Learning to Pinpoint Emerging Software Vulnerabilities. This project aims to develop learning-based software vulnerability detection techniques to improve the reliability and security of modern software systems. The existing techniques relying on conventional yet rigid software analysis and testing techniques are ineffective and/or inefficient when detecting a wide variety of emerging software vulnerabilities. The outcomes of this project will be a deep-learning-based detection approach and an ....Learning to Pinpoint Emerging Software Vulnerabilities. This project aims to develop learning-based software vulnerability detection techniques to improve the reliability and security of modern software systems. The existing techniques relying on conventional yet rigid software analysis and testing techniques are ineffective and/or inefficient when detecting a wide variety of emerging software vulnerabilities. The outcomes of this project will be a deep-learning-based detection approach and an open-source tool that can capture precision correlations between deep code features and diverse vulnerabilities to pinpoint emerging vulnerabilities without the need for bug specifications. Significant benefits include greatly improved quality, reliability and security for modern software systems.Read moreRead less
Stochastic Analysis with a View to Applications in Financial Risk Processes. Recent decades have seen explosive growth in applications of probability theory and statistics to the modelling of risk in finance and insurance. An intensive theoretical investigation into passage time and other problems for Levy and other continuous time processes will be applied to financial risk analyses. Related investigations will involve perpetuities and stochastic volatility models for price series. Outcomes ....Stochastic Analysis with a View to Applications in Financial Risk Processes. Recent decades have seen explosive growth in applications of probability theory and statistics to the modelling of risk in finance and insurance. An intensive theoretical investigation into passage time and other problems for Levy and other continuous time processes will be applied to financial risk analyses. Related investigations will involve perpetuities and stochastic volatility models for price series. Outcomes will include the development of new theory in probability and statistics, the initiation and reinforcement of collaborative ties with major international research figures, and the fostering of contacts with the finance industry.Read moreRead less
Energy big data analytics from a cybersecurity perspective. This project aims to develop a framework on energy big data analytics from security and privacy perspectives. Unlike other big data analytics such as social network big data analytics, energy big data analytics involve research challenges on how to cope with real-time tight cyber-physical couplings, and security/safety of the smart grid system. This project will develop advanced data-driven algorithms that are capable of detecting coord ....Energy big data analytics from a cybersecurity perspective. This project aims to develop a framework on energy big data analytics from security and privacy perspectives. Unlike other big data analytics such as social network big data analytics, energy big data analytics involve research challenges on how to cope with real-time tight cyber-physical couplings, and security/safety of the smart grid system. This project will develop advanced data-driven algorithms that are capable of detecting coordinated cyber-attacks that will potentially lead to catastrophic cascaded failures; and develop new solutions in detecting the false data-injection attacks that are conventionally considered as unobservable. This project will provide the benefit of enhancing our national critical infrastructure's security.Read moreRead less
Reading facial expressions from real and virtual humans. This project aims to advance understanding of human emotional communication and improve human rapport with the virtual humans and avatars that are rapidly infiltrating our social world. Using two unique stimulus sets - naturalistic human expressions and highly realistic virtual faces - together with powerful genetic, experimental, and individual differences designs, the project expects to answer previously intractable questions in emotion ....Reading facial expressions from real and virtual humans. This project aims to advance understanding of human emotional communication and improve human rapport with the virtual humans and avatars that are rapidly infiltrating our social world. Using two unique stimulus sets - naturalistic human expressions and highly realistic virtual faces - together with powerful genetic, experimental, and individual differences designs, the project expects to answer previously intractable questions in emotion science, as well as deliver tangible outcomes, such as new psychological tests to better understand human social connection. This should provide significant benefits, by improving emotion communication and offering a new perspective on how artificial intelligence can best serve human social needs.
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Privacy-preserving Biometrics based Authentication and Security. Password based authentication systems cannot verify genuine users. Biometric authentication can address this issue. However, the booming IoT applications and cloud computing require that the biometric authentication must be conducted in the privacy-protected setting in order to comply with privacy protection legal regulations. Latest reports show that current biometric authentication systems, under protected setting, exhibit poor ....Privacy-preserving Biometrics based Authentication and Security. Password based authentication systems cannot verify genuine users. Biometric authentication can address this issue. However, the booming IoT applications and cloud computing require that the biometric authentication must be conducted in the privacy-protected setting in order to comply with privacy protection legal regulations. Latest reports show that current biometric authentication systems, under protected setting, exhibit poor authentication performance, which is not commercially applicable. This project aims to investigate innovative solutions to this issue. The intended deliverables will include deep learning based biometric feature extractor, cancellable biometrics and cloud oriented biometrics security protocols. Read moreRead less
Provable elimination of information leakage through timing channels. This project aims to develop techniques to solve the issue in information security of unauthorised information flow resulting from competition for shared hardware resources. The project will combine operating systems design, formal hardware models, information-flow reasoning and theorem proving to achieve a goal that is widely considered infeasible. The project is expected to result in a system that prevents leakage of critical ....Provable elimination of information leakage through timing channels. This project aims to develop techniques to solve the issue in information security of unauthorised information flow resulting from competition for shared hardware resources. The project will combine operating systems design, formal hardware models, information-flow reasoning and theorem proving to achieve a goal that is widely considered infeasible. The project is expected to result in a system that prevents leakage of critical information, such as encryption keys, through timing channels. This should prevent sophisticated attacks on public clouds, mobile devices and military-grade cross-domain devices.Read moreRead less
The Misinformation Future—Confronting Emerging Threats. Misinformation presents challenges to public health and democracy. Though psychological research has explored processing mechanisms and countermeasures, new threats are arising that need to be confronted. This project aims to help meet these threats by (a) investigating misinformation impacts on future-oriented cognition and behaviours, with a focus on global long-term issues and (b) addressing the unique challenges posed by visual and synt ....The Misinformation Future—Confronting Emerging Threats. Misinformation presents challenges to public health and democracy. Though psychological research has explored processing mechanisms and countermeasures, new threats are arising that need to be confronted. This project aims to help meet these threats by (a) investigating misinformation impacts on future-oriented cognition and behaviours, with a focus on global long-term issues and (b) addressing the unique challenges posed by visual and synthetic (AI-generated) misinformation. The expected outcome is new knowledge on the processing and impacts of emerging types of misinformation and translation into practical interventions. These promise to benefit consumers, educators and policymakers, contributing to a healthier information environment.Read moreRead less
Multi-object Estimation for Live-Cell Microscopy. The objective of this project is to develop new tools for the inference of biological information from live-cell data to facilitate analysis of experiments and speed up discovery in cell biology. The new tools would provide reliable, consistent inference requiring no manual intervention and able to process large volumes of data in a timely manner. This would equip biologists with a vehicle that could move them closer to the goal of understanding ....Multi-object Estimation for Live-Cell Microscopy. The objective of this project is to develop new tools for the inference of biological information from live-cell data to facilitate analysis of experiments and speed up discovery in cell biology. The new tools would provide reliable, consistent inference requiring no manual intervention and able to process large volumes of data in a timely manner. This would equip biologists with a vehicle that could move them closer to the goal of understanding the mechanism behind biological processes.Read moreRead less
Household Vulnerability and the Politics of Social Protection in Indonesia: Towards an Integrated Approach. Despite rapid economic growth in the middle income countries of Asia, rural populations face multiple shocks and new sources of stress, and significant pockets of chronic poverty remain. While states have instituted new social protection policies to deal with household vulnerability, these programs have had limited effectiveness. This project addresses the weaknesses in diagnostic approach ....Household Vulnerability and the Politics of Social Protection in Indonesia: Towards an Integrated Approach. Despite rapid economic growth in the middle income countries of Asia, rural populations face multiple shocks and new sources of stress, and significant pockets of chronic poverty remain. While states have instituted new social protection policies to deal with household vulnerability, these programs have had limited effectiveness. This project addresses the weaknesses in diagnostic approaches to poverty and vulnerability in Indonesia. Combining case-study analyses of poverty drivers, investigations of social protection practices, and an analysis of the politics of social protection, it will develop a new integrated framework for conceptualising vulnerability and social protection programs. Read moreRead less