Constructing Building Integrity: Raising standards through professionalism. This project aims to investigate the role of professions in rebuilding trust in residential building construction in Australia. In the wake of expensive and life-threatening building defects, this project expects to generate new knowledge about the functioning of individual professionals, professionals employed in multi-profession organisations, and professionals’ interaction with their institutional environment. Expecte ....Constructing Building Integrity: Raising standards through professionalism. This project aims to investigate the role of professions in rebuilding trust in residential building construction in Australia. In the wake of expensive and life-threatening building defects, this project expects to generate new knowledge about the functioning of individual professionals, professionals employed in multi-profession organisations, and professionals’ interaction with their institutional environment. Expected outcomes include practical recommendations for improved professional standards, a rigorous building integrity system and a means for measuring change. Anticipated benefits include greater awareness by professions, trades and regulators of their role in in delivering the public goods of a trustworthy construction industry.Read moreRead less
Support or sales? Medical device representatives in Australian hospitals. Medical device representatives provide crucial support to clinicians using complex medical equipment. However, their obligation to maximise sales conflicts with their support role. Increasing uptake of devices potentially impacts patient safety and healthcare costs, making it important to understand the involvement and influence of device representatives. The proposed research will investigate the ethical and legal impacts ....Support or sales? Medical device representatives in Australian hospitals. Medical device representatives provide crucial support to clinicians using complex medical equipment. However, their obligation to maximise sales conflicts with their support role. Increasing uptake of devices potentially impacts patient safety and healthcare costs, making it important to understand the involvement and influence of device representatives. The proposed research will investigate the ethical and legal impacts of device representatives in Australian hospitals, leading to new knowledge and innovative ethical and legal analyses of their activities. Benefits include a policy framework, new standards for managing device representatives’ interactions, and clarity about ethical and legal obligations of clinicians and institutions.Read moreRead less
Ethics, responsibility and the carbon budget. This project aims to provide a rigorous ethical framework for dividing the world’s remaining ‘carbon budget’ (CB). In order to avoid climate change the world must drastically limit its emissions of greenhouse gases. The project will develop a new analysis of how our assumptions concerning risk and harm shape conception of the CB. It will also provide a new understanding of how future emission rights should be allocated given that countries have emitt ....Ethics, responsibility and the carbon budget. This project aims to provide a rigorous ethical framework for dividing the world’s remaining ‘carbon budget’ (CB). In order to avoid climate change the world must drastically limit its emissions of greenhouse gases. The project will develop a new analysis of how our assumptions concerning risk and harm shape conception of the CB. It will also provide a new understanding of how future emission rights should be allocated given that countries have emitted vastly different quantities of greenhouse gases in the past. The project will analyse how the CB will impact the climate transition plans of countries such as Australia. The project will thus bring significant new research in philosophy to bear on a practical issue.Read moreRead less
Youth, religion and sexuality: digital media, school cultures, exemptions. This project aims to understand the knowledges and practices about sexuality and religion that form the everyday worlds of young people who are religious. This should provide significant new knowledge about a key time in the development of a young person’s identity via a nationwide, deep yet comparative approach. Expected outcomes include strategic health policy and curriculum development advice that responds to current d ....Youth, religion and sexuality: digital media, school cultures, exemptions. This project aims to understand the knowledges and practices about sexuality and religion that form the everyday worlds of young people who are religious. This should provide significant new knowledge about a key time in the development of a young person’s identity via a nationwide, deep yet comparative approach. Expected outcomes include strategic health policy and curriculum development advice that responds to current debates around religious exemptions to anti-discrimination law and creates better education and health care for religious and LGBTIQ+ youth. Benefits will include increased wellbeing for religious LGBTIQ+ youth, conservatively religious and newly arrived youth communities in Australia.Read moreRead less
Beyond safety: Ethical practice involving children. This project aims to investigate the role of ethical practice in improving child safety. Focusing especially on those who are at greater risk of harm, the findings will contribute to ensuring Australia’s children are safe and treated with dignity and respect. Expected outcomes include better-targeted, child-informed policy and practice for organisations involved with children, and important knowledge for organisations seeking to optimise, promo ....Beyond safety: Ethical practice involving children. This project aims to investigate the role of ethical practice in improving child safety. Focusing especially on those who are at greater risk of harm, the findings will contribute to ensuring Australia’s children are safe and treated with dignity and respect. Expected outcomes include better-targeted, child-informed policy and practice for organisations involved with children, and important knowledge for organisations seeking to optimise, promote and protect children’s safety and wellbeingRead moreRead less
Real-time scheduling of trains to control peak electricity demand. This project aims to develop new scheduling and control methods that will enable railways to reduce their demand for electricity during peak demand periods, without undue disruption to the timetable.
These new methods and systems will integrate with—and expand the capabilities of—an Australian train control system that is used by railways around the world. This will enable better management of electricity within a region and be ....Real-time scheduling of trains to control peak electricity demand. This project aims to develop new scheduling and control methods that will enable railways to reduce their demand for electricity during peak demand periods, without undue disruption to the timetable.
These new methods and systems will integrate with—and expand the capabilities of—an Australian train control system that is used by railways around the world. This will enable better management of electricity within a region and better use of renewable energy sources, with significant cost savings for railways and the wider community.Read moreRead less
Implications of Global Economic Forces for Domestic Monetary Policy. The project aims to quantify and understand the extent to which international factors affect key macroeconomic variables such as inflation and interest rates in open economies. The aims will be achieved through the development and application of new macroeconomic and econometric models. Expected outcomes are new insights and policy recommendations on how to appropriately conduct monetary policy for an open economy such as Austr ....Implications of Global Economic Forces for Domestic Monetary Policy. The project aims to quantify and understand the extent to which international factors affect key macroeconomic variables such as inflation and interest rates in open economies. The aims will be achieved through the development and application of new macroeconomic and econometric models. Expected outcomes are new insights and policy recommendations on how to appropriately conduct monetary policy for an open economy such as Australia. This should provide significant benefits to the broader Australian economy through the conduct of suitable policy by institutions such as the Reserve Bank of Australia.Read moreRead less
New mathematics for lipids and cells: structured models for atherosclerosis. The project aims to create new mathematical theory for immune cell behaviour which leads to heart attacks and strokes. This includes formulation and analysis of new types of mathematical models for atherosclerotic plaque development, leading to the creation of new mathematical tools to investigate cell fate in plaques and to generate new hypotheses for experimental research. Expected outcomes of this project include po ....New mathematics for lipids and cells: structured models for atherosclerosis. The project aims to create new mathematical theory for immune cell behaviour which leads to heart attacks and strokes. This includes formulation and analysis of new types of mathematical models for atherosclerotic plaque development, leading to the creation of new mathematical tools to investigate cell fate in plaques and to generate new hypotheses for experimental research. Expected outcomes of this project include powerful and reliable mathematical models ready for application, and national and international collaborations with scientists and mathematicians. This should provide significant benefits including increased capacity to use mathematical models in vascular biology and training young researchers in interdisciplinary methods.Read moreRead less
Situational Assessment as a Marker of Cognitive Skill Decay. The aim of this study is to test how differences in exposure to complex tasks change the capacity for situational assessment. Amongst drivers, pilots and electricity controllers, the capacity to assess and respond effectively to changes in the operational environment are critical in sustaining performance and ensuring the safety and security of the public. Establishing the nature of this relationship will enable, for the first time, ob ....Situational Assessment as a Marker of Cognitive Skill Decay. The aim of this study is to test how differences in exposure to complex tasks change the capacity for situational assessment. Amongst drivers, pilots and electricity controllers, the capacity to assess and respond effectively to changes in the operational environment are critical in sustaining performance and ensuring the safety and security of the public. Establishing the nature of this relationship will enable, for the first time, objective measures of cognitive skill decay. In evaluating cognitive skill decay more accurately, we will provide a cost-effective, easily administered tool, enabling practitioners to identify and address areas of development and providing data to anticipate when cognitive skill decay is most likely to occur.Read moreRead less
Computational methods for population-size-dependent branching processes. Branching processes are the primary mathematical tool used to model populations that evolve randomly in time. Most key results in the theory are derived under the simplifying assumption that individuals reproduce and die independently of each other. However, this assumption fails in most real-life situations, in particular when the environment has limited resources or when the habitat has a restricted capacity. This project ....Computational methods for population-size-dependent branching processes. Branching processes are the primary mathematical tool used to model populations that evolve randomly in time. Most key results in the theory are derived under the simplifying assumption that individuals reproduce and die independently of each other. However, this assumption fails in most real-life situations, in particular when the environment has limited resources or when the habitat has a restricted capacity. This project aims to develop novel and effective algorithmic techniques and statistical methods for a class of branching processes with dependences. We will use these results to study significant problems in the conservation of endangered island bird populations in Oceania, and to help inform their conservation management.Read moreRead less