The Sustainability of Agricultural Productivity Growth in a Changing Environment: An International Perspective. The project could provide significant benefits to Australia. Australia is a dry continent with fragile natural resources, and a significant exporter of agricultural products. A sound knowledge of the factors that affect agricultural sustainability is crucial. Perhaps more importantly, identifying economic, environmental, social, institutional and political factors that influence agric ....The Sustainability of Agricultural Productivity Growth in a Changing Environment: An International Perspective. The project could provide significant benefits to Australia. Australia is a dry continent with fragile natural resources, and a significant exporter of agricultural products. A sound knowledge of the factors that affect agricultural sustainability is crucial. Perhaps more importantly, identifying economic, environmental, social, institutional and political factors that influence agricultural sustainability in other countries, especially our Asian neighbours, will provide valuable information to relevant agencies in designing strategies aimed at ensuring that these countries are stable and well fed. This is of particular importance in the current climate, with growing influences of terrorist organisations in places where poverty exists.Read moreRead less
Robust Productivity Measurement: An Econometric Distance Function Approach. Accurate measures of productivity are required in a range of economic analyses. For example, in the assessment of the success of microeconomic reforms, or in price-cap regulation of utility and transport infrastructure firms. In this project we investigate the use of econometric distance functions as a means of obtaining improved productivity measures. This new approach addresses the main criticisms of alternative ap ....Robust Productivity Measurement: An Econometric Distance Function Approach. Accurate measures of productivity are required in a range of economic analyses. For example, in the assessment of the success of microeconomic reforms, or in price-cap regulation of utility and transport infrastructure firms. In this project we investigate the use of econometric distance functions as a means of obtaining improved productivity measures. This new approach addresses the main criticisms of alternative approaches, such as the single output restriction in the production function approach, the optimisation assumptions embedded in both the value dual approach and the Törnqvist index approach, and the statistical noise criticism of the data envelopment analysis approach.Read moreRead less
Using Measures of Ontological Distance to Evaluate the Alignment between Organizational Needs and Enterprise Systems Capabilities. Enterprise Systems (ES) packages are software systems that seek to provide their organizational users with comprehensive, integrated support for their information system needs. The development, implementation, operation, support, maintenance, and upgrade of enterprise systems is a multi-billion dollar industry. This industry is replete with stories of high-cost pro ....Using Measures of Ontological Distance to Evaluate the Alignment between Organizational Needs and Enterprise Systems Capabilities. Enterprise Systems (ES) packages are software systems that seek to provide their organizational users with comprehensive, integrated support for their information system needs. The development, implementation, operation, support, maintenance, and upgrade of enterprise systems is a multi-billion dollar industry. This industry is replete with stories of high-cost problems. Many of these problems arise because the business models embedded within ES packages do not align with the needs of their users. This project develops a methodology and measures to evaluate how well the business models embedded in an ES package meet user needs.Read moreRead less
Ontologically-based Evaluation, Comparison and Engineering of Integrated Process Modelling Techniques. Integrated process modelling techniques such as UML and ARIS form the conceptual platform for many management and IT projects. Though most IS development tools contain these techniques, anecdotal evidence indicates many shortcomings. This project uses a well-established theory developed in philosophy and applied in information systems domains for the evaluation of these techniques. The expec ....Ontologically-based Evaluation, Comparison and Engineering of Integrated Process Modelling Techniques. Integrated process modelling techniques such as UML and ARIS form the conceptual platform for many management and IT projects. Though most IS development tools contain these techniques, anecdotal evidence indicates many shortcomings. This project uses a well-established theory developed in philosophy and applied in information systems domains for the evaluation of these techniques. The expected outcomes are evaluations of ARIS and UML. Thus, this project contributes to the development of two of the most popular modelling techniques. Based on the theory used and the results of an international empirical study, suggestions for the further development of these techniques will be derived.Read moreRead less
Integrating Database Technologies and Visual Analysis in Bioinformatics for Genome Data. Solving modern biological problems, especially those involving genome data, requires advanced computational and analytical methods. The huge quantities of data and escalating demands of modern biological research increasingly require the sophistication and power of object-relational database tools. Key techniques include relational data management, pattern recognition, data mining and visualization of biolog ....Integrating Database Technologies and Visual Analysis in Bioinformatics for Genome Data. Solving modern biological problems, especially those involving genome data, requires advanced computational and analytical methods. The huge quantities of data and escalating demands of modern biological research increasingly require the sophistication and power of object-relational database tools. Key techniques include relational data management, pattern recognition, data mining and visualization of biological data. In this project we will develop efficient methodologies and data structures for gathering high-quality approximations of full genomic information, and will use these innovations as the foundation to develop novel, practical tools for clustering and visualization in genomic data mining and database management.
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Multiscale stochastic modelling of genetic regulatory mechanisms. The completion of the human genome marked the culmination of one hundred years of reductionist science in cell biology. Although further bioinformatics analysis will continue, the focus is shifting towards synthesis and understanding how the regulatory genetic components dynamically interact to form functional phenotypes. The key to this is the understanding of the roles of stochasticity in cellular processes. This project will ex ....Multiscale stochastic modelling of genetic regulatory mechanisms. The completion of the human genome marked the culmination of one hundred years of reductionist science in cell biology. Although further bioinformatics analysis will continue, the focus is shifting towards synthesis and understanding how the regulatory genetic components dynamically interact to form functional phenotypes. The key to this is the understanding of the roles of stochasticity in cellular processes. This project will explore these roles and will develop an integrated complex systems modelling, simulation and visualisation framework for exploring and validating genetic regulatory models in general. This will be used on an exemplar application for understanding the induction process in lambda phage.Read moreRead less