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This thesis investigates the changing nature of Western European armaments collaboration between 1990 and 2000. Falling defence budgets, American defence restructuring, a decreasing world armaments market and moves towards a European Defence and Security Policy, have forced greater co-operation between Western European states on armaments policy. Although the European Union and Western European Union have responded to these changing circumstances, the most farreaching co-operation has been intergovernmental; in defence procurement, the establishment of OCCAR, and in defence industrial policy, the Framework Agreement. These developments show the emergence of a core group of countries in armaments matters; the most important of which are Britain, France and Germany. The thesis argues that, notwithstanding these institutional developments and the similar external and domestic pressures on West European states, national armaments policies continue to reflect distinctive national paths, and that these differences adversely affect the prospects of increased armaments coil aborati on. Synthesising new institutionalist and social constructivist approaches, the thesis examines policy continuity and change in Britain, France and Germany in this period by considering state-defence industry relations, state-military relations and the defence procurement bureaucracy. It scrutinises the policy changes made in the three countries in response to the pressures on the Western European armaments sector. It contends that national strategic culture, models of state-industry relations and the culture of defence procurement organisations continue to reflect historical patterns and domestic constraints, and thus are proving resistant to the changes in policy. The thesis concludes by assessing the prospects for greater European armaments collaboration.

Integrative drama/theatre is a process founded upon the principles and practices of educational drama/theatre, and incorporates approaches and techniques intended to facilitate the integration of students with disabilities into regular classrooms. This educational approach is open-ended, creative and child-centred. / This study explores the integrative drama/theatre process in two projects implemented in a regular high school in Montreal. Subjects for the study were 30 students from the school. The 17 students in the integrative drama project were from grade seven, and the 13 students in the integrative theatre project were from grade eleven. Three of the students in each project had disabilities and had had a significant portion of their previous education in segregated schools. / A variety of qualitative and quantitative data gathering instruments were incorporated into the design of each project in order to observe and record what happened. Data analyses suggest that both projects were effective in promoting the acceptance of students with disabilities by their non-disabled peers, and in providing students with disabilities experience and confidence working in integrated environments. The integrative theatre project seemed more successful than the integrative drama project. Student age, program content, teacher style and experience, the level of student social interaction skills and time management were found to be significant factors in influencing the relative effectiveness of the integrative drama/theatre process in these projects. The implication of these results, the study's limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Simulations were carried out to determine the optical properties of 2 different layer structures which have been used in quantum well intermixed devices. The supported modes, effective refractive indices and optimal device dimensions prior to intermixing were reported. 1.5 micrometer ridge waveguides with 600 micrometer bend radii are shown to be suitable for minimizing loss. A first approximation to the intermixed structures were also simulated. An Asymmetric Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (AMZI) fabricated using a sputtered SiO2 Quantum Well Intermixing (QWI) process was also characterized. A 100 GHz channel spacing with an extinction ratio up to 16 dB was observed. Tuning of the device was achieved using current injection. A 0.45 nm tuning range was achieved at 15 mA of injected current. The design of a monolithically integrated all optical binary half-adder is also presented, with physical dimensions based on the results of the previous simulations.

Simulations were carried out to determine the optical properties of 2 different layer structures which have been used in quantum well intermixed devices. The supported modes, effective refractive indices and optimal device dimensions prior to intermixing were reported. 1.5 micrometer ridge waveguides with 600 micrometer bend radii are shown to be suitable for minimizing loss. A first approximation to the intermixed structures were also simulated. An Asymmetric Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (AMZI) fabricated using a sputtered SiO2 Quantum Well Intermixing (QWI) process was also characterized. A 100 GHz channel spacing with an extinction ratio up to 16 dB was observed. Tuning of the device was achieved using current injection. A 0.45 nm tuning range was achieved at 15 mA of injected current. The design of a monolithically integrated all optical binary half-adder is also presented, with physical dimensions based on the results of the previous simulations.

Systems-of-Systems are epitomised by features such as the prevalence of complex webs of mutual interdependency amongst their component systems, the involvement of a broad diversity of stakeholders and the participation of a number of independent decision-makers, each of whom competes with the others for strictly limited resources. The components of Systems-of-Systems may often be found to be widely scattered across an extensive geographical region and span global distances. These are becoming more prevalent in an increasingly interconnected world engendered by the proliferation of modern information and communication technology. / Thesis (MEng(ElectronicsEngineering))--University of South Australia, 2006.

Integration of GPS with Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) can provide reliable and complete positioning and geo-referencing parameters including position, velocity and attitude for dynamic platforms for a variety of applications. This research has been focusing on four modelling and implementation issues for a GPS/INS integrated platform in order to improve the overall integration performance, in particular: a) Time synchronization Having recognised that having a precise time synchronisation of measurements is fundamental in constructing a multi-sensor integration platform and is critical for achieving high data fusion performance, various time synchronisation scenarios and solutions have been investigated. A criterion for evaluating synchronisation accuracy and error impacts has been derived; an innovative time synchronisation solution has been proposed; an applicable data logging system has been implemented with off-the-shelf components and tested. b) Noise suppression of INS raw measurements Low cost INS sensors, especially MEMS INS, would normally exhibit much larger measurement noise than conventional INS sensors. A novel method of using vehicle dynamic information for de-noising raw INS sensor measurements has been proposed in this research. Since the vehicle dynamic model has the characteristic of a low pass filter, passing the raw INS sensor measurements through it effectively reduces the high frequency noise component. c) Adaptive Kalman filtering The present data fusion algorithms, which are mostly based on the Kalman filter, have the stringent requirement on precise a priori knowledge of the system model and noise properties. This research has investigated the utilization issues of online stochastic modelling algorithm, and then proposed a new adaptive process noise scaling algorithm which has shown remarkable capability in autonomously tuning the process noise covariance estimates to the optimal magnitude. d) Integration of a low cost INS sensor with a standalone GPS receiver To improve the performance where a standalone GPS receiver integrated with a MEMS INS, additional velocity aiding and a new integration structure has been adopted in this research. Field test shows that velocity determination accuracy could reach the centimetre level, and the errors of MEMS INS have been limited to such a level that it can generate stable attitude and heading references under low dynamic conditions.

Zugl.: Osnabrück, Univ., Diss. 2005