The Australian Imperial Force in the First World War had a deserved reputation as an effective fighting force, and at the same had the worst disciplinary record away from the frontline when compared with other Dominion forces and the rest of the British Army. Australian indiscipline is a subject that has been largely ignored, or when dealt with as in the Official History by C. E. W. Bean, has had to pass through the filter of the Australian Legend. This study examines the link between Australian indiscipline and the privileged position they held of being the only force immune from the death penalty, except for mutiny, desertion to the enemy and traitorous activity. This simple fact would have a major influence on the relatively high numbers of absentees and desertions within Australian ranks. General Headquarters in France (GHQ) saw these high levels of indiscipline as a direct result of Australian authorities not allowing their soldiers to be placed under the Army Act in full. Further differences surfaced between the British and Australians when it came to punishment, with Australian courts criticised by British Army authorities for not using the powers they possessed to impose penalties that would act as a deterrent, as well as their reluctance to impose Field Punishment No. 1. This study examines these general differences as well as dealing with a specific case of an Australian soldier charged with the murder of a French civilian, a case that attracted the attention of senior political and military figures when it transpired Australians were immune from the death penalty for murder. Maintaining discipline was a constant struggle for the authorities when faced with those determined to avoid frontline duty either by committing military crime or through self-maiming. In this context the high venereal disease rate is discussed and evidence presented that this could be considered as a self-inflicted wound. The mutiny in the 1st Battalion of September 1918 is examined as well as a mutiny in a military prison in France in 1919. It is not the purpose of this study to tarnish the reputation of the many thousands of brave men who fought in the AIF, rather it is an attempt to understand the high levels of indiscipline within the context of the war on the Western Front and the disciplinary code under which they operated.

The use of nature-like plantings to ameliorate degraded public landscapes in Europe and North America is extensive. There is a growing trend towards the use of ecological urban landscape design in Australia. Meadow landscape may have broad applications in the treatment of degraded landscapes in Australia. An examination of suitable establishment and management techniques for flowering grasslands was undertaken at Fawkner Memorial Park. This site contains large areas of severely disturbed and degraded soils, due to past burial practices. Trials on the establishment of forbs via direct seeding and plug planting were undertaken. The management of bulb species by mowing was examined through foliage removal treatments post anthesis. The management of grass biomass through herbicides was also examined. (For complete abstract open document)

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Extensions to general relativity are often considered as possibilities in the quest for a quantum theory of gravity on one hand, or to resolve anomalies within cosmology on the other. Scalar fields, found in many areas of physics, are frequently studied in this context. This is partly due to their manifestation in the effective four dimensional theory of a number of underlying fundamental theories, most notably string theory. This thesis is concerned with the effects of scalar fields on cosmological and black hole solutions. By comparison, an analysis of an inhomogeneous cosmological model which requires no extensions to general relativity is also undertaken. In chapter three, examples of numerical solutions to black hole solutions, which have previously been shown to be linearly stable, are found. The model includes at least two scalar fields, non-minimally coupled to electromagnetism and hence possesses non-trivial contingent primary hair. We show that the extremal solutions have finite temperature for an arbitrary coupling constant. Chapter four investigates the effects of higher order curvature corrections and scalar fields on the late-time cosmological evolution. We find solutions which mimic many of the phenomenological features seen in the post-inflation Universe. The effects due to non-minimal scalar couplings to matter are also shown to be negligible in this context. Such solutions can be shown to be stable under homogeneous perturbations. Some restrictions on the value of the slope of the scalar coupling to the Gauss-Bonnet term are found to be necessary to avoid late-time superluminal behaviour and dominant energy condition violation. A number of observational tests are carried out in chapter five on a new approach to averaging the inhomogeneous Universe. In this "Fractal Bubble model" cosmic acceleration is realised as an apparent effect, due to quasilocal gravitational energy gradients. We show that a good fit can be found to three separate observations, the type Ia supernovae, the baryon acoustic oscillation scale and the angular scale of the sound horizon at last scattering. The best fit to the supernovae data is χ² ≃ 0:9 per degree of freedom, with a Hubble parameter at the present epoch of H0 = 61:7+1:4 -1:3 km sec⁻¹ Mpc⁻¹ , and a present epoch volume void fraction of 0:76 ± 0:05.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-98). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 58 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-53).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University (Canada), 1993. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-12, Section: B, page: 6250. Adviser: R. K. Bhaduri.

University, Diss., 2006--Augsburg. / Erscheinungsjahr an der Haupttitelstelle: 2005.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, 2002. / Title from PDF t.p.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-42). Also available in electronic version.