Handling unreliable, uncertain and inadequate data for Intelligence led Investigation. Intelligence led investigation has been successful recently in drug and people smuggling, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, and can benefit profoundly from the techniques we will develop, in the timely management and inference from many sources and kinds of uncertain information. This work will assist in making Australia a safer and more secure country.
E.g., Australian Bureau of Statistics ....Handling unreliable, uncertain and inadequate data for Intelligence led Investigation. Intelligence led investigation has been successful recently in drug and people smuggling, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, and can benefit profoundly from the techniques we will develop, in the timely management and inference from many sources and kinds of uncertain information. This work will assist in making Australia a safer and more secure country.
E.g., Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that for 2004, investigations of some 35% of murders, 63% of kidnappings, and 80% of robberies are incomplete at 30 days. Terrorism investigations are harder in that usually there is no initial crime trigger for an investigation. Any assistance our tools can provide in will be of significant benefit to Australia.Read moreRead less
National Seafood Emergency Plan - Western Australia Trial Workshop
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$5,000.00
Summary
Failure to deal quickly and effectively with a real or perceived food safety incident may result in costly trade disruption and threaten the commercial viability of seafood suppliers, processors, wholesalers, retailers and food service providers.
SSA has developed the national SEP as part of it's strategic plan for the national seafood industry.
This workshop is another step in the developmental phase of the SEP. Objectives: 1. Test the draft manual plan in a des ....Failure to deal quickly and effectively with a real or perceived food safety incident may result in costly trade disruption and threaten the commercial viability of seafood suppliers, processors, wholesalers, retailers and food service providers.
SSA has developed the national SEP as part of it's strategic plan for the national seafood industry.
This workshop is another step in the developmental phase of the SEP. Objectives: 1. Test the draft manual plan in a desk top exercise. 2. Introduce all the nominated team members and alternates to the plan and train them in the use of the plan 3. Use learned experience to develop the manual further in W.A. and nationally Read moreRead less
To update assessment reports on Whichfish.com to keep the site current for users. Objectives: 1. 1. Re-organise existing report format in line with the new methodology 2. 2. Update relevant information for the 20 species on Whichfish 3. 3. Reassess risk scores and future outlook sections using draft methodology 4. 4. Provide written feedback about any issues and/or challenges encountered in applying the draft risk assessment which will be incorporated into a guid ....To update assessment reports on Whichfish.com to keep the site current for users. Objectives: 1. 1. Re-organise existing report format in line with the new methodology 2. 2. Update relevant information for the 20 species on Whichfish 3. 3. Reassess risk scores and future outlook sections using draft methodology 4. 4. Provide written feedback about any issues and/or challenges encountered in applying the draft risk assessment which will be incorporated into a guidance document for future assessors and suggestions to improve risk assessment criteria. Read moreRead less
Kernel and Margin Based Machine Learning Algorithms. Certain machine learning algorithms, such as support vector machines, utilizing
the ideas of large margins and kernels have attracted much attention lately
because of their impressive performance on real world problems such as optical
character recognition. We plan to refine and extend such algorithms to a wide
range of different machine learning problems such as gene sequence analysis,
image processing and text classification. Expected ....Kernel and Margin Based Machine Learning Algorithms. Certain machine learning algorithms, such as support vector machines, utilizing
the ideas of large margins and kernels have attracted much attention lately
because of their impressive performance on real world problems such as optical
character recognition. We plan to refine and extend such algorithms to a wide
range of different machine learning problems such as gene sequence analysis,
image processing and text classification. Expected outcomes include the
development of software that allows the solution of hitherto unsolved machine
learning problems, and the ability to solve problems larger than those solvable
by the current generation of machine learning tools.Read moreRead less
A theory of communicative practices within financial internet discussion site communities. This project aims to use online financial investment communities to identify factors that drive communication and influence knowledge co-creation, examine how systematic variations in these factors influence investor decision making, and develop a mid-range theory for explaining and predicting the influence of online communication patterns on individual decisions and market outcomes. By developing and vali ....A theory of communicative practices within financial internet discussion site communities. This project aims to use online financial investment communities to identify factors that drive communication and influence knowledge co-creation, examine how systematic variations in these factors influence investor decision making, and develop a mid-range theory for explaining and predicting the influence of online communication patterns on individual decisions and market outcomes. By developing and validating a new mid-range theory, initially in the financial investment context, this project will provide significant benefits, such as help to secure Australia’s place in a changing world through improved information flow.Read moreRead less
Preventing railway suicide: An open-systems perspective. Preventing railway suicide: An open-systems perspective. This project aims to develop an automated suicide risk detection system to reduce the incidence and impact of railway suicide, which has a devastating effect on victims’ families, station staff, train drivers, emergency workers, and bystanders. This project will use open-systems theory to develop two complementary information systems for more effective detection and reporting of suic ....Preventing railway suicide: An open-systems perspective. Preventing railway suicide: An open-systems perspective. This project aims to develop an automated suicide risk detection system to reduce the incidence and impact of railway suicide, which has a devastating effect on victims’ families, station staff, train drivers, emergency workers, and bystanders. This project will use open-systems theory to develop two complementary information systems for more effective detection and reporting of suicide risk; use these systems to investigate how different situational factors interact with different combinations of service interventions to influence suicide risk; and share the findings to reduce railway suicide in Australia and overseas.Read moreRead less
Pathogenic Vibrio Parahaemolyticus In Australian Oysters
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$13,995.00
Summary
In 1999, Seafood Services Australia (SSA) initiated a risk-based approach to assessing and managing hazards. Regarding oysters, two risk assessments were undertaken, one on viruses and one on vibrios. Focusing on the latter hazards, the risks associated with the three main species: V. parahaemolyticus, V. vulnificus and V. cholerae were assessed. It was noted that V. parahaemolyticus (Vp) has recently caused major outbreaks in USA from consumption of oysters due to a “new” pathogenic type O3:K6. ....In 1999, Seafood Services Australia (SSA) initiated a risk-based approach to assessing and managing hazards. Regarding oysters, two risk assessments were undertaken, one on viruses and one on vibrios. Focusing on the latter hazards, the risks associated with the three main species: V. parahaemolyticus, V. vulnificus and V. cholerae were assessed. It was noted that V. parahaemolyticus (Vp) has recently caused major outbreaks in USA from consumption of oysters due to a “new” pathogenic type O3:K6. For Australia, no work on pathogenic Vp in oysters could be found, which introduced a great deal of uncertainty to the assessment. The RA noted that there had been two Vp poisonings in NSW from prawns imported from Indonesia, the clear inference being that pathogenic Vp exists in neighbouring waters.
In March, 2002 the FAO/WHO team will develop a global risk assessment of Vp in oysters. The RA will utilise the US risk model and insert data from the oyster industries of Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. If no Australian data are available on levels of Vp the modellers will make assumptions which may well be disadvantageous to the Australian industry. This could happen if the north American mitigation strategy (rapid icing) to control of Vp is adopted as a prerequisite for export.
Failure to input Australian data into a Codex global risk assessment could have serious consequences for the industry. At best it would lead to protracted negotiation between Australia and Codex. These negotiations would need to be science-based and a research program would need to be funded. It is probable that the scale of this investigation would be at least a log scale larger than the present application.
Among the strategies to mitigate V. parahaemolyticus risk is chilling oysters as early as possible after harvest. In the case of the Canadian industry in British Columbia, the strategy has been used successfully in the summers of 2000 and 2001. This strategy is directly opposed to current summer handling practices by the NSW industry which allows product to remain as warm as 25°C for up to three days.
This project is designed to provide evidence of the occurrence and prevalence of pathogenic and non-pathogenic V. parahaemolyticus in Australian oysters. This knowledge will be invaluable to the NSW industry in particular - in case the FAO/WHO assessment recommends chilling of oysters as a pre-requisite for market access.
Effect of not doing the proposed study
If the work is not done and Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) recommend a mitigation strategy of rapid icing, the local industry has a number of choices:
1. Ignore the CCFH recommendation on the grounds that we don’t export large volumes of oysters. The problem with this approach is that Codex has just as much application and force for domestic production as it does in the export arena.
2. Undertake a study to try to show that there is no problem with V. parahaemolyticus from Australian product. This would probably be a larger study than the present one and would be mounted to attempt to gain exemption for Australia. It’s always difficult to unwind global hygiene edicts.
The present project, for a relatively modest investment, effectively places Australian data into a global risk assessment. As such the data will have great force in the modelling phase. xbad Objectives: 1. Obtain total Vibrio spp. and total V. parahaemolyticus counts from oysters from NSW, SA and Tasmania. 2. Determine prevalence of pathogenic V. parahaemolyticus amongst these isolates. 3. Compile and analyse data for potential inclusion in the FAO-WHO global risk assessment of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in oysters. Read moreRead less
Revision Of The AQUAVETPLAN Operational Procedures Manuals For Disposal And Decontamination
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$31,500.00
Summary
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources is seeking expressions of interest for the revision of the following AQUAVETPLAN Operational Procedures manuals: 1. Decontamination 2. Disposal The Australian Aquatic Veterinary Emergency Plan (AQUAVETPLAN) is a series of manuals that outline Australia’s approach to national disease preparedness and propose the technical response and control strategies to be activated in a national aquatic animal disease emergency.
The Decont ....The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources is seeking expressions of interest for the revision of the following AQUAVETPLAN Operational Procedures manuals: 1. Decontamination 2. Disposal The Australian Aquatic Veterinary Emergency Plan (AQUAVETPLAN) is a series of manuals that outline Australia’s approach to national disease preparedness and propose the technical response and control strategies to be activated in a national aquatic animal disease emergency.
The Decontamination manual was first published in 2008, and the second version of the Disposal manual was published in 2009. Both manuals require revision to reflect new scientific knowledge, and to ensure that decontamination and disposal procedures used for disease control purposes reflect current ‘best-practice’ approaches. Objectives: 1. Review and deliver updated AQUAVETPLAN Operatinal Procedures Manuals for decontamination and disposal. Read moreRead less