Efficient and Fair Traffic Control for a Multi-Service Internet. Australia relies very heavily on its
telecommunications infrastructure due to its
geographic dispersion. For the same reason,
it cannot afford to invest in inefficient infrastructure.
Our novel and practical Internet congestion control scheme will overcome current weaknesses in the Internet, and will enable the Australian telecommunication service industry to provide a better quality of service to the customers (including Aust ....Efficient and Fair Traffic Control for a Multi-Service Internet. Australia relies very heavily on its
telecommunications infrastructure due to its
geographic dispersion. For the same reason,
it cannot afford to invest in inefficient infrastructure.
Our novel and practical Internet congestion control scheme will overcome current weaknesses in the Internet, and will enable the Australian telecommunication service industry to provide a better quality of service to the customers (including Australian industries and rural communities) and at lower cost. This project will put Australia on the international stage as a leading contributor to Internet technology. We will provide training for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in the important area of Internet traffic engineering and control.Read moreRead less
Unlocking the potential for linear and discrete optimisation in knot theory and computational topology. Computational topology is a young, energetic field that uses computers to solve complex geometric problems, such as whether a loop of string is tangled. Such computations are becoming increasingly important in mathematics, and applications span biology, physics and information sciences, however many core problems in the field remain intractable for all but the simplest cases. This project unit ....Unlocking the potential for linear and discrete optimisation in knot theory and computational topology. Computational topology is a young, energetic field that uses computers to solve complex geometric problems, such as whether a loop of string is tangled. Such computations are becoming increasingly important in mathematics, and applications span biology, physics and information sciences, however many core problems in the field remain intractable for all but the simplest cases. This project unites geometric techniques with powerful methods from operations research, such as linear and discrete optimisation, to build fast, powerful tools that can for the first time systematically solve large topological problems. Theoretically, this project has significant impact on the famous open problem of detecting knottedness in fast polynomial time.Read moreRead less
Stationarity and regularity in variational analysis with applications to optimization. This project will significantly develop the theoretical basis of variational analysis and optimization. Improving the understanding of regularity and stationarity issues in optimization theory will lead to major national benefits in increasing efficiencies and reducing costs in many fields of human endeavour on a national and international level.
Designing minimum-cost networks that are robust and avoid obstacles. The goal of this project is to construct a mathematical framework for the design of minimum-cost networks that are robust and avoid obstacles. Physical networks such as those required for communication, power and transportation are vital for our society, but are costly from economic and environmental viewpoints. There is a need for mathematical optimisation tools to design minimum-cost networks that take into account practical ....Designing minimum-cost networks that are robust and avoid obstacles. The goal of this project is to construct a mathematical framework for the design of minimum-cost networks that are robust and avoid obstacles. Physical networks such as those required for communication, power and transportation are vital for our society, but are costly from economic and environmental viewpoints. There is a need for mathematical optimisation tools to design minimum-cost networks that take into account practical considerations such as surviving local connectivity failures and avoiding pre-existing obstacles. These are recognised as mathematically challenging problems. Current approaches employ restrictive models that do not capture the flexibility of modern infrastructure networks. This project aims to develop geometric design methods using variable ‘Steiner points’, leading to fast algorithms for optimally solving these problems.Read moreRead less
Structured barrier and penalty functions in infinite dimensional optimisation and analysis. Very large scale tightly-constrained optimisation problems are ubiquitous and include water management, traffic flow, and imaging at telescopes and hospitals. Massively parallel computers can solve such problems and provide physically realisable solution only if subtle design issues are mastered. Resolving such issues is the goal of this project.
Fast, practical and effective algorithms for clustering with advice. To maintain a safe and healthy society, government and industry need high quality immunization and national security databases. Since we cannot afford to have duplicate, incomplete and conflicting records that refer to the same person, we unify them by identifying clusters of related records.
In the emerging field of functional genomics, diagnosis of certain diseases is enhanced by determining which genes act together. Diffe ....Fast, practical and effective algorithms for clustering with advice. To maintain a safe and healthy society, government and industry need high quality immunization and national security databases. Since we cannot afford to have duplicate, incomplete and conflicting records that refer to the same person, we unify them by identifying clusters of related records.
In the emerging field of functional genomics, diagnosis of certain diseases is enhanced by determining which genes act together. Different experimental runs might result in different clusterings of genes: we need one consensus clustering that summarizes the experimental outcomes.
Cleaning databases and combining clusterings by hand would require vast amounts of time. This project will result in faster and more accurate computational procedures.Read moreRead less
Decomposition and Duality: New Approaches to Integer and Stochastic Integer Programming. Because of their rich modelling capabilities, integer programs are widely used in industry for decision making and planning. However their solution algorithms do not have the maturity of their cousins in convex optimisation, where the theory of strong duality is ubiquitous. Efficient methods for convex optimisation under uncertainty do not apply to the integer case, which is highly non-convex. Furthermore, i ....Decomposition and Duality: New Approaches to Integer and Stochastic Integer Programming. Because of their rich modelling capabilities, integer programs are widely used in industry for decision making and planning. However their solution algorithms do not have the maturity of their cousins in convex optimisation, where the theory of strong duality is ubiquitous. Efficient methods for convex optimisation under uncertainty do not apply to the integer case, which is highly non-convex. Furthermore, integer models usually assume the data is known with certainty, which is often not the case in the real world. This project will develop new theory and algorithms to enhance the analysis of integer models, including those that incorporating uncertainty, while also enabling the use of parallel computing paradigms. Read moreRead less
Derivative free algorithms for large scale nonsmooth and global optimization and their applications. The outcomes expected from this research fall broadly into two categories: 1) the development of a new class of effective readily implementable derivative free techniques for large scale non-smooth and global optimisation and 2) the development of new algorithms based on derivative free optimization techniques for solving data mining, resource allocation problems and some problems in bioinformati ....Derivative free algorithms for large scale nonsmooth and global optimization and their applications. The outcomes expected from this research fall broadly into two categories: 1) the development of a new class of effective readily implementable derivative free techniques for large scale non-smooth and global optimisation and 2) the development of new algorithms based on derivative free optimization techniques for solving data mining, resource allocation problems and some problems in bioinformatics. In particular, the application of these techniques to molecular biology and cluster analysis will be very important for the development of competitive technologies for Australia.
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Realising the promise of neural networks for practical optimisation: improving their efficiency and effectivess through chaotic dynamics and hardware implementation. Combinatorial optimisation problems such as transportation routing and assembly-line scheduling are critical to the efficiency of many industries, but their combinatorial explosion makes rapid solution difficult. Neural networks (NNs) hold much potential for rapid solution though hardware implementation, but we need to improve the q ....Realising the promise of neural networks for practical optimisation: improving their efficiency and effectivess through chaotic dynamics and hardware implementation. Combinatorial optimisation problems such as transportation routing and assembly-line scheduling are critical to the efficiency of many industries, but their combinatorial explosion makes rapid solution difficult. Neural networks (NNs) hold much potential for rapid solution though hardware implementation, but we need to improve the quality of their solutions before developing hardware. We have previously shown that the rich dynamics of chaos can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of NNs. We aim to develop new chaotic NN models, rigorously evaluate them on industrially significant problems such as those arising in manufacturing, logistics and telecommunications, and demonstrate their speed through hardware acceleration.Read moreRead less
Few-mode transmission: harnessing the capacity of optical fibres. Optical fibres are widely deployed for carrying internet traffic. This project aims to study breakthrough technologies to dramatically increase the capacity of optical fibres. The project will help maintain Australia at the leading edge of the information age as well as providing exciting opportunities for training research associates and students.