Linking risks to ecosystems with risks to human well-being. This project aims to provide theory and practical guidelines to integrate ecosystem science into policy and action to address human well-being. Ecosystem risk assessment provides critical information for conservation, and has compelling but unexplored relationships with human health and nature’s benefits to people. The research will identify ecosystem measures that highlight areas of risk to human well-being as well as biodiversity. Exp ....Linking risks to ecosystems with risks to human well-being. This project aims to provide theory and practical guidelines to integrate ecosystem science into policy and action to address human well-being. Ecosystem risk assessment provides critical information for conservation, and has compelling but unexplored relationships with human health and nature’s benefits to people. The research will identify ecosystem measures that highlight areas of risk to human well-being as well as biodiversity. Expected outcomes include new standards for including ecosystem change in policy frameworks globally and in Australia, such as natural capital accounting and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Benefits include improved ways of meeting and tracking progress on Australia’s international commitments.Read moreRead less
Dynamics of word recognition: new insight from the reach-to-touch paradigm. This project will introduce a new behavioural reach-to-touch paradigm for studying basic cognitive processes such as word recognition. The advantage of this paradigm is that it is able to measure cognitive processes moment-by-moment as they unfold over time. This will provide new insights into the temporal dynamics of basic cognitive processing.
Understanding the importance of lianas for forest health and management. This project aims to assess the impact of lianas (woody vines) and their removal on forest health and value. New field infrastructure, removal experiments and global datasets will be used to compare forest health under varying liana dominance, determine whether lianas are preventing recovery, and to predict regional and global impacts. The project expects to generate new knowledge regarding ecosystem function and global cha ....Understanding the importance of lianas for forest health and management. This project aims to assess the impact of lianas (woody vines) and their removal on forest health and value. New field infrastructure, removal experiments and global datasets will be used to compare forest health under varying liana dominance, determine whether lianas are preventing recovery, and to predict regional and global impacts. The project expects to generate new knowledge regarding ecosystem function and global change biology, building collaboration between ecologists, economists and forest managers. The project expects to have significant implications for forest health and the global economy. The expected benefit will be implementation of restoration methods in priority areas and subsequently improved forest health.Read moreRead less
Detecting and tracking alertness using speech biometrics. Traditional tests for detecting and tracking alertness are limited by their accuracy and inability to be administered without stopping work. This project aims to investigate how speech can be used to monitor changes in performance resulting from sleep deprivation and successive night shifts. The expected outcomes are 1) new knowledge on how sensitive speech and language features are for detecting change in alertness, and 2) development an ....Detecting and tracking alertness using speech biometrics. Traditional tests for detecting and tracking alertness are limited by their accuracy and inability to be administered without stopping work. This project aims to investigate how speech can be used to monitor changes in performance resulting from sleep deprivation and successive night shifts. The expected outcomes are 1) new knowledge on how sensitive speech and language features are for detecting change in alertness, and 2) development and verification of a highly accurate, cost-effective, speech focussed assay capable of detecting impaired alertness from otherwise healthy individuals. The project should benefit the way fitness for duty is tested and provide new methods for safeguarding Australians working in at-risk environments.Read moreRead less
A new complex systems approach to road trauma: Applying systems thinking to the fatal five. By 2030 road trauma is expected to be the fifth leading cause of global deaths. The current road user centric road safety approach has failed to control the global health epidemic of road trauma. Although systems thinking is widely accepted to be the most effective approach for understanding and enhancing safety in complex systems, it has not yet been adopted in road safety efforts. This project aims to a ....A new complex systems approach to road trauma: Applying systems thinking to the fatal five. By 2030 road trauma is expected to be the fifth leading cause of global deaths. The current road user centric road safety approach has failed to control the global health epidemic of road trauma. Although systems thinking is widely accepted to be the most effective approach for understanding and enhancing safety in complex systems, it has not yet been adopted in road safety efforts. This project aims to apply a novel, integrated framework of systems analysis and design methods to the so called 'fatal five' causes of road trauma to create new knowledge on their causes and to develop and test new interventions that will enable the achievement of currently unreachable road safety targets.Read moreRead less
Cascading effects of Australia's ecological extinctions on biodiversity and ecosystem function. The current rate of species extinctions is so extensive that it has been described as the “sixth mass extinction”. In Australian ecosystems, extinctions and declines of mammals have been dramatic, with formerly abundant species now “ecologically extinct”, meaning they are too rare to continue to play important ecological roles. The loss of entire functional guilds may have cascading effects on biodive ....Cascading effects of Australia's ecological extinctions on biodiversity and ecosystem function. The current rate of species extinctions is so extensive that it has been described as the “sixth mass extinction”. In Australian ecosystems, extinctions and declines of mammals have been dramatic, with formerly abundant species now “ecologically extinct”, meaning they are too rare to continue to play important ecological roles. The loss of entire functional guilds may have cascading effects on biodiversity and ecosystem function. This project uses a multi-scalar experimental approach to investigate the broader impacts of mammal declines on Australian ecosystems, accounting for interactions with climate. The outcomes will include new insights into the pre-European state of Australian ecosystems and more realistic targets for ecosystem restoration.Read moreRead less
How will the biodiversity crisis affect vital ecosystem functions? Loss of biodiversity due to environmental change is a potentially serious issue for the sustainability of ecosystems. Predictions on how biodiversity loss will affect ecosystem functions and services require a well-developed understanding of its effects on plant litter decomposition, because this process is a key component of the global carbon cycle. This project will advance this understanding by addressing several key questions ....How will the biodiversity crisis affect vital ecosystem functions? Loss of biodiversity due to environmental change is a potentially serious issue for the sustainability of ecosystems. Predictions on how biodiversity loss will affect ecosystem functions and services require a well-developed understanding of its effects on plant litter decomposition, because this process is a key component of the global carbon cycle. This project will advance this understanding by addressing several key questions (for example, relative importance of decomposition versus other drivers of environmental change; and temporal variation in biodiversity effects on decomposition), using forest streams as model systems. These experiments will mimic realistic extinction events across climatic gradients, enabling predictions to be made at large scales.Read moreRead less
How strong inference has failed psychology, and an updated approach. There are so many quantitative theories of cognition that it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees. This project will contend that this is caused by suboptimal model selection. Comprehensive data sets and modern statistical techniques will be used to evaluate competing accounts in five paradigms, thinning the trees to reveal the forest.
Why remembering together is crucial as we age. This project will test whether remembering everyday information or important past events with a long-term partner compensates for, predicts and/or reduces the risk of memory and cognitive decline. The project will identify and then target for treatment the strategies that spouses use to help each other remember, especially as they age and memory starts to fail.
Spatial Cognition—Expressive Representation Formalisms and Effective Reasoning Mechanisms. The project will contribute significantly to the advancement of knowledge in breakthrough science in qualitative spatial reasoning and smart information use in geographic information systems. Expressive spatial languages are important in organising spatial knowledge, defining spatial query languages and guiding spatial data mining. Effective spatial reasoning mechanisms bring theory closer to applications ....Spatial Cognition—Expressive Representation Formalisms and Effective Reasoning Mechanisms. The project will contribute significantly to the advancement of knowledge in breakthrough science in qualitative spatial reasoning and smart information use in geographic information systems. Expressive spatial languages are important in organising spatial knowledge, defining spatial query languages and guiding spatial data mining. Effective spatial reasoning mechanisms bring theory closer to applications including consistency checking and spatial query pre-processing. The project will help in extracting knowledge from massive spatial databases, meeting the growing needs of naive users for spatial information and establishing Australia as a major player in spatial cognition research and in the development of geo-location services.Read moreRead less