Digital Death and Immortality. This project will create a philosophically-informed ethical approach for managing the 'digital remains' of internet users who have died. Emerging artificial intelligence technologies make it possible to reuse and interact with these digital remains. This offers new ways of commemorating the dead and for managing grief. Yet these technologies also threaten to exploit the dead and to change our relationship to them in troubling ways. Expected outcomes of the project ....Digital Death and Immortality. This project will create a philosophically-informed ethical approach for managing the 'digital remains' of internet users who have died. Emerging artificial intelligence technologies make it possible to reuse and interact with these digital remains. This offers new ways of commemorating the dead and for managing grief. Yet these technologies also threaten to exploit the dead and to change our relationship to them in troubling ways. Expected outcomes of the project include guidance for the ethical use of these technologies and policy recommendations for regulating the reuse of digital remains. This will provide significant benefits by helping Australia to avoid the ethical dangers inherent in emerging technologies of 'digital reanimation.'Read moreRead less
Work Experience: Labour Law at the Intersection of Work and Education. This project aims to examine the regulatory challenges relating to post-secondary work experience, such as internships, in the areas of labour and employment, anti-discrimination and workers compensation law in Australia. The analysis is designed to establish a global and comparative context, examining policy and regulatory responses in Canada, Europe (including Britain), New Zealand, and the United States of America and at t ....Work Experience: Labour Law at the Intersection of Work and Education. This project aims to examine the regulatory challenges relating to post-secondary work experience, such as internships, in the areas of labour and employment, anti-discrimination and workers compensation law in Australia. The analysis is designed to establish a global and comparative context, examining policy and regulatory responses in Canada, Europe (including Britain), New Zealand, and the United States of America and at the international level. By offering a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical and practical implications of law's boundary between work and education, it is expected to identify optimum approaches to the regulation of post-secondary work experience, and thereby expand policy debates and enhance future law reform.Read moreRead less
Reactive oxygen species generation by zerovalent silver nanoparticles; implications to toxicity and contaminant degradation. Nanoparticulate silver is now being used for the purification of drinking water yet many questions remain concerning its mode of purifying action. Here we investigate the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by nanoparticulate silver and examine the relationship between ROS generation and the purifying action of "nano-silver".
Measuring the impact of urban regulation on housing affordability in Australian cities and regions. Urban planning must ensure that development meets new environmental goals, but stringent regulation may reduce housing supply and affordability. This project uses new local planning data and econometric studies to quantify and monitor planning regulation impacts on housing supply and affordability in Australian cities and regions.
Shadow care infrastructures: sustaining life in the post-welfare city. Mounting evidence points to difficulties faced by Australians reliant on government income support in meeting market costs of essential needs. This project investigates whether and how ‘shadow care infrastructures’ – a wide range of formal and informal material and social supports – enable the survival, well-being and flourishing of income support recipients. Focusing on people with disabilities, unemployed and asylum seekers ....Shadow care infrastructures: sustaining life in the post-welfare city. Mounting evidence points to difficulties faced by Australians reliant on government income support in meeting market costs of essential needs. This project investigates whether and how ‘shadow care infrastructures’ – a wide range of formal and informal material and social supports – enable the survival, well-being and flourishing of income support recipients. Focusing on people with disabilities, unemployed and asylum seekers, the study evaluates the benefits and harms such infrastructures produce for those receiving and providing care, and the wider community. It examines risks and opportunities to scale up emerging care infrastructures identified as critical to making ends meet for income support recipients in contemporary cities.Read moreRead less
Why is (re)development hot?: Measuring cumulative heat in Australian cities. Incremental (re)development of Australia’s residential areas occurs piecemeal, with varied planning oversight, and results in potentially harmful cumulative warming. This project aims to causally identify the warming effect of residential (re)development and investigate the impact of planning policies that control changes in the built form associated with increased heat exposure. Using large geospatial datasets and a qu ....Why is (re)development hot?: Measuring cumulative heat in Australian cities. Incremental (re)development of Australia’s residential areas occurs piecemeal, with varied planning oversight, and results in potentially harmful cumulative warming. This project aims to causally identify the warming effect of residential (re)development and investigate the impact of planning policies that control changes in the built form associated with increased heat exposure. Using large geospatial datasets and a quasi-experimental research design, warming in Australia’s suburbs over the past decade at the micro (street canyon)- and neighbourhood-scales, will be attributed to (re)development types and ‘fissures’ in policy to inform climate resilient planning. Read moreRead less
Reactive oxygen species production on oxygenation of subsurface sediments. This project aims to examine the nature, extent and effect of redox processes in subsurface environments. Reactive oxygen species, including hydrogen peroxide, superoxide and hydroxyl radicals, transform and affect redox-active substances in the environment such as arsenic, uranium and natural organic matter (which may be oxidised to carbon dioxide). Production of significant quantities of reactive oxygen species on oxyge ....Reactive oxygen species production on oxygenation of subsurface sediments. This project aims to examine the nature, extent and effect of redox processes in subsurface environments. Reactive oxygen species, including hydrogen peroxide, superoxide and hydroxyl radicals, transform and affect redox-active substances in the environment such as arsenic, uranium and natural organic matter (which may be oxidised to carbon dioxide). Production of significant quantities of reactive oxygen species on oxygenation of subsurface sediments through actions such as aquifer recharge and high flow events may alter the form and mobility of trace elements and influence the cycling of carbon and eventual efflux of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This project will examine the nature, extent and effect of these redox processes in selected subsurface environments. This research could have implications for contaminant transformation and fate and carbon cycling.Read moreRead less
Grandparent childcare: negotiating work and care across generations. This project aims to investigate how and why parents and grandparents share childcare responsibilities in contemporary Australia. Using mixed methods and an innovative conceptual approach with a central focus on parent-grandparent care dyads, it expects to generate critical new knowledge of intra-family negotiations about employment and childcare provision across generations, and their relationship with social and economic poli ....Grandparent childcare: negotiating work and care across generations. This project aims to investigate how and why parents and grandparents share childcare responsibilities in contemporary Australia. Using mixed methods and an innovative conceptual approach with a central focus on parent-grandparent care dyads, it expects to generate critical new knowledge of intra-family negotiations about employment and childcare provision across generations, and their relationship with social and economic policy. The project expects to identify sustainable employment-childcare practices that meet the needs of children, parents and grandparents. Significant benefits include informing new policies aimed to enhance both gender and generational equity, promote women’s workforce participation, and boost national productivity.Read moreRead less
Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Agriculture: Social and ethical issues. This project aims to investigate the social and ethical issues raised by the use of artificial intelligence and robotics in agriculture. By combining social science research methods and philosophical analysis, the project aims to generate new knowledge in bioethics and applied ethics. Expected outcomes of this project include an account of the social and ethical issues farmers, rural communities, and consumers anticipat ....Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Agriculture: Social and ethical issues. This project aims to investigate the social and ethical issues raised by the use of artificial intelligence and robotics in agriculture. By combining social science research methods and philosophical analysis, the project aims to generate new knowledge in bioethics and applied ethics. Expected outcomes of this project include an account of the social and ethical issues farmers, rural communities, and consumers anticipate arising from these technologies, improved understanding of these issues, and an account of how these groups would like to see these issues addressed. This should help Australia benefit from the responsible use of artificial intelligence and robotics in agriculture.Read moreRead less
The effect of wastewater treatment on the ecotoxicity of chiral chemicals. This project aims to assess the environmental implications of pharmaceuticals discharged in effluents from wastewater treatment plants. Trace levels of human pharmaceuticals occur in sewage and urban waterways, but during sewage treatment, some pharmaceuticals can undergo a chemical transformation known as 'chiral inversion'. In some cases, this may convert relatively benign environmental contaminants to more ecologically ....The effect of wastewater treatment on the ecotoxicity of chiral chemicals. This project aims to assess the environmental implications of pharmaceuticals discharged in effluents from wastewater treatment plants. Trace levels of human pharmaceuticals occur in sewage and urban waterways, but during sewage treatment, some pharmaceuticals can undergo a chemical transformation known as 'chiral inversion'. In some cases, this may convert relatively benign environmental contaminants to more ecologically toxic species. This project will investigate why and how some pharmaceuticals become susceptible to chiral inversion and assess ecotoxicological differences. This work is expected to determine the significance of considering chiral inversion in environmental risk assessment, with applications to a broader range of chemicals including pesticides and industrial chemicals.Read moreRead less