MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Monoidal categories and beyond: new contexts and new applications. The project aims to develop a theory of generalised monoidal structures with applications to fields as diverse as combinatorics, representation theory, algebraic geometry, topology, theoretical physics and computer science. Monoidal categories are a mathematical formalism for systems with operations of parallel and serial composition, such as the Hilbert space model of quantum mechanics. Recent developments in topology and quantum algebra have led to more general notions of monoidal category, and further progress requires a comprehensive theory of such structures. Field of research: 0101 - Pure Mathematics

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Ice sheet collapse, sea-level rise and Australian coastal response. The project is designed to contribute to answering important questions in climate change: Which polar ice sheets are the most vulnerable to warming? How fast will sea levels rise? What will be the impact on global coasts during the 21st century? The response of polar ice sheets to modest increases in global temperature and the rate of future sea-level rise remains highly uncertain. The project plans to examine the retreat of the polar ice sheets during the last warm interglacial period and the sea-level record archived in the Australian coastal sediments and morphology. It plans to use this unique sea-level signal to fingerprint the ice sheets that contributed the excess meltwater to the oceans and to map the configuration of the southern Australian coast under higher sea levels than present. Field of research: 0406 - Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Aboriginal Help-Seeking behaviours on Social Media. This project is designed to contribute to knowledge of formal and informal help-seeking behaviours among Indigenous Australians. Given the rapid uptake of social media by Indigenous people, this project particularly aims to investigate help-seeking behaviours online. It is anticipated that the outcome of this research may influence the development of formal help sources in the services and programs relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including health (eg suicide prevention), employment, housing, economic opportunities and legal services. Another intended outcome of the project is to better understand informal help-seeking and the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people respond to help. Field of research: 1699 - Other Studies In Human Society

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

NanoMin; Quantitative Mineral Mapping of Nanoscale Processes. NanoMin: quantitative mineral mapping of nanoscale processes: The project seeks to establish an electron microscope-based mineral mapping and analysis facility to provide rapid, quantitative and statistically reliable mineralogical, petrographic and metallurgical data unobtainable by other means in fine-grained materials. The proposed equipment can identify minerals in complex mixtures of sub-µm-grain size materials by virtue of an integrated software and hardware system called NanoMin which incorporates a spectral deconvolution engine combined with a mineral spectra database. A key limitation in understanding complex materials is sub-micron to nanometer scale spatial variability of mineralogical phases. Imaging and quantifying these phases is now possible with the NanoMin system. This promises to open up petrological, geobiological, and materials science research in complex fine-grained materials. Field of research: 0403 - Geology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Harnessing Astrophotonics and Adaptive Optics to Discover Habitable Planets. This project aims to improve spectrographic design in order to increase precision in astronomical research. The discovery of Earth's twin, a habitable world in another stellar system, is one of the most remarkable scientific endeavours of our time. The gravitational tug of the planet on its host star causes a periodic Doppler shift of the star’s spectrum which is recorded using spectrographs. The instrumental precision required to detect an Earth-like planet is a few centimetres per second, significantly better than the best current spectrographs can provide. This project plans to combine novel technologies from adaptive optics and astrophotonics into an innovative spectrograph design that will improve Doppler precision by a factor of ten, sufficient to find planets. Field of research: 0201 - Astronomical and Space Sciences

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Australian Virtual Experimental Laboratory: a multimode geoscience facility. Australian virtual experimental laboratory: a multimode geoscience facility: This project aims to establish seven types of high-pressure equipment to form a multi-node experimental laboratory at four locations across Australia. Experiments conducted at the high pressures and temperatures of the internal Earth form the basis of our knowledge about the physical and chemical processes that drive geological processes such as plate tectonics, melting to form volcanoes, and the formation and movement of fluids that concentrate precious metals into valuable ore deposits. The new facility may enable major advances in fields such as mantle geodynamics and element transport in fluids, improving our understanding of internal Earth processes and ore deposit formation and location. It also includes portable systems, which can be used in synchrotron applications. Field of research: 0403 - Geology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Biomagnification of the biotoxin BMAA in the environment. Using unique models and technics, the project aims to demonstrate that long-term exposure to the blue green algae toxin β-N-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA) leads to uptake, accumulation and toxicity within the central nervous system. The risks for heath, mechanisms of contamination and toxicity of BMAA are very poorly understood. Algal blooms cost the Australian community more than $250 million each year and represent a major health issue for human and fauna. This project aims to be the first to fully characterise BMAA mechanisms of contamination and neurotoxicity and to highlight the major environmental risk of exposure of human to BMAA. It also aims to develop new and unique detection and quantification tools for BMAA. Field of research: 0502 - Environmental Science and Management

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

The evolution of phenotypic plasticity during a biological invasion. The project seeks to unravel the mechanisms by which a species responds to challenges such as pollution, invasive species and climate change. Organisms can deal with challenges by changing their phenotypes in response to environmental cues (plasticity) and/or by longer-term changes in gene frequencies within a population (adaptation). Plasticity itself can be adaptive; so how does it evolve? Invasive species offer a unique opportunity to answer that question, because a founding population (with modest genetic variation) must deal with myriad challenges in its new home. Using Australia’s cane toad invasion as the model system, the project aims to tease apart the roles of epigenetic and genetic modifications, and the interplay between them, as drivers for the toads’ success and rapid evolution in Australia. Field of research: 0604 - Genetics

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Online violent extremist audiences in Australia and the United Kingdom. This project aims to develop an understanding of the role and influence of the internet on violent extremism. It plans to use mixed methods to investigate the ways in which online messages are received and interpreted and the contexts within which this occurs. It plans to apply an innovative research framework using media theories and concepts to the study of online violent extremism. The project aims to contribute to the development of measures to counter violent extremism by addressing assumptions about the relationship between online violent extremist content and violent extremist behaviour; and developing understanding of how violent extremist messaging is received and interpreted. Field of research: 2001 - Communication and Media Studies

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Remaking Wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin, 1800 to the Present. Focusing on four case study sites, this project aims to provide in-depth histories of key Australian wetlands with a particular focus on the changing and diverse uses, knowledge and values that have shaped these places. The Murray–Darling Basin is one of the key sites in which Australia’s agricultural, environmental and social future is taking shape, often through drawn-out process of contestation. Within this vast area, wetlands stand out as places rich in resources as well as in biodiversity. The project aims to contextualise competing visions for the future, inform current management, develop novel approaches to authority and knowledge, and nurture exciting new directions in environmental history and the humanities. Field of research: 2103 - Historical Studies

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Dual nanoparticles to distinguish between right and left biomolecules. This project aims to enhance the sensitivity of optical activity to ultralow molecular concentration samples. Optical activity is a commercially available technique used to distinguish chemically identical and morphologically different biomolecules (enantiomers). Unlike other scattering techniques, near-field enhancing of optical activity has not been achieved, thus limiting these measurements to high molecular concentrations. There is evidence indicating that optical activity can be enhanced using dual nanoparticles (ie small particles with the same response to electric and magnetic fields). This project aims to advance our understanding of these dual nanoparticles and experimentally implement their use to enhance optical activity. Field of research: 1007 - Nanotechnology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Australia’s Climate Strategy and Positioning for the Clean Tech Revolution. The aims of this project are to analyse and benchmark Australia’s climate change strategy and positioning in terms of its readiness to take advantage of a clean technology revolution, and to analyse what the revolution might look like and how it will evolve. Scientific evidence points to the increasingly urgent need for action on climate change and investment in cleaner technologies on a large scale. This need for action coincides with emerging policy and technological developments that are already taking place. The project aims to provide new decision-making frameworks for the timing and extent of investments in new technologies. Analysing Australia's positioning and the coming clean technology revolution would benefit policy-makers, corporations and investors. Field of research: 1502 - Banking, Finance and Investment

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Volunteers in Crisis: Analysing Responses to HIV/AIDS in Australia. This project aims to investigate the contribution that volunteers made to Australia's response to HIV/AIDS. The Australian public policy response to HIV/AIDS is widely considered one of the world’s best. This response drew heavily on the efforts of volunteers, who assisted in managing this public health crisis. This project aims to use empirical research and oral histories to investigate the motivations of these volunteers, the nature and significance of their contributions and the impact of volunteerism on these individuals and on non-profit community-based organisations. The intended outcome will generate original insight into the role volunteers play during public health crises and may provide strategies to inform the management of future epidemics. Field of research: 2103 - Historical Studies

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Expanding gene-environment causality in evolutionary genetics. This project aims to investigate how environmental experiences shape phenotypes, engender variance in populations and ultimately contribute to evolution. It targets new discoveries for how environmental effects can multiply throughout ontogeny and/or propagate across generations. Although widely speculated to support new evolutionary paradigms, such knowledge lacks scrutiny according to the formal metric of quantitative genetics. This project seeks to expose guppy pedigrees to unique manipulations and reconcile adaptive evolution across captive and wild populations. The outcome is expected to address knowledge gaps in the life and human sciences and potentially inform goals in primary production and conservation. Field of research: 0603 - Evolutionary Biology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Improving the efficacy of pseudomonad biocontrol bacteria. This project intends to characterise the genetic basis for colonisation and persistence on plant seeds and roots by biocontrol bacteria. Pseudomonas biocontrol bacteria offer the potential to suppress agricultural crop pathogens without the need for expensive and potentially harmful agrochemicals. However, the application of these bacteria in the field is currently limited. A key reason for this is their unreliable capacity for root colonisation and persistence. The project aims to analyse the factors critical for plant colonisation. These analyses may facilitate the successful application of biocontrol bacteria for protecting Australian crops from pathogens. Field of research: 0605 - Microbiology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Building an intellectual property system: The Indonesian experience. This project aims to provide an independent assessment of the development of the Indonesian intellectual property system over the past 30 years. Economic theory suggests pathways to innovation and ‘tipping points’ in intellectual property (IP) development. This project plans to explore the introduction and operation of IP in Indonesia as a typical example for middle-income developing countries. It plans to analyse hundreds of court decisions that have recently become available, as well as the implementing laws and institutions supporting IP. It aims to show the bargaining processes about the future of the system between the government and foreign investors as well as citizens and between different institutions, thereby providing valuable information to Australian businesses and the government. Field of research: 1801 - Law

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Improved syntactic and semantic analysis for natural language processing. This project aims to improve the accuracy of syntactic and semantic analysis of natural language for automatic extraction of meaning from text. Many data mining and information extraction applications rely on syntactic and semantic analysis. Current analysis approaches are limited because they require expensive manually-labelled data. The project plans to develop new indirectly-supervised approaches to overcome this labelled data bottleneck. By integrating information from large text corpora and structured databases, the project aims to minimise the reliance on manually-labelled data for training natural language processing systems. Automatic methods for syntactic and semantic analysis would have a wide range of applications in extracting information from large collections of unstructured data, such as hospital patient records or social media. Field of research: 0801 - Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2016 · 2016-01

Small firms' finances: effects on employment, wages and growth. The project aims to estimate how difficulties in accessing financial and credit markets affect small and medium enterprise (SME) decisions about employment, wages, entry and exit. Although the SME sector is Australia’s largest employer, the extent to which financial constraints affect these firms' market performance and their ability to create and sustain employment is unknown. The project plans to use an econometric analysis of firm level panel data to fill this gap. The intended outcome is micro-econometric findings tailored to improve targeted labour and financial policy. The expected benefit is to provide input to policy responses that support employment, productivity and wages in volatile market conditions. Field of research: 1402 - Applied Economics