The Amenity Principle: The causes, incidence and landuse planning implications of amenity-led rural settlement in Australia. This project will produce an 'amenity index' - a composite measure of a community's relative attractiveness to in-migrants for a substantial portion of the nation's ecumene. This index will aid in the development of more targetted approaches to rural planning and place marketing. Through the multi-state and multi-region nature of the fieldwork, the project will also draw t ....The Amenity Principle: The causes, incidence and landuse planning implications of amenity-led rural settlement in Australia. This project will produce an 'amenity index' - a composite measure of a community's relative attractiveness to in-migrants for a substantial portion of the nation's ecumene. This index will aid in the development of more targetted approaches to rural planning and place marketing. Through the multi-state and multi-region nature of the fieldwork, the project will also draw together a range of approaches used in managing the complex and often competing demands of amenity-inspired in-migration, thus making it a resource for innovative approaches to land use planning and management. Read moreRead less
Stream power and river morphology in partly-confined valleys of coastal New South Wales, Australia. Rivers in the escarpment-dominated catchments of coastal NSW are characterised by confined and partly-confined valley-settings in which channels have little capacity to adjust. The key aim of this project is to determine controls on the distribution of floodplains in this landscape. Particular attention will be placed on the role played by stream power in determining the relationship between val ....Stream power and river morphology in partly-confined valleys of coastal New South Wales, Australia. Rivers in the escarpment-dominated catchments of coastal NSW are characterised by confined and partly-confined valley-settings in which channels have little capacity to adjust. The key aim of this project is to determine controls on the distribution of floodplains in this landscape. Particular attention will be placed on the role played by stream power in determining the relationship between valley incision and lateral expansion processes along river courses. Understanding controls on these rivers is critical in determining how they modify their form in response to various disturbance events (whether 'natural' of human-induced). Results will provide a rigorous basis with which to explain cross-catchment variability in river forms and processes, aiding our capacity to predict future adjustments to disturbance and develop river management strategies that 'work with nature'.Read moreRead less
The Antarctic ice sheet through the Last Glacial Cycle - numerical modelling constrained by field evidence. The response of the world's largest ice mass to climate change is important because melting leads to a rise in sea level. Our ability to predict changes in ice volume and sea level under a warming climate, will be enhanced by better understanding of past ice sheet responses to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Improved numerical models now exist that allow realistic simulations of Ant ....The Antarctic ice sheet through the Last Glacial Cycle - numerical modelling constrained by field evidence. The response of the world's largest ice mass to climate change is important because melting leads to a rise in sea level. Our ability to predict changes in ice volume and sea level under a warming climate, will be enhanced by better understanding of past ice sheet responses to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Improved numerical models now exist that allow realistic simulations of Antarctic ice. These models will be developed further and constrained against existing and new field evidence for the Last Glacial Cycle (last 125,000 years), the period for which we can best define past ice sheet behaviour.Read moreRead less
Sediment stock-piling and the fate of Australian floodplains. Historic landuse practices have profoundly altered Australia's river systems in less than 200 years. Up to 80% of the sediment and associated pollutants eroded from Australia's catchments are stored in floodplains. The assumption that floodplains can continue to absorb the impacts of upland erosion and land degradation is extremely risky, yet it underpins current catchment management policies in Australia. This project delivers essent ....Sediment stock-piling and the fate of Australian floodplains. Historic landuse practices have profoundly altered Australia's river systems in less than 200 years. Up to 80% of the sediment and associated pollutants eroded from Australia's catchments are stored in floodplains. The assumption that floodplains can continue to absorb the impacts of upland erosion and land degradation is extremely risky, yet it underpins current catchment management policies in Australia. This project delivers essential data on floodplain storage and remobilisation rates using innovative sediment dating and tracing technologies. The significance of this research lies in its immediate relevance to rural industries and the management of Australian riverine and offshore ecosystems.
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Testing the Australian Megatsunami Hypothesis. More than 300000 lives and property worth more than $150bn on the NSW coast are vulnerable to large tsunamis but at present we do not have a clear idea about how often such tsunamis occur and how big they might be. This project will identify and date evidence for past tsunamis on the coasts of NSW and west New Zealand which will help us understand regional tsunami risk. This will provide knowledge that will guide tsunami risk management practice in ....Testing the Australian Megatsunami Hypothesis. More than 300000 lives and property worth more than $150bn on the NSW coast are vulnerable to large tsunamis but at present we do not have a clear idea about how often such tsunamis occur and how big they might be. This project will identify and date evidence for past tsunamis on the coasts of NSW and west New Zealand which will help us understand regional tsunami risk. This will provide knowledge that will guide tsunami risk management practice in vulnerable areas of NSW and help underpin the developing Australian Tsunami Warning System. Read moreRead less
Gesture-controlled interaction to enrich information access. This project is a study of gestural computing (enabled by sensors such as pressure mats, infra-red sensors and video tracking) which aims to move away from desk-bound, restrictive computing environments and towards computing that is more integral to the building structure and space itself. Linking gesture controllers and information sonification delivers a unique bridge between data and human interaction. Enriching the capacity to acce ....Gesture-controlled interaction to enrich information access. This project is a study of gestural computing (enabled by sensors such as pressure mats, infra-red sensors and video tracking) which aims to move away from desk-bound, restrictive computing environments and towards computing that is more integral to the building structure and space itself. Linking gesture controllers and information sonification delivers a unique bridge between data and human interaction. Enriching the capacity to access information in dense workplace environments is central to improved efficiency across the Australian workforce. Greater accuracy and enhanced techniques for controlling information in visually-overloaded work environments contribute to Australia's competitive leadership in a global marketplace.Read moreRead less
Situated Design Computing: A New Paradigm to Support Design Using Situated Reasoning. A country like Australia with its twin disadvantages of distance from its large markets and small population as its own market has to found its goals in its wealth production on its ability to compete at the high value-adding loci of the economy. Design is a precursor to superior products and is one of the nation's high value-adding wealth generating activities. This project aims to lay the foundations for a ....Situated Design Computing: A New Paradigm to Support Design Using Situated Reasoning. A country like Australia with its twin disadvantages of distance from its large markets and small population as its own market has to found its goals in its wealth production on its ability to compete at the high value-adding loci of the economy. Design is a precursor to superior products and is one of the nation's high value-adding wealth generating activities. This project aims to lay the foundations for a new class of design support tools that have the capacity to be used at a variety of stages in the design process including those stages where major decisions are being taken. This will have the potential to improve the efficacy and the efficiency of Australian design and hence make it more globally competitive.Read moreRead less
Causes that make a difference: A philosophical theory of token-causation. Discussions of causation in philosophy and other disciplines raise matters of practical concern: for example, about how to improve causal explanations in economics, how to devise better ways of testing causal hypotheses in medicine, and how to automate procedures for discovering causal relations in agriculture. By clarifying the structure of causal concepts, the project will help in the efforts to address these problems, a ....Causes that make a difference: A philosophical theory of token-causation. Discussions of causation in philosophy and other disciplines raise matters of practical concern: for example, about how to improve causal explanations in economics, how to devise better ways of testing causal hypotheses in medicine, and how to automate procedures for discovering causal relations in agriculture. By clarifying the structure of causal concepts, the project will help in the efforts to address these problems, and so contribute indirectly to the national benefits that will accrue from solving them. A central aim of the project is to train several PhD students, the next generation of researchers, in this important field of enquiry.Read moreRead less
Operator Decision Modelling in Autonomous Systems. The incorporation of humans as decision-makers into a complex system comprising of many autonomous agents is becoming increasingly important in areas such as defence, search-and-rescue, special emergency services, bush-fire and ecology management. This project will address how human decisions are made in such systems through the formulation and demonstration of innovative algorithms which model the operator decision making process. Generating so ....Operator Decision Modelling in Autonomous Systems. The incorporation of humans as decision-makers into a complex system comprising of many autonomous agents is becoming increasingly important in areas such as defence, search-and-rescue, special emergency services, bush-fire and ecology management. This project will address how human decisions are made in such systems through the formulation and demonstration of innovative algorithms which model the operator decision making process. Generating solutions to this increasingly important area will provide Australia's industry and community services the necessary knowledge for deploying such systems and thus improving service effectiveness, as well as the implementation of autonomous systems into new areas and thus increasing economic growth.Read moreRead less
Microfluidic photonic systems. Australia is set to reap commercial benefits nationally and internationally from new developments in the highly competitive domain of microtechnology. In this project, a group of Australia's leading researchers propose an innovative combination of two exciting fields of scientific research. Microfluidics is the manipulation of minute quantities of liquids in microscopic channels, while photonics is the generation, transmission, detection and analysis of light as a ....Microfluidic photonic systems. Australia is set to reap commercial benefits nationally and internationally from new developments in the highly competitive domain of microtechnology. In this project, a group of Australia's leading researchers propose an innovative combination of two exciting fields of scientific research. Microfluidics is the manipulation of minute quantities of liquids in microscopic channels, while photonics is the generation, transmission, detection and analysis of light as a means to convey, collect and process information. The marriage of these two fields promises the development of novel, high performance tunable devices for sensing, biotechnology and telecommunications.Read moreRead less