THE DEVELOPMENT OF MECHANISTIC MODELS FOR BUBBLY FLOWS WITH HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER. Commercially available CFD computer codes are currently widely used in many Australian industrial sectors. It is clearly recognised that the state-of-the-art models for dealing with complex bubbly flows with/without heat and mass transfer in these computer codes require further developments and improvements. This research project will address the prevalent deficiency in many of these computer codes. It is antici ....THE DEVELOPMENT OF MECHANISTIC MODELS FOR BUBBLY FLOWS WITH HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER. Commercially available CFD computer codes are currently widely used in many Australian industrial sectors. It is clearly recognised that the state-of-the-art models for dealing with complex bubbly flows with/without heat and mass transfer in these computer codes require further developments and improvements. This research project will address the prevalent deficiency in many of these computer codes. It is anticipated that through this major development of new models capable of predicting a wide range of industrial bubbly flow problems and implementation thereafter in these computer codes, industries will experience significant benefits especially reduce time and costs in their design and production.Read moreRead less
Experimental and Numerical Modelling of Gas-Liquid Flows. Multiphase flow systems are encountered in many process industries such as chemical, petroleum, mining, energy, food and pharmaceutical, which are fundamental to the Australian economy. Commercially available computer codes for simulating such systems are currently widely used in many Australian industrial sectors. This research project will address the prevalent deficiency in many of these computer codes and develop new models capable of ....Experimental and Numerical Modelling of Gas-Liquid Flows. Multiphase flow systems are encountered in many process industries such as chemical, petroleum, mining, energy, food and pharmaceutical, which are fundamental to the Australian economy. Commercially available computer codes for simulating such systems are currently widely used in many Australian industrial sectors. This research project will address the prevalent deficiency in many of these computer codes and develop new models capable of predicting a wide range of industrial bubbly flow problems. The resultant improved computer codes will provide industries with significant benefits - especially reduced times and costs in their design and production.Read moreRead less
Analysis and design of control systems with saturation and time-delay. Control engineering is an enabling technology without which most modern engineering systems, such as aircrafts or Internet, can not operate properly. Actuator saturation and time-delays are undesirable phenomena that often arise in control systems leading to poor performance and sometimes instability. For example, both of these phenomena arise in control of modern telecommunication systems, such as Active Queue Management in ....Analysis and design of control systems with saturation and time-delay. Control engineering is an enabling technology without which most modern engineering systems, such as aircrafts or Internet, can not operate properly. Actuator saturation and time-delays are undesirable phenomena that often arise in control systems leading to poor performance and sometimes instability. For example, both of these phenomena arise in control of modern telecommunication systems, such as Active Queue Management in TCP networks. The project aims at tackling these phenomena by using recently developed techniques in antiwindup for saturating actuators and by revisiting some classical methods for Smith predictor design for time-delayed systems.Read moreRead less
The estimation of genotype-phenotype relationships from family data and of animal abundance from capture-recapture data with frequent capture occasions: A semiparametric approach. Semiparametric statistical methods allow researchers to only model those features of their data that are of interest, but still allow standard statistical inferences to be made about these features. The aim here is to develop non standard applications of semiparametric statistical methods in the estimation of genotype ....The estimation of genotype-phenotype relationships from family data and of animal abundance from capture-recapture data with frequent capture occasions: A semiparametric approach. Semiparametric statistical methods allow researchers to only model those features of their data that are of interest, but still allow standard statistical inferences to be made about these features. The aim here is to develop non standard applications of semiparametric statistical methods in the estimation of genotype-phenotype relationships from family data and the estimation of animal abundance from capture-recapture data. The methods will be applied to real data and their theoretical properties developed. The practical significance of the project is the flexible new statistical methods that will become available to researchers. The theoretical significance will be the insights into semiparametric methods gained by developing these nonstandard applications. The expected outcomes are the new statistical procedures and the resulting theoretical insights into semiparametric statistics.Read moreRead less
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
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
Stein's method for probability approximation. Data of counts in time, such as incoming calls in telecommunications and the clusters of palindromes in a family of herpes-virus genomes, arise in an extraordinarily diverse range of fields from science to business. These problems can be modelled by sums of random variables taking values 0 and 1 in probability theory, thus permitting approximate calculations which are often good enough in practice. This project will obtain such approximate solutions ....Stein's method for probability approximation. Data of counts in time, such as incoming calls in telecommunications and the clusters of palindromes in a family of herpes-virus genomes, arise in an extraordinarily diverse range of fields from science to business. These problems can be modelled by sums of random variables taking values 0 and 1 in probability theory, thus permitting approximate calculations which are often good enough in practice. This project will obtain such approximate solutions and estimate the errors involved. Applications include analysis of data in insurance, finance, flood prediction in hydrology.Read moreRead less
Three dimensional computational models of geological basin and hinterland evolution incorporating lithospheric mantle and surface processes. Petroleum exploration in deepwater areas offshore Australia is becoming increasingly important as more accessible, shallow water oil reserves near exhaustion. Geological simulation is an important tool for understanding deep water basins where geophysical imaging techniques are less effective. This project will develop 3D computational models relevant to un ....Three dimensional computational models of geological basin and hinterland evolution incorporating lithospheric mantle and surface processes. Petroleum exploration in deepwater areas offshore Australia is becoming increasingly important as more accessible, shallow water oil reserves near exhaustion. Geological simulation is an important tool for understanding deep water basins where geophysical imaging techniques are less effective. This project will develop 3D computational models relevant to understanding the development and evolution of geological basins and the sediments that fill them. The models will be integrated with available offshore data for potentially prospective Australian basins in the Northwest Shelf and the Southern Australian margin.Read moreRead less
Censored Regression Techniques for Credit Scoring. This project will apply censored regression techniques to a loans database from the industry partner, the ANZ bank. We will accurately estimate the actual time to loan repayment, rather than simply the risk of default. In a novel approach for credit scoring we will build a model using current, right-censored, rather than historic data, incorporating loans that are not yet repaid but are underway and clearly have a length of loan longer than obse ....Censored Regression Techniques for Credit Scoring. This project will apply censored regression techniques to a loans database from the industry partner, the ANZ bank. We will accurately estimate the actual time to loan repayment, rather than simply the risk of default. In a novel approach for credit scoring we will build a model using current, right-censored, rather than historic data, incorporating loans that are not yet repaid but are underway and clearly have a length of loan longer than observed. This approach has the immense advantage of being able to reflect contemporary borrowing patterns in the model, rather than relying on historic trends.
Read moreRead less
Modelling patient flows through hospitals: optimizing effective use of resources. Hospitals are complex, dynamic systems confronted by increased demand in the face of shrinking real capacity. Managing such systems is currently undertaken with sub-optimal analytical support, particularly when demand and capacity are changing and resources must be manipulated to respond to such changes. In this project, the investigators will apply a mathematical modelling approach to the analysis of hospital pati ....Modelling patient flows through hospitals: optimizing effective use of resources. Hospitals are complex, dynamic systems confronted by increased demand in the face of shrinking real capacity. Managing such systems is currently undertaken with sub-optimal analytical support, particularly when demand and capacity are changing and resources must be manipulated to respond to such changes. In this project, the investigators will apply a mathematical modelling approach to the analysis of hospital patient flows. Furthermore, they will employ statistical process control methodologies to the problem of recognising and responding to changes in the flows, so that performance objectives are met. In doing this, they will give health service managers and clinicians a significant advantage in deciding how best to manage a constrained resource to maximize access, throughput and patient outcomes.Read moreRead less