Human interaction with context-aware computing systems. Context-aware systems can provide seamless support of IT applications in a variety of technologies and therefore can improve: (i) work performance and adoption of IT in many industries; and (ii) the quality of life through better support for health services, education, and everyday tasks. Currently proposed solutions for context-aware systems fail to deliver systems which are usable for non-IT professionals. The proposed project will show h ....Human interaction with context-aware computing systems. Context-aware systems can provide seamless support of IT applications in a variety of technologies and therefore can improve: (i) work performance and adoption of IT in many industries; and (ii) the quality of life through better support for health services, education, and everyday tasks. Currently proposed solutions for context-aware systems fail to deliver systems which are usable for non-IT professionals. The proposed project will show how to design context-aware systems that are usable and whose autonomic decisions can be trusted. Additional benefits include increased scientific competitiveness of Australia, strengthened collaboration with international research institutions, and high quality graduates (PhDs, Masters, Honours).Read moreRead less
An Empirically Derived Experimentally Validated Framework for Interactions in Information Environments. This project will investigate and design ways of interacting with the information infrastructure that maintain natural social interactions, take advantage of physical space and utilise our extensive human abilities to recognise and manipulate physical objects.
Expected outcomes include:
? a theoretical framework that describes the range of possible interactions that mediate information b ....An Empirically Derived Experimentally Validated Framework for Interactions in Information Environments. This project will investigate and design ways of interacting with the information infrastructure that maintain natural social interactions, take advantage of physical space and utilise our extensive human abilities to recognise and manipulate physical objects.
Expected outcomes include:
? a theoretical framework that describes the range of possible interactions that mediate information between the physical and virtual worlds.
? a prototype instrumented information environment that demonstrates and validates naturalistic information transactions identified in the framework.
This research is highly innovative in its field. It will use an iterative cycle of video observation, interaction analysis, user-centred device design, deployment and evaluation.
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Cost-effective use of assertions in the verification and validation of distributed and real-time systems. The project will reinforce Australia as a world leader in empirical software engineering and software verification and validation research, thus building on Australia's strengths in ICT research and innovation. Through the involvement of a local software verification and validation company and through industrial case studies, this project will also improve the software verification and valid ....Cost-effective use of assertions in the verification and validation of distributed and real-time systems. The project will reinforce Australia as a world leader in empirical software engineering and software verification and validation research, thus building on Australia's strengths in ICT research and innovation. Through the involvement of a local software verification and validation company and through industrial case studies, this project will also improve the software verification and validation capabilities of local industry, allow them to save software development costs, and improve the quality of the software produced.Read moreRead less
Practical Tools and Techniques for the Testing of Concurrent Software Components. This project will develop tools and techniques for the practical, systematic testing of concurrent software components. Testing is a major means for ensuring that software performs as expected, but testing concurrent software is poorly understood even though the majority of complex, computer-based systems are concurrent in nature. The complexities arising from the non-deterministic nature of such software means tha ....Practical Tools and Techniques for the Testing of Concurrent Software Components. This project will develop tools and techniques for the practical, systematic testing of concurrent software components. Testing is a major means for ensuring that software performs as expected, but testing concurrent software is poorly understood even though the majority of complex, computer-based systems are concurrent in nature. The complexities arising from the non-deterministic nature of such software means that testing tools and techniques used for simpler, sequential software are inadequate. The outcomes of this project will consist of practical techniques for the effective testing of concurrent software components in general and tools for the testing of Java components in particular.Read moreRead less
Formalizing Software Design Pattern Concepts and Pattern Specifications using Metamodeling. Software design is currently an ad-hoc process that relies too heavily on each designer's personal experience. Software design patterns capture design know-how and make it reusable by identifying the problem and context in which a family of solutions can be applied. This project will use a formal metamodeling approach to define the concepts underlying software design patterns and hence will create precise ....Formalizing Software Design Pattern Concepts and Pattern Specifications using Metamodeling. Software design is currently an ad-hoc process that relies too heavily on each designer's personal experience. Software design patterns capture design know-how and make it reusable by identifying the problem and context in which a family of solutions can be applied. This project will use a formal metamodeling approach to define the concepts underlying software design patterns and hence will create precise and rigorous pattern specifications. Through this approach, we will incorporate patterns into the Unified Modeling Language (UML), the dominant object-oriented modeling language. Our pattern specifications will assist UML tool developers integrate software design patterns into their tools.Read moreRead less
Enhancing model-driven architecture with support for verification and validation. The proposed project will augment emerging methodologies for applying model-driven architecture to include verification and validation tools and techniques. This will decrease the time and effort required to develop software systems, and lead to better quality systems. It will evaluate and integrate existing verification and validation tools and techniques into the standards currently being developed to facilitate ....Enhancing model-driven architecture with support for verification and validation. The proposed project will augment emerging methodologies for applying model-driven architecture to include verification and validation tools and techniques. This will decrease the time and effort required to develop software systems, and lead to better quality systems. It will evaluate and integrate existing verification and validation tools and techniques into the standards currently being developed to facilitate model-driven architecture. This will strengthen Australia's software-based industries and its prominent role in defining international standards in this area.Read moreRead less
Cooperation and reciprocity at the local scale enabled by social and mobile technologies: an empirically derived theoretical framework. The project aims to build new theories, design tools and social and mobile information technologies to support sharing of resources in local communities. Designs developed through agile software development will be built in communities to support new forms of community communication, agile ride sharing and distributed energy generation and use.
Analysing and Generating Fault-Tolerant Real-Time Systems. Safety-critical real-time systems are being deployed increasingly in diverse areas such as controlling critical infrastructure like transportation (e.g., railway signalling) as well as in defence applications (e.g., fly-by-wire). Such systems must be dependable and hence must be built using fault-tolerant strategies.
This project is researching frontier ICT technologies for analysing, designing and generating fault-tolerant systems, con ....Analysing and Generating Fault-Tolerant Real-Time Systems. Safety-critical real-time systems are being deployed increasingly in diverse areas such as controlling critical infrastructure like transportation (e.g., railway signalling) as well as in defence applications (e.g., fly-by-wire). Such systems must be dependable and hence must be built using fault-tolerant strategies.
This project is researching frontier ICT technologies for analysing, designing and generating fault-tolerant systems, concentrating on their software control components.Read moreRead less
Privacy-preserving data processing on the cloud. This project aims to address the current lack of privacy of user data processed by common cloud computing web servers, including email, business data, and confidential files. This project aims to develop new techniques in cryptography. The anticipated outcome is a suite of practical tools enabling common cloud computing processing operations such as search, statistical analysis, and multi-user access control, to be performed efficiently while pres ....Privacy-preserving data processing on the cloud. This project aims to address the current lack of privacy of user data processed by common cloud computing web servers, including email, business data, and confidential files. This project aims to develop new techniques in cryptography. The anticipated outcome is a suite of practical tools enabling common cloud computing processing operations such as search, statistical analysis, and multi-user access control, to be performed efficiently while preserving the data privacy. These tools should provide significant benefits to the privacy of cloud users, as well as financial and reputation benefits to the IT industry, by significantly reducing the likelihood of massive user data privacy breaches in the event of a cyber-hacking attack on the cloud server.Read moreRead less
Verified Emulation of Legacy Mission Computer Systems. Processor obsolescence is a serious maintenance problem for long-lived computer control systems in military aircraft and other critical applications. A promising solution is to interpose an emulator program between the original "legacy" software and a replacement processor. Unfortunately, no techniques exist for accurately verifying that this procedure preserves the original system's functional and timing behaviour. A particular challenge ....Verified Emulation of Legacy Mission Computer Systems. Processor obsolescence is a serious maintenance problem for long-lived computer control systems in military aircraft and other critical applications. A promising solution is to interpose an emulator program between the original "legacy" software and a replacement processor. Unfortunately, no techniques exist for accurately verifying that this procedure preserves the original system's functional and timing behaviour. A particular challenge is that processor emulations involve both legacy code and new subroutines, written in different programming languages. This project will enable verification of safety and mission-critical emulated systems by devising a multilingual modelling and reasoning formalism, based on program refinement theory.Read moreRead less