Computing with nearly-consistent data. This project will help programmers correctly use data that originates at various times and places, and spreads unevenly through a system. Computation will combine data that comes from different situations, and is not exactly consistent. Capability to develop high quality software on platforms with this feature will enhance the value of the Australian IT industry. As well, the industries which use the software benefit from correctly working with their data. ....Computing with nearly-consistent data. This project will help programmers correctly use data that originates at various times and places, and spreads unevenly through a system. Computation will combine data that comes from different situations, and is not exactly consistent. Capability to develop high quality software on platforms with this feature will enhance the value of the Australian IT industry. As well, the industries which use the software benefit from correctly working with their data. Sensor networks have data like this, and they play a vital role in environmental monitoring. Cloud computing platforms also have this type of data, and these allow smaller enterprises to grow smoothly, without needing large up-front investments in computing infrastructure.Read moreRead less
Enhancing computer user productivity of integrated enterprise wide systems: an intervention study. This project addresses a critical issue in IT investment and productivity. Current theoretical models of user training and acceptance have not contributed to the effectiveness of implementing new integrated enterprise wide systems. This study will identify key indiviudal differences that predict user motivation to learn and utilize such systems under mandatory conditions. A longitudinal study in ....Enhancing computer user productivity of integrated enterprise wide systems: an intervention study. This project addresses a critical issue in IT investment and productivity. Current theoretical models of user training and acceptance have not contributed to the effectiveness of implementing new integrated enterprise wide systems. This study will identify key indiviudal differences that predict user motivation to learn and utilize such systems under mandatory conditions. A longitudinal study in two field settings will test the impact of selected interventions on task performance following training. The outcomes will inform Australian industry on models of effective implementation and provide guidance to increase the productivity of personnel using software systems.Read moreRead less
Adaptive Key-value Store for Future Extreme Heterogeneous Systems. Safe, lasting storage of data, and efficient access to it, is vital for all aspects of computing, ranging from e-commerce applications, and data-management in governments. For the storage of data, persistent key-value stores are central in modern computing platforms. However, contemporary key-value stores have not been designed for emerging extreme heterogeneous computational systems with future hardware accelerators and storage ....Adaptive Key-value Store for Future Extreme Heterogeneous Systems. Safe, lasting storage of data, and efficient access to it, is vital for all aspects of computing, ranging from e-commerce applications, and data-management in governments. For the storage of data, persistent key-value stores are central in modern computing platforms. However, contemporary key-value stores have not been designed for emerging extreme heterogeneous computational systems with future hardware accelerators and storage capabilities, including graphics processor and flash-based memory. This project will devise an adaptive key-value store framework for heterogeneous systems. Our new framework will adaptively harvest the performance potential of future hardware such that applications can cope with fast-growing data sets.Read moreRead less
Computational Methods for the Social Accounting of Teamwork. The cornerstone of the knowledge industries underlying the Australian economy is not just mechanical efficiency but also teamwork productivity. The increasing trend toward placing Australian employees nearer to their customers means that Australian companies face an even greater challenge in managing effective teamwork. This research examines the pragmatics and theoretical issues of developing computer-based systems that enable real-ti ....Computational Methods for the Social Accounting of Teamwork. The cornerstone of the knowledge industries underlying the Australian economy is not just mechanical efficiency but also teamwork productivity. The increasing trend toward placing Australian employees nearer to their customers means that Australian companies face an even greater challenge in managing effective teamwork. This research examines the pragmatics and theoretical issues of developing computer-based systems that enable real-time assessments of teamwork productivity. Automated assessments of how well relationships are progressing in teams will enable them to realise the same levels of productivity gains that automated workflow management has facilitated.Read moreRead less
A more intelligent knowledge-based system apprentice. Our previous techniques already had an impact on Australian industry, with five Australian companies marketing such technology, and for three of these it is a central technology. We expect an early uptake of the enhancements we propose by these companies, greatly increasing their international competitiveness against other rule technologies. Three of these companies are very recent, so we would expect other company uptake of the new enhance ....A more intelligent knowledge-based system apprentice. Our previous techniques already had an impact on Australian industry, with five Australian companies marketing such technology, and for three of these it is a central technology. We expect an early uptake of the enhancements we propose by these companies, greatly increasing their international competitiveness against other rule technologies. Three of these companies are very recent, so we would expect other company uptake of the new enhanced technology. In turn Australian companies using the technology will improve their competitiveness in an increasingly knowledge-based economy by being able to more rapidly and easily deploy knowledge-based systems. Our previous techniques have already had a significant impact in medical practice.Read moreRead less
Efficient Design for Generalized Linear Models. In industrial, commercial and social research, we collect data in order to predict the outcome of a process based on the inputs to that process. We want to maximize the information that is gained from the data. Good planning is crucially important to achieve this. This project will determine how best to select the inputs to the process for many situations that occur in research. A computer package to answer these questions will be written. The nati ....Efficient Design for Generalized Linear Models. In industrial, commercial and social research, we collect data in order to predict the outcome of a process based on the inputs to that process. We want to maximize the information that is gained from the data. Good planning is crucially important to achieve this. This project will determine how best to select the inputs to the process for many situations that occur in research. A computer package to answer these questions will be written. The nation will benefit from a fundamental increase in efficiency of research and, therefore, in efficient use of research dollars.Read moreRead less
Ownership-based Alias Analysis for Securing Unsafe Rust Programs. This project aims to develop an ownership-based alias analysis as a complement to Rust's ownership type system for improving Rust's memory safety. This project, therefore, expects to deliver an alias analysis foundation that can provide stronger memory safety guarantees than the state-of-the-art in detecting memory-safety violations and security vulnerabilities in real-world Rust programs that use unsafe language features. The exp ....Ownership-based Alias Analysis for Securing Unsafe Rust Programs. This project aims to develop an ownership-based alias analysis as a complement to Rust's ownership type system for improving Rust's memory safety. This project, therefore, expects to deliver an alias analysis foundation that can provide stronger memory safety guarantees than the state-of-the-art in detecting memory-safety violations and security vulnerabilities in real-world Rust programs that use unsafe language features. The expected outcomes are a deployable ownership-based alias analysis in the Rust compiler and an industrial-strength open-source framework. These outcomes are expected to provide significant benefits in improving software quality and security in Rust, an emerging language that offers both performance and safety.Read moreRead less
Metamodel-based Methodology for Developing Agent-Oriented Systems. In the context of building high quality software, agent technology offers substantial promise. However, its widespread deployment by industry is hampered by the lack of commercially acceptable development methodologies. Here, we expand a metamodel-based process framework (the OPEN Process Framework) to support agent-oriented (AO) software development that will eventually both form a de facto standard for AO methodologies and be ....Metamodel-based Methodology for Developing Agent-Oriented Systems. In the context of building high quality software, agent technology offers substantial promise. However, its widespread deployment by industry is hampered by the lack of commercially acceptable development methodologies. Here, we expand a metamodel-based process framework (the OPEN Process Framework) to support agent-oriented (AO) software development that will eventually both form a de facto standard for AO methodologies and be acceptable for commercial software application development. To create this extension, significant research in AO software engineering is required. Our basis will be the OPF plus elements from existing AO methodologies, notably Tropos and Gaia, whose authors will collaborate actively.Read moreRead less
Computer Assisted Research Mathematics and its Applications. The mathematics community will benefit from infusion of new computer-assisted techniques and modalities for research and training post-graduate students, both from my pure research project and through development of an associated research centre. Ultimately, this should also help more school students learn mathematics well and so play a part in addressing Australia's skill shortage. Also, the work on optimization algorithms promises to ....Computer Assisted Research Mathematics and its Applications. The mathematics community will benefit from infusion of new computer-assisted techniques and modalities for research and training post-graduate students, both from my pure research project and through development of an associated research centre. Ultimately, this should also help more school students learn mathematics well and so play a part in addressing Australia's skill shortage. Also, the work on optimization algorithms promises to improve the performance and quality of many practical signal reconstruction methods. These are used by varied Australian industries from telecommunication to mining and by researchers in the digital arts and fields such as astronomy, physics, chemistry, bioscience, geoscience, engineering and medicine.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