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Due to the absence of any satellite-based global positioning system on Mars, the Mars Exploration Rovers commonly track position changes of the vehicle using a technique called visual odometry (VO), where updated rover poses are determined by tracking keypoints between stereo image pairs. Unfortunately, the error of VO grows super-linearly with the distance traveled, primarily due to the contribution of orientation error. This thesis outlines a novel approach incorporating sun sensor and inclinometer measurements directly into the VO pipeline, utilizing absolute orientation information to reduce the error growth of the motion estimate. These additional measurements have very low computation, power, and mass requirements, providing a localization improvement at nearly negligible cost. The mathematical formulation of this approach is described in detail, and extensive results are presented from experimental trials utilizing data collected during a 10 kilometre traversal of a Mars analogue site on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic.

Due to the absence of any satellite-based global positioning system on Mars, the Mars Exploration Rovers commonly track position changes of the vehicle using a technique called visual odometry (VO), where updated rover poses are determined by tracking keypoints between stereo image pairs. Unfortunately, the error of VO grows super-linearly with the distance traveled, primarily due to the contribution of orientation error. This thesis outlines a novel approach incorporating sun sensor and inclinometer measurements directly into the VO pipeline, utilizing absolute orientation information to reduce the error growth of the motion estimate. These additional measurements have very low computation, power, and mass requirements, providing a localization improvement at nearly negligible cost. The mathematical formulation of this approach is described in detail, and extensive results are presented from experimental trials utilizing data collected during a 10 kilometre traversal of a Mars analogue site on Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic.

Exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UV) results in both damaging and beneficial health outcomes. Excessive UV exposure has been linked to many skin and eye problems, but moderate exposure induces vitamin D production. It has been reported that humans receive 90-95% of their vitamin D from production that starts after UV exposure. Although it is possible to acquire vitamin D through dietary supplementation, the average person receives very little in this manner. Therefore, since most people acquire their vitamin D from synthesis after exposure to UV from sunlight, it is very important to understand the different environments in which people encounter UV. This project measured UV radiation and in-vitro vitamin D production in the urban canyon and at a nearby suburban location. The urban canyon is an environment consisting of tall buildings and tropospheric air pollution, which have an attenuating effect on UV. Typically, UV measurements are collected in areas outside the urban canyon, meaning that at times studies and public recommendations do not accurately represent the amount of UV reaching street-level in highly urbanized areas. Understanding of UV exposure in urban canyons becomes increasingly important as the number of people working and living in large cities steadily increases worldwide. This study was conducted in the central business district (CBD) of Brisbane, Australia, which models the urban canyons of large cities around the world in that it boasts a great number of tall buildings, including many skyscrapers, meaning that most areas only see a small amount of direct sunlight each day. During the winter of 2007 measurements of UV radiation and in-vitro vitamin D production were collected in the CBD and at a suburban site approximately 2.5km outside the CBD. Air pollution data was obtained from a central CBD measurement site. Data analysis showed that urban canyon measurements of both UV radiation and in-vitro vitamin D production were significantly lower than those collected at the suburban site. These results will aid both future researchers and policy makers in better understanding human UV exposure in Brisbane’s CBD and other urban canyons around the world.

By the 1960s-70s, most Western commentators agreed that Japan had rehabilitated itself from World War II, in the process becoming on the whole a reliable member of the international community. From the late 1970s onwards, however, as Japan’s economy continued to rise, this premise began to be questioned. By the late 1980s, a new ‘Japan Problem’ had been identified in Western countries, although the presentation of Japan as a dangerous ‘other’ was nevertheless familiar from past historical eras. The term ‘Japan-bashing’ was used by opponents of this negative view to suggest that much of the critical rhetoric about a ‘Japan Problem’ could be reduced to an unwarranted, probably racist, assault on Japan. This thesis argues that the invention and popularisation of the highly-contested label ‘Japan-bashing’, rather than averting criticism of Japan, perversely helped to exacerbate and transform the moderate anti-Japanese sentiment that had existed in Western countries in the late 1970s and early 1980s into a widely disseminated, heavily politicised and even encultured phenomenon in the late 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, when the term ‘Japan-bashing’ spread to Japan itself, Japanese commentators were quick to respond. In fact, the level and the nature of the response from the Japanese side is one crucial factor that distinguishes ‘Japan-bashing’ in the 1980s and 1990s from anti-Japanese sentiment expressed in the West in earlier periods. Ultimately, the label and the practice of ‘Japan-bashing’ helped to transform intellectual and popular discourses about Japan in both Western countries and Japan itself in the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, in doing so, it revealed crucial features of wider Western and Japanese perceptions of the global order in the late twentieth century. Debates about Japan showed, for example, that economic strength had become at least as important as military power to national discourses about identity. However, the view that Western countries and Japan are generally incompatible, and share few, if any, common values, interests or goals, has been largely discarded in the early twenty-first century, in a process that demonstrated just how constructed, and transitory, such views can be.

By the 1960s-70s, most Western commentators agreed that Japan had rehabilitated itself from World War II, in the process becoming on the whole a reliable member of the international community. From the late 1970s onwards, however, as Japan’s economy continued to rise, this premise began to be questioned. By the late 1980s, a new ‘Japan Problem’ had been identified in Western countries, although the presentation of Japan as a dangerous ‘other’ was nevertheless familiar from past historical eras. The term ‘Japan-bashing’ was used by opponents of this negative view to suggest that much of the critical rhetoric about a ‘Japan Problem’ could be reduced to an unwarranted, probably racist, assault on Japan. This thesis argues that the invention and popularisation of the highly-contested label ‘Japan-bashing’, rather than averting criticism of Japan, perversely helped to exacerbate and transform the moderate anti-Japanese sentiment that had existed in Western countries in the late 1970s and early 1980s into a widely disseminated, heavily politicised and even encultured phenomenon in the late 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, when the term ‘Japan-bashing’ spread to Japan itself, Japanese commentators were quick to respond. In fact, the level and the nature of the response from the Japanese side is one crucial factor that distinguishes ‘Japan-bashing’ in the 1980s and 1990s from anti-Japanese sentiment expressed in the West in earlier periods. Ultimately, the label and the practice of ‘Japan-bashing’ helped to transform intellectual and popular discourses about Japan in both Western countries and Japan itself in the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, in doing so, it revealed crucial features of wider Western and Japanese perceptions of the global order in the late twentieth century. Debates about Japan showed, for example, that economic strength had become at least as important as military power to national discourses about identity. However, the view that Western countries and Japan are generally incompatible, and share few, if any, common values, interests or goals, has been largely discarded in the early twenty-first century, in a process that demonstrated just how constructed, and transitory, such views can be.

By the 1960s-70s, most Western commentators agreed that Japan had rehabilitated itself from World War II, in the process becoming on the whole a reliable member of the international community. From the late 1970s onwards, however, as Japan’s economy continued to rise, this premise began to be questioned. By the late 1980s, a new ‘Japan Problem’ had been identified in Western countries, although the presentation of Japan as a dangerous ‘other’ was nevertheless familiar from past historical eras. The term ‘Japan-bashing’ was used by opponents of this negative view to suggest that much of the critical rhetoric about a ‘Japan Problem’ could be reduced to an unwarranted, probably racist, assault on Japan. This thesis argues that the invention and popularisation of the highly-contested label ‘Japan-bashing’, rather than averting criticism of Japan, perversely helped to exacerbate and transform the moderate anti-Japanese sentiment that had existed in Western countries in the late 1970s and early 1980s into a widely disseminated, heavily politicised and even encultured phenomenon in the late 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, when the term ‘Japan-bashing’ spread to Japan itself, Japanese commentators were quick to respond. In fact, the level and the nature of the response from the Japanese side is one crucial factor that distinguishes ‘Japan-bashing’ in the 1980s and 1990s from anti-Japanese sentiment expressed in the West in earlier periods. Ultimately, the label and the practice of ‘Japan-bashing’ helped to transform intellectual and popular discourses about Japan in both Western countries and Japan itself in the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, in doing so, it revealed crucial features of wider Western and Japanese perceptions of the global order in the late twentieth century. Debates about Japan showed, for example, that economic strength had become at least as important as military power to national discourses about identity. However, the view that Western countries and Japan are generally incompatible, and share few, if any, common values, interests or goals, has been largely discarded in the early twenty-first century, in a process that demonstrated just how constructed, and transitory, such views can be.

The active F dwarf HR 1817 represents the upper temperature extreme of what are broadly termed solar-type stars - stars which have the same internal structure as the Sun, albeit in this case with a much smaller convective zone. To date, studies of the active surface features and magnetic fields of solar-type stars have been restricted to G and K dwarfs. This thesis investigates the surface and magnetic features of HR 1817 using the techniques of Doppler and Zeeman Doppler Imaging, resulting in tomographic maps of the stellar surface and magnetic field. Cooler stars than HR 1817 exhibit large polar spots, and while HR 1817 also exhibits a polar spot, it is not nearly as large as those usually seen. The lower-latitude surface features of HR 1817 are weak but well defined and cover a relatively small area of the stellar surface. Total spot coverage is relatively small (~ 1.7 - 2 per cent). Zeeman Doppler Imaging reveals that HR 1817 exhibits a richly-detailed, though weak magnetic topography. A ring of azimuthal field appears around the pole, while the radial field exhibits many well-defined and distinct bipolar mid-latitude magnetic features, perhaps indicating a more dominant interface dynamo as opposed to the posited distributed dynamo of cooler active dwarfs. Finally, a differential rotation measurement of the star indicates an extremely large rotational shear. Values for the equatorial rotation and rotational shear of 6.494 +/- 0.010 rad/d and 0.256 +/- 0.017 rad/d respectively are found. This equatorial rotation is equivalent to a rotational period for HR 1817 of ~ 0.98 days. The very high rotational shear of 0.256 rad/d is fast enough for the equator to lap the pole in approximately 23 days.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Edith Cowan University, 2006. / Submitted to the Faculty of Computing, Health and Science. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.