Completed ARC Linkage Projects

Projects ending prior to 2006

Projects ending 2007-2010:

Summaries of Completed ARC Linkage Projects

An intelligent, user-sensitive portal to breast cancer knowledge online
ARC Linkage Project 2002-2003
A/Prof Sue McKemmish; Dr K. Williamson; A/Prof Frada Burstein; A/Prof Julie Fisher; Ms J. Anderson; Ms S. Lockwood
Research indicates dissatisfaction with the quality of information provision amongst women with breast cancer and their families, particularly in rural and regional areas. Information and decision support needs vary depending on disease stage, education, age, location, and ethnicity. Customised, in-time information access is critically important to BreastCare Victoria and the Breast Cancer Action Group as it impacts significantly on health and life-style decisions. This joint project analyses user needs, assesses and describes resources in user-sensitive ways, and designs and prototypes an intelligent portal that provides differentiated access to breast cancer resources online. It also advances general understandings of intelligent information provision.

Vision model based perceptual digital video coding
ARC Linkage Project 2002-2004
A/Prof H. Wu; Dr B. Qiu; Dr J. Zhang; Dr Z. Yu
Digital video coding and compression is an enabling technology and has diversified applications in audiovisual communications, multimedia computing, digital television broadcast and electronic entertainment industries. The project aims at spearheading research in theory, techniques and implementation of perceptual video coding in order to achieve constant and guaranteed quality in visual communications and services. It will explore a new approach to digital video coding other than the constant bit rate coding techniques which have dominated digital video research for the past four decades. It will form a part of the theoretical foundation and principles for the next generation video coding and compression techniques, and may lead to new standards and practice.

Developing minimum message length and support vector machine methods to predict user behaviour
ARC Linkage Project 2002-2004
Dr David Albrecht; Dr K. Ting; Dr David Dowe; Dr A. Kowalczyk
Predicting and modelling customer behaviour enables considerable savings in the telecommunications industry and elsewhere. The resulting predictive models facilitate identifying novice users, identifying fraud, responding to users' needs, guiding and advising users, and forwarding useful information. We consider two cutting-edge data mining approaches, Minimum Message Length (developed and led by Monash) and Support Vector Machines, in order to create efficient tailor-made software. Our software will respond to specific groups of users, and their changes over time, rather than just the average user. Moreover, it will integrate the functionalities of existing individual data mining software.

e-Hermes: Context-rich mobile agent technologies to support information needs of financial institutions
ARC Linkage Project 2002-2004
Dr Arkady Zaslavsky; Dr S. Loke
How do we achieve flexibility and efficiency of financial services in electronic commerce environment using mobile software agents? to address this question the project will extend a system architecture based on mobile agents, which retrieve, pre-process and deliver relevant information to potentially mobile users. Two major components - infomration processor and agent mission processor - will be researched and developed by two PhD scholars to be supported by this applciation. The project results could be commercialised by the industry partner, BJD Financial Group. The project is innovative in that it considers the emerging agent paradigm as an integrated distributed system in the e-commerce environment.

Create once, use many times: The clever use of metadata in eGovernment and eBusiness recordkeeping processes in networked environments
ARC Linkage Project 2003-2005 - Outcomes and final report
Prof. Sue McKemmish; Mr A. Cunningham; A/Prof A. Gilliland-Swetland
Descriptive metadata, ie. structured context-rich information about business processes, agents and information resources, is a vital tool in managing business transactions and related information objects in complex intranet/internet environments to support eBusiness and eGovernment. However the implementation of recordkeeping metadata standards is proving to be problematic: tools for automatic metadata creation are inadequate, and current systems environments generally do not support the sharing of metadata between business systems for multiple purposes. This research project will develop a proof of concept prototype to demonstrate how standards-compliant metadata can be created once in particular application environments, then used many times to meet a range of business purposes. The prototype will be implemented in a test-bed site to provide a model for best practice.

Deja-vu: A mechanism for constructing dialogue memory for resource-bounded agents
ARC Linkage Project 2003-2005
A/Prof Ingrid Zukerman; Dr G. Brebner
The ability to provide contextual information during interactions with computer systems has great potential to improve the overall experience for users. We propose to develop such an ability in the form of an automatically generated, continuously updated 'dialogue memory', which may reside at server sites or in the PDAs of individual users. This memory will be generated by means of a novel approach which combines Natural Language techniques to extract dialogue features, model-selection techniques to cluster related dialogues, and cognitive modelling techniques to prune the resultant memories. The implemented computer system will be tested in the domain of trouble-shooting dialogues

GriddLes: Building Grid applications from legacy software
ARC Linkage Project 2003-2005
Prof David Abramson
Grid computing is emerging as a major new capability for modern, high performance technical computing. Such Grids couple geographically distributed resources such as high performance computers, workstations, clusters, and scientific instruments. Traditional methods of producing software for Grids are indefficient and error prone, and will not allow the rapid deployment of new applications. This project concerns the development of a tool that will facilitate the construction of a complex Grid application using legacy software components. It will test the new ideas with a range of scientific demonstrators, including atmospheric science, geo-science and mechanical engineering.

Improving meteorological forecasting practice with knowledge management systems
ARC Linkage Project 2002-2006
Dr Henry Linger; A/Prof Frada Burstein; Dr Kevin Korb; Dr Ann Nicholson; Mr C. Ryan; Mr J. Kelly
This research aims to develop and implement a comprehensive model of knowledge management in the context of a learning organisation. This will include defining the components, processes and relationships involved in knowledge management. To achieve this the project will study work practices in weather forecasting and apply a variety of technologies to model the experiential knowledge of the forecasters. The significance of the project will be improved weather forecasting supported by a system for knowledge management that will contribution to creating a learning organisation. The results of this case study will be generalised to enable their widespread adoption by industry.

Trust and technology: Building archival systems for Indigenous oral memory
ARC Linkage 2003-2006
Dr K. Williamson, Dr L. Russell, Prof Sue McKemmish, Prof D. Schauder, Ms J. Heazlewood
Although oral memory is highly valued by Indigenous people, to date there has been no extensive effort by Australian archival services to discover how to capture it and make it accessible to the relevant communities. Supported by the Public Record Office of Victoria and Koorie partners, this project will undertake an extensive analysis of Indigenous needs in order to develop trust and understanding of key issues such as access to archives, intellectual property and authenticity. Archival techniques and information technology will then be used to build a prototype of a trusted archival system for oral Indigenous memory, emphasising preservation and access.

Intelligent techniques to exploit the dynamic temporal structure in detection of attacks in credit application fraud
ARC Linkage 2004-2006
A/Prof K. Smith, Dr Vincent Lee, Dr R. Gayler
Obtaining credit using fraudulent information costs financial institutions billions of dollars. This project develops fraud detection methods in credit applications, working with credit bureau data. Existing fraud detection models are mostly applicable to transaction fraud, rather than application fraud, and are static. Fraudsters however constantly change their method of attack. The temporal characteristics of fraud attacks provide an additional source of information that can be exploited to gain increased predictive power. We propose a hybrid intelligent approach to construct models that are sensitive to the temporal dynamics of fraud attacks, and evolve to acknowledge the changing behaviour of fraudsters.

Enhancing patient management and clinical systems in hospital ward settings using mobile, wireless technologies
ARC Linkage 2004-2006
Dr L. Heslop; Dr Linda Dawson; A/ Prof. Julie Fisher; Dr A. Howard; Dr A. Rothfield
Wireless networks, hand held devices and associated applications are key emerging technologies. This project will investigate the implementation of wireless devices and applications for patient administration at Southern Health in two ward settings (neurology and neurosurgery) at Monash Medical Centre. A wireless infrastructure is being installed and clinical staff will be able to conduct their rounds with notebook computers or PDAs at the patients' bedside. The research team will assess the acceptance of the new devices and applications by nursing and medical staff. Outcomes from the project will include a set of guidelines and techniques for introducing and managing technology-enhanced patient administration and clinical systems.

Designing an Efficient and Scalable Infrastructure for Mobile Web Services
ARC Linkage 2004-2007
A/Prof Z. Tari; Dr Arkady Zaslavsky; Dr J. Hu
Mobile services (M-Services) are rapidly growing due to enormous proliferation of web services and of the wireless networks. However, because of the high dynamic nature of the Internet as well as the specific requirements of mobile environments, existing M-services have limitations as they lack support for flexible transactions. The aim of this project is to design an efficient mobile transaction-based infrastructure to support highly adaptable M-Services. This infrastructure will provide robust and efficient management of business transactions across different enterprises. The outcomes of this project will include a set of advanced techniques and algorithms that will form the basis of the next generation of mobile web services.

Formal context analysis in rapidly evolving knowledge webs (4CARE-K)
ARC Linkage 2004-2007
Prof H. Schmidt; Dr David Squire
On-the-fly personalised assembly of complex objects (learning materials, contracts, plans, designs, software configurations, etc) is increasingly expected in knowledge processing and decision making. This requires the discovery of discrete underlying models and taxonomies of subject domains and statistical matching in dynamically varying contexts defined by changing personal preferences, tasks, objectives and other characteristics. This project addresses formal models of context and similarity based in applied lattice theory (formal concepts), feature logic and statistical retrieval. Parallel algorithms will be developed, analysed and benchmarked to enable high-performance processing of vast numbers of heterogeneous objects in a distributed knowledge web.

Fruit shape estimation from stereoscopic images in real time
ARC Linkage 2005-2007
Dr Andrew Paplinski; Prof Bala Srinivasan; Mr C. Esson
The research aims at improving the process of automatic fruit inspection and classification. Existing stereo vision algorithms to extract depth information are unsuitable for real time calculations. The increasing complexity and reducing cost of field programmable gate arrays along with the development of algorithms that have a high degree of parallelism and locality has created the possibility of performing the calculations required in real time. This projects aims to investigate the suitability of the various stereo vision algorithms available in the literature for real time hardware implementation with application to fruit shape estimation it real time.

Ubiquitous Data Mining and Situation-Awareness for Improving Road Safety
ARC Linkage 2005-2007
Dr A Rakotonirainy (Queensland University of Technology); Dr SW Loke; Dr Shonali Krishnaswamy; Prof MC Sheehan
Road crashes cost Australia $15 billion a year and 95% of these are attributed to drivers' errors. Risk assessment is at the core of the road crash problem. This innovative project develops a computational model that analyses situational driver behaviour and proposes real-time countermeasures to minimise fatalities/casualties. We develop and evaluate a novel Intelligent Transport System that assesses and acts upon drivers' risks. This multidisciplinary project integrates recent models of data mining, context-awareness computing, physiological metrics, ubiquitous computing, driver distraction models, risk perception and road safety. This project yields a new understanding of driver behaviour and countermeasures in risk situations.

Overcoming barriers to effective Internet use by community sector organisations
ARC Linkage 2005-2007
Prof D. Schauder; Dr Kirsty Williamson
Providing adequate Internet access for rural and regional Australia is an important priority for governments at all levels. For communities in these areas to benefit from the information economy and realise a continuing improvement in their social, economic and environmental wellbeing, such access must be both affordable and sustainable. Community organisations make an important contribution in these areas and this research will examine the questions how they adopt such innovations, and how they make use of the Internet to further interaction with their community. It will identify and examine barriers to such use, relating the barriers to their root causes and the benefits / behaviour on which they impact.

Robust face detection and recognition for computer-based security surveillance
ARC Linkage 2004-2007
Dr Andrew Paplinski; Prof Bala Srinivasan; Dr J. Sherrah
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.

Combining mathematical programming and constraint programming to solve large scale integrated scheduling problems
ARC Linkage 2006-2007
Prof Mark Wallace; A/Prof N. Boland
This project will target major savings in the airline industry, with resulting benefits for others such as tourism. The efficient use of airline fuel, which will be directly addressed in the project, is very important for the environment. The algorithms developed can improve cost and quality of service for Australian transportation, manufacturing, and other industries. The solutions developed within the project will be sold by the industrial partner, CTI, into major companies worldwide, and the technology will be used to develop further products. Finally the project will extend Australia's lead in constrint programming and expertise in optimisation. This creates a major opportunity for the Australian software industry

Autonomous service robots in a multi-agent based system for household and industrial environment
ARC Linkage 2006-2008
A/Prof B. Shirinzadeh(Fac of Engineering); Dr Ann Nicholson; A/Prof M. Ang
This project addresses fundamental research issues required to develop autonomous mobile robots for intelligent cleaning services. As an interdisciplinary project spanning the fields of robotics, mechatronics and AI, it offers potential benefits in bringing robots into less-structured human environments. Robots performing autonomous cleaning (including hazardous waste and spillage) and security tasks in both household and industrial environments has tremendous national/community benefits in cost and time savings, improved efficiency and safety, and facilitating hazardous or labour intensive tasks. Other benefits include research training, strengthening Australia 's R&D position in key innovative technologies, and creating jobs and exports.

From tactical planning to operational control - Bridging the chasm
ARC Linkage 2006-2009
Prof Mark Wallace and A/Prof N. Boland
All organisations plan, and all organisations suffer from the disruptions that occur when plans are put into practice. Few organisations manage to balance operational control with planning to maintain both efficiency and flexibility to deal with the unexpected. This project addresses this requirement for the transportation and logistics industries. The results discovered within the project will enable the industrial partner, Constraint Technologies International, to develop solutions for major companies worldwide. The technology will be used to build further optimisation products. Moreover the project will extend Australia's lead in constraint programming and expertise in optimisation. This creates a major opportunity for Australia's software industry.

Intelligent collaborative care management
ARC Linkage 2007-2009
Prof M. Georgeff; A/Prof D. Campbell; Prof H. Schmidt; Dr S. Thompson; Prof Geoff Webb
The project will provide the basis for new models of consumer care in both social and commercial settings. In a commercial setting, customer care means looking after the customer, with the hope of retaining their business. by developing a formal model of evidence-based care, together with the information technologies to implement this model, the project will result in higher quality, safer more efficient and more effective care. This will produce significant economic and social benefits for Australia across a wide range of service industries. The project will also generate export opportunities for information technology services and products in health care and other service industries. In addition, it will drive collaboration with leading global businesses, providing new paths to market for Australian research, technologies and innovations.

Context-aware mobile decision support systems for medical emergency management in mass gatherings
ARC Linkage 2007-2009
A/Prof Frada Burstein; A/Prof L Churilov; A/Prof Arkady Zaslavsky; A/Prof J Wassertheil; Prof P Arbon
This project contributes to gaining a clearer understanding of the nature and requirements of medical emergency during mass gathering events. We will build and test a mobile real time decision support tool for improving efficiency of medical decisions to strengthen Australia's ability to manage potential health-related hazards. This project addresses research priorities of promoting and maintaining good health. It capitalizes on smart information use and will be of great benefit to mass gatherings emergency management. This project will also train highly qualified IT specialists critical to Australia's scientific and industrial development, thus increasing our competitiveness in information technology R&D.

Enhancing patient management at point of care using electronic-based clinical pathways
ARC Linkage 2009-2010
Dr Linda Dawson; Dr V M Plummer; A/Prof Julie Fisher; Dr A P Howard; Mr R M Ribbons; Mrs T M Harlem
Collaborating/Partner Organisation(s): NEC Business Solutions, Peninsula Health, Fraser & Jenkinson P/L trading as Print Media Group.
Clinical pathways have been adopted by most Australian hospitals and the development of a 'proof of concept' digitised clinical pathways management system (DCPMS) would provide significant benefits to the Australian healthcare system in improving the efficiency of this approach. These include improved outcomes of care arising from a better match of patient requirements to nursing care and other health resources and better management of resources where savings can be re-directed into front-line patient care. This Australian innovation can then be exported to international health systems that are increasingly turning to hospital funding models that utilise clinical pathway information.