Statistical and computational methods using a multiscale approach for protein identification and quantification. Proteins are critically important in the onset and ongoing illness associated with disease. Key proteins may serve as markers to diagnose or predict the course of a disease, or even become the target of pharmaceuticals. Accurate, efficient and robust algorithms are a critical component in protein identification. This research provides novel statistical algorithms for protein identific ....Statistical and computational methods using a multiscale approach for protein identification and quantification. Proteins are critically important in the onset and ongoing illness associated with disease. Key proteins may serve as markers to diagnose or predict the course of a disease, or even become the target of pharmaceuticals. Accurate, efficient and robust algorithms are a critical component in protein identification. This research provides novel statistical algorithms for protein identification using multiscale analysis techniques. Their applications in the bio-medical field will enable Australian and international researchers to identify key proteins more accurately, than current methods, leading to improve health, medical, and biological research outcomes.Read moreRead less
Statistical Advances in the Post-Genome Era. Biologically relevant statistical foundations for post-genome biology and biotechnology will be developed. Specific goals of the topics include the development of accurate and more efficient algorithms for sequence alignments, improved models to maximise the accuracy of analyses for gene expression data and superior statistical methods for identification of complex gene networks that predispose an organism to disease. The Project will make significant ....Statistical Advances in the Post-Genome Era. Biologically relevant statistical foundations for post-genome biology and biotechnology will be developed. Specific goals of the topics include the development of accurate and more efficient algorithms for sequence alignments, improved models to maximise the accuracy of analyses for gene expression data and superior statistical methods for identification of complex gene networks that predispose an organism to disease. The Project will make significant contributions to the new and evolving priority research area of Bioinformation Science (including bioinformatics). Outcomes will include novel techniques for analysis and mining of post-genome data, with applications to developments in Bio-medicine and Bio-agricultureRead moreRead less
Attrition in longitudinal studies: advancing and evaluating statistical methods. Longitudinal studies are a vital tool for monitoring the health and well-being of Australians. They are uniquely placed to examine changes in diseases over time and prospectively collect data on exposure and disease onset. There have been many successful longitudinal studies in Australia that have lead to significant breakthroughs in evidence-based health (e.g. the Nambour Skin Cancer Prevention Trial). Unfortunatel ....Attrition in longitudinal studies: advancing and evaluating statistical methods. Longitudinal studies are a vital tool for monitoring the health and well-being of Australians. They are uniquely placed to examine changes in diseases over time and prospectively collect data on exposure and disease onset. There have been many successful longitudinal studies in Australia that have lead to significant breakthroughs in evidence-based health (e.g. the Nambour Skin Cancer Prevention Trial). Unfortunately all longitudinal studies suffer from attrition, or loss of participants, which leads to questions concerning their validity and generalisability. This project will investigate the causes of attrition, and the effect attrition has on longitudinal studies, in order to improve their design and analysis.Read moreRead less
New statistical tools for mineral exploration targeting and validation. Exploration for new mineral resources depends on information gleaned from geological survey data. This project confronts important, unsolved statistical problems in the analysis of geological survey data which have direct impact on exploration targeting.
Designing microarray experiments. Microarrays are powerful tools for surveying the expression levels of many thousands of genes simultaneously. They belong to the new genomics technologies which have important applications in the biological, pharmaceutical and agricultural sciences. There are many sources of uncertainty in microarray experimentation and good statistical designs are essential for ensuring that the effects of interest to scientists are accurately and precisely measured. This Pr ....Designing microarray experiments. Microarrays are powerful tools for surveying the expression levels of many thousands of genes simultaneously. They belong to the new genomics technologies which have important applications in the biological, pharmaceutical and agricultural sciences. There are many sources of uncertainty in microarray experimentation and good statistical designs are essential for ensuring that the effects of interest to scientists are accurately and precisely measured. This Project will develop novel designs for microarray experiments and focus on the advancement of topics crucial to Australia's success in technological research.
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Spatio-Temporal Statistics and its Application to Remote Sensing. By their very nature, environmental processes involve strong spatial and temporal variability. Inferring cause-effect relationships requires the incorporation of spatial and temporal dependence in the statistical models. The aims of this project are to develop mass-balanced hierarchical spatio-temporal statistical models, new loss functions that are relevant to multivariate processes, and optimal estimators obtained from the hiera ....Spatio-Temporal Statistics and its Application to Remote Sensing. By their very nature, environmental processes involve strong spatial and temporal variability. Inferring cause-effect relationships requires the incorporation of spatial and temporal dependence in the statistical models. The aims of this project are to develop mass-balanced hierarchical spatio-temporal statistical models, new loss functions that are relevant to multivariate processes, and optimal estimators obtained from the hierarchical model's predictive distribution. These methodologies are intended to be applied to the estimation of near-surface fluxes of atmospheric carbon dioxide, using massive remote sensing datasets from satellites and other data sources.Read moreRead less
Semiparametric Regression for Streaming Data. Semiparametric regression converts large and complex data-sets into interpretable summaries from which sound decisions can be made. This project tackles semiparametric regression analysis of streaming data - where the data are so voluminous that they may not be storable in standard computer memory and therefore need to be processed rapidly on arrival and then discarded. Effective solutions necessitate a rethinking of semi-parametric regression and ne ....Semiparametric Regression for Streaming Data. Semiparametric regression converts large and complex data-sets into interpretable summaries from which sound decisions can be made. This project tackles semiparametric regression analysis of streaming data - where the data are so voluminous that they may not be storable in standard computer memory and therefore need to be processed rapidly on arrival and then discarded. Effective solutions necessitate a rethinking of semi-parametric regression and new approaches will be developed. The project will also develop novel theory and methodology for robotics applications. It will allow analysis of streaming and massive data sets that would not be possible using currently available methods, opening up new applications.Read moreRead less
Prediction, inference and their application to modelling correlated data. This project aims to create new, improved methods for prediction and making inference about predictions for a variety of correlated data types through inventing sophisticated and novel resampling schemes such as the generalised fast bootstrap and repeated partial permutation. The research will impact on both the theory and practice of statistics and on substantive fields which use mixed or compositional models to analyse d ....Prediction, inference and their application to modelling correlated data. This project aims to create new, improved methods for prediction and making inference about predictions for a variety of correlated data types through inventing sophisticated and novel resampling schemes such as the generalised fast bootstrap and repeated partial permutation. The research will impact on both the theory and practice of statistics and on substantive fields which use mixed or compositional models to analyse dependent data. This will be a significant improvement in the assessment and stability of statistical models in areas such as social, ecological and geological sciences.Read moreRead less
Novel methodology advancing applied Bayesian statistics and applications. Bayesian statistical inference has become the dominant statistical method in significant areas of application. The project aims to develop and apply novel Bayesian computational algorithms. Outcomes will advance scientific understanding in significant multi-disciplinary areas such as infectious diseases, neurological disease and human behaviour.
Fast approximate inference methods for flexible regression. This project will gear up statisticians to meet challenges brought about by rapid technological change in the 2010s and beyond. It will produce new methodology and theory for fast and flexible analysis of large and complex data sets.