Choice experiments to improve predictive power for policy makers. In the current economic climate, Australian governments will benefit from superior choice experiments which will lead to improved prediction of the potential public benefit of proposed policy changes. The choice experiments developed here will have a substantial effect on the development of strategies for the promotion and maintenance of a strong health care system as well as being relevant to the maintenance of a sustainable envi ....Choice experiments to improve predictive power for policy makers. In the current economic climate, Australian governments will benefit from superior choice experiments which will lead to improved prediction of the potential public benefit of proposed policy changes. The choice experiments developed here will have a substantial effect on the development of strategies for the promotion and maintenance of a strong health care system as well as being relevant to the maintenance of a sustainable environment, both designated National Research Priority areas. The innovative research proposed will tap into and build strong links with international research networks, advancing Australia's research reputation and providing a rich environment for the training of research graduates.Read moreRead less
An intelligent maintenance decision system for the water utility industry. The reliability and maintenance of pump stations is of paramount importance to the water utility industries. In Australia, the maintenance of assets for the water and wastewater industry amounts to $927m per annum. This research will develop an intelligent maintenance decision support system to reduce maintenance costs in pumping stations with increased reliability. The outcomes of the research will significantly improve ....An intelligent maintenance decision system for the water utility industry. The reliability and maintenance of pump stations is of paramount importance to the water utility industries. In Australia, the maintenance of assets for the water and wastewater industry amounts to $927m per annum. This research will develop an intelligent maintenance decision support system to reduce maintenance costs in pumping stations with increased reliability. The outcomes of the research will significantly improve the reliability and supply security of water systems to Queensland's rural and regional communities and industries. It will also advance the body of knowledge of the field of integrated asset management and enhance Australia's international standing in this field.Read moreRead less
Unsupervised learning of finite mixture models in data mining applications. The extraction of useful information from massively large databases is known as data mining. Its broad but vague goal is to find "interesting structure" in the data, which typically leads to breaking the data into clusters. To this end, we consider the fast, efficient, and automatic learning of finite mixture models in hugh data sets without any prior knowledge of the structure. This probabilistic approach to the discove ....Unsupervised learning of finite mixture models in data mining applications. The extraction of useful information from massively large databases is known as data mining. Its broad but vague goal is to find "interesting structure" in the data, which typically leads to breaking the data into clusters. To this end, we consider the fast, efficient, and automatic learning of finite mixture models in hugh data sets without any prior knowledge of the structure. This probabilistic approach to the discovery and validation of group structure in data mining applications will considerably enhance knowledge management and decision support in science, industry, and government.
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Nonlinear Econometric Modelling: A Complex Systems Perspective. It is becoming increasingly accepted that economic systems are both complex and adaptive. However, this introduces a range of problems in constructing, estimating and testing economic models using time series data. In this project, this problem will be addressed through the formulation and implementation of a new methodology and associated techniques. These techniques will allow a researcher to use information obtained from a set o ....Nonlinear Econometric Modelling: A Complex Systems Perspective. It is becoming increasingly accepted that economic systems are both complex and adaptive. However, this introduces a range of problems in constructing, estimating and testing economic models using time series data. In this project, this problem will be addressed through the formulation and implementation of a new methodology and associated techniques. These techniques will allow a researcher to use information obtained from a set of nonlinearity tests to determine which type of nonlinear model provides the best representation of a data generating mechanism. Selected high frequency financial and macroeconomic data (for the US and Australia) will be used in the study. This research is intended to change the direction and emphasis of econometric modelling and promises to have a fundamental impact on forecasting and policy evaluation methods.
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On-line and Incremental EM-based Neural Networks: Application to Hospital Utlilization and Gene Expression Data. Artificial neural networks have been widely applied as universal classifiers in many fields, such as biomedicine. However, misunderstanding of fundamental statistical principles, which can cause misleading findings, has been frequently observed in the literature. This project aims to integrate statistical methodologies in neural networks to provide a unified approach to improve its ....On-line and Incremental EM-based Neural Networks: Application to Hospital Utlilization and Gene Expression Data. Artificial neural networks have been widely applied as universal classifiers in many fields, such as biomedicine. However, misunderstanding of fundamental statistical principles, which can cause misleading findings, has been frequently observed in the literature. This project aims to integrate statistical methodologies in neural networks to provide a unified approach to improve its applicability and efficiency in implementation. The system developed from this proposed cross-disciplinary research will be applied to hospital utilization data (hospital morbidity database, Western Australia) and gene expression data (DNA microarrays databases, Harvard University). This collaborative research will advance the international standard of Australian research communities.
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