The mathematics and language of engineering uncertainty, preference and utility. Australian engineering firms are principals in many high-profile projects. To defend their position, they must demonstrate both sound engineering and quality processes, which by international standards includes the traceability of decisions. Yet, there are few tools to vet the multitude of decisions that go into large-scale engineering works. This project aims to form mathematical models of decision-making based on ....The mathematics and language of engineering uncertainty, preference and utility. Australian engineering firms are principals in many high-profile projects. To defend their position, they must demonstrate both sound engineering and quality processes, which by international standards includes the traceability of decisions. Yet, there are few tools to vet the multitude of decisions that go into large-scale engineering works. This project aims to form mathematical models of decision-making based on the language modelling of what is written in engineering documentation about the bases of decisions. The new methods will help decision makers to pinpoint irrationalities in decisions and notify them of possible errors. The research can therefore be applied to important problems in the engineering sector such as risk management.Read moreRead less
Defence and Security Risk Assessment using Agent Based Distillations. Today's society continues to be occupied with the idea of risk. The recent events of September 11th, the Bali bombing, SARS, the bush fires in Canberra, and the Tsunami are examples of human-made and natural disasters. These events had dramatic consequences on the social, economic, and political environment and numerous industries. This project offers an innovative methodological paradigm for assessing risk through the transfe ....Defence and Security Risk Assessment using Agent Based Distillations. Today's society continues to be occupied with the idea of risk. The recent events of September 11th, the Bali bombing, SARS, the bush fires in Canberra, and the Tsunami are examples of human-made and natural disasters. These events had dramatic consequences on the social, economic, and political environment and numerous industries. This project offers an innovative methodological paradigm for assessing risk through the transfer of technologies drawn from defence simulations to the safety and security areas. The success of this project will mark a paradigm shift in the area of risk assessment and management.Read moreRead less
Intelligent Decision Support for Neonatal Analysis and Trend Detection. Nearly five percent of newborn babies require intensive care after birth. Several electronic instruments monitor a baby's vital signs such as blood oxygen, blood pressure and heart rate. A major limitation in neonatal clinical management is that the physiological data generated by the monitors is not extracted to provide an integrated picture of the baby's condition or to enable detection of trends and patterns in clinical a ....Intelligent Decision Support for Neonatal Analysis and Trend Detection. Nearly five percent of newborn babies require intensive care after birth. Several electronic instruments monitor a baby's vital signs such as blood oxygen, blood pressure and heart rate. A major limitation in neonatal clinical management is that the physiological data generated by the monitors is not extracted to provide an integrated picture of the baby's condition or to enable detection of trends and patterns in clinical and real-time physiological data. This project will develop a methodology and technology that supports neonatal analysis incorporating a framework to mine data for trend detection, resulting in higher survival rates.Read moreRead less
Intelligent Design Advisor for Manufacturing Process Knowledge within Concurrent Engineering in the Aerospace Industry. At present the design of engineering components in the aerospace industry is accomplished by experts from design and manufacturing either sequentially or in collaboration. If performed in sequence then time and quality is jeopardised. If performed in collaboration then more manpower than is necessary is expended. The aim of this project is to develop an intelligent design advis ....Intelligent Design Advisor for Manufacturing Process Knowledge within Concurrent Engineering in the Aerospace Industry. At present the design of engineering components in the aerospace industry is accomplished by experts from design and manufacturing either sequentially or in collaboration. If performed in sequence then time and quality is jeopardised. If performed in collaboration then more manpower than is necessary is expended. The aim of this project is to develop an intelligent design advisor for Manufacturing Process Knowledge that will provide this expert knowledge to the design engineer in order to speed up the design process while reducing costs and still maintaining the high standard of quality necessary in the Aerospace industry.Read moreRead less
Computational Methods for the Social Accounting of Teamwork. The cornerstone of the knowledge industries underlying the Australian economy is not just mechanical efficiency but also teamwork productivity. The increasing trend toward placing Australian employees nearer to their customers means that Australian companies face an even greater challenge in managing effective teamwork. This research examines the pragmatics and theoretical issues of developing computer-based systems that enable real-ti ....Computational Methods for the Social Accounting of Teamwork. The cornerstone of the knowledge industries underlying the Australian economy is not just mechanical efficiency but also teamwork productivity. The increasing trend toward placing Australian employees nearer to their customers means that Australian companies face an even greater challenge in managing effective teamwork. This research examines the pragmatics and theoretical issues of developing computer-based systems that enable real-time assessments of teamwork productivity. Automated assessments of how well relationships are progressing in teams will enable them to realise the same levels of productivity gains that automated workflow management has facilitated.Read moreRead less
High Frequency Data Stream Event Correlation for Complex Neonatal Medical Alerts. Nearly twenty percent of newborn babies require intensive care after birth. Several electronic instruments monitor a baby's vital signs such as blood oxygen, blood pressure and heart rate. A major limitation in neonatal clinical management is that the data generated by these monitors is not integrated to enable the alerting of condition deterioration or early warning of possible condition onset. This project will d ....High Frequency Data Stream Event Correlation for Complex Neonatal Medical Alerts. Nearly twenty percent of newborn babies require intensive care after birth. Several electronic instruments monitor a baby's vital signs such as blood oxygen, blood pressure and heart rate. A major limitation in neonatal clinical management is that the data generated by these monitors is not integrated to enable the alerting of condition deterioration or early warning of possible condition onset. This project will develop a methodology and technology that supports the cross correlation of neonatal clinical and physiological data for complex neonatal medical alerts, through the use of agents within an event stream processor, resulting in higher survival rates.Read moreRead less
Generalizing Multi-level Decision Support Handling Multi-objectives, Multi-followers and Uncertainty for Critical Resource Planning. The proposed multi-level optimisation techniques and fuzzy multi-objective multi-follower multi-level decision support system can be used widely in government and industries of Australia to reduce decision blindness, improve decision effectiveness, and therefore has the potential to increase the competitiveness of organizations. Many organizations in Australia are ....Generalizing Multi-level Decision Support Handling Multi-objectives, Multi-followers and Uncertainty for Critical Resource Planning. The proposed multi-level optimisation techniques and fuzzy multi-objective multi-follower multi-level decision support system can be used widely in government and industries of Australia to reduce decision blindness, improve decision effectiveness, and therefore has the potential to increase the competitiveness of organizations. Many organizations in Australia are decentralized and have a hierarchical structure. The proposed techniques are extremely effective for such kinds of organizations in critical planning, management and policy making, including tourism resource planning, water resource management, financial planning, healthcare planning, land-use planning, production planning, transportation planning, and power market planning.Read moreRead less
Systems to Support Knowledge Creation in Learning Organisations. The proposed project will investigate the capacity of IT to support knowledge making for innovation in modern organisations. Prototypes of three flexible computer-based systems will be iteratively developed and evaluated for their support of knowledge workers in three different industries. The investigators are experienced in socio-technical approaches, which will be used to emphasise the integration between people and IT systems ....Systems to Support Knowledge Creation in Learning Organisations. The proposed project will investigate the capacity of IT to support knowledge making for innovation in modern organisations. Prototypes of three flexible computer-based systems will be iteratively developed and evaluated for their support of knowledge workers in three different industries. The investigators are experienced in socio-technical approaches, which will be used to emphasise the integration between people and IT systems. An interpretive study will determine how the systems can contribute to organisational learning, performance, and responsiveness to change. The outcomes will inform the designers of such systems and show Australian organisations how to gain competitive advantage by expanding their capacity to learn.Read moreRead less
Group Decision Support Systems for Fuzzy Multi-objective Decision Problems. Most real-world decisions in organisations are made by groups addressing multi-objectives. Further, the decision objectives are frequently characterized by fuzzy parameters and decision makers often utilise fuzzy judgments in attempting to reach optimal solutions. The project is the first to address all these issues: fuzzy objectives, fuzzy judgements, multi-objectives and groups in decision-making. The project will deve ....Group Decision Support Systems for Fuzzy Multi-objective Decision Problems. Most real-world decisions in organisations are made by groups addressing multi-objectives. Further, the decision objectives are frequently characterized by fuzzy parameters and decision makers often utilise fuzzy judgments in attempting to reach optimal solutions. The project is the first to address all these issues: fuzzy objectives, fuzzy judgements, multi-objectives and groups in decision-making. The project will develop a set of interactive decision-making methods to be used by groups solving fuzzy multi-objective decision problems with the allowance of fuzzy judgements, then develop a group decision support system to implement the methods. These outcomes can be immediately used by suitable Australian organisations.Read moreRead less
Efficient Processing of Complex Spatial Queries. Similarity search and join are two of the most popular yet complex queiries in spatial databases. They are also two of the major spatial data analysis paradigms. To complement the existing techniques, this project aims to investigate a more complex and important form of these two problems, and to develop novel framework to approach the proposed problems. The successful achievements of the project will not only bring new spatial data analysis techn ....Efficient Processing of Complex Spatial Queries. Similarity search and join are two of the most popular yet complex queiries in spatial databases. They are also two of the major spatial data analysis paradigms. To complement the existing techniques, this project aims to investigate a more complex and important form of these two problems, and to develop novel framework to approach the proposed problems. The successful achievements of the project will not only bring new spatial data analysis techniques but also deliever effective solutions to a number of real-life apllications.Read moreRead less