The First Polynesians: Their Origins, Lifeways and Environmental Challenges. This project uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the biological, cultural and environmental factors underpinning the Polynesian people through a study of their ancient homeland in Tonga. Early Polynesian society developed 2650-2350 years ago, but little is known about the people, their culture and how sea-level fall impacted subsistence and settlement. The proposed study’s goal is to fill this gap in human kno ....The First Polynesians: Their Origins, Lifeways and Environmental Challenges. This project uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the biological, cultural and environmental factors underpinning the Polynesian people through a study of their ancient homeland in Tonga. Early Polynesian society developed 2650-2350 years ago, but little is known about the people, their culture and how sea-level fall impacted subsistence and settlement. The proposed study’s goal is to fill this gap in human knowledge about our Pacific neighbours using a unique skeletal assemblage, excavated cultural remains and advanced mapping of palaeo-sea-level markers that will improve understanding of the impact of environmental change on human societies in our region.Read moreRead less
Understanding communication about advance care planning across the lifespan. This project aims to understand how people communicate about advance care planning for children, adolescents, and adults. This project expects to generate new knowledge by using leading social scientific and linguistic methods to analyse real-world advance care planning conversations and documents. Expected outcomes include detailed knowledge about challenges people encounter in these conversations and how to manage the ....Understanding communication about advance care planning across the lifespan. This project aims to understand how people communicate about advance care planning for children, adolescents, and adults. This project expects to generate new knowledge by using leading social scientific and linguistic methods to analyse real-world advance care planning conversations and documents. Expected outcomes include detailed knowledge about challenges people encounter in these conversations and how to manage these challenges. Over 170,000 Australians die each year, most from serious illness. This project should provide significant benefits to future initiatives for enhancing communication about advance care planning, especially in relation to young Australians, older Australians, and Australians with disabilities.Read moreRead less
Warfare and the Archaic State in Oceania. The project aim is to investigate warfare in the ancient Tongan state through a study of earthwork fortifications. The conflict record for an Archaic state in Oceania that survived for 650 years contributes a new perspective to global research on warfare in complex societies. The effect of conflict is a prominent issue for Australia and long-term records of warfare in our region will improve our understanding of it. Intra-state conflict is the most press ....Warfare and the Archaic State in Oceania. The project aim is to investigate warfare in the ancient Tongan state through a study of earthwork fortifications. The conflict record for an Archaic state in Oceania that survived for 650 years contributes a new perspective to global research on warfare in complex societies. The effect of conflict is a prominent issue for Australia and long-term records of warfare in our region will improve our understanding of it. Intra-state conflict is the most pressing threat to political stability in South-East Asia and the Pacific and the project would benefit Australia by showing how changes to political systems are associated with phases of conflict and peace.Read moreRead less
Engaging ethnic minority and majority blood donors in donor recruitment. Word-of-mouth is a potentially powerful way to recruit blood donors. Talking about donation increases awareness, trust, commitment and positive feelings about donating, particularly in ethnic minority groups. However, donors seldom tell others about donating. This project aims to determine how to motivate blood donors to recruit new donors using word-of-mouth, through research comprising co-design, surveys, and experiments. ....Engaging ethnic minority and majority blood donors in donor recruitment. Word-of-mouth is a potentially powerful way to recruit blood donors. Talking about donation increases awareness, trust, commitment and positive feelings about donating, particularly in ethnic minority groups. However, donors seldom tell others about donating. This project aims to determine how to motivate blood donors to recruit new donors using word-of-mouth, through research comprising co-design, surveys, and experiments. This project will generate new knowledge of how to encourage effective word-of-mouth for pro-social behaviours. Expected outcomes include producing culturally relevant, validated resources that will significantly benefit Australia by encouraging effective conversations to promote blood donation in all communities.Read moreRead less
Voices of Regional Australia: The linguistic patterning of local attachment. This project aims to investigate language and social dynamics among regional Australians, who, despite representing one third of the population, have been often neglected in the research to date. The project expects to generate new knowledge around regional attachment and the impact that has on speech patterns, adapting for the first time recently developed international metrics to the Australian context. Expected outco ....Voices of Regional Australia: The linguistic patterning of local attachment. This project aims to investigate language and social dynamics among regional Australians, who, despite representing one third of the population, have been often neglected in the research to date. The project expects to generate new knowledge around regional attachment and the impact that has on speech patterns, adapting for the first time recently developed international metrics to the Australian context. Expected outcomes include a better understanding of models of language change across urban and rural areas, and a novel dataset recording the stories of regional Australians, and in particular, their experiences facing bushfire. This should provide significant benefits as a record of life, language and community in regional Australia.Read moreRead less
Design and verification of correct, efficient and secure concurrent systems. This project aims to provide methods for the design and verification of correct, secure and efficient concurrent software that are scalable and mechanised. Computers with multiple processors are now the norm and are used in a wide range of safety, security and mission critical software applications such as transport, health and infrastructure. These multi-core architectures have the potential to lead to important effici ....Design and verification of correct, efficient and secure concurrent systems. This project aims to provide methods for the design and verification of correct, secure and efficient concurrent software that are scalable and mechanised. Computers with multiple processors are now the norm and are used in a wide range of safety, security and mission critical software applications such as transport, health and infrastructure. These multi-core architectures have the potential to lead to important efficiency gains, but can introduce complex and error-prone behaviours that cannot be managed using traditional software development approaches. This project will produce better, scalable and mechanised methods for the design and verification of such software which is expected to reduce the prevalence of failures in efficient, modern software.Read moreRead less
Integrating community and family aged care for diverse Australians . This project aims to identify optimal ways to integrate community and family care to support older Australians from diverse cultural backgrounds to age well at home and in their communities. Using an innovative research design, the project seeks to generate new policy and practice relevant knowledge of care networks and expectations of diverse older Australians, their families and service providers to identify new avenues for e ....Integrating community and family aged care for diverse Australians . This project aims to identify optimal ways to integrate community and family care to support older Australians from diverse cultural backgrounds to age well at home and in their communities. Using an innovative research design, the project seeks to generate new policy and practice relevant knowledge of care networks and expectations of diverse older Australians, their families and service providers to identify new avenues for enabling family and community collaboration to meet care needs. Expected outcomes include enhancing Australia’s capacity to provide accessible, tailored and culturally responsive aged care, with significant benefits for improving care experiences for diverse older Australians, their families and service providers.Read moreRead less
Is there a climatic tipping point for Antarctic Bottom Water formation? Antarctic Bottom Water plays an important role in global ocean circulation and climate and yet its formation is also highly sensitive to climate change. This project will analyse new seafloor, core and water samples from the understudied Cape Darnley, East Antarctica, collected on a voyage in early 2022. This new data will be used in combination with an improved high resolution regional ocean model, to understand modern and ....Is there a climatic tipping point for Antarctic Bottom Water formation? Antarctic Bottom Water plays an important role in global ocean circulation and climate and yet its formation is also highly sensitive to climate change. This project will analyse new seafloor, core and water samples from the understudied Cape Darnley, East Antarctica, collected on a voyage in early 2022. This new data will be used in combination with an improved high resolution regional ocean model, to understand modern and past Antarctic Bottom Water formation under different climate states (warmer and colder than present), to determine if there are climate tipping points for the shut down of Antarctic Bottom Water formation. The anticipated benefits include a better understanding of future climate change on this important water mass.Read moreRead less
Geodetic groups: foundational problems in algebra and computer science. The project aims to resolve important and longstanding open problems in Geometric Group Theory and Theoretical Computer Science. Since the 1980s researchers have conjectured that the geometric property of being geodetic is equivalent to several purely algebraic, algorithmic, and language-theoretic characterisations.
The project team's expertise in geodesic properties of groups, the interaction between formal languages and g ....Geodetic groups: foundational problems in algebra and computer science. The project aims to resolve important and longstanding open problems in Geometric Group Theory and Theoretical Computer Science. Since the 1980s researchers have conjectured that the geometric property of being geodetic is equivalent to several purely algebraic, algorithmic, and language-theoretic characterisations.
The project team's expertise in geodesic properties of groups, the interaction between formal languages and groups, and the theory of rewriting systems, together with recent breakthroughs by the team ensures that significant results can be expected.
Benefits include training research students and postdoctoral researchers in cutting-edge techniques, and advancing fundamental knowledge in mathematics and computer science.Read moreRead less
The building blocks of meaning: a linguistic approach. This project will investigate how complex meanings are built up from more basic building blocks, and to what extent basic meanings differ between different languages, cultures, and geographical zones. The project is expected to lead to significant advances in the scientific knowledge of language. Nothing comparable has been attempted before. Expected outcomes include a rich harvest of new knowledge, digital tools to assist with analysing and ....The building blocks of meaning: a linguistic approach. This project will investigate how complex meanings are built up from more basic building blocks, and to what extent basic meanings differ between different languages, cultures, and geographical zones. The project is expected to lead to significant advances in the scientific knowledge of language. Nothing comparable has been attempted before. Expected outcomes include a rich harvest of new knowledge, digital tools to assist with analysing and translating complex meanings, and ongoing international collaborations. This will provide significant benefits such as enabling messaging and communication in education, health care, service delivery and international affairs to be clearer, more accessible and more translatable.Read moreRead less