Exploring Botanic Gardens Herbarium's value, via Environmental Aesthetics. . The project aims to aesthetically redefine engagement with the plant collection at Royal Botanic Gardens Herbarium (RBG) Sydney and to communicate its artistic, cultural and heritage value to the public through a Public Program of creative arts case studies. It's expected that new insights will arise from an environmental art methodology utilising the digitisation of the Herbarium specimens, so that audiences can intera ....Exploring Botanic Gardens Herbarium's value, via Environmental Aesthetics. . The project aims to aesthetically redefine engagement with the plant collection at Royal Botanic Gardens Herbarium (RBG) Sydney and to communicate its artistic, cultural and heritage value to the public through a Public Program of creative arts case studies. It's expected that new insights will arise from an environmental art methodology utilising the digitisation of the Herbarium specimens, so that audiences can interactively experience the plant archive through narratives that activate plants as underpinning ecosystems. Benefits to partners RBG, Bundanon Trust and Open Humanities Press will include the digital expansion of audience engagement with the Herbarium at RBG and Mt Annan and communication of collection’s significance.Read moreRead less
Extinction Imaginaries: Mapping Affective Visual Cultures in Australasia. This project aims to provide NGOs with new strategies for raising awareness of environmental change by investigating what animal extinction means to Australians. Australasia has the highest global extinction rates, yet despite the wide circulation of visual images of extinction little is known about how they affect people. The project expects to address this critical gap by bringing innovative methodologies to the analysis ....Extinction Imaginaries: Mapping Affective Visual Cultures in Australasia. This project aims to provide NGOs with new strategies for raising awareness of environmental change by investigating what animal extinction means to Australians. Australasia has the highest global extinction rates, yet despite the wide circulation of visual images of extinction little is known about how they affect people. The project expects to address this critical gap by bringing innovative methodologies to the analysis of public responses to images of extinction and how they affect social imaginaries. Expected outcomes include research translations with environmental NGOs which should provide significant benefits by addressing public concern for the deteriorating ecosystems that future generations will inherit.
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Defending AI based FinTech Systems against Model Extraction Attacks. This project aims to develop new methods for defending artificial intelligence (AI) based FinTech systems from highly potent and insidious model extraction attacks whereby an adversary can steal the AI model from the system to cause intellectual property (IP) violation, business advantage disruption, and financial loss. This can be achieved by examining various attack models, creating active and utility-preserving defences, and ....Defending AI based FinTech Systems against Model Extraction Attacks. This project aims to develop new methods for defending artificial intelligence (AI) based FinTech systems from highly potent and insidious model extraction attacks whereby an adversary can steal the AI model from the system to cause intellectual property (IP) violation, business advantage disruption, and financial loss. This can be achieved by examining various attack models, creating active and utility-preserving defences, and inventing non-removable watermarks on AI models. The outcomes are new tools for securing AI-based FinTech systems before deployment and tools for IP violation forensics post-deployment. Such capabilities are beneficial by improving the security and safety of FinTech systems and other nationally critical AI systems.Read moreRead less
Privacy-Preserving Fog Info System in Infrastructure-Deficient Environments. Due to Australia’s unique geographical distribution and population density, many regional or remote areas lack infrastructural support and development, including telecommunications and electricity supply. It is important to provide information and communication services in such infrastructure-deficient environments. In this project, we will develop a first-ever commercially ready Fog information system, or FogIS in shor ....Privacy-Preserving Fog Info System in Infrastructure-Deficient Environments. Due to Australia’s unique geographical distribution and population density, many regional or remote areas lack infrastructural support and development, including telecommunications and electricity supply. It is important to provide information and communication services in such infrastructure-deficient environments. In this project, we will develop a first-ever commercially ready Fog information system, or FogIS in short, to enable localised information and communication services, while preserving users' privacy, in infrastructure-deficient environments. The deployment of this system will bring great benefits to Australia’s economic growth, the quality of life, cybersecurity, and environment control in rural and regional Australia. Read moreRead less
Ambitious and Fair: Strategies for a sustainable visual arts sector. This project aims to strengthen the visual art industry’s economic ecosystem. In a context where artists’ incomes are low and falling, commercial galleries are financially vulnerable and public galleries face funding challenges, the project addresses barriers to the sector’s economic health and the challenge of improving artists’ incomes. To address this critical gap, the project will combine an analysis of current value chains ....Ambitious and Fair: Strategies for a sustainable visual arts sector. This project aims to strengthen the visual art industry’s economic ecosystem. In a context where artists’ incomes are low and falling, commercial galleries are financially vulnerable and public galleries face funding challenges, the project addresses barriers to the sector’s economic health and the challenge of improving artists’ incomes. To address this critical gap, the project will combine an analysis of current value chains and emergent forms of economic organisation with qualitative insights into the experiences of artists and arts professionals. It will propose interventions for arts industry and government policy to improve and develop this ecosystem. Benefits include improved incomes for arts workers and a sustainable arts industry.Read moreRead less
Tuning parallel applications on software-defined supercomputers. Supercomputers are used by many Australian industries and laboratories to make better products and perform critical predictions, and it is essential that codes operate efficiently. This project aims to assist programmers in identifying performance bottlenecks in their code quickly and easily. The project expects to supersede the current methods, which are often complex and time-consuming, by developing innovative software tools and ....Tuning parallel applications on software-defined supercomputers. Supercomputers are used by many Australian industries and laboratories to make better products and perform critical predictions, and it is essential that codes operate efficiently. This project aims to assist programmers in identifying performance bottlenecks in their code quickly and easily. The project expects to supersede the current methods, which are often complex and time-consuming, by developing innovative software tools and techniques. The expected outcomes include novel software, verified by industry partners in real world case studies, ranging from life sciences to hypersonic transport. This should provide significant benefits, including the capacity for Australian industries to access world-class supercomputing technology.Read moreRead less
Contemporary Australian Comics 1980 – 2020: A New History. This project aims to document, preserve and investigate a new history of Australian comics and graphic novels created 1980 to 2020. This period represents a significant shift in the thematic content and material production of comics. In tracing the development of technologies and communities, this project expects to generate new knowledge about narrative innovations comics use to reflect diverse national identities and cultures in Austra ....Contemporary Australian Comics 1980 – 2020: A New History. This project aims to document, preserve and investigate a new history of Australian comics and graphic novels created 1980 to 2020. This period represents a significant shift in the thematic content and material production of comics. In tracing the development of technologies and communities, this project expects to generate new knowledge about narrative innovations comics use to reflect diverse national identities and cultures in Australian society. By consolidating and providing public access to a wealth of contemporary Australian comics through a website and public programs, this project should feed the future of Australian comics industry and scholarship, providing significant benefit to Australian artists, readers, and the public.Read moreRead less
Empowering Australia’s Visual Arts via Creative Blockchain Opportunities. This project investigates the provision of a blockchain-based solution for protecting the intellectual property and provenance of visual art, and ways to empower its economic, cultural, and social value and benefits. By exploring innovative non-fungible token (NFT) opportunities in a global cyber security context, we will co-design a user-friendly and compliant tool for expanding the creation and movement of art on existin ....Empowering Australia’s Visual Arts via Creative Blockchain Opportunities. This project investigates the provision of a blockchain-based solution for protecting the intellectual property and provenance of visual art, and ways to empower its economic, cultural, and social value and benefits. By exploring innovative non-fungible token (NFT) opportunities in a global cyber security context, we will co-design a user-friendly and compliant tool for expanding the creation and movement of art on existing virtual galleries and smart contract-enabled platforms. Building on interdisciplinary synergies between creative and IT practices, we will interrogate the efficacy, risks and governance surrounding this global technology, and produce vital new knowledge for engaging with risks and opportunities in the digital economy.Read moreRead less
Privacy preservation for personalised smart devices. The goal of this project is to build a privacy preservation framework for personalised smart devices with both immediate and long-term applications in a range of industries. The novel theoretical contributions include a privacy-preservation mechanism that guards against attacks by intelligent tools, a model and metrics that distinguish between object detection and object recognition, and allowing users to specify their desired level of privacy ....Privacy preservation for personalised smart devices. The goal of this project is to build a privacy preservation framework for personalised smart devices with both immediate and long-term applications in a range of industries. The novel theoretical contributions include a privacy-preservation mechanism that guards against attacks by intelligent tools, a model and metrics that distinguish between object detection and object recognition, and allowing users to specify their desired level of privacy guarantee. Practically, these solutions have clear economic and public-safety benefits. The solutions will accelerate AI device development, advance smart technologies based on individual behaviours, and guarantee personal data privacy against both human attackers and adversarial algorithms. Read moreRead less
A safety-preserving ecosystem for autonomous driving. In this project, Macquarie University will collaborate with UTS and SilverQuest to develop an innovative safety-preserving ecosystem for autonomous driving. This system will not only be adopted by SilverQuest’s customers (automotive companies) to secure their latest autonomous driving models, but also be commercialised as a toolset that can be plugged into existing autonomous vehicles to detect and prevent malicious attacks on autonomous driv ....A safety-preserving ecosystem for autonomous driving. In this project, Macquarie University will collaborate with UTS and SilverQuest to develop an innovative safety-preserving ecosystem for autonomous driving. This system will not only be adopted by SilverQuest’s customers (automotive companies) to secure their latest autonomous driving models, but also be commercialised as a toolset that can be plugged into existing autonomous vehicles to detect and prevent malicious attacks on autonomous driving models. The project will lead to two innovations: in theory design an attack detection and prevention ecosystem for autonomous driving and in application implement a safety analysis toolset for industry-scale autonomous systems.Read moreRead less