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Coal mining on Vancouver Island was a conjunctural point for two complementary systems of dispossession: capitalism and colonialism. Soon after London granted the island and its minerals to the Hudson’s Bay Company in January 1849, industrial mining began to replace the previously non-capitalist organization of the coalfield. The island shifted into industrialization in part through its entanglement in Pacific markets hungry for coal. The tools and capital that returned on homeward voyages hastened mining’s development, while transoceanic maritime networks provided inflows of labour power. As energy capital developed internally, strategies to displace Indigenous organization of the land were matched by efforts to alienate miners from acting as a class in their own interests. Through analysis of archival evidence, this project demonstrates that Vancouver Island mining before 1903 proceeded through a series of compounding deprivations, generally beneficial to islanders occupying dominant economic positions. Toward unpacking this history, “Empire and Dispossession” asks three questions: how did the coal industry support the development of capitalist social relations in the Pacific, north of parallel forty-nine; how did transportation systems sustain the expansion of empires operating on the island; and what social, political, and economic relationships conditioned technical change in the mines? Taken together, the answers to these questions root the development of capitalism in active power relationships of class and race. This project’s original contributions to communication studies include a historical narrative of Western Canadian capitalism, otherwise absent in the field; the development of a transportation-focused approach to communication, rooted in the work of Karl Marx; a history of Indigenous transportation and communication labour at the origins of capitalism on Vancouver Island; and a reinterpretation and application of labour-process theory to the mutually constitutive development of coal-mining machinery, social class, and race in the island’s mines.

Cockpit automation has been developed to reduce pilots’ workload and increase pilots’ performance. However, previous studies have demonstrated that failures of automated systems have significantly impaired pilots’ situational awareness. The increased application of automation and the trend of pilots to rely on automation have changed pilot’s role from an operator to a supervisor in the cockpit. Based on the analysis of 257 ASRS reports, the result demonstrated that pilots represent the last line of defense during automation failures, though sometimes pilots did commit active failures combined with automation-induced human errors. Current research found that automation breakdown has direct associated with 4 categories of precondition of unsafe acts, including ‘adverse mental states’, ‘CRM’, ‘personal readiness’, and ‘technology environment’. Furthermore, the presence of ‘CRM’ almost 3.6 times, 12.7 times, 2.9 times, and 4 times more likely to occur concomitant failures in the categories of ‘decision-errors’, ‘skill-based error’, ‘perceptual errors’, and ‘violations’. Therefore, CRM is the most critical category for developing intervention of Human-Automation Interaction (HAI) issues to improve aviation safety. The study of human factors in automated cockpit is critical to understand how incidents/accidents had developed and how they could be prevented. Future HAI research should continue to increase the reliability of automation on the flight deck, develop backup systems for the occasional failures of cockpit automation, and train flight crews with competence of CRM skills in response to automation breakdowns.

Eye movement patterns are linked closely with the cognitive process of encoding information that pilots seek and perceive in the cockpit. A total of 30 qualified mission-ready military pilots participated in this research. The ages of participants are between 26 and 51 years old (M=29, SD=6); and total flying hours between 310 and 2920 hours (M=844, SD=720). Eye movement data were collected by a head-mounted ASL (Applied Science Laboratory) Mobile Eye combined with a jet fighter simulator which is a dynamic high fidelity trainer that replicates actual aircraft performance, navigation and weapon systems. The scenario was an air-to-air (AA) task. To complete the task, pilots have to search for the target with eye contact, pursue for aiming at the target, and lock-on for pick-off. The results showed there were significant differences in pilots’ fixations among the five different areas of interest (AOIs), p

The study of ballistic trajectories is well-­established, with work dating back to the 1940s. More recently, ballistic trajectory analysis has been used by air accident investigators in an attempt to understand events leading up to an accident, with notable examples including the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing. Building on the history of a previous model, this thesis offers an enhanced model for the calculation of ballistic trajectories incorporating altitude dependence for wind, density and gravity. Attempts to solve the model analytically were unsuccessful, and therefore, the model was solved numerically using an implicit scheme, to deal with the inherent stiffness of the equations, and an extrapolation technique. Cubic splines were used to accurately represent the wind proUile in an analytical way. The numerical solution was veriUied against a simpliUied analytical case and results are presented for two simulated breakup cases. Four key parameters were then varied to provide information about the sensitivity of Uinal wreckage location to variation in system parameters. The results indicate that for simulated large aircraft breakups, low ballistic coefUicient items are most heavily affected by breakup altitude, wind magnitude and wind angle whereas large ballistic coefUicient items are most heavily affected by breakup velocity, although to a much lesser extent (around 15% of the distance of low ballistic coefUicient). For small aircraft breakups, wind angle and breakup altitude have the largest effect on low ballistic coefUicient items, with velocity and altitude affecting high ballistic coefUicient items to a larger extent (around 50% of low ballistic coefUicient items). The results will allow investigators to understand better the factors which affect items of differing ballistic coefUicient in different situations. The project as a whole provides a new solution engine for the trajectory problem which can form the basis of a new software package for investigators.

There are many variables to consider in the design of an electric motor. However, meeting the performance requirements for an electric vehicle drive may cause a designer to loose focus on its typical operation and hence fail to optimise the motor in the region where it processes the most power. This paper investigates operating requirements of electric vehicle motor drives using the University concept vehicle as an example. The paper outlines a methodology for determining primary operating region of a vehicle drive. The methodology is applied to standard driving cycles that are commonly used in the design and testing of vehicles.

The University of Queensland UltraCommuter project is the demonstration of an ultra-light weight, low drag, energy efficient and low polluting, electric commuter vehicle equipped with a 2.5m2 on-board solar array. A key goal of the project is to make the vehicle predominantly self-sufficient from solar power for normal driving purposes , so that it does not require charging or refuelling from off-board sources. This paper examines the technical feasibility of the solar-powered commuter vehicle concept, as it applies the UltraCommuter project. A parametric description of a solar-powered commuter vehicle is presented. Real solar insolation data is then used to predict the solar driving range for the UltraCommuter and this is compared to typical urban usage patterns for commuter vehicles in Queensland. A comparative analysis of annual greenhouse gas emissions from the vehicle is also presented. The results show that the UltraCommuter’s on-board solar array can provide substantial supplementation of the energy required for normal driving, powering 90% of annual travel needs for an average QLD passenger vehicle. The vehicle also has excellent potential to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions from the private transport sector, achieving a 98% reduction in CO2 emissions when compared to the average QLD passenger vehicle. Lastly, the vehicle battery pack provides for tolerance to consecutive days of poor weather without resorting to grid charging, giving uninterrupted functionality to the user. These results hold great promise for the technical feasibility of the solar-powered commuter vehicle concept.

This paper considers the design of a radial flux permanent magnet iron less core brushless DC motor for use in an electric wheel drive with an integrated epicyclic gear reduction. The motor has been designed for a continuous output torque of 30 Nm and peak rating of 60 Nm with a maximum operating speed of 7000 RPM. In the design of brushless DC motors with a toothed iron stator the peak air-gap magnetic flux density is typically chosen to be close to that of the remanence value of the magnets used. This paper demonstrates that for an ironless motor the optimal peak air-gap flux density is closer to the maximum energy product of the magnets used. The use of a radial flux topology allows for high frequency operation and can be shown to give high specific power output while maintaining a relatively low magnet mass. Two-dimensional finite element analysis is used to predict the air-gap flux density. The motor design is based around commonly available NdFeB bar magnet size

This paper examines a number of issues in sustainable energy generation and distribution, and explores avenues that are available for integration of our society’s energy supplies. In particular, the paper presents a way in which transport vehicle energy supplies could be integrated with distributed generation schemes to achieve synergistic and beneficial outcomes. The worldwide energy system contains fundamental problems that result directly from the use of unsustainable fuels and a lack of energy system integration. There is a need to adopt an integrated, sustainable energy system for our society. The adoption of distributed generation could result in beneficial restructuring of the energy trade, and a change in the role of energy providers. Inherent benefits in distributed generation schemes would directly combat barriers to installation of renewable generation facilities, which might prove distributed renewable energy sources to be more feasible. The presence of fuel cells, batteries, power electronic inverters and intelligent controls in vehicles of the future provides many opportunities for the integration of vehicle energy supplies into a distributed generation scheme. In such a system, vehicles could play a major role in power generation and storage.