Computational techniques for protease research. Protease research is an area of intensive research in Australia. Correctly assessing the mechanisms of protease function is crucial not only for improving our health through medical research and drug development, but also to multiple national areas of research and development, including biotechnology, agriculture, and industries such as the dairy industry. This project will develop innovative computational techniques to advance understanding of h ....Computational techniques for protease research. Protease research is an area of intensive research in Australia. Correctly assessing the mechanisms of protease function is crucial not only for improving our health through medical research and drug development, but also to multiple national areas of research and development, including biotechnology, agriculture, and industries such as the dairy industry. This project will develop innovative computational techniques to advance understanding of how proteases function by redressing a common research assumption that can significantly affect the accuracy of protease function prediction. The outcomes will improve fundamental research into proteases, and enable improved research and development in the many fields that rely on protease work.Read moreRead less
New approaches to functional and structural genomics. Genome sequencing has revealed complete sets of macromolecules that make up our cells. We now need to learn how these macromolecules work together in a coordinated fashion. The proposed research will lead to the discovery of new biological molecules, interactions and processes essential for the function of cells, identify new therapeutic targets and strategies to combat disease, identify new concepts in bio- and nanotechnology, and train new ....New approaches to functional and structural genomics. Genome sequencing has revealed complete sets of macromolecules that make up our cells. We now need to learn how these macromolecules work together in a coordinated fashion. The proposed research will lead to the discovery of new biological molecules, interactions and processes essential for the function of cells, identify new therapeutic targets and strategies to combat disease, identify new concepts in bio- and nanotechnology, and train new interdisciplinary researchers. It will underpin the National Research Priorities (Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries, and Promoting and Maintaining Good Health) and help Australia capitalise on a plethora of opportunities for future economic and health benefits.Read moreRead less
Auditory spatial perception during head movements. Orienting to stimuli frequently involves eye and head movements. This improves localisation, yet brings attendant problems (eg, blurring). These problems are well understood in vision, but not in audition, despite evidence for common neural mechanisms. We will examine auditory (and visual) localisation during head movements, showing head movements produce auditory suppression and spatial distortions (analogous to visual saccadic effects). This w ....Auditory spatial perception during head movements. Orienting to stimuli frequently involves eye and head movements. This improves localisation, yet brings attendant problems (eg, blurring). These problems are well understood in vision, but not in audition, despite evidence for common neural mechanisms. We will examine auditory (and visual) localisation during head movements, showing head movements produce auditory suppression and spatial distortions (analogous to visual saccadic effects). This will demonstrate the malleability of auditory spatial perception and the impoverished sensitivity of audition during head and self-motion. Knowledge of these distortions will inform applications such as cockpit design, where orienting to auditory signals is common, and other human/computer interfaces.
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Lexical retrieval and reading comprehension: Binding perceptual, lexical and conceptual information in on-line reading. Reading is a complex process that involves integrating sensory information extracted from text with stored memories about word meanings, syntactic structures and general knowledge. Most reading research has focused on the processing of isolated words, but normal reading requires integration processes that are not necessary to recognise single words. This research uses tasks req ....Lexical retrieval and reading comprehension: Binding perceptual, lexical and conceptual information in on-line reading. Reading is a complex process that involves integrating sensory information extracted from text with stored memories about word meanings, syntactic structures and general knowledge. Most reading research has focused on the processing of isolated words, but normal reading requires integration processes that are not necessary to recognise single words. This research uses tasks requiring sentence comprehension and measures of eye movements during reading to investigate how readers retrieve and combine information while reading to comprehend text. It will contribute to developing more comprehensive theories of normal reading that can inform methods of teaching reading and contribute to refinement of text recognition systems.Read moreRead less
Learning strategies for personal agents to assist professional users in searching the Web. Many professional groups have large unmet information needs, with significant consequences for the public. We will take a novel strategy-based approach to the design of agents that assist humans in information search tasks, which represents a significant departure from the dominant paradigm of content-based retrieval. Our goal is to develop automated methods to learn task specific search strategies, embed ....Learning strategies for personal agents to assist professional users in searching the Web. Many professional groups have large unmet information needs, with significant consequences for the public. We will take a novel strategy-based approach to the design of agents that assist humans in information search tasks, which represents a significant departure from the dominant paradigm of content-based retrieval. Our goal is to develop automated methods to learn task specific search strategies, embed them in agents, and use them to guide human-agent interactions and search behaviours. To discover the effectiveness of our approach we will evaluate our methods with health care professionals.Read moreRead less
ARC Research Network for Enabling Human Communication. The Human Communication Network promotes interdisciplinary research in speech, language, and sound by and between humans and machines. The network connects leading and emerging researchers across disciplines, exploits previously unrecognised intersections, supports interdisciplinary graduate training and exchanges, provides database storage infrastructure, and consults with industry and government to set, not follow, research agendas. By ge ....ARC Research Network for Enabling Human Communication. The Human Communication Network promotes interdisciplinary research in speech, language, and sound by and between humans and machines. The network connects leading and emerging researchers across disciplines, exploits previously unrecognised intersections, supports interdisciplinary graduate training and exchanges, provides database storage infrastructure, and consults with industry and government to set, not follow, research agendas. By generating an explosion of new approaches and knowledge, the network will build Australia's reputation as a leader in communication science and technology via advances in automatic speech recognition, distress call monitoring, hearing prostheses, web interfaces, and data retrieval and data mining systems.Read moreRead less
From Talking Heads to Thinking Heads: A Research Platform for Human Communication Science. In this project current Talking Head technology will be taken into the realm of a high-fidelity Thinking Head, with implications and applications for basic and applied research. Outcomes will bear on human-machine communication, telecommunications, e-commerce, and mobile phone technology; personalised aids for disabled users, the hearing impaired, the elderly, and children with learning difficulties, forei ....From Talking Heads to Thinking Heads: A Research Platform for Human Communication Science. In this project current Talking Head technology will be taken into the realm of a high-fidelity Thinking Head, with implications and applications for basic and applied research. Outcomes will bear on human-machine communication, telecommunications, e-commerce, and mobile phone technology; personalised aids for disabled users, the hearing impaired, the elderly, and children with learning difficulties, foreign language learning; and will facilitate the development of animation in new media, film, and games. In addition to output in scholarly journals, beta-versions of the Head will be made available, and public visibility for the project will be facilitated by the incorporation of high-profile installations and exhibitions.Read moreRead less
Intelligent archiving and retrieving of clinic laboratory records in pathology/radiology informatics study. Pathology/radiology Informatics has emerged as an arm for developing next-generation pathology/radiology reporting methods, databases, imagery, and diagnostics. Current report archiving systems are very primitive, restricting any sophisticated use of the reports. This proposal aims to develop an innovative pathology/radiology report archiving system capable of automatically extracting usef ....Intelligent archiving and retrieving of clinic laboratory records in pathology/radiology informatics study. Pathology/radiology Informatics has emerged as an arm for developing next-generation pathology/radiology reporting methods, databases, imagery, and diagnostics. Current report archiving systems are very primitive, restricting any sophisticated use of the reports. This proposal aims to develop an innovative pathology/radiology report archiving system capable of automatically extracting useful information from reports. This system will make a smart use of pathology/radiology data and open a new way to extend current tests and examinations from being disease-focussed to being wellness focussed. It will also significantly reduce the number of tests, i.e., associated cost for healthcare.Read moreRead less
Intelligent archiving and retrieving of clinic laboratory records in pathology/radiology informatics study. Since 80% of the critical decisions made in medicine involve a pathology test or radiology examination, Pathology/radiology Informatics has emerged as an arm for developing next-generation pathology/radiology reporting methods, databases, imagery, and diagnostics. Current archiving systems are very primitive, restricting any sophisticated use of the reports. This proposal aims to collabora ....Intelligent archiving and retrieving of clinic laboratory records in pathology/radiology informatics study. Since 80% of the critical decisions made in medicine involve a pathology test or radiology examination, Pathology/radiology Informatics has emerged as an arm for developing next-generation pathology/radiology reporting methods, databases, imagery, and diagnostics. Current archiving systems are very primitive, restricting any sophisticated use of the reports. This proposal aims to collaborate with Lossless Data Compression Pty Ltd in developing an innovative pathology/radiology report archiving system capable of automatically extracting useful information. This system will make a smart use of pathology/radiology data and open a new way to extend current tests and examinations from being disease-focussed to being wellness focussed.Read moreRead less
An knowledge-based approach to multi-document text summarisation for automated meta-analysis of the scientific literature. The biomedical sciences produce literature at an exponential rate, and the size of this knowledge base far exceeds the capacity of humans to keep up with the growth in new knowledge. This project will develop computational text summarisation methods to abstract the content of scientific journal articles reporting clinical trials, and develop multi-document summarisation meth ....An knowledge-based approach to multi-document text summarisation for automated meta-analysis of the scientific literature. The biomedical sciences produce literature at an exponential rate, and the size of this knowledge base far exceeds the capacity of humans to keep up with the growth in new knowledge. This project will develop computational text summarisation methods to abstract the content of scientific journal articles reporting clinical trials, and develop multi-document summarisation methods to synthesise these abstracts using automated statistical meta-analysis methods. These methods have broad potential to improve text-summarisation technologies in general, to profoundly enhance our ability to integrate published knowledge, and to make a highly significant and specific contribution to improving the quality of evidence used in health decision-making. Read moreRead less