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Ambient mass spectrometry (AMS) is a new and versatile method for analysing a multitude of different sample types with the benefit of analysis at ambient pressure and the many other advantages that this entails. However, as these techniques are still in their infancy, metrological development of the techniques is essential. This is a critical step before AMS can be used reliably in the application areas in which it has shown great promise. The research in this thesis addresses the development of AMS sources, in particular plasma-assisted desorption-ionisation, PADI. Optimisation and characterisation is fundamental to understanding and developing the technique. Optimisation of PADI is addressed; this includes understanding the effects of different parameters to maximise signal intensities. The power, and temperature, of the plasma is shown to have a significant effect on the fragmentation observed in the mass spectra. This is an important result that is further explored with the use of thermal desorption to aid the analysis of low volatility molecules. The form of the analyte is also an important consideration for analysis by PADI; characteristic ions from powders are easily detected, whereas for thin film samples an analyte vapour pressure of greater than 10-4 Pa is needed. This result provides an indication of the limitations of PADI and what classes of analyte it will be successful at analysing. It is also shown that we can improve signal intensities using a heated sample stage allowing the analytes to be thermally desorbed before being ionised by the plasma. This is an important result for future work, where ambient plasma sources can be implemented as an ionisation source in conjunction with another mechanism, such as thermal or laser desorption, to generate gas-phase ions. A comparison of different ambient methods for personal care products shows the usefulness and also complementarities of PADI with desorption electrospray ionisation, DESI, one of the most established AMS techniques which utilises a different mechanism for desorption and ionisation. This also demonstrates the chemical information that can quickly be gained from these techniques, with minimal sample preparation. DESI is also compared to secondary ion mass spectrometry, SIMS. Vacuum-based techniques such as SIMS are much more established than ambient techniques; it is insightful to understand the advantages that each source can offer, for the analysis of different types of molecule as well as the mass spectral information that can be gained from SIMS and DESI.

Darkness & Light is a narrative body of work that reflects upon recent changes in my life. The series begins dark and abstract and becomes lighter and more refined with each artwork, functioning as a visual timeline. The chosen color palettes of each artwork are symbolic of my emotional experiences. Darkness & Light is an up-close, very small facet of the much larger work that is taking place within my community. I am inspired by my life and by others who share my philosophy. Throughout the creation of this body of work, I collaborated with various individuals within my community to create a collective design that viewers might find inspiring. The involvement of community within my work has changed the way I view art education.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is an extremely useful molecule with applications in industrial manufacturing, synthetic procedures as a C1 building block, and as a potential pharmaceutical to produce anti-inflammatory effects and vasodilation. However, the toxicity associated with CO has prevented its full utilization. In order to safely handle CO, compounds and molecules have been developed that act as storage materials for the gas. Ideal storage platforms only release CO upon stimulation via a trigger. Light activation is the most desirable trigger as it can be regulated in terms of the intensity and the wavelength of light used. The majority of light-induced CO-storage platforms that have been reported to date consist of metal carbonyl compounds where CO is bound directly to a metal center. However, disadvantages inherent to this motif, such as potential toxicity associated with the metal and lack of characterization of CO release remnant(s), has pushed the research community to search for alternative CO storage structures. The research presented in this dissertation outlines our approach toward the development of safe-to-handle, light-induced CO release platforms. We use a flavonol structure similar to those found in fruits and vegetables, such as quercetin, as a light-induced CO release unit. Through changes in the structure of the flavonol and its surrounding environment in chemical compounds, we have found ways to strategically control the light-induced CO release reactivity of the flavonol. Chemical compounds developed in this project are of interest for studying the effects of CO in biological systems and applications in synthetic processes.

The field of lighting design is a highly specialised one. The control and manipulation of both natural and artificial light is a difficult aspect of building design. Proficient architects, interior designers and engineers must currently draw on their own experience and resources to evaluate their lighting designs. However, most often lighting design is overlooked and not fully understood by building designers. Those lighting designers that do have a good understanding of lighting are hampered by current conventional design methods when dealing with alternative and creative lighting designs. This is especially the case when dealing with natural daylight which tends to be under utilised, particularly in climatic areas that differ greatly from the European standard daylight design skies.There is clearly a need for a tool that enables building designers to quickly and accurately evaluate their use of localised natural light and specific artificial light in their building designs.The recent development of accurate, physically based computer models and the resulting photo realistic computer rendered images, can provide the basis of a platform for lighting designers to visualise their lighting designs. Such lighting platform enables designers to make more informed design decisions when looking at new approaches and unusual situations.The aim of this thesis is to explore and formulate a working example of such a lighting design platform, where by designers can easily evaluate lighting and daylighting designs based upon real world lighting and localised atmospheric conditions. / The designer is presented with an easy to use graphical user interface, that is able to produce a photometrically accurate photo realistic computer image.This platform was achieved through the development of three key areas. The first was the creation of a process of integrating a specific physical based rendering program, RADIANCE (Ward 1996)into an existing three dimensional computer aided design modelling package. The second area consisted of creating a localised daylight model suitable to improve the accuracy of the physical based renderer when dealing with specific local atmospheric conditions. This daylight model was based on Kittlers' sky irradiance model (Kittler 1982a). The final area was the development of a graphical user interface that provides an easy to use, front end to the lighting design platform.The results of this thesis exist in a working suite of programs and graphical user interfaces where local daylight and atmospheric condition can be specified and a photo realistic image of a design produced. The success of this platform can be demonstrated by the quality of the images that are produced. A designer can begin to use the interface with ease after very little instruction and thus start to quickly evaluate their design in terms of lighting manipulation and control. This ability to visualise and assess lighting and its effects, both natural daylight and artificial, will inevitably lead to a higher quality of successful building designs.

To design anything with lightness in mind is perhaps a contradiction in itself. To impose upon the designer such a factor from the outset of a brief surely creates a burden or limitation in the consideration of materials and form. However, the focus of this research project is to examine and apply lightness in a range of contexts or conditions. The aim is to explore the singularity of each condition; then to discuss the paradox and contradictions that are often present in new products that continue to predominate with a duplicitous emphasis on aesthetics and form. For the purpose of exploration of lightness, a series of products will be created to expose the paradox that exists in deploying a strategy such as lightness in singularity, without considering broader implication of product design on the environment, economy and society. These 3D outputs comprise the practice based component of this research, the balance to be a written exegesis. The genuine crisis of sustainable design is the need to design to construct a point of view on design - a paradoxically futile position that is directly linked to the challenge of engaging in true sustainable product design practice. This paradox will be investigated through a range of Sustainable Product Design strategies, examining the irony that exists in producing more goods and services to solve the problems of a world already oversupplied with the 'stuff' of humankind.

This project involves the study of optical properties of polymers doped with TRIMM (transparent refractive index matched micro-particles), and their uses in light guides. The refractive index difference between dopant and host material is small (0.02), so forward transmittance is high, and losses due to backscattering are negligible. Flexible polymer optical fibre (POF) and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) rods are being incorporated into an increasing range of lighting and light mixing applications. For energy efficient mixing of red, green and blue (RGB) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to produce white light and a range of other colours, light is transmitted from the end of a light guide ('endlight'). A major problem here is solved, namely the achievement of uniform illumination, simultaneously with low losses from scattering. Light output from RGB LEDs is shown to be completely mixed by short TRIMM-doped light guides. Alternatively, long lengths of TRIMM-doped POF can be used for 'side-light'. The concentration of TRIMM for these is chosen such that light is emitted from the side walls of the guide to give even illumination along its length. A geometrical method of ray tracing in particle-doped rectangular and cylindrical light guides is derived, and Monte Carlo ray tracing simulations performed for undoped and TRIMM-doped light guides. The evolution of the distribution of ray angles, internal and external to a light guide, with propagation distance are studied. Computer simulations of angular distribution of light emitted from the wall of POF agree with measurements performed using a photogoniometer. Simulations and measurements of light output intensity and colour from RGB LED arrays when projected from the end of a mixing rod, are also presented. Colour calculations agree with photometric measurements of RGB LED output from clear and TRIMM-doped PMMA mixing rods. Results of transmittance measurements and computer simulations show that light losses are almost entirely due to Fresnel reflectance from the entrance and exit surfaces of the rods. Photogoniometer measurements of the angular distribution of light from LEDs are used as a basis for LED source models used in ray tracing simulations. Results of an investigation comparing the effect of using a smoothed LED source model instead of measurement-based models on simulated light output distributions are presented. The light output from LEDs can have sudden peaks in intensity at certain angles, resulting in distinctive patterns with clear colour separation, after mixing in clear polymer mixing rods. These caustic patterns are eliminated by using TRIMM-doped mixing rods, with a transmittance of 90% after Fresnel losses, which can be readily reduced.

Light as a concept is filled with a multitude of interpretations, ideas and possibilities and no matter how technologically progressive we think we are, nature consistently controls our human way of life. We are surrounded by nature and often gain inspiration by the simple things around us. My interest in the phenomena of light and refraction was sparked years ago by Claude Monet?s painting Bathers at La Grenouillere, 1869. It showed simplicity of form and shape, yet emitted a luminosity and radiance of light reflecting off water. This thesis examines the subject of light as an optical phenomenon. My specific aim was to create distorted, ambiguous and conflicting images in my photographs by using the "optical phenomena" of light such as, refraction, diffraction and reflection as a basis for abstracting reality. I wanted to capture the changes that occur when light changes direction due to refractive qualities within a material such as glass, water or plastic, or due to the reflective qualities of a surface. The camera was exploited for its capacity to capture realism, but also to capture and abstract natural phenomenon. The images were enlarged to magnify details and the reality of the physical world was heightened as objects became ambiguous. Design compositional techniques were used to decontextualise objects. I approached this study with the idea that observation and awareness has importance to image making within my design and teaching practice. This thesis presents my project explorations showing the play of light on and through surfaces under different conditions. I have documented this by producing a series of photographic images and a glossary as an aid in the practice of design education.

Towards a Poetics of Light; The Conceits of Light is a critical quest to map associations between rhetorical figures, psychological defences and spatial tropes in an attempt to conceive a poetic design that enacts conceit. Light is an emblem which echoes with an abundance of representations in literature, history, art and architecture and parallels may be drawn between their resemblances however apparently remote. Love, knowledge, hope and creative passion mark turns in the threads that knot ideas and their representations together. Return of the Immortals, the final project in a series of works exploring these parallels and representations, gathers together a cascade of tropes to structure a spatial experience which culminates in The Conceits of Light.

Expansive soils have damage light structures due to movement of soil which was a common problem all around the world. Soils exhibiting expansive properties were common throughout Australia. The damage to light structures founded on expansive soils in Victoria occurred mainly in properties built on quaternary basaltic clays and Tertiary to Ordovician clays. A review of existing literature in the area of expansive soils showed a lack of a thorough scientific diagnostic of the damage to light structures founded on expansive soils. Very few studies had been performed on damage to light structures on expansive soils in Victoria. There were no models so far to predict damage condition to light structures. More over, most of the reports on damage to light structures on expansive soils in Victoria were poorly documented. The aim of this research project was to develop a model to predict the damage condition of light structure on expansive soils in Victoria. A hybrid Neural Network trained with Genetic Algorithm was adopted for the de-velopment of the Predictive Damage Condition model. The Neural Network and Ge-netic Algorithm toolboxes from MATLAB� version 7.1 were used. The development of a Predictive Damage Condition model was driven by the shortage of defined quanti-tative studies and methods of selecting the factors that influenced the damage to light structure on expansive soils. The data used was based on information extracted from the Building Housing Commission which was recorded by different engineering companies based only on the tenants complain and site investigation of the properties. A series of factors that were believed to be dominant in influencing damage to light structures were chosen including: structural type, foundation, the presence of vegetation, soil type, age, and climate change. The model showed that it was able to resolve the problems facing light structures on expansive soils. First and foremost, the Predictive Damage Condition model was able to predict the damage condition or damage class using different combinations of fac-tors. It was also possible to identify the factors contributing to the damage of the struc-ture and to assess their relative importance in causing damage to light structures on expansive soil. It was found that the construction footing and vegetation were the most important among all the other input parameters. Change in Thornthwaite Moisture In-dex or climate was ranked second. Construction wall and age, were ranked third and fourth respectively while both region and geology were ranked fifth. In addition, Change in Thornthwaite Moisture Index was noted to have the strongest correlation with other input parameters.