Judges' work, place and psychological health - a national view. This project aims to address the human, juridical and financial costs of judicial officers’ work-related psychological harm. This harm is implicated in early retirement, sick leave and suicide. It threatens appropriate courtroom conduct, procedural fairness and impartial adjudication. The project seeks to generate new knowledge of the stress judicial officers experience and the individual and institutional mechanisms for managing st ....Judges' work, place and psychological health - a national view. This project aims to address the human, juridical and financial costs of judicial officers’ work-related psychological harm. This harm is implicated in early retirement, sick leave and suicide. It threatens appropriate courtroom conduct, procedural fairness and impartial adjudication. The project seeks to generate new knowledge of the stress judicial officers experience and the individual and institutional mechanisms for managing stressors, combining socio-legal and psychological approaches. Expected outcomes include evidence-based understandings to inform recruitment and retention strategies specific to this highly specialized workforce. This should provide significant benefits for judges’ work capacities and courts' delivery of justice.Read moreRead less
Attentional asymmetries for navigation in healthy and clinical groups. This project plans to investigate how differences in attentional capacity between the left and right sides of the brain affect the ability to walk or manoeuvre vehicles between obstacles. To navigate our environment and avoid obstacles, we need to attend to stimuli that are important and ignore those that are not. Unfortunately, the brain’s attentional capacity is limited, which can result in errors and collisions. Using the ....Attentional asymmetries for navigation in healthy and clinical groups. This project plans to investigate how differences in attentional capacity between the left and right sides of the brain affect the ability to walk or manoeuvre vehicles between obstacles. To navigate our environment and avoid obstacles, we need to attend to stimuli that are important and ignore those that are not. Unfortunately, the brain’s attentional capacity is limited, which can result in errors and collisions. Using the techniques of cognitive neuroscience, the project aims to provide a better understanding of the cognitive and neural mechanisms that govern attention in an applied setting. It expects to identify the factors that exacerbate lapses in attention and collisions. The effect of everyday impediments such as mobile phones, alcohol and fatigue will be investigated together with means of minimising these attentional lapses and improving safety.Read moreRead less
Challenges, Possibilities and Future Directions: A National Assessment of Australia's Children's Courts. Children's Courts occupy a unique position in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems in responding to often marginalized delinquent youth and vulnerable children and families. Philosophical and structural shifts in Australia and overseas suggest community and legal system responses are often ineffective and contribute to longer-term problems, creating social challenges for governments ....Challenges, Possibilities and Future Directions: A National Assessment of Australia's Children's Courts. Children's Courts occupy a unique position in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems in responding to often marginalized delinquent youth and vulnerable children and families. Philosophical and structural shifts in Australia and overseas suggest community and legal system responses are often ineffective and contribute to longer-term problems, creating social challenges for governments and communities alike. This national study will examine how key stakeholders, including, significantly, judicial officers, view the Children's Court's contemporary responses and challenges, their preferred alternatives responses and the viability of suggested reforms, thus offering a unique contribution to informing legal and social policy change.Read moreRead less
Data analytics-based tools and methods to enhance self-regulated learning. This project aims to develop student self-regulated learning skills by harnessing the potential of Big Data analytics. The project expects to generate new knowledge at the intersection of learning analytics, educational technology, learning sciences and teaching practice resulting from novel data collection and analysis tools and methods. The outputs are expected to include insights into metacognitive, motivational, and t ....Data analytics-based tools and methods to enhance self-regulated learning. This project aims to develop student self-regulated learning skills by harnessing the potential of Big Data analytics. The project expects to generate new knowledge at the intersection of learning analytics, educational technology, learning sciences and teaching practice resulting from novel data collection and analysis tools and methods. The outputs are expected to include insights into metacognitive, motivational, and technical issues facing analytics-based personalised feedback. The outcomes are intended to offer benefits for developing pedagogical and the design of educational technology. The outcomes can result in improved student learning outcomes in higher education to ensure graduates are prepared for the digital economy.Read moreRead less
The relative impacts of sleep, wake and the internal body clock on human performance. The 24h society presents a number of challenges to the shiftworker. First, shiftworkers have to maintain a balance between the competing needs of work, family, leisure and social life. Second, shiftwork has been identified as a risk factor for obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Third, shiftworkers have an increased risk of injury and death at work. This project will use an innovative research protocol to prov ....The relative impacts of sleep, wake and the internal body clock on human performance. The 24h society presents a number of challenges to the shiftworker. First, shiftworkers have to maintain a balance between the competing needs of work, family, leisure and social life. Second, shiftwork has been identified as a risk factor for obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Third, shiftworkers have an increased risk of injury and death at work. This project will use an innovative research protocol to provide critical information about the independent and combined effects of sleep loss and body clock disruption on human performance. Work schedules designed on the basis of a better understanding of sleep loss and circadian disruption will result in healthier employees, safer workplaces, and reduced costs to the community.Read moreRead less
Climate and environmental history of SE Queensland dunefields. This project aims to generate fundamental information about the timing and mode of formation of sand dunes in the world's largest downdrift sand system, Cooloola and Fraser Island, Queensland. The project aims to provide a world class record of climate variability, sea-level change and long term climate change from the sub-tropics of Australia, an area critical to understanding global climate links and sea-level change but where high ....Climate and environmental history of SE Queensland dunefields. This project aims to generate fundamental information about the timing and mode of formation of sand dunes in the world's largest downdrift sand system, Cooloola and Fraser Island, Queensland. The project aims to provide a world class record of climate variability, sea-level change and long term climate change from the sub-tropics of Australia, an area critical to understanding global climate links and sea-level change but where high quality long-term records are sparse and little investigated. This project will also underpin the outstanding universal value of the Fraser Island World Heritage Area which is based on the area being the world's largest sand island, but for which scientific understanding of the sand dunes is remarkably poor.Read moreRead less
Microscale insights into ocean-scale processes: microbial behaviour as a driver of ocean biogeochemistry. Microscopic plankton regulate the ocean's chemical cycles, which ultimately support life on earth. However, the ecological interactions driving these processes are poorly understood. This project will use novel approaches to decipher the behaviours of marine microbes, providing a more complete perception of how ocean ecosystems operate and influence climate.
Positron Nano-Dosimetry: Fundamental Measurements of Positron Interactions and their use in State-of-the-Art Modelling of Positron Transport. This proposal will provide unique experimental and theoretical information on how positrons, the electron antiparticles, interact with matter, in particular with biologically important molecules. This data will be used in a unique set of modelling approaches which will provide, for the first time, an insight into how positrons are transported through gases ....Positron Nano-Dosimetry: Fundamental Measurements of Positron Interactions and their use in State-of-the-Art Modelling of Positron Transport. This proposal will provide unique experimental and theoretical information on how positrons, the electron antiparticles, interact with matter, in particular with biologically important molecules. This data will be used in a unique set of modelling approaches which will provide, for the first time, an insight into how positrons are transported through gases, liquids and ultimately, soft matter. It will thus have important ramifications for diagnostic tools such as Positron Emission Tomography. The fundamental research will also shed light on one of the key 'mysteries' of life - why the biological building blocks of life possess a definite " handedness", or chirality.Read moreRead less
A more sound approach to the neurobiology of language. How does the brain attain spoken language? Current neurobiological models assume either implicitly or explicitly that there is no relationship between a word's sound and its meaning. Yet considerable evidence shows this strong assumption about the arbitrariness of language is invalid. This project will use a combination of behavioural, neuroimaging and computational studies to characterise how the brain processes statistical regularities in ....A more sound approach to the neurobiology of language. How does the brain attain spoken language? Current neurobiological models assume either implicitly or explicitly that there is no relationship between a word's sound and its meaning. Yet considerable evidence shows this strong assumption about the arbitrariness of language is invalid. This project will use a combination of behavioural, neuroimaging and computational studies to characterise how the brain processes statistical regularities in sound-to-meaning correspondences as probabilistic cues to attain spoken language. The outcome will be a better neural account of language comprehension and production. The benefit of this new account will be a stronger basis for assessment and treatment of developmental and acquired language impairments.Read moreRead less