Visual Analytics for Next Generation Sequencing. Next-generation sequencing technologies have brought a revolution in biology and healthcare, while taxing the ability of scientists and clinicians to identify and process relevant data, to make sense of it all and communicate it to others in a concise and meaningful way. This project aims to tackle this problem through fundamentally new approaches to data selection and visualisation at very large scale, actively encoding for insight into underlyin ....Visual Analytics for Next Generation Sequencing. Next-generation sequencing technologies have brought a revolution in biology and healthcare, while taxing the ability of scientists and clinicians to identify and process relevant data, to make sense of it all and communicate it to others in a concise and meaningful way. This project aims to tackle this problem through fundamentally new approaches to data selection and visualisation at very large scale, actively encoding for insight into underlying biological and biomedical processes, bringing sustainable discovery of new relationships and variations within the data. The project aims to support new approaches to medical diagnosis and treatment, and offer crucial lessons to address the broader challenge of understanding large, complex data sets.Read moreRead less
Reconstructing proteins to explain and engineer biological diversity. The aim of this project is to develop computational methods to construct entirely new proteins. Computational reconstruction of enzymes that have been extinct for over 400 million years has revealed remarkable opportunities for biotechnological innovation. The intended outcomes are to develop bioinformatics methods to broaden the scope of ancestral protein reconstruction to include protein super-families, to establish what spe ....Reconstructing proteins to explain and engineer biological diversity. The aim of this project is to develop computational methods to construct entirely new proteins. Computational reconstruction of enzymes that have been extinct for over 400 million years has revealed remarkable opportunities for biotechnological innovation. The intended outcomes are to develop bioinformatics methods to broaden the scope of ancestral protein reconstruction to include protein super-families, to establish what specific changes led to the evolutionary success of a protein, and to re-run evolution to generate proteins that perform in conditions suitable for industrial and agricultural applications, in particular the production of hydroxylated fatty acids for bioplastics. By examining proteins from many life forms, the project plans to develop a novel bioinformatics strategy to understand their evolution and engineer new proteins for use in production of chemical commodities.Read moreRead less
Elucidating the genetics of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder by integrating pathway and prediction analyses. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common psychiatric disorder in children; while treatments are available they are ineffective for many patients. This project will develop methods for predicting genetic effects at the level of the biological mechanism to assist in identifying new drug targets and behavioural interventions.
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
Effective software process improvement in a large-scale defence contracting environment. Most organisations struggle to consistently develop high-quality software on schedule and within budget. Continuing changes in technologies and customer expectations complicate this challenge. Software process improvement frameworks aim to guide organisations towards best practice. This project will assess practical experience with individual software process improvement frameworks in a large-scale defence c ....Effective software process improvement in a large-scale defence contracting environment. Most organisations struggle to consistently develop high-quality software on schedule and within budget. Continuing changes in technologies and customer expectations complicate this challenge. Software process improvement frameworks aim to guide organisations towards best practice. This project will assess practical experience with individual software process improvement frameworks in a large-scale defence contracting environment, with the goal of developing an effective strategy for integrating them. The outcomes will include documented experience with specific process improvement frameworks and a strategy for an overall framework that combines them.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
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
Reducing the risks associated with developing large-scale, critical software-integrated systems. Industry, government and defence increasingly rely on large-scale, critical software-integrated systems. The scale and complexity of these systems means current methods of analysing, designing and assuring their dependability are struggling to provide the constructive support and assurance that is demanded. Consequently, there are significant risks of cost and schedule overruns and of system problems ....Reducing the risks associated with developing large-scale, critical software-integrated systems. Industry, government and defence increasingly rely on large-scale, critical software-integrated systems. The scale and complexity of these systems means current methods of analysing, designing and assuring their dependability are struggling to provide the constructive support and assurance that is demanded. Consequently, there are significant risks of cost and schedule overruns and of system problems and failures. This project builds on results from our current collaboration - a new method for modelling, analysis and defect detection for the requirements of large-scale systems. We will develop and scale-up to industry strength, simpler, more powerful, strategies for analysing, designing and providing the high level of assurance required.Read moreRead less