Planetary Pulsations: Exploring Links between Superplumes, Supercontinents, and Superchrons with 3-D Spherical Mantle Convection Models. This project advances the tools and knowledge base regarding historic motions of tectonic plates (including the Australian continent). This furthers understanding of the current and past state of stress in the Earth's surface, ultimately improving ways of characterizing earthquake hazard and mineral exploration. This project also benefits researchers interpre ....Planetary Pulsations: Exploring Links between Superplumes, Supercontinents, and Superchrons with 3-D Spherical Mantle Convection Models. This project advances the tools and knowledge base regarding historic motions of tectonic plates (including the Australian continent). This furthers understanding of the current and past state of stress in the Earth's surface, ultimately improving ways of characterizing earthquake hazard and mineral exploration. This project also benefits researchers interpreting the climate record as two processes which effected the ancient climate are investigated: major outbursts of greenhouse gases during periods of major volcanism and the reorientation of the planet with respect to its spin axis. The results are obtained with these computer simulations highlight Australia's emerging strength in supercomputing on the international scene.
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Patient-specific Computational Tools for Diagnosing and Treating Gait Disorders in Children with Cerebral Palsy. This proposal addresses one of the most fundamental and difficult questions related to the treatment of children with cerebral palsy: Why do these children walk in a crouched position, with excessively bent hips and knees? High-fidelity, patient-specific computer simulations of walking can help to answer this question and, in so doing, can improve the outcomes of orthopaedic surgeries ....Patient-specific Computational Tools for Diagnosing and Treating Gait Disorders in Children with Cerebral Palsy. This proposal addresses one of the most fundamental and difficult questions related to the treatment of children with cerebral palsy: Why do these children walk in a crouched position, with excessively bent hips and knees? High-fidelity, patient-specific computer simulations of walking can help to answer this question and, in so doing, can improve the outcomes of orthopaedic surgeries designed to correct movement abnormalities in these patients. Realistic computer simulations of human movement can play a pivotal role in healthcare through patient rehabilitation; in sports, through the development of personalized training programs for elite athletes; and in entertainment, through the creation of video games and animated films.Read moreRead less
Exploiting Database Technologies for the Visualization and Analysis of Measured and Simulated Plant Structures in Bioinformatics. The project will contribute to both bioinformatics and database research at both the national and international levels, although this project is specifically focusing on plant architecture but it has great potential other fields such as solving computationally difficult problems of branching in nature such as DNA and crystal related research. The results of this resea ....Exploiting Database Technologies for the Visualization and Analysis of Measured and Simulated Plant Structures in Bioinformatics. The project will contribute to both bioinformatics and database research at both the national and international levels, although this project is specifically focusing on plant architecture but it has great potential other fields such as solving computationally difficult problems of branching in nature such as DNA and crystal related research. The results of this research can be applied to all kinds of plants such as rice, cotton, rose etc.Read moreRead less
Large-scale three dimensional deformation of the lithosphere by subduction and mantle flow. We will be modelling of the dynamics of the Earth's crust and shallow lithosphere in response to the huge stresses created by plate motions. For Australia these stresses are transmitted from the distant plate boundaries, but they have a direct controlling influence on the evolution of the petroleum rich basins of Australia. These basins have reached maturity; further exploration will be in deep water wher ....Large-scale three dimensional deformation of the lithosphere by subduction and mantle flow. We will be modelling of the dynamics of the Earth's crust and shallow lithosphere in response to the huge stresses created by plate motions. For Australia these stresses are transmitted from the distant plate boundaries, but they have a direct controlling influence on the evolution of the petroleum rich basins of Australia. These basins have reached maturity; further exploration will be in deep water where geophysical prospecting methods are unreliable. Model-driven "exploration geodynamics" methods such as those we are developing will be needed to support traditional exploration techniques in these areas.Read moreRead less
Non-invasive assessment of hip fracture risk in elderly people. No falls, no fractures - this will be the main benefit of the proposed research. The most significant outcome will be new computational tools to improve current understanding of the biomechanics of falls and bone fragility in elderly people, which, in turn, will help to reduce healthcare costs associated with the treatment and management of hip fractures. Realistic models and computer simulations of human movement can play a pivota ....Non-invasive assessment of hip fracture risk in elderly people. No falls, no fractures - this will be the main benefit of the proposed research. The most significant outcome will be new computational tools to improve current understanding of the biomechanics of falls and bone fragility in elderly people, which, in turn, will help to reduce healthcare costs associated with the treatment and management of hip fractures. Realistic models and computer simulations of human movement can play a pivotal role in three of Australia's largest industries: healthcare, through the diagnosis and treatment of movement disorders; sports, through the development of personalized training programs for elite athletes; and entertainment, through the development of video/digital games and animated films.Read moreRead less
A Control Systems Approach for Understanding Human Locomotion. This proposal addresses fundamental, difficult questions in the context of human movement: How do muscles move our limbs during walking? How do the nervous system and muscles work together to control movement? Realistic computer simulations of human movement can help answer these questions and, in so doing, can play a pivotal role in three of Australia's largest industries: healthcare, through clinical gait analysis and gait rehabili ....A Control Systems Approach for Understanding Human Locomotion. This proposal addresses fundamental, difficult questions in the context of human movement: How do muscles move our limbs during walking? How do the nervous system and muscles work together to control movement? Realistic computer simulations of human movement can help answer these questions and, in so doing, can play a pivotal role in three of Australia's largest industries: healthcare, through clinical gait analysis and gait rehabilitation (diagnosis and treatment of movement disorders); sports, through the development of personalized training programs for elite athletes; and entertainment, through the development of video/digital games and animated films (creation of virtual life-like actors).Read moreRead less
An Extensible agent-based framework for exploring climate change adaptation. The benefit of this project is the provision of an extensible leading edge technological platform for exploration of critical problems of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA). This will enable policy makers and social scientists to explore the complex interactions of different approaches to adaptation thus informing this critical area understanding. The research questions addressed will also provide more general benefits in ....An Extensible agent-based framework for exploring climate change adaptation. The benefit of this project is the provision of an extensible leading edge technological platform for exploration of critical problems of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA). This will enable policy makers and social scientists to explore the complex interactions of different approaches to adaptation thus informing this critical area understanding. The research questions addressed will also provide more general benefits in the area of agent based modelling and simulation, facilitating principled modelling of more complex entities within simulations. Building on top of a platform with an existing large user base facilitates contributions to the extensible platform, and the application area of CCA, by a wide range of people.Read moreRead less
Remote Delivery and Capture of Payloads using Aerial Deployed Tethers. The capability to rapidly transport payloads to and from remote locations is critical for search and rescue, disaster relief, remote communities, and military operations. Conventional technology is not well suited to this role, hence we propose to develop an intelligent system to manoeuvre a tether, towed from an aircraft, to pick-up or set-down a payload, with zero surface velocity. Because of the complex, nonlinear dynamics ....Remote Delivery and Capture of Payloads using Aerial Deployed Tethers. The capability to rapidly transport payloads to and from remote locations is critical for search and rescue, disaster relief, remote communities, and military operations. Conventional technology is not well suited to this role, hence we propose to develop an intelligent system to manoeuvre a tether, towed from an aircraft, to pick-up or set-down a payload, with zero surface velocity. Because of the complex, nonlinear dynamics of a cable-body system, advanced modelling and nonlinear optimal control will be applied in this task. The resulting world-first system will provide important economic opportunities and demonstrate Australian scientific capacity for novel developing intelligent systems.Read moreRead less
Bio-inspired speech analysis: Specialised information processing of vocalisations in the auditory brainstem. This project has the potential to benefit bionic ear and hearing aid users through the development of signal processing methods that mimic the amazing abilities of the brain. Speech perception performance by bionic ear users has reached a plateau and these new strategies could produce the breakthrough needed to provide the next increase in performance. The benefit for greater improved hea ....Bio-inspired speech analysis: Specialised information processing of vocalisations in the auditory brainstem. This project has the potential to benefit bionic ear and hearing aid users through the development of signal processing methods that mimic the amazing abilities of the brain. Speech perception performance by bionic ear users has reached a plateau and these new strategies could produce the breakthrough needed to provide the next increase in performance. The benefit for greater improved hearing has enormous benefit and potential for improving the quality of life of the hearing impaired, especially those with severe and profound hearing loss. In addition, the algorithms may provide more robust automatic speech recognition, making this technology more useful in everyday situations; the markets that this would open up are enormous.Read moreRead less
Personalised public transport. This project aims to address urban congestion by utilising people’s travel plans to coordinate journeys. The project expects to generate new knowledge in scalable optimisation, based on innovative modelling of urban transport, and tested on historical data from Melbourne. The expected outcomes of the project are an active transport database and optimised mode choice and routing system, with predicted reductions in congestion based on simulation of its use. This pro ....Personalised public transport. This project aims to address urban congestion by utilising people’s travel plans to coordinate journeys. The project expects to generate new knowledge in scalable optimisation, based on innovative modelling of urban transport, and tested on historical data from Melbourne. The expected outcomes of the project are an active transport database and optimised mode choice and routing system, with predicted reductions in congestion based on simulation of its use. This project aims to design an urban trip advisory system that could be followed by automated vehicles as well as human drivers, to reduce the financial and environmental cost of current urban congestion.Read moreRead less