Transforming tobacco policy to deliver societal benefits. This project aims to develop new regulatory options for tobacco to minimise the legal market while avoiding the adverse societal and economic impacts of transferring consumer demand to illegal tobacco products. It addresses a significant current concern about a growing illegal tobacco market and seeks to improve understanding of the impact of tobacco control policies on the illegal market, and the societal impacts. The project also seeks ....Transforming tobacco policy to deliver societal benefits. This project aims to develop new regulatory options for tobacco to minimise the legal market while avoiding the adverse societal and economic impacts of transferring consumer demand to illegal tobacco products. It addresses a significant current concern about a growing illegal tobacco market and seeks to improve understanding of the impact of tobacco control policies on the illegal market, and the societal impacts. The project also seeks to draw insights from illicit drug policy to understand potential consequences of greater restrictions on the legal tobacco market. The expected outcomes include an enhanced monitoring system for illicit tobacco and policy recommendations to achieve government goals of reducing smoking rates.Read moreRead less
Resolving insect evolution. Our poor understanding of the evolution of insects, life’s most successful group, is a huge gap in our knowledge of nature. By analysing genomic data the project will resolve the insect evolutionary tree and discover what drove insect evolution. This will expand our knowledge of how evolution works - a vital part of conserving our biological diversity.
Development of population-level algorithms for modelling genomic variation and its impact on cellular function in animals and plants. The purpose of this project is to develop mathematical and computational tools which will enable researchers to model high-throughput biological data at the population level. These models will be used to uncover the effect that genetic variation has on the physiology of the cell and the organism.
Exploring the effects and maximising the benefits of the Gold Coast Rapid Transit project. Is light rail the ‘solution’ to Australia’s urban transport problems, or an expensive folly? Such questions will be explored in this project that focuses on the Gold Coast Rapid Transit project and comparative examples overseas. The project will include surveys of public transport users, transport modelling and an innovative trial of behaviour changed programs.
An evolutionary landscape to better predict our future climate. Soil microbial communities are the most complicated and difficult to study on Earth, but their effects on our climate are profound. This project will examine the evolution of microorganisms and their viruses in soil using novel methods. It will uncover how the evolution of one microbial species influences the evolution of other community members. It will also apply a new model of evolution to the viruses that infect these microorgan ....An evolutionary landscape to better predict our future climate. Soil microbial communities are the most complicated and difficult to study on Earth, but their effects on our climate are profound. This project will examine the evolution of microorganisms and their viruses in soil using novel methods. It will uncover how the evolution of one microbial species influences the evolution of other community members. It will also apply a new model of evolution to the viruses that infect these microorganisms, constructing a viral ‘tree of life’. This improved fundamental understanding of soil communities will be used to study climate feedback from permafrost wetlands, a key and poorly constrained input of global climate models, improving predictions of our future climate.Read moreRead less
Informing economic policies to enhance an efficient and sustainable use of water resources in a context of high uncertainty on future climate. The main purpose of this project is to assess how economic instruments can be used to improve water resources management in a context of uncertainty and climate change.
Constructing the next crisis: ideas, economic policy, and the social limits to reform. For twenty years, even as the world economy has been repeatedly disrupted by crises, efforts at reform have been blocked by economic ideas regarding the virtues of free markets. If these views remain in place, there will be more crises. This research seeks to understand how elite consensus limits debate and how new ideas might enable reform.
Scalable biocomputing on networks: design and mathematical foundations. This project aims to develop technology with the potential to disrupt computation by providing a way to solve combinatorial mathematical problems in an efficient manner. Electronic computers have revolutionised our lives over the last half-century, but there are tasks they can not do, usually those requiring multi-tasking, much as our brains do. This project aims to overcome some of these problems by physically using molecul ....Scalable biocomputing on networks: design and mathematical foundations. This project aims to develop technology with the potential to disrupt computation by providing a way to solve combinatorial mathematical problems in an efficient manner. Electronic computers have revolutionised our lives over the last half-century, but there are tasks they can not do, usually those requiring multi-tasking, much as our brains do. This project aims to overcome some of these problems by physically using molecular parts of living things moving within specially mathematically designed networks to solve, in parallel, "combinatorial" mathematical problems that vex traditional computers, while using far less energy than electronic devices. This project expects to develop this nascent field into a practically useful, disruptive technology based in Australia.Read moreRead less