Conserving native wildlife during urbanisation: the effectiveness of biodiversity-friendly urban design and construction practices. Urbanisation has many negative effects upon native wildlife and their habitats, but biodiversity-friendly urban design and construction practices may greatly reduce these impacts. This study will examine the effectiveness of such measures at sustaining wildlife at sites of urban development, and will therefore produce significant benefits for local residents and the ....Conserving native wildlife during urbanisation: the effectiveness of biodiversity-friendly urban design and construction practices. Urbanisation has many negative effects upon native wildlife and their habitats, but biodiversity-friendly urban design and construction practices may greatly reduce these impacts. This study will examine the effectiveness of such measures at sustaining wildlife at sites of urban development, and will therefore produce significant benefits for local residents and the broader Australian community. Healthy natural ecosystems in urban areas provide many services to the public, reduce the need for costly management, and improve the livelihood of residents living in greener environments. This study will enhance all these community benefits through a detailed examination of the effectiveness of biodiversity-friendly urban development measures.Read moreRead less
Assessing the adaptive capacity of hospital facilities to cope with climate-related extreme weather events: A risk management approach. Given Australia's and New Zealand's relatively high exposure to climate extremes, the social, economic and health benefits of better managed hospital facilities are significant. Floods, bushfires, heatwaves and cyclones cost Australia over $1.4bn/year and New Zealand over NZ$43m/yr in disruption to communities, business productivity and damage to infrastructure. ....Assessing the adaptive capacity of hospital facilities to cope with climate-related extreme weather events: A risk management approach. Given Australia's and New Zealand's relatively high exposure to climate extremes, the social, economic and health benefits of better managed hospital facilities are significant. Floods, bushfires, heatwaves and cyclones cost Australia over $1.4bn/year and New Zealand over NZ$43m/yr in disruption to communities, business productivity and damage to infrastructure. This research will help to mitigate these costs by protecting populations from the health risks associated with such events. The potential benefits will be most significant for those vulnerable communities at high risk such as the aged, the obese, the ill and those geographically exposed to more extreme weather events.Read moreRead less
Life Cycle Measures of Cost Effectiveness for 4 D CAD in Design and Construct Projects across Industry Sectors. The effective and efficient delivery of complex construction projects will be transformed by the increased application of virtual design and construction technologies, including 4D CAD. By combining a 3D computer model of a design with the time dimension of the construction schedule, 4D CAD enables risks and opportunities to be better managed during the design phase and hence avoid co ....Life Cycle Measures of Cost Effectiveness for 4 D CAD in Design and Construct Projects across Industry Sectors. The effective and efficient delivery of complex construction projects will be transformed by the increased application of virtual design and construction technologies, including 4D CAD. By combining a 3D computer model of a design with the time dimension of the construction schedule, 4D CAD enables risks and opportunities to be better managed during the design phase and hence avoid costly issues during construction. However this requires addition design costs which currently represent a barrier to the uptake of this transforming technology. This project will overcome this by developing a flexible framework that allows the benefits gained across the life cycle of a project through using 4D CAD to be set against the additional costs and thus make this emerging technology more attractive to industry. Significantly this research will be based on comparative cases studies across different industry sectors including civil, building, and process engineering.Read moreRead less
Assimilation of architectural and services design in early design modelling. How can buildings in a climate as varied as Australia's balance the best environmental comfort standards for their human occupants, cost and at the same time meet the urgent imperative of reduced energy consumption and associated carbon emissions? This practice-based research will develop tools to support more informed decision making in the earliest stage of an integral approach to services in the design of buildings. ....Assimilation of architectural and services design in early design modelling. How can buildings in a climate as varied as Australia's balance the best environmental comfort standards for their human occupants, cost and at the same time meet the urgent imperative of reduced energy consumption and associated carbon emissions? This practice-based research will develop tools to support more informed decision making in the earliest stage of an integral approach to services in the design of buildings. It will provide knowledge about designing architecture that is more environmentally responsive, can provide comfortable air in more optimised ways, that consume less energy and do this through promoting smarter use of information in practice.Read moreRead less
Incorporating Design Management Culture within the Total Project Management Process: a Socio-technical Approach. New project delivery methods (e.g. design & construct; alliance contracting) in major commercial and infrastructure projects have the potential to dramatically increase the value added to clients and the wider community.
However to realise this potential, we need to better understand those socio-technical factors that foster an effective design management culture within tradition ....Incorporating Design Management Culture within the Total Project Management Process: a Socio-technical Approach. New project delivery methods (e.g. design & construct; alliance contracting) in major commercial and infrastructure projects have the potential to dramatically increase the value added to clients and the wider community.
However to realise this potential, we need to better understand those socio-technical factors that foster an effective design management culture within traditional construction companies, especially their knowledge sharing culture.
This project will develop and test an innovative research methodology that blends approaches from the social sciences and engineering. The findings regarding design management will have wide applicability to industry and cover civil, building, mining and process engineering projects, each of which has its own culture.Read moreRead less
Formation, degradation and migration of a yet unidentified POP source. Australia has recently ratified the Stockholm Convention, targeting persistent organic pollutants (POPs) for global reduction and elimination. A significant gap exists, however, in understanding sources and pathways of POPs in Australia, and subtropical/tropical environments. Previous research has shown an extensive POP contamination in coastal Australia, and exposure of biota to elevated levels. The present study will evalua ....Formation, degradation and migration of a yet unidentified POP source. Australia has recently ratified the Stockholm Convention, targeting persistent organic pollutants (POPs) for global reduction and elimination. A significant gap exists, however, in understanding sources and pathways of POPs in Australia, and subtropical/tropical environments. Previous research has shown an extensive POP contamination in coastal Australia, and exposure of biota to elevated levels. The present study will evaluate the formation, degradation and migration of POPs, and their significance to Australia's past, present and future emissions. The outcomes will allow identification of sources, their prioritization for elimination and exposure prevention, and ultimately serve to protect the environment and human health in Australia.Read moreRead less
Facilitating intuitive interaction with complex devices for older users. Poorly designed interfaces impact more strongly on older people. Helping designers to make more intuitive interfaces for older community members has great potential for improving their lives and health, and thus benefiting the community generally. Making modern devices easier for older people to use will allow them to participate more fully in society and/or the workplace. This will also help to prevent them from becoming i ....Facilitating intuitive interaction with complex devices for older users. Poorly designed interfaces impact more strongly on older people. Helping designers to make more intuitive interfaces for older community members has great potential for improving their lives and health, and thus benefiting the community generally. Making modern devices easier for older people to use will allow them to participate more fully in society and/or the workplace. This will also help to prevent them from becoming isolated and possibly depressed. This project will apply intuitive interaction to healthcare devices that older people use, which can save costly mistakes and even lives.Read moreRead less
Formally-Based Security Evaluation Procedures. Guaranteeing information security is of critical national importance, especially in the current political climate. Devices intended to safeguard Australia's electronic communications must be proven secure using leading-edge techniques. Currently, evaluation of such devices relies on informal procedures and the experience of individuals. This project will introduce more rigour into security evaluations by adapting techniques from the fields of saf ....Formally-Based Security Evaluation Procedures. Guaranteeing information security is of critical national importance, especially in the current political climate. Devices intended to safeguard Australia's electronic communications must be proven secure using leading-edge techniques. Currently, evaluation of such devices relies on informal procedures and the experience of individuals. This project will introduce more rigour into security evaluations by adapting techniques from the fields of safety analysis and formal methods. In particular, mathematical concepts will be introduced using notations suitable for use by security personnel with no prior formal methods experience. The outcomes of this project will enable more efficient and effective information security evaluations.Read moreRead less
Deep Downunder: designing a deep-sea exploration and discovery capability for Australia. Exploration of the deep-sea with the modern technologies to be developed by Deep-Downunder is a first for Australia. We aim to explore and discover life at depths from 50-3000m off The Great Barrier Reef, around the seamounts of Lord Howe Island and Tasmania and in the deep canyons of WA and SA. We expect to discover new species, hope for a glimpse of giant squid at home and will answer specific questions on ....Deep Downunder: designing a deep-sea exploration and discovery capability for Australia. Exploration of the deep-sea with the modern technologies to be developed by Deep-Downunder is a first for Australia. We aim to explore and discover life at depths from 50-3000m off The Great Barrier Reef, around the seamounts of Lord Howe Island and Tasmania and in the deep canyons of WA and SA. We expect to discover new species, hope for a glimpse of giant squid at home and will answer specific questions on Australia's ocean biology, fisheries and biotechnology never before approachable. To be effective guardians of Australian waters we must learn what lies in the depths we can't see from a boat.Read moreRead less
Tracing the origins of stress in the symbionts of reef-building corals. Symbiotic dinoflagellates of corals are critical to the world's major tropical reef ecosystems. Recent work in our laboratories and others has revealed that these algae are sensitive to a wide array of stresses (including climate change) and hence may be the ?Achilles Heel? of reef ecosystems. This project will identify the key genes and processes in these algae using expressed sequence tags and microarray technology. On th ....Tracing the origins of stress in the symbionts of reef-building corals. Symbiotic dinoflagellates of corals are critical to the world's major tropical reef ecosystems. Recent work in our laboratories and others has revealed that these algae are sensitive to a wide array of stresses (including climate change) and hence may be the ?Achilles Heel? of reef ecosystems. This project will identify the key genes and processes in these algae using expressed sequence tags and microarray technology. On this basis, the underlying molecular mechanisms of these stress responses and their genetic diversity will be studied in order to better understand the differential susceptibility of reef-building corals to bleaching.Read moreRead less