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Felt – Stitching. A Model for Expanded Sensory Embroidery-Making Practice
No full textFelt-stitching offers an alternative to conventional embroidery-making, exploring possibilities beyond fashion, interiors, or domestic textiles. This practice-led research critiques the globalisation and colonisation of Indian embroidery by Western fashion, responding to the cultural shift from traditional practices to disconnected, time-bound processes. Emphasising ‘touch-led making’ and responsiveness to body and space, the research fosters imagination and empathy (Pallasmaa, 2017). The 'Model of Felt-Stitching' developed engages with embodied reinterpretation, material intra-actions, and dialogical making, highlighting imagination, articulation, disruption, and connection in the maker’s process. This model transforms traditional methods by focusing on touch, sensory experiences, and inclusivity, expanding textile works into artefacts, performances, and installations. As a reflexive approach to decolonising embroidery, it challenges industrial practices that privilege aesthetics and efficiency over bodily and personal experience, fostering self-awareness and multisensory attentiveness. The research positions itself within a transdisciplinary community of textile practitioners. It contributes to discourses around touch-led dialogues and dialogical making as design contexts, aiming to transform traditional embroidery and encourage meaningful dialogues within material practices.
@stitch_encounter</p
A new multi-input multi-output control design method for a large-scale web transport system
No full textThe paper introduces an innovative multi-input multi-output (MIMO) control design approach tailored for the complex dynamics of large-scale web transport systems in printed electronics manufacturing technology. First, a novel hybrid control design is proposed to a MIMO strict-feedback nonlinear dynamic system, in which a modified tracking error is introduced in term of a sliding surface for design purpose. Then, a combined use of Lyapunov-based control design and sliding mode control is employed to formulate a novel control law, called Backstepping Sliding Mode Control (BSMC) and a BSMC based control structure is provided. Second, application of this control strategy is implemented to control web tension and velocity of a three-span web transport system. In this study, a series of assumptions are provided to transform an original system dynamics of web transport system into a standard strict-feedback form. Then, the proposed theory is applied for the achieved system, a BSMC for the system is synthesized for simulation study. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted under different operating conditions to validate the effectiveness, reliability, and robustness of the proposed control method.</p
Comparative Study of Linear Quadratic Gaussian and Linear Quadratic Regulator Controllers for Rotary Double Inverted Pendulum in Parallel Type
No full textIn this article, two methods including Linear Quadratic Regulation (LQR) and Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) are applied to the Rotary Double Inverted Pendulum in Parallel Type (PRDIP). PRDIP is a new, advanced system of single rotary inverted pendulum (RIP) which belongs to class of underactuated biped robots. Accordingly, responses of the output system with LQR and LQG are compared to demonstrate that the PRDIP with LQG control scheme has better quality and performance than LQR. Additionally, the two controllers are applied to the PRDIP system at the zero- π position which means one pendulum is in the upward position and the other is in the downward position for anti-oscillation with two test cases for demonstration purposes. Simulation results, together with explanations and discussions, are presented in this work to evaluate the focal points mentioned below
HCMC Urban Traffic Phenomenological Video 1.mov
No full textThis phenomenological video attempts to create the rhythms of the urban traffic in Ho Chi Minh City in order to reflect the immersive feeling of being in the traffic system.</p
Feeling into creativity: an affect theory of empathy in creative collaboration
No full textThis study contributes to Professor Daniel X. Harris’ ARC Future Fellowship project “Transforming 21st Century Creativity Education in East Asia & Australia,” via exploration of the core but largely overlooked relationship between empathy and creativity in collaboration. For many decades modernist dichotomies have divided so-called “cognitive” and “affective” facets of empathy, with cognition becoming the focal point across education, design, and business. These approaches focus on observation, evaluation, and striving to achieve emotional equivalence in order to comprehend another’s perspective. This often leads to reinforcing an individual’s existing perceptions and ideas and potentially othering, rather than facilitating the co-creation of new understandings. This transdisciplinary study brings together research from social cognition and neuroscience, cultural studies, psychology, and posthuman scholarship, to counter such binaries and theorise empathies as rhizomatic, involving intraaction of the cognitive and the affective. These rhizomatic empathies are embodied, shaped by context and experience, multiplicitous and multidirectional, dynamic and relational, and inherently creative. Across two sites, Brisbane and Sydney Australia, the study uses video ethnography and creative methods, combined with a novel approach to diffractive analysis, to draw attention to a) what happens in moments of empathic entanglement in creative collaboration, b) how moments of empathic entanglement affect the emergence of creativity in collaboration, and c) how more-than-human creative ecologies affect the emergence of empathies
Central composite designs with missing observations: evaluation and comparisons
No full textIn meticulously designed experiments, it is conceivable that certain observations may vanish, be compromised, or become unattainable due to factors beyond the control of the experimenter. The unavailability of these observations disrupts the orthogonality and balance of the experimental design, thereby influencing the inferences drawn. The objective of this study is to assess the implications of missing data. To evaluate their impact, we employ various criteria tailored to
different numbers of factors k.
The relationships between the determinant of the reduced information matrix X′ rXr and the loss incurred due to missing one, two, or three observations in factorial, axial, and center points vary across different combinations. This loss is influenced by factors such as the location of the missing point, the number of components (k), and the distance of the axial point from the experiment’s center (α).
The losses are compared across all possible combinations of missing observations for a range of factors k, thereby completing the sensitivity analysis. These losses exhibit consistent patterns in pairings, resulting in the same outcomes. To ensure robustness against the absence of one, two, or three observations, the efficiency of the designs was tested using the minimax loss criterion. In a previous study by [55], the cases for two and three missing observations were investigated for 2 < k < 6, for specified values α, and our findings align with those results. However, in this study, we extend the analysis to missing two observations for 2 < k < 10 and missing three observations for 2 < k < 7. Additionally, in Akram’s study [55], the D-value was only computed for k = 2, 3 with missing three data, whereas here, we will compute it for missing two observations for 2 < k < 10 and missing three observations for 2 < k < 7
Fashion futuring: a methodology for enacting values-driven transitions towards sustainability
No full textIn the fashion industry, fashion forecasting is currently the prevailing mode of futures-thinking. As a practice that articulates industry, consumption, and culture, fashion forecasting aims to provide certainty by ‘predicting’ futures to prevent financial losses in an intricate, large-scale market and linear system. While essential for maintaining the status quo of fashion systems, fashion forecasting serves as a cornerstone for the fast-paced replacement of fashion products, disregarding planetary boundaries and humankind’s futures. In a context driven by uncertainty, climate crisis, and erratic societal behaviours, a values-driven, collaborative and less predictive approach is paramount to promoting new ways of being, doing, and thinking
futures for fashion.
This practice-based doctoral research examines trend forecasting practices within the fashion industry. Drawing on my experience as a trend forecaster, I have reflected on my practice to take a critical position about the mechanisms of fashion and fashion forecasting. This led me to establish the research question: how could I shift or expand trend forecasting practices in fashion to enact a values-driven transition towards sustainable futures?
In the search of new knowledge, my journey evolved into four stages: Deep Diving, Reorienting, Floating and Landing. In Deep Diving, through a literature review and in-depth interviews with leading trend forecasting practitioners, I analysed the current state of trend forecasting and its integration in the fashion industry, to establish the theoretical foundations for my future creative explorations. Reorienting was where I expanded my visions and investigated other possibilities and practices to inform the development of an alternative to fashion forecasting, by examining the intersection of futures studies, critical and speculative design, and transition design. Floating was where I experimented with the unknown, through a series of collaborative workshops, experiential tools and approaches to engage people in imagining futures for fashion beyond a commercial focus. Landing was where I settled and built connections between key concepts to lay the ground for my Fashion Futuring practice.
As a result, I developed Fashion Futuring – a design-futuring methodology that intersects the fields of design, futures studies, sustainability, and material culture. As an alternative to fashion forecasting, Fashion Futuring articulates reality–fiction, materiality–meaning, pasts–presents–futures, individuality–collaboration, free-spirited imagination and strategic planning, not as oppositional poles but as complementary and interlaced concepts. It investigates how societal values that twinkle in our imaginaries can influence changes in fashion even before finding a solid ground to land and repose. Fashion Futuring relies on our capacity to embrace a transitional posture, a floating state between our convictions and doubts, inviting us to abandon predictive orientations and surrender our imagination into still unthought but flourishing possibilities towards sustainable futures.
The Fashion Futuring methodology enables the co-creation of fictional artefacts as a medium to uncover and position uncertainty and shared values for desirable futures at the centre of futures-thinking. I consider the Fashion Futuring methodology is applicable to the field of fashion and the emerging field of design futures. Fashion Futuring bridges imagination and strategy, critical debate and planning for action, culture and systemic thinking. Formed by a set of open-ended tools and a supportive conceptual framework, Fashion Futuring is an invitation to trend forecasters to flip their stances from products to values, fashion-calendars to multi-temporalities, silos to systems, elitisms to collaboration. By focusing on values and allowing space for imagining, Fashion Futuring methodology starts with knowns and connects these to unknowns to explore values that can lead to transitions. This methodology supports fashion forecasters to guide stakeholders (such as clients working in fashion and aligned industries) in seeding a shift in mindset towards sustainability
Carbon Dynamics and Water Quality in Australian Mountain Peatlands: A Comparison of Ecohydrologically Intact and Degraded Systems
No full textPeatlands are a type of terrestrial wetland ecosystem that forms in areas where water inputs exceed water outputs. Peatlands only occupy ~3% of Earth’s terrestrial land area but hold ~30% of the world’s soil carbon. Intact peatlands have a near-surface water table that prevents the aerobic decomposition of organic materials and promotes methanogenesis, thus acting as net CO2 sinks and CH4 sources. However, the degradation of peatlands due to anthropogenic activities and climate change leads to lowered water table levels in peatlands and disrupts the peatland carbon balance, converting peatlands into net CO2 sources. Peatlands are rare in Australia due to the dry climate, but the small number of peatlands that exist in the southeastern Alps of the Australian mainland play a significant role in hydrological regulation in upper catchment areas of the major rivers in the Murray-Darling basin, Australia’s largest river system. The degradation of Australian mountain peatlands started with European colonisation in the 1800s, and cattle grazing continued to damage peatlands until it was completely banned in 2006. The carbon balance and the ecohydrological and meteorological variables that govern the carbon balance in Australian mountain peatlands, whether degraded or otherwise, are still poorly understood. Therefore, the overall aim of my study is to compare the CO2 fluxes, peat decomposition rates, and water quality between two ecohydrologically different Australian mountain peatland ecosystems, one assessed as in intact condition and one in degraded condition.
The first objective of my study was to investigate the effects of substrate quality, peat depth, temperature, peat water content and peatland condition on organic matter decomposition rates. Organic matter decomposition rates in degraded and intact Australian mountain peatlands were measured by conducting field and laboratory incubation experiments. The field incubation experiment was conducted by incubating two types of peat substrate (moss-dominated and partially decomposed) at three different depths (5, 15, and 30 cm) in intact and degraded peatlands. The laboratory incubation experiment was conducted by incubating two peat substrates (moss-dominated and partially decomposed) collected from three depths (0 – 5, 5 – 15, and 15 – 30 cm) that were adjusted to four water contents (50%, 400%, 1500%, and field-moist) at four different temperatures (7, 14, 21, and 28 °C). The results of my incubation experiments indicated that the relatively high water table levels in the degraded peatland reduce peat decomposition rates due to anaerobic conditions within peat layers. Moss-dominated peat decomposes faster than partially decomposed peat under aerobic conditions due to the higher percentage of bioavailable carbon. Furthermore, in moss-dominated peat, water availability acted as the limiting factor for peat decomposition under high temperatures, while in the partially decomposed peat, increasing peat depth limited the decomposition rate under high temperatures.
The second objective was to investigate NEE and identify the main factors affecting trends in NEE. The CO2 flux of the intact peatland was continuously measured using an Eddy Covariance flux tower installed at the peatland, while the CO2 and CH4 flux of the degraded peatland was measured seasonally using the chamber method. The intact peatland was an annual net CO2 sink. The CO2 uptake in the growing season was strongly correlated with photosynthetic photon flux density, while in the non-growing season, soil temperature was the main factor affecting CO2 emissions. The moss-present areas of the degraded peatland were net CO2 sinks, and the moss-absent areas were net CO2 sources, likely due to vascular plant-dominated vegetation and degraded peat in the moss-absent areas. The regular seasonal water table variations did not affect the CO2 flux in either peatland, but occasional very low water table levels induced by severe drought significantly increased CO2 emissions from both peatlands, reducing net CO2 sequestration. The degraded peatland was a net CH4 source during the growing season, but CH4 emission values were almost half those of the intact peatland due to low substrate quality in degraded peat.
The third objective of quantifying surface and pore water chemistry and identifying any differences related to peatland condition was investigated by analysing seasonal surface and pore water samples for dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen, anions, cations, iron concentrations and characteristics of dissolved organic matter. The intact peatland had a strong seasonality and high nutrient removal due to its higher productivity than the degraded peatland. The oxidation potential and dissolved organic carbon values did not differ between the two peatlands due to the high water table levels at both sites. However, a predominance of degraded catotelm peat in the degraded peatland resulted in higher amounts of dissolved organic nitrogen and heavily degraded and humified dissolved organic matter in the water than in the intact peatland.
The final objective of this study was to determine the suitability of NEE as an indicator of peatland condition and ecosystem health, drawing upon peatland NEE studies from around the globe. A systematic quantitative literature review was conducted, using NEE values for 130 peatlands, collated from 60 primary research articles. The results of this study indicated that the majority of intact peatlands are net CO2 sinks, degraded peatlands tend to be net CO2 sources, and most restored peatlands convert to net CO2 sources from sinks. Therefore, I concluded that net ecosystem exchange could be applied as one of the useful indicators of peatland condition and restoration progress.
The results of this study have important implications for the management and restoration of degraded peatlands. Overall, the findings demonstrate that increasing water table levels by blocking drainage lines would lower oxidation potential, peat decomposition rates, CO2 emissions, and aquatic carbon export from degraded peatlands. Furthermore, the results of this study also suggest that Sphagnum recolonisation will reduce CO2 emissions from degraded peatlands and increase nutrient removal from water moving through these systems. Future research could focus on investigating carbon dynamics in restored and restoring Australian mountain peatlands. This would enable the identification of when and how ecohydrological changes caused by restoration affect carbon dynamics and how to most effectively implement restoration activities to convert degraded peatlands from net carbon sources to sinks.</p
Small fatigue crack nucleation and growth in aluminium alloy 7085-T7452
No full textAluminium alloy (AA) 7085 is a recent addition to the 7XXX series of aluminium (Al), zinc (Zn), magnesium (Mg) and copper (Cu) high strength aerospace alloys with applications in primary airframe structure of the Airbus A380 and all variants of the Lockheed Martin (LM) F-35. T7452 is the temper and designation of the die-forged product, which was developed for large unitized, lightweight airframe structures since its low quench sensitivity and good through-thickness fracture-toughness enables forgings of up to 12 inches (305mm) thickness. AA 7085 has a lower Mg and higher Zn content than comparable alloys such as 7050. As a relatively new material at the time of publication, there is little fatigue data available in the published literature and none with a focus on the small or near-threshold fatigue crack growth regime where sub-millimetre fatigue cracks spend most of their lives in service structures. Further, there is little research into fatigue crack nucleation mechanisms in this material in its final, surface-finished airframe part production form with applied service loading. This research project examines small fatigue crack nucleation and growth in AA 7085-T7452, comparing it with other 7XXX series alloys. The role of material composition, microstructure and production surface finish treatments in fatigue crack nucleation and growth are given prominence and more accurate fatigue crack growth tools are sought.
This research addresses gaps in the open literature centred on AA 7085-T7452 small fatigue crack nucleation mechanisms and growth rates with an applied, aircraft industry focus. The objectives of this research were to:
i. establish the importance of accurate fatigue crack growth rate data and models in the small crack and near-threshold regime in the context of engineered, AA 7XXX aircraft production parts;
ii. quantify the small and near-threshold fatigue crack growth behaviour of AA 7085-T7452 relative to other 7XXX alloys including AA 7050-T7451 and AA 7075-T7351;
iii. determine the extent to which microstructure can be significant in influencing small fatigue crack nucleation and growth rates in AA 7085-T7452;
iv. establish the causal factors and significant influences on small fatigue crack nucleation and equivalent initial damage sizes (EIDS) in AA 7085 versus AA 7050 for Type 1C anodised airframe production parts; and to
v. establish the fundamental material mechanisms that give rise to improved resistance to fatigue crack nucleation of AA 7085-T7452 over AA 7050-T7451 in Type 1C anodised material representative of aircraft production parts.
Significant new knowledge arising from this research project includes:
i. characterisation and validation of small and near-threshold fatigue crack growth rates in AA 7085-T7452 and ranking relative to other AA 7XXX alloys;
ii. an evaluation of the role of microstructure and common aircraft production surface finish treatments on small fatigue nucleation and growth rates in AA 7085-T7452;
iii. development of EIDS distributions for crack nucleating etch pits associated with Type 1C anodising of AA 7085-T7452 and AA 7050-T7451 alloys and establishing the significant role of material microstructure and stress;
iv. material characterisation of crack nucleation sites in Type 1C anodised AA 7085-T7452 and AA 7050-T7451 specimens demonstrating the significance of the population, size, shape and distribution of Al7Cu2Fe intermetallics on fatigue crack nucleation.
While this dissertation identifies various avenues for further inquiry and investigation, it records substantial progress in the understanding of the nucleation and growth of small fatigue cracks in AA 7085-T7452 and how these behaviours may be incorporated into fatigue design and fatigue tools for the certification and sustainment of aircraft structures
Designing environmentally benign floating roosts for migratory birds
No full textTwice a year over 50 million migratory shorebirds journey across the globe along common routes known as flyways. Throughout their journey, these birds require a number of ‘staging’ sites to locate sufficient food sources and roost during extensive travel periods. Increasing coastal development, disturbance and sea-level rise are impacting the availability of important staging sites, leading to significant declines in important migratory birdlife (Birdlife Australia, 2019).
In response to these loss figures, bird conservation company Birdlife Australia have begun trials providing supplementary (artificial) habitat for migratory shorebirds through a floating roost strategy. Adapted from commercial long-line oyster bags, this strategy currently utilises a product manufactured with materials that risk contributing to micro-plastic accumulation in marine ecosystems. This presents a misalignment to Birdlife’s conservation ethos and demonstrates the need for environmentally optimal design interventions.
In collaboration with conservation science experts from Birdlife Australia, this project seeks to design a next-generation floating roost system; eliminating the need for plastics in favour of alternate (environmentally benign) materials and processes engaging near-site production opportunities. Located within a sustainability framework, this redesign draws upon Industrial Design Engineering and Design for Environment research methods to inform suitable material and redesign considerations. Experimental design research and prototyping illuminate material testing, capabilities and in-context use; while partner interviews, ecosystem management methods and modes of thinking - investigate and underpin the project’s localised, and shorebird conservation-focused design outcome.
This research and informed design outcome aims to expand upon existing climate adaptation strategies through low-impact material and manufacturing possibilities; with hopes to further stimulate biodiversity and sustainability support initiatives, protecting critical wildlife within evolving landscapes