Deformable Surfaces Supporting 3D Tactile Human Computer Interactions. This project will support Research Priority 3: Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries. The results will provide information that will further build our understanding of human computer interactions. Digital Foam supports Smart Information Use by providing a new interaction paradigm for existing and new creative applications for digital technologies. The new form of interaction provides a new ....Deformable Surfaces Supporting 3D Tactile Human Computer Interactions. This project will support Research Priority 3: Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries. The results will provide information that will further build our understanding of human computer interactions. Digital Foam supports Smart Information Use by providing a new interaction paradigm for existing and new creative applications for digital technologies. The new form of interaction provides a new computer interaction product in itself and the ability to make a more efficient creative environment for designers of 3D content, multi-media and manufacturing design. This technology supports the ability of organisations to operate virtually and collaborate across large distances in Australia and internationally.Read moreRead less
A study of the nongenomic action of Vitamin D: proposed role of the nuclear VDR and downstream signalling molecules. Vitamin D (1,25D) activates genes in the nucleus through the vitamin D receptor (VDR). 1,25D can also elicit rapid responses at the plasma membrane. This action is critical to the activation of nuclear genes. We hypothesise that a proportion of the nuclear VDR is located at the plasma membrane where it stimulates downstream signalling molecules eg Ras, ERK1/2 and ERK5. We plan to ....A study of the nongenomic action of Vitamin D: proposed role of the nuclear VDR and downstream signalling molecules. Vitamin D (1,25D) activates genes in the nucleus through the vitamin D receptor (VDR). 1,25D can also elicit rapid responses at the plasma membrane. This action is critical to the activation of nuclear genes. We hypothesise that a proportion of the nuclear VDR is located at the plasma membrane where it stimulates downstream signalling molecules eg Ras, ERK1/2 and ERK5. We plan to explore this hypothesis and to identify the signalling molecules. We will also investigate our novel finding that a specific Ras isoform is involved in ERK5 activation. The work will provide new information on signalling pathways.Read moreRead less
Learning to Reason in Reinforcement Learning. Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) uses deep neural networks to represent and learn optimal decision-making policies for intelligent agents in complex environments. However, most RL approaches require millions of episodes to converge to good policies, making it difficult for RL to be applied in real-world scenarios taking significant resources. This project aims to equip RL with capabilities such as counterfactual reasoning and outcome anticipation to ....Learning to Reason in Reinforcement Learning. Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) uses deep neural networks to represent and learn optimal decision-making policies for intelligent agents in complex environments. However, most RL approaches require millions of episodes to converge to good policies, making it difficult for RL to be applied in real-world scenarios taking significant resources. This project aims to equip RL with capabilities such as counterfactual reasoning and outcome anticipation to significantly reduce the number of interactions required, improve generalisation, and provide the agent with the capability to consider the cause-effects. These improvements would narrow the gap between AI and human capabilities and broaden the adoption of RL in real-world applications.Read moreRead less
Parametric VR: An Interactive Virtual Reality System for Parametric Design. This project aims to create a new and intuitive set of user interactions for Virtual Reality (VR) to support parametric designers in architecture and design. Parametric tools are an emerging design technology dominating contemporary practices, yet their interfaces are on traditional desktop computers while VR is only employed to visualise the geometric models produced by the end design. This project will generate Paramet ....Parametric VR: An Interactive Virtual Reality System for Parametric Design. This project aims to create a new and intuitive set of user interactions for Virtual Reality (VR) to support parametric designers in architecture and design. Parametric tools are an emerging design technology dominating contemporary practices, yet their interfaces are on traditional desktop computers while VR is only employed to visualise the geometric models produced by the end design. This project will generate Parametric VR, a system of VR tools to support parametric design. Key outcomes include software tools and demonstrators to support parametric algorithms and processes in VR. This will have significant benefits for design industries, allowing designers to directly edit parametric design entirely in VR across the project lifecycle.Read moreRead less
Continuous process improvement through workstation feedback for General Practice medicine using experts-in-the-loop data mining. This project investigates the iterative use of data mining results to allow experts to construct feedback to influence subsequent production work. We explore the problem in the context of General Practice medicine by having General Practitioners (GPs) review emerging patterns from their own practice's electronic medical records and author feedback to discourage undesi ....Continuous process improvement through workstation feedback for General Practice medicine using experts-in-the-loop data mining. This project investigates the iterative use of data mining results to allow experts to construct feedback to influence subsequent production work. We explore the problem in the context of General Practice medicine by having General Practitioners (GPs) review emerging patterns from their own practice's electronic medical records and author feedback to discourage undesirable patterns. The work will have immediate applicability to medical practice and will drive innovation in data mining method, notably for efficient identification of temporal and complex niche patterns. More broadly, the work will extend the way data mining is used to create new expectations of workstation behaviour.Read moreRead less
Regulatory mechanisms for calcium release-activated calcium channels. Store-operated calcium channels play a central role in the functions of all animal cells. They participate in generating the cellular responses to hormones, growth factors and other physiological stimuli. The aims of this project are to elucidate the mechanisms that regulate the activity of store-operated channels and how their properties can be modulated by different pharmacological agents. Using chiefly the techniques of ele ....Regulatory mechanisms for calcium release-activated calcium channels. Store-operated calcium channels play a central role in the functions of all animal cells. They participate in generating the cellular responses to hormones, growth factors and other physiological stimuli. The aims of this project are to elucidate the mechanisms that regulate the activity of store-operated channels and how their properties can be modulated by different pharmacological agents. Using chiefly the techniques of electrophysiology and molecular biology we expect to learn the fundamental mechanisms that modulate the opening and closing of store-operated calcium channels and to gain an important information that can be used for determining the molecular structure of these channelsRead moreRead less
Interacting with visualisations of extremely large graph structures on large displays. The latest technological progressions have delivered very large data sets that can be modelled as graphs or networks. Examples include: social networks, biological data, and software structures. This project will develop techniques to allow users to visualise the graphs in the entirety and directly interact with data.
Through Walls Collaboration to Support Command and Control Operations with Eyes and Ears in the Field. Australia is a geographically dispersed country with locations of high concentrations of technology resources. Australia requires the ability to gather real time intelligence information in the field to support planning and operational decisions by a command team for military and civil defence operations. Currently Australia supports such operations in remote areas of the country and numerous o ....Through Walls Collaboration to Support Command and Control Operations with Eyes and Ears in the Field. Australia is a geographically dispersed country with locations of high concentrations of technology resources. Australia requires the ability to gather real time intelligence information in the field to support planning and operational decisions by a command team for military and civil defence operations. Currently Australia supports such operations in remote areas of the country and numerous overseas operations. A major research outcome is the design and development of interaction techniques for the mobile users in through walls collaboration systems to control and manipulate augmented reality information in the field across a number of application domains, such as medical, maintenance, military, search and rescue, and GIS visualization.Read moreRead less
Remote presence for guidance on physical tasks. This project aims to transform remote collaboration on physical tasks. Current systems for remote collaboration on physical tasks are not as effective as working face-to-face. This could be overcome by sharing non-verbal cues, designing systems to account for cultural issues, and using a new model of communication. This project will develop theories and interaction methods for remote guidance based on natural non-verbal communication cues and cultu ....Remote presence for guidance on physical tasks. This project aims to transform remote collaboration on physical tasks. Current systems for remote collaboration on physical tasks are not as effective as working face-to-face. This could be overcome by sharing non-verbal cues, designing systems to account for cultural issues, and using a new model of communication. This project will develop theories and interaction methods for remote guidance based on natural non-verbal communication cues and cultural issues. This project is expected to benefit industries with widely distributed multi-cultural workforces such as mining, defence and medicine.Read moreRead less
Second messenger-activated calcium channels in liver cells. This project concerns second messenger-activated calcium channels, part of the family of hormone-activated calcium channels which are essential to the functions of all animal cells. The aims are to elucidate the properties of a novel "large conductance" Ca2+ channel (using maitotoxin as an artificial activator), an inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate-activated calcium channel, and the calcium channel formed by the transient receptor potential ....Second messenger-activated calcium channels in liver cells. This project concerns second messenger-activated calcium channels, part of the family of hormone-activated calcium channels which are essential to the functions of all animal cells. The aims are to elucidate the properties of a novel "large conductance" Ca2+ channel (using maitotoxin as an artificial activator), an inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate-activated calcium channel, and the calcium channel formed by the transient receptor potential-1 (TRP-1) protein in hepatocytes. The electrophysiological properties, mechanisms of activation and intracellular trafficking of the channels will be investigated. It is anticipated the results will provide basic information on the physiological functions of second messenger-activated calcium channels. This will benefit the understanding of liver function, hepatotoxicity in animals, animal production and the development of pharmaceuticals in animal husbandary.Read moreRead less