Using 3D printing to improve access to graphics by vision-impaired people. This project aims to investigate the possible benefits of 3D printing for production of accessible materials for vision-impaired people. Currently tactile graphics are used to provide severely vision-impaired adults and children with access to graphical content used in education and in orientation and mobility training. This project is expected to clarify the kinds of graphics for which 3D prints are better suited than ta ....Using 3D printing to improve access to graphics by vision-impaired people. This project aims to investigate the possible benefits of 3D printing for production of accessible materials for vision-impaired people. Currently tactile graphics are used to provide severely vision-impaired adults and children with access to graphical content used in education and in orientation and mobility training. This project is expected to clarify the kinds of graphics for which 3D prints are better suited than tactile graphics, and to build capacity within the national accessible format provision sector for the production and use of 3D prints. Benefits will include increased educational opportunities and quality of life for Australians with severe vision impairment, through improved access to graphic materials used in education and orientation and mobility training.
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Streaming video media using semantic information. Delivering video over the Internet has posted a big problem. Video files are extremely big and need hours or even tens of hours to download. This is too long to wait for the content. Much research has been attempted over low-level structures such as coding, buffer, protocol, agent and server. These techniques are either not scalable or impractical. This project aims to collaborate with CyberView on developing a high-level scheme of streaming vide ....Streaming video media using semantic information. Delivering video over the Internet has posted a big problem. Video files are extremely big and need hours or even tens of hours to download. This is too long to wait for the content. Much research has been attempted over low-level structures such as coding, buffer, protocol, agent and server. These techniques are either not scalable or impractical. This project aims to collaborate with CyberView on developing a high-level scheme of streaming video using semantic information. It breaks videos into shots and allows semantic browsing of the content. It also introduces intelligent agents with various behaviours.Read moreRead less
Eat, cook, grow: Ubiquitous technology for sustainable food culture in the city. Raising people's awareness of healthy and ecological food options with nutritional data and educational information does not foster a sustained practice towards a more environmentally friendly food culture. This study seeks to develop a better understanding how to go beyond just informing and into supporting and sustaining action and change. Drawing on interaction design, ubiquitous computing and real- time informat ....Eat, cook, grow: Ubiquitous technology for sustainable food culture in the city. Raising people's awareness of healthy and ecological food options with nutritional data and educational information does not foster a sustained practice towards a more environmentally friendly food culture. This study seeks to develop a better understanding how to go beyond just informing and into supporting and sustaining action and change. Drawing on interaction design, ubiquitous computing and real- time information, the study will deliver research findings that inform viable new design approaches and information interfaces which will strengthen Australia's position to resolve the problems of obesity, malnutrition and ecological issues of mass food processing, and contribute to the sustainability of life in Australian cities.Read moreRead less
CyberMate: using digital social media and Internet data to support mental health interventions in young Australians. This project will develop CyberMate, which is a novel automated psychological intervention based on data collected from social networks, personal diaries, natural language processing and machine learning techniques. The Internet-based intervention will be the first of its kind, helping young people affected by depression and other mental health issues.
Enhancing the content and experience of Interactive Childrens Television. Interactive television (iTV) as a participatory, on-demand communication provides a unique opportunity to significantly engage, entertain and educate preschool children. Through considerable industry partner collaboration and participation, this project will evaluate three distinct interactive options produced from selected children's television programs with proven success in Australia. Usability studies employing a vari ....Enhancing the content and experience of Interactive Childrens Television. Interactive television (iTV) as a participatory, on-demand communication provides a unique opportunity to significantly engage, entertain and educate preschool children. Through considerable industry partner collaboration and participation, this project will evaluate three distinct interactive options produced from selected children's television programs with proven success in Australia. Usability studies employing a variety of surveillance techniques will evaluate content design and user response. Children's viewing habits will be evaluated within a social context (the home) and a mobile lab setting using qualitative and quantitative assessment. The results will identify effective ways to produce meaningful interactivity and will encourage future industry based research.Read moreRead less
Space to Grow: The Faulkes Telescope and improving science engagement in schools. Exceptional opportunities exist to engage, develop and enrich science students and their teachers through access to the cutting-edge Faulkes Telescopes (FTs). The FT South (sited in Australia) is the world's largest dedicated to educational use with Australia enjoying a 15% share as the host country of this exceptional educational initiative. Operated remotely via the internet, the FT provides natural links to ICT, ....Space to Grow: The Faulkes Telescope and improving science engagement in schools. Exceptional opportunities exist to engage, develop and enrich science students and their teachers through access to the cutting-edge Faulkes Telescopes (FTs). The FT South (sited in Australia) is the world's largest dedicated to educational use with Australia enjoying a 15% share as the host country of this exceptional educational initiative. Operated remotely via the internet, the FT provides natural links to ICT, on-line learning, physics, astronomy and mathematics. Given appropriate support, it can play a valuable role in re-engaging students in science and enhancing science education and literacy outcomes in Australian schools over the next 20 years.Read moreRead less
Production Challenges in the On-Line Learning Environment. The shift of responsibility from teacher-centred learning to learner-centred learning has raised important questions of access for diverse groups in Australia and overseas. The project seeks to investigate new delivery mechanisms that respond to worldwide trends in virtual communities and self-directed learning. This research will explore the relationship between content pedagogy, use of technology, and work-related issues and expectatio ....Production Challenges in the On-Line Learning Environment. The shift of responsibility from teacher-centred learning to learner-centred learning has raised important questions of access for diverse groups in Australia and overseas. The project seeks to investigate new delivery mechanisms that respond to worldwide trends in virtual communities and self-directed learning. This research will explore the relationship between content pedagogy, use of technology, and work-related issues and expectations. It will adopt a qualitative and quantitative research methodology in identifying opportunities, producing a learning prototype, testing and trialing that prototype and applying research outcomes in the context of emergent new educational models that draw upon convergent media.Read moreRead less
Design guidelines for safety-critical controllers in high-risk environments. This project aims to generate novel product design guidelines for developing safer controllers for use by potentially stressed individuals in high-risk situations. It will do this by generating specific insights and verifying generalisable solutions from the context of total artificial heart recipients –who must engage with critical controllers constantly. This project expects to generate new knowledge in design by esta ....Design guidelines for safety-critical controllers in high-risk environments. This project aims to generate novel product design guidelines for developing safer controllers for use by potentially stressed individuals in high-risk situations. It will do this by generating specific insights and verifying generalisable solutions from the context of total artificial heart recipients –who must engage with critical controllers constantly. This project expects to generate new knowledge in design by establishing a new research topic around an under-examined user cohort. Expected outcomes of this project include interaction design theory developments and improved controller design techniques. This should provide significant benefits and competitive advantages by lowering stress and improving safety across a range of contexts.Read moreRead less
Visual Analytics for Next Generation Sequencing. Next-generation sequencing technologies have brought a revolution in biology and healthcare, while taxing the ability of scientists and clinicians to identify and process relevant data, to make sense of it all and communicate it to others in a concise and meaningful way. This project aims to tackle this problem through fundamentally new approaches to data selection and visualisation at very large scale, actively encoding for insight into underlyin ....Visual Analytics for Next Generation Sequencing. Next-generation sequencing technologies have brought a revolution in biology and healthcare, while taxing the ability of scientists and clinicians to identify and process relevant data, to make sense of it all and communicate it to others in a concise and meaningful way. This project aims to tackle this problem through fundamentally new approaches to data selection and visualisation at very large scale, actively encoding for insight into underlying biological and biomedical processes, bringing sustainable discovery of new relationships and variations within the data. The project aims to support new approaches to medical diagnosis and treatment, and offer crucial lessons to address the broader challenge of understanding large, complex data sets.Read moreRead less
Computational Intelligence for Complex Structured Data. This project aims to use computational intelligence techniques to reliably learn adaptive natural human pointing and gestures to control an interface on a pseudo-3D display. Highly complex data with interconnections between elements is hard to visualise on screens. Most current tools are operated using point/click/drag on 2D screens. The physical technology to capture appropriate human behaviours exists already, but not the adaptive learnin ....Computational Intelligence for Complex Structured Data. This project aims to use computational intelligence techniques to reliably learn adaptive natural human pointing and gestures to control an interface on a pseudo-3D display. Highly complex data with interconnections between elements is hard to visualise on screens. Most current tools are operated using point/click/drag on 2D screens. The physical technology to capture appropriate human behaviours exists already, but not the adaptive learning of the syntax and semantics of individual gestures and actions, nor the multi-gesture information fusion required for understanding, which could significantly enhance efficiency, for example, in sorting through named entities in an investigation. All of this is done naturally by most human beings, using biological neural networks.Read moreRead less