MONASH UNIVERSITY

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

The refugee legacy for second generation Vietnamese in Australia. This project aims to explore the refugee legacy for second generation Vietnamese in Australia. The first Vietnamese refugees arrived 41 years ago in the wake of the Vietnam War. This project will examine identity formation, secondary trauma, and linguistic and cultural interactions in the aftermath of war and the refugee experience, and analyse the achievements and challenges of this group. The expected outcomes are a major study of Vietnamese in Australia and a national oral history collection. Field of research: 2103 - Historical Studies

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Random walks with long memory. This project aims to study novel random walk models with long memory, including systems of multiple random walkers that interact through their environment. This would provide a mathematical understanding of phenomena such as aggregation in colonies of bacteria, and ant colony optimisation algorithms. The project aims to produce highly cited publications, and to train future researchers. Field of research: 0104 - Statistics

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

What do Australians really care about? New survey and experimental evidence. This project aims to provide detailed investigations into the relative importance of key life domains, for example health and relationships, at different life stages and their links with the subjective wellbeing of Australians. It will use nationally representative survey data and innovative choice experiments to generate new knowledge to the rapidly expanding economics literature on subjective wellbeing measures and individual and societal welfare. This evidence will help prioritise those policies which maximise the wellbeing of Australians. Field of research: 1402 - Applied Economics

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Immersive analytics: interactive data analysis using surfaces and spaces. This project aims to explore the potential for new immersive display and interaction technologies to greatly enhance the field of visual data analytics. Humans struggle to understand the masses of complex data they now accumulate. Visual data analytics offers a solution. The project expects to provide practical and theoretical frameworks for immersive data analysis and valuable intellectual property on the first practical tools for immersive data analytics. This will provide significant benefits, such as allowing those across government and industry to make more informed decisions from data. Field of research: 0806 - Information Systems

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Optical wireless communications: solving the spectrum crunch. This project aims to make optical wireless communication to handheld mobile receivers a reality by developing systems which combine holographic filters and microsystems to realise a new form of receiver. This will be based on analysis of all of the complex interactions of transmitter, receiver and channel properties. The new receivers will exploit the narrow field of view of holographic optical filters. This project will generate knowledge in the fields of communications theory and on the use of holographic filters and microsystems. This solution to the lack of available radio frequency spectrum which conventional wireless face will provide significant practical and commercial benefits. Field of research: 1005 - Communications Technologies

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Australia’s native sorghums. This project aims to investigate the biological mechanisms driving the evolution of toxic cyanogenic glucosides by exploiting the natural diversity of Australian wild relatives of the crop sorghum that are adapted to different environments. Wild crop relatives are an important source of traits for improving their cultivated counterparts. Analysing the diversity and evolution of Australia’s 17 native sorghum species will provide new understanding of how plants have adapted to environmental challenges across diverse Australian environments. This should provide significant benefit by providing new resources for plant breeders to produce more climate-resilient crops. Field of research: 0607 - Plant Biology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Development of nanoporous materials for capture and release of oxygen. This project aims to develop new materials to make lighter, more efficient oxygen concentrators. The project will combine materials that can capture oxygen with particles that can be magnetically heated, making it possible to release the oxygen rapidly and efficiently when needed. Expected outcomes from this project include new composite materials and better understanding of how gases are trapped and released within composite materials. Benefits from this project may include oxygen concentrators that are more portable and have longer battery life, both with industrial and medical applications. Field of research: 0904 - Chemical Engineering

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Scientific play-worlds: Researching play, imagination and science teaching. This project aims to investigate how imaginative play, as a pedagogy of science teaching, promotes children’s scientific visualisation and imagination in contexts of contradiction and drama. The project expects to generate new knowledge about teaching science to infants, toddlers and preschoolers in play-based settings. The expected outcome is an evidence-based model of early childhood science teaching and a method for measuring imagination in scientific play. Potential benefits include improved pre-service and in-service education and improved cognitive outcomes young children in their formative years. Field of research: 1302 - Curriculum and Pedagogy

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Harnessing hidden diversity gains of cellular networks. This project aims to investigate novel communication schemes that can increase the capacity of mobile networks. The demand for wireless data by the Australian mobile users is expected to exceed the capacity of the Australian mobile networks. The expected outcomes of this project are communication schemes that can double the reliability of wireless links in mobile networks, and thereby significantly improve the capacity of mobile networks in Australia and around the world. Significant benefits are expected in all areas of society that rely on wireless communication of data. Field of research: 1005 - Communications Technologies

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Exploring water worlds for ecohydrologic modelling of ephemeral catchments. This project aims to identify and quantify the key processes driving the generation of streamflow in ephemeral catchments with different rainfall regimes, topography, geology, and two contrasting land uses. Four ephemeral catchments in south-western Victoria will be used as a case study to identify how these catchments store and release water. Particular focus will be directed to understanding the roles of groundwater and surface runoff in supplying the streams when they flow, and how rainfall is partitioned between tree water use, groundwater recharge, and streamflow. The outcomes from experimental observations will be used to improve current hydrological models to support land and water management. Field of research: 0905 - Civil Engineering

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

The shape of chaos: geometric advances in partially hyperbolic dynamics. This project aims to use recent advances in geometry and topology to discover new forms of chaotic dynamical systems and further classify the forms of chaos which are possible. Many systems in nature exhibit chaotic dynamics as they change in time. Not all systems are chaotic in the same way, and identifying the form of chaos and its qualitative properties is crucial to truly understanding the system. Chaotic dynamics arise in chemical reactions, celestial mechanics, industrial mixing processes, fusion reactors, and many other processes. This project will aid in predicting the possible long-term behaviours of these systems. Field of research: 0101 - Pure Mathematics

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Highly durable electronic skins for multifunctional tactile sensing. This project aims to develop next-generation, multifunctional, wearable tactile sensors that can perceive and discriminate between different types of physical and chemical stimuli. These wearable e-skin sensors will mimic the sensing capabilities of real skin, and will measure a broader range of aspects of a person’s physical and biological condition than current wearable sensors. It will generate a new platform technology capable of commercialisation, bringing economic gains to Australia. Field of research: 1007 - Nanotechnology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Engineering approaches towards atomic imaging of bacterial cells. This project aims to develop novel approaches for analysis of single biological cells at atomic scale. The project will first develop an approach by utilising nanoscale ion beam to interact with the frozen cells in a controllable manner, followed by performing nanoscale dissection and analyses. By introducing engineered two-dimensional materials, namely graphene, atomic resolution three-dimensional imaging of the cellular chemistry will become feasible, which will shed light on various fundamental mechanisms inside the cells. This will provide significant benefits upon success, and will impact a wide spectrum of fields from understanding cellular functions to developing effective drugs. Field of research: 1007 - Nanotechnology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Hydrogen: an overlooked intermediate during anoxia in permeable sediments. This project aims to quantify the respiratory pathways and the importance of hydrogen as an intermediate during anoxia in permeable (sand) sediments which dominate our coastline. It is anticipated the findings of this project will enable more accurate fundamental understanding of sediment diagenetic processes which control nutrient regeneration and loss pathways in the marine environment. This will enable better management of these environments in the face of increasing coastal population growth. Field of research: 0399 - Other Chemical Sciences

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Laws of attraction and repulsion: a novel family of bacterial chemo-sensors. This project aims to reveal the structural basis for the abilities of a newly characterised, widespread family of chemotaxis receptors to sense and distinguish between attractants and repellents. Many bacteria are motile. Controlling the movement of bacterial populations requires understanding of their chemosensory mechanisms. It is anticipated that this work will generate significant new knowledge in the field of signalling biology that will drive the discovery of novel chemo-effectors and the redesign of receptor specificity. Innovative use of this knowledge could be the development of new classes of repellents that are not toxic. These could be used as a means to prevent infections caused by bacterial build-up on implanted medical devices. Field of research: 0601 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

The Hippo signalling pathway in dividing and non-dividing cells. This project aims to understand how the Drosophila Hippo pathway performs two very different jobs in the same organ, that is control cell proliferation and differentiation. The redeployment of cellular machinery to do different jobs is very common and efficient, but the mechanism by which this occurs is poorly understood. Using new techniques, this project aims to provide new knowledge to several fields including organ growth control, cell fate specification, cellular signalling and eye vision. These discoveries are likely to enhance international collaborations and stimulate new research. Field of research: 0601 - Biochemistry and Cell Biology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Experimental co-evolution of Yeast and E. coli. This project aims to measure the rates and genetic mechanisms of adaptation for individual species within a microbial community. Expected outcomes of this interdisciplinary project include the first genomic and phenotypic dataset of a model microbial community, and novel tools for the analysis of meta-genomic datasets. This project has the potential to transform understanding of microbial adaptation. Field of research: 0603 - Evolutionary Biology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Creating tactile electronic books for people with vision impairment. This project aims to create a framework which allows authoring, reading and storing of tactile electronic books for people with vision impairment by using multi-touch, audio, and tactile technologies. The project expects to generate new knowledge in the areas of human computer interaction and information visualisation utilising new techniques to present visual information in the form of audio and tactile. Expected outcomes of the project are to reduce the cost of authoring accessible textual and graphical content, and to provide a practical and intuitive reading experience. This should provide benefits to people with vision impairment while accessing information in a more effective and efficient way. Field of research: 0806 - Information Systems

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Privacy-preserving data processing on the cloud. This project aims to address the current lack of privacy of user data processed by common cloud computing web servers, including email, business data, and confidential files. This project aims to develop new techniques in cryptography. The anticipated outcome is a suite of practical tools enabling common cloud computing processing operations such as search, statistical analysis, and multi-user access control, to be performed efficiently while preserving the data privacy. These tools should provide significant benefits to the privacy of cloud users, as well as financial and reputation benefits to the IT industry, by significantly reducing the likelihood of massive user data privacy breaches in the event of a cyber-hacking attack on the cloud server. Field of research: 0804 - Data Format

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Scalable synthesis of smart nanoworms with tailored properties. This project aims to develop next-generation nanomaterials that have a special worm-like shape and can intelligently respond to environmental signals. The project is expected to generate new knowledge in the area of advanced manufacturing utilising innovative approaches in nanotechnology and polymer chemistry. The anticipated outcome is an environmentally friendly technology for industrial production of high value-added nanomaterials that may ultimately have a variety of applications including, but not limited to, early diagnosis and efficient therapy of cancer. This should provide benefits to the Australian economy, environment and society. Field of research: 1007 - Nanotechnology

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Lightweight, durable and self-sustainable modular composites buildings. This project aims to establish a modular composites building system that is lightweight, integrated with power supply system and is highly resistant to harsh environments. Buildings today are designed and constructed using conventional craft-based labour-intensive methods and materials. This results in high cost and consequences for quality, safety, resource and environmental impact. By developing the modular building system using lightweight and durable fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites and innovative connection methods for fast assembly, the project outcomes can largely lift productivity in construction industry and further provide self-sustainable civil infrastructure not only in urban and rural regions but also in remote areas. Field of research: 0905 - Civil Engineering

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Granular interfaces for sustainable processing of raw materials. This project aims to develop an innovative interface model and a comprehensive understanding of the interfacial behaviours between granular materials using advanced numerical, experimental and theoretical approaches. This project expects to generate new knowledge of mixing and segregation in particle science and technology and a practical guide to applications. Expected outcomes of this project include the enhanced competitiveness of Australia and energy efficiency in its important industries such as minerals, metallurgical, chemical, energy and pharmaceutical. These outcomes should provide significant benefits such as mitigated emissions and global warming in a carbon and resource constrained world. Field of research: 0904 - Chemical Engineering

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Econometric studies of the dynamics of loneliness and social isolation. This project aims to provide new insights into the socioeconomic dynamics of loneliness and social isolation using advanced econometric modelling techniques applied to longitudinal data from Australia and the UK. This project will apply advanced econometric modelling techniques to data from four nationally-representative longitudinal surveys to substantively help address these knowledge gaps, giving policy-makers new information about how to address these growing societal concerns. The expected outcomes will provide policy-makers with a better understanding of the socioeconomic triggers for loneliness and social isolation; quantify the costs of loneliness and social isolation on health and wellbeing; and identify policy interventions aimed at reducing loneliness and social isolation. Field of research: 1402 - Applied Economics

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Horizontal convection at ocean-relevant proportions. This project aims to determine the role of buoyancy differences from solar radiation and vertical confinement. Flows created by lateral variation in heat or buoyancy are poorly understood when the horizontal length greatly exceeds the height, precisely the conditions relevant to industry and understanding the role of horizontal convection in Earth's oceans and in turn the delicate current system that maintains Earth's temperate climate. This project proposes computational and experimental efforts to probe the ultimate regime of heat transport in very shallow horizontal convection, benefiting humankind through improvements to future ocean and climate modelling efforts. Field of research: 0915 - Interdisciplinary Engineering

ARC National Competitive Grants · FY 2018 · 2018-01

Children's time investments, cognitive development and health. This project aims to understand time investment decisions of children and adolescents. There is a need for more robust evidence on the combination of time investments that improve early cognitive skills and well being. Using advanced econometric techniques and longitudinal data, this project expects to generate new knowledge on how children and adolescents spend their time, and how such time investments affect their health and cognitive development. Expected outcomes of this project include a greater understanding of the early determinants of health and economic inequalities. This will contribute to the development of effective policies for improving educational outcomes, preventing harmful behaviours and promoting health and well being. Field of research: 1402 - Applied Economics