Wnt Signaling In Dopaminergic Neuronal Connectivity
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$387,489.00
Summary
During development, the brain establishes intricate and precise connections. In several brain pathways, little is known about the processes regulating this connectivity. Furthermore, it is likely that the same processes will be required to repair the injured- diseased brain. This project builds on our preliminary data, that Wnt proteins are important regulators of developing dopamine pathways, and has implications for dopamine disorders including Parkinson’s disease and addiction.
Promoting Regrowth Of Nerve Fibres Into The Epidermis During Diabetic Neuropathy By LRP Agonists
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$427,102.00
Summary
Nerve damage can develop post injury or disease and is often very debilitating, slow to heal and can cause increased pain. Our work aims to examine a new class of molecules that we show can activate selected fat-receptors on nerve cells to guide the growth of regenerating nerves. We will determine how these receptors function with the aim of developing a novel class of therapeutics directed at healing nerve damage.
Knowledge, Identification And Exploitation Of Dopaminergic Axon Guidance Cues Will Improve Cell Replacement Therapy For ParkinsonÍs Disease.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$481,797.00
Summary
Many obstacles exist for cell transplantation in ParkinsonÍs Disease; namely poor graft survival, restoration of appropriate circuitry and adequate nerve fiber growth from new cells. Using knowledge of how neural circuits are established during fetal development, we will attempt to recapitulate these events following transplantation. Further, we will identify new and novel cues in regulating the connectivity and growth of these nerve fibers.
Many infants and children suffer from bowel motility disorders, for example, chronic constipation affects up to 1 in 10 children. However, the cause of many of these paediatric motility disorders remains unknown. In this project, we will examine the development of wiring of the nervous system that controls bowel motility. This is the first study to investigate the development of cell-cell communication during early stages of nervous system development.
Wnt Signaling In Dopaminergic Neuronal Connectivity
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$564,721.00
Summary
A major obstacle in repairing the injured or diseased brain is inducing axons (nerve cell processes) to make the appropriate connections. This is especially true following cell replacement therapy (CRT) in Parkinson's disease (PD). We will examine the processes inducing axons in the dopamine pathways to grow. We hypothesize that Wnt signaling plays and important role and that therapeutic introduction of Wnt is required to repair the dopamine pathways following CRT in PD.
An RCT To Promote Healthy Lifestyle Behaviours From Infancy: An Intervention To Prevent Childhood Overweight
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$578,631.00
Summary
In Australia, one in four school-aged children is currently overweight and childhood obesity rates are continuing to rise. In the last five years it has become clear that rates of overweight and obesity are also rapidly increasing in pre-school age children. These are issues that are of concern to health officials as well as to parents. We understand that these rising rates in fatness relate to children's diet and activity patterns, and that these patterns, once established are likely to be patt ....In Australia, one in four school-aged children is currently overweight and childhood obesity rates are continuing to rise. In the last five years it has become clear that rates of overweight and obesity are also rapidly increasing in pre-school age children. These are issues that are of concern to health officials as well as to parents. We understand that these rising rates in fatness relate to children's diet and activity patterns, and that these patterns, once established are likely to be patterns for life. To date, there has been relatively little research regarding the chance to support parents to establish the eating and activity patterns that will protect their children from the very beginning of life. This project seeks to support first-time parents to establish healthy eating and activity behaviours in their children using the highly utilised Maternal and Child Health Centres first time parents' groups. We believe that these groups will provide a strongly supportive environment in which to provide parents with strategies and knowledge for promoting healthy eating and activity patterns for their children, and in turn, promote healthy weight gain. This project will assess the effectiveness of this intervention.Read moreRead less
Adaptive Vector Filters for the Restoration of Digital Colour Images. Colour image restoration has very important applications in colour cameras, robotic navigation, video security systems, multimedia communications, and digital TV broadcast. Conventional vector filters have difficulty in simultaneously achieving three major objectives: noise suppression, detail preservation, and chromaticity retention. This project aims at formulating and evaluating novel adaptive filters to accomplish the th ....Adaptive Vector Filters for the Restoration of Digital Colour Images. Colour image restoration has very important applications in colour cameras, robotic navigation, video security systems, multimedia communications, and digital TV broadcast. Conventional vector filters have difficulty in simultaneously achieving three major objectives: noise suppression, detail preservation, and chromaticity retention. This project aims at formulating and evaluating novel adaptive filters to accomplish the three objectives simultaneously. Theoretical basis will be investigated for devising different adaptive filters to restore colour images and video sequences contaminated by various types of noise. The new filters will provide significant improvement over exiting techniques, yielding better tools and packages for colour image processing and restoration applications.Read moreRead less
Robust face detection and recognition for computer-based security surveillance. The research aims at improving the existing and creating new automated face detection and recognition methods by making them invariant, firstly to head pose, orientation, scale and rotation, and then to occlusion, lighting conditions and facial expressions.
A robust face detector will be developed first and then a new face recognition algorithm that continues to learn identity-specific discriminants on-line by co ....Robust face detection and recognition for computer-based security surveillance. The research aims at improving the existing and creating new automated face detection and recognition methods by making them invariant, firstly to head pose, orientation, scale and rotation, and then to occlusion, lighting conditions and facial expressions.
A robust face detector will be developed first and then a new face recognition algorithm that continues to learn identity-specific discriminants on-line by collecting incremental face exemplars. The result of the research will be an algorithm that can improve its performance on-line adapting in a stable learning process each identity model to the correct facial examples.
The research has significant practical implication in visual surveillance increasing the robustness of identification of person identity, state and intent.
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Zero Defect Manufacturing of Complex Assemblies. The aim of this research project is to develop the tools required to design and implement zero defect manufacturing systems. It is intended that generic guidelines will be developed for achieving zero defect manufacturing of complex assemblies in a cost effective manner. Methodologies and techniques derived from these guidelines will be tested and validated on an existing door trim assembly production line. This project with its emphasis on utilis ....Zero Defect Manufacturing of Complex Assemblies. The aim of this research project is to develop the tools required to design and implement zero defect manufacturing systems. It is intended that generic guidelines will be developed for achieving zero defect manufacturing of complex assemblies in a cost effective manner. Methodologies and techniques derived from these guidelines will be tested and validated on an existing door trim assembly production line. This project with its emphasis on utilising manufacturing systems involving a mix of human and robot based operations and in process inspection techniques to achieve defect free manufacturing is particularly relevant to medium size component suppliers.Read moreRead less
Non-Contact In-process Shape Measurement of Windscreens. Optical techniques have been widely used for non-contact measurement of the 3-D shape of diffusely reflecting surfaces. However, there is no evidence for the successful implementation of a real-time shape measurement system for large specular surfaces, despite the many important industrial applications. The aim of this project is to develop optically-based techniques to measure the shape of specular and transparent surfaces in real time in ....Non-Contact In-process Shape Measurement of Windscreens. Optical techniques have been widely used for non-contact measurement of the 3-D shape of diffusely reflecting surfaces. However, there is no evidence for the successful implementation of a real-time shape measurement system for large specular surfaces, despite the many important industrial applications. The aim of this project is to develop optically-based techniques to measure the shape of specular and transparent surfaces in real time in an industrial environment. The main outcome of the research will be a prototype on-line shape measurement system to control the quality of car windscreens.Read moreRead less