Neurobiological mechanisms of the interaction between pain and sleep. The project aims to reveal the brain mechanisms behind the interaction between such fundamental biological phenomena as sleep and pain. This highly interdisciplinary project expects to deliver significant insights into how poor sleep changes the brain to increase pain sensitivity in healthy adults, by combining novel lab-based mechanistic sleep and pain manipulations and naturalistic longitudinal observation. The rich multimod ....Neurobiological mechanisms of the interaction between pain and sleep. The project aims to reveal the brain mechanisms behind the interaction between such fundamental biological phenomena as sleep and pain. This highly interdisciplinary project expects to deliver significant insights into how poor sleep changes the brain to increase pain sensitivity in healthy adults, by combining novel lab-based mechanistic sleep and pain manipulations and naturalistic longitudinal observation. The rich multimodal dataset generated by the project will be made publicly available to enhance research transparency and international collaboration. This should provide significant benefits, ultimately opening up ways to improve quality of life and wellbeing of the Australian population.
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Linking risks to ecosystems with risks to human well-being. This project aims to provide theory and practical guidelines to integrate ecosystem science into policy and action to address human well-being. Ecosystem risk assessment provides critical information for conservation, and has compelling but unexplored relationships with human health and nature’s benefits to people. The research will identify ecosystem measures that highlight areas of risk to human well-being as well as biodiversity. Exp ....Linking risks to ecosystems with risks to human well-being. This project aims to provide theory and practical guidelines to integrate ecosystem science into policy and action to address human well-being. Ecosystem risk assessment provides critical information for conservation, and has compelling but unexplored relationships with human health and nature’s benefits to people. The research will identify ecosystem measures that highlight areas of risk to human well-being as well as biodiversity. Expected outcomes include new standards for including ecosystem change in policy frameworks globally and in Australia, such as natural capital accounting and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Benefits include improved ways of meeting and tracking progress on Australia’s international commitments.Read moreRead less
Contribution of comammox bacteria to soil nitrification. This project aims to understand the diversity, activity and environmental relevance of comammox bacteria, the newly-discovered complete nitrifiers, in Australian soils, and to evaluate their relative contributions to nitrification processes compared to other canonical nitrifying prokaryotes. Nitrogen transformations are pivotal microbial processes, with nitrification largely responsible for nitrogen losses through nitrous oxide emissions a ....Contribution of comammox bacteria to soil nitrification. This project aims to understand the diversity, activity and environmental relevance of comammox bacteria, the newly-discovered complete nitrifiers, in Australian soils, and to evaluate their relative contributions to nitrification processes compared to other canonical nitrifying prokaryotes. Nitrogen transformations are pivotal microbial processes, with nitrification largely responsible for nitrogen losses through nitrous oxide emissions and nitrate leaching in the terrestrial ecosystems. The expected outcomes will develop new knowledge on the comammox bacteria and provide novel insights into refined strategies to manipulate nitrification processes for improved nitrogen use efficiency and sustainable agricultural management.Read moreRead less
Atomically thin membranes to transform chemical separations. Energy-efficient chemical separation is at the heart of modern resource and manufacturing industries, central to a prosperous and sustainable Australia. This project aims to develop next generation membrane technologies to transform chemical separations by employing recent breakthrough in materials discovery and nanofluidics. Expected outcomes include new fundamental understandings on sub-continuum transport physics and new atomically ....Atomically thin membranes to transform chemical separations. Energy-efficient chemical separation is at the heart of modern resource and manufacturing industries, central to a prosperous and sustainable Australia. This project aims to develop next generation membrane technologies to transform chemical separations by employing recent breakthrough in materials discovery and nanofluidics. Expected outcomes include new fundamental understandings on sub-continuum transport physics and new atomically thin membranes that enable energy-efficient separations for processing challenging streams beyond water purification. This project aims to position Australia at the forefront of sustainable separation technology and make the local resource and manufacturing industries more sustainable and globally competitive.Read moreRead less
Reproducibility and open science in environmental research. The goal of this project is to improve the reproducibility and transparency of environmental science. Disturbingly low levels of reproducibility have recently been uncovered in other disciplines, and there are good reasons to suspect the same conditions in environmental science. However, it has thus far been excused from evaluation because of the large spatial scales, long time horizons and dependencies among processes that prohibit dir ....Reproducibility and open science in environmental research. The goal of this project is to improve the reproducibility and transparency of environmental science. Disturbingly low levels of reproducibility have recently been uncovered in other disciplines, and there are good reasons to suspect the same conditions in environmental science. However, it has thus far been excused from evaluation because of the large spatial scales, long time horizons and dependencies among processes that prohibit direct replication of empirical field research. The project plans to assess the reproducibility of environmental research and develop systematic review methods that account for bias in published research. In this way, it seeks to contribute to the standards for statistical inference and reporting in the discipline, and facilitate a cultural shift to ‘Open Science’ to ensure a more reliable evidence base for environmental decisions. Read moreRead less
Rethinking diversity and inclusion practices in leadership roles. This project aims to study the lack of racial and gender diversity in management and leadership roles. The noticeable imbalances question the functioning of the meritocracy principle and may lead to organisational and social vulnerabilities. This project will apply large-scale field experiments with major organisations to investigate how workplace diversity and inclusion can be improved using as foundation economic theories of sig ....Rethinking diversity and inclusion practices in leadership roles. This project aims to study the lack of racial and gender diversity in management and leadership roles. The noticeable imbalances question the functioning of the meritocracy principle and may lead to organisational and social vulnerabilities. This project will apply large-scale field experiments with major organisations to investigate how workplace diversity and inclusion can be improved using as foundation economic theories of signaling, discrimination, fairness, and identity. The expected outcome is the identification of best diversity and inclusion practice in attraction, hiring, development and retention. This will provide significant benefit through an increase in workplace diversity.
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Unlocking Viral Contribution to Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycling. This project aims to investigate how soil viruses steer key nitrogen cycling microorganisms and processes, by utilising emerging approaches of viromes, DNA-stable-isotope probing, and Raman-spectroscopy-based single-cell-sorting technology. This project expects to generate new knowledge in harnessing the potential of soil viruses to improve fertiliser nitrogen use efficiency through manipulating the biological pathways of nitrogen los ....Unlocking Viral Contribution to Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycling. This project aims to investigate how soil viruses steer key nitrogen cycling microorganisms and processes, by utilising emerging approaches of viromes, DNA-stable-isotope probing, and Raman-spectroscopy-based single-cell-sorting technology. This project expects to generate new knowledge in harnessing the potential of soil viruses to improve fertiliser nitrogen use efficiency through manipulating the biological pathways of nitrogen losses from agricultural ecosystems. Expected outcomes of this project include novel and comprehensive evidence for the roles of soil viruses in controlling terrestrial nitrogen cycling processes. This should provide significant benefits to Australian agriculture and environmental management.Read moreRead less
Improving disease resilience in ecosystems using synthetic biology. This project aims to use the latest methods in synthetic biology to conserve species threatened by disease, through characterising and enhancing immunity. Emerging infectious diseases are a major threat to ecosystems and new methodologies are needed to fight them. Chytridiomycosis is the most devastating disease of vertebrates, causing population declines in over 200 amphibian species worldwide. The expected outcomes of the proj ....Improving disease resilience in ecosystems using synthetic biology. This project aims to use the latest methods in synthetic biology to conserve species threatened by disease, through characterising and enhancing immunity. Emerging infectious diseases are a major threat to ecosystems and new methodologies are needed to fight them. Chytridiomycosis is the most devastating disease of vertebrates, causing population declines in over 200 amphibian species worldwide. The expected outcomes of the project are improved understanding and increased immunity of frogs to chytridiomycosis and restoration of frogs into the environment. The project will demonstrate the usefulness of synthetic biology to tackle disease and preserve biodiversity in the landscape for similarly threatened wildlife in Australia and overseas.Read moreRead less
A ubiquitous system for indoor location-based services. This project aims to design a system capable of providing location-based services in WiFi-enabled indoor buildings. The project expects to address two major challenges hindering such a system, capability to identify a user's location in any indoor venue with minimum manual overhead, and effective data management techniques for indoor data. Expected outcomes of this project include new techniques for managing and utilising indoor location da ....A ubiquitous system for indoor location-based services. This project aims to design a system capable of providing location-based services in WiFi-enabled indoor buildings. The project expects to address two major challenges hindering such a system, capability to identify a user's location in any indoor venue with minimum manual overhead, and effective data management techniques for indoor data. Expected outcomes of this project include new techniques for managing and utilising indoor location data and enhanced international collaborations. The project will support and enhance a wide range of indoor applications such as emergency services, assisted healthcare systems, indoor asset tracking, event planning, indoor venue management, and consumer experience.Read moreRead less
Creating conservation landscapes that effectively safeguard biodiversity. The current extinction crisis creates an imperative to protect remaining habitat wherever it occurs. This project aims to reveal how to improve protection for biodiversity outside of designated Protected Areas by advancing the concept of Conserved Areas, where conservation can be a product of other goals. This project is expected to generate novel insights into how to recognise Conserved Areas, reveal the risks and benefit ....Creating conservation landscapes that effectively safeguard biodiversity. The current extinction crisis creates an imperative to protect remaining habitat wherever it occurs. This project aims to reveal how to improve protection for biodiversity outside of designated Protected Areas by advancing the concept of Conserved Areas, where conservation can be a product of other goals. This project is expected to generate novel insights into how to recognise Conserved Areas, reveal the risks and benefits associated with different type of protection and develop vital tools to ensure these areas effectively conserve biodiversity. Benefits will include a blueprint to meet global environmental commitments using well-designed systems of Protected and Conserved Areas as part of integrated conservation landscapes.Read moreRead less