linear filter around the converted measurement system. The state estimation error of the proposed filter is bounded and we provide a rigorous theoretical analysis of this result. The performance of the robust filter developed in this paper is demonstrated via computer simulation and via practical experimentation using a robotic manipulator as a target. The proposed filter is shown to outperform the extended Kalman filter (EKF).

Managing youth transitions in the network society

Castells argues that society is being reconstituted according to the global logic of networks. This paper discusses the ways in which a globalised network logic transforms the nature of young people’s transitions from school to work. Furthermore, the paper explores the ways in which this network logic restructures the manner in which youth transitions are managed via the emergence of a Vocational Education and Training (VET) agenda in Australian post compulsory secondary schooling. It also notes the implications of the emergence of the ‘network society’ for locality generally and for selected localities specific to the research upon which this paper is based. It suggests that schools represent nodes in a range of VET and other networks, and shows how schools and other agencies in particular localities mobilise their expertise to construct such networks. These networks are networked, funded and regulated at various levels—regionally, nationally and globally. But, they are also facilitated by personal networking opportunities and capacities. The paper also points to the ways in which the ‘refexivity chances’ of young people are shaped by this network logic—a situation that generates new forms of responsibility, for schools and teachers, with regard to the management of youth transitions.

A social perspective of sports-based entrepreneurship

In this paper I develop the concept of sport-based entrepreneurship and argue that it provides a potential social orientated strategy for the development of sports-related businesses. I maintain that this emerging form of entrepreneurship is usually inherent in the management of sports, which transforms sport-based organisations into an entrepreneur and enterprise. This paper draws on interdisciplinary approaches from the entrepreneurship and sport management literature to discuss the social entrepreneurship inherent within sports-based organisations. The sport sector provides an exploration of the contextual boundaries of social entrepreneurship and provides a useful discussion on the innovation, risk taking and proactive activity. The implications for sport organisations involved in social entrepreneurship are stated and the importance of governments around the world to promote social entrepreneurship in sport are highlighted. In addition, suggestions for future research are stated that highlight the role of sport-based entrepreneurship theory for examining social change.