ARC Discovery Program Funding Awarded to HCSNet Members for 2008
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This page lists some of the research projects belonging to HCSNet members which received support from the 2008 ARC Discovery Program funding round. These members have agreed to have their HCS-related projects listed here. If you are an awardee of a current or continuing HCS-related research grant and would like to have it listed on our website please let us know at info@hcsnet.edu.au.
Projects
Touching scenes: intelligent haptic guidance for supporting learning with complex graphic displays | | Grant ID | DP0877404 | Institution | Curtin University of Technology | Funding
2008: $110,000
2009: $90,000
2010: $80,000
| | RFCD | Education Studies | Recipients | Prof Richard Lowe; Dr Madeleine Keehner | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | Complex visual information is a defining feature of 21st Century life because advances in graphics display technology permeate all aspects of our society. For Australian citizens to prosper in a world reliant on rich informational graphics, they must be able to use these depictions effectively and efficiently. Touch-based approaches, using a haptic tablet, could facilitate processing of key visual information in challenging circumstances where displays are complex or vision is limited. Improving visually-based performance and learning will benefit education and training, increase productivity and safety across the industrial, professional and service sectors, enhance security monitoring, and broaden community information access. |
Understanding Indonesian: developing a machine-usable grammar, dictionary and corpus | | Grant ID | DP0877595 | Institution | The University of Sydney | Funding
2008: $96,000
2009: $76,000
2010: $97,000
| | RFCD | Linguistics | Recipients | Dr Avery Andrews; Dr Jane Simpson; Dr ME Dalrymple; Dr I Arka | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | Australia's relationship with Indonesia is of great significance. The need for good relationships founded on appreciation of the range of societies and views in modern Indonesia is widely acknowledged. A better knowledge of the languages is essential for this, and so are fast, efficient information gathering systems for processing multilingual sources (including Indonesian text), that can analyse large volumes of text. The skills to build such systems exist internationally. Through collaboration with established international teams, we plan to transfer cutting-edge skills in the development of machine-useable grammars to Australian researchers, and to create the language resources essential for understanding Indonesian. |
Pervasive Lifelong User Modelling for User Controlled Personalisation and Augmented Cognition | | Grant ID | DP0877665 | Institution | The University of Sydney | Funding
2008: $85,000
2009: $80,000
2010: $75,000
2011: $60,000
2012: $49,322
| | RFCD | Information Systems | Recipients | A/Prof Judy Kay; A/Prof RJ Kummerfeld | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | This project will give users the ability to scrutinise and control their personal data gathered in pervasive computing environments. This addresses people's concerns about privacy and overcomes a critical barrier for progress in the development of pervasive computing. This provides national benefit in the following ways: we will build software infrastructure that will have commercial and strategic value; we will build a set of demonstrator applications that address the national priority areas of smart information use, and promoting and maintaining good health; and we will enhance knowledge of the complementary fields of user modelling, context aware computing and personal privacy management. |
A longitudinal study of the interaction of home and school language in three Aboriginal communities | | Grant ID | DP0877762 | Institution | The University of Melbourne | Funding
2008: $100,000
2009: $120,000
2010: $150,000
2011: $100,000
2012: $25,000
| | RFCD | Linguistics | Recipients | A/Prof Gillian Wigglesworth; Dr JH Simpson | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | The importance of language skills cannot be underestimated, and contribute to 'a healthy start to life'. In multilingual Indigenous communities, children must negotiate the complexities of different languages used for different purposes. This project will provide detailed insights into how children manage differences between home and school language, the kinds of problems they encounter when they enter the school system, and how their languages develop over the first four crucial years of school which provide the foundation for the children's future education. Their ability to manage the language of school underpins their ability to lead successful and engaged lives as adults. |
Indexes Allowing Fast and Efficient Text Search | | Grant ID | DP0877883 | Institution | RMIT University | Funding
2008: $78,648
2009: $78,648
2010: $78,648
| | RFCD | Information Systems | Recipients | Dr Andrew Turpin; Prof WF Smyth; Mr SJ Puglisi | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | Since the arrival of search engines such as Google, it has become an expectation that we can find a few words in a very large amount of text very quickly. This is also true of biologists, who expect to be able to submit protein sequences for matching against a massive database and retrieve and answer in seconds. If successful, this project will invent fundamental software that will allow the discovery of words in text much more quickly, and using less computing resources than current methods. The benefits of this technology to the searching public, scientists, and industry will be immediate as productivity will be improved and costs reduced. |
Social cognition and language - the design resources of grammatical diversity | | Grant ID | DP0878126 | Institution | The University of Melbourne | Funding
2008: $120,000
2009: $100,000
2010: $140,000
2011: $40,000
| | RFCD | Linguistics | Recipients | Dr Barbara Kelly; Dr Andrea Schalley; DR NJ Enfield; Prof Dr SC Levinson; Dr A Rumsey; Prof ND Evans | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | This project will (a) improve Australia's capacity to interact and communicate with other cultures (b) promote advanced training and research (including 9 doctoral students) on the languages of our region (c) carry out extensive new research on 20 languages of the Pacific region, most of which represent gravely endangered cultural traditions (d) draw on the design solutions identified in these languages to develop models appropriate to the social cognition element of human-computer and computer-computer interfaces |
Approved Multi-sensory Fusion and Understanding in Robotic Assistive Technology Environments | | Grant ID | DP0878195 | Institution | Monash University | Funding
2008: $110,000
2009: $105,000
2010: $100,000
| | RFCD | Artificial Intelligence and Signal and Image Processing | Recipients | Prof I Zukerman; Prof Y Shirai; Dr J Alexandersson; Prof RA Jarvis | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | The research will yield improved international standing through scientific advances disseminated through high impact refereed publications and open source software. The synergy between Language Technology and Robotics will attract post-graduate students in these areas, and potentially commercialisation interest. The demonstration prototype will provide proof of concept of an application that improves the capabilities of human-centric environments, especially for people with limited mobility or cognitive function. The deployment of this research will extend the independence of such people beyond the time when they may otherwise need to be institutionalized, which will benefit both them and the remainder of society. |
Single and dual process models of recognition memory: Reconciliation of behavioural, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging data | | Grant ID | DP0878630 | Institution | The University of Adelaide | Funding
2008: $65,000
2009: $65,000
2010: $75,000
| | RFCD | Psychology | Recipients | Dr Simon Dennis; Dr GI de Zubicaray; A/Prof JC Dunn | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | Advanced brain scanning technologies are increasingly used to study human memory. As well as being important for our basic understanding of memory, they also tell us how memory is affected by normal development, ageing, disease, and injury. Unfortunately, because these technologies are so new, a gap has opened up between our psychological understanding of memory and the physiological events measured by the scanning technologies. This has created a problem for how we should interpret the results that are found. The present project aims to close this gap by applying new research methodologies and theoretical insights based on our previous research. |
Children's difficulties in learning to read: Causes and consequences of poor letter-sound knowledge | | Grant ID | DP0879556 | Institution | Macquarie University | Funding
2008: $49,322
2009: $140,000
2010: $130,000
2011: $70,000
2012: $65,000
| | RFCD | Psychology | Recipients | Prof AE Castles; Dr Genevieve Mcarthur; Prof M Coltheart | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | This research will identify the causes and treatments of reading impairment in children. This will help the Government counter the effects of poor reading instruction in Australian schools (see the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy). The outcomes will reveal how struggling readers should be taught in classrooms, and which treatments should be covered by the Reading Assistance Voucher programme. Treating reading impairment in children will reduce the number of teenagers who attempt suicide, drop out of school, or abuse drugs to try and escape the failure that accompanies poor reading ability. |
Artistic signatures in violin playing on sound recordings: What makes the performance of a prominent violinist recognizable and legendary? | | Grant ID | DP0879616 | Institution | The University of New South Wales | Funding
2008: $70,000
2009: $50,000
2010: $35,000
| | RFCD | Performing Arts | Recipients | Dr Dorottya Fabian | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | The project's comprehensive account of performance styles in the age of recording will provide significant new knowledge in several respects: The examination of the relationship between the record industry and classical music practitioners will inform about cultural responsibilities, changing taste and the impact of technology on art. The systematic analyses of renowned violinists' (including two Australians') recordings will demonstrate the richness and diversity of valid artistic approaches to standard pieces. This will encourage emerging talent to explore the full gamut of expressive and technical means in creating unique and convincing interpretations to invigorate the appeal of classical music in Australia. |
The meaning of 'OR' in logic and in human languages | | Grant ID | DP0879842 | Institution | Macquarie University | Funding
2008: $76,600
2009: $112,300
2010: $97,800
2011: $20,000
| | RFCD | Linguistics | Recipients | Dr RJ Thornton; Prof S Crain | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | This project investigates the role of logic in three typologically different languages: English, Japanese and Chinese. One national benefit will be in promoting intercultural awareness by establishing that human languages share 'core' logical properties. As Aboriginal poet Bill Neidjie (2005) put it: 'Language is different, like skin. Skin can be different, but blood same.' Understanding how human languages are logical will add new dimensions to research in Linguistics, Philosophy and Psychology. Another benefit is in the assessment of patient populations with impaired pragmatic skills (e.g., schizophrenia). Finally, collaborative links will be strengthened with our overseas neighbours, Japan and China. |
Static and Dynamic Query Pruning Techniques for Complex Text Retrieval Systems | | Grant ID | DP0880065 | Institution | The University of Melbourne | Funding
2008: $82,918
2009: $80,000
2010: $80,000
| | RFCD | Information Systems | Recipients | Prof AM Moffat; Dr AN Vo | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | Targeted access to the right information is a goal of all organizations, regardless of their type, and improved methodologies for implementing information retrieval systems have widespread and tangible benefits. Australian researchers have been highly successful in this area of information searching for more than two decades, and this project will reinforce that position. By developing techniques for providing faster search, even in the presence of complex query variants and distributed implementations, we will be able to advise the suppliers of such services on how to provide a maximally useful product. |
Temporal segmentation, leadership and cognition in musical improvisation and creativity | | Grant ID | DP0880512 | Institution | The University of Western Sydney | Funding
2008: $68,000
2009: $65,000
2010: $65,000
| | RFCD | Performing Arts | Recipients | Prof Roger T Dean | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | Improvisation is core to conversation and to creative and social emergence. This project investigates musical improvisation, in order to reveal constituent processes, using computational and cognitive approaches. Mechanisms for generating transitions in the temporal stream, and for asserting social power or position in it are assessed. Improvised material can be explored, modified, and developed in the creative process, and the project investigates how this occurs and whether computers can facilitate the process. Such contributions can be critical to the development of innovation in research and cultural arenas in Australia. |
Neurocognitive substrates of naming facilitation in aphasia | | Grant ID | DP0880556 | Institution | The University of Queensland | Funding
2008: $102,000
2009: $130,000
2010: $91,000
| | RFCD | Clinical Sciences | Recipients | Dr Anthony Angwin; Dr David Copland; A/Prof Lyndsey Nickels; Dr KL McMahon | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | This research directly addresses the national research priority goal of ageing well, ageing productively, by providing foundational knowledge for improved outcomes in the growing population of individuals in Australia with language impairments from age-related disease. Outcomes of the proposed research will include (1) development of a new theory of word production which can improve treatment of language impairment, (2) an enhanced understanding of the cognitive and brain mechanisms involved in word production and its treatment after stroke, and (3) postgraduate training in state-of-the-art cognitive neuroimaging and language neuroscience research. |
Unveiling the mystery of tone perception: How does native language prosody affect adults' perception of foreign tones? | | Grant ID | DP0880654 | Institution | The University of Western Sydney | Funding
2008: $140,000
2009: $78,648
2010: $78,648
| | RFCD | Linguistics | Recipients | Dr Connie K. So | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | This project provides new knowledge about how humans perceive non-native lexical tone categories. The results of this large-scale cross-language study will indicate how native languages constrain human perception of non-native speech (consonants, vowels, intonation). These data will greatly facilitate the research in second language acquisition and teaching, speech perception modeling including automatic speech recognition with tone languages, human speech processing. The findings will also be useful to clinical speech and hearing research for speech and hearing impaired persons, and commercial applications in foreign language teaching, and computer assisted language learning for language learners. |
Approved Socially Oriented Requirements Engineering - Software Engineering meets Ethnography | | Grant ID | DP0880810 | Institution | The University of Melbourne | Funding
2008: $70,000
2009: $70,000
2010: $65,000
| | RFCD | Information Systems | Recipients | A/Prof S Howard; Dr F Vetere; Prof LS Sterling | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | The project should lead to the design and development of better software/information and communications technologies in the homes of Australians, that encourage flexible social ineractions, and has been designed with the user in mind. |
Development of second language phonetic and phonological categories | | Grant ID | DP0880913 | Institution | The University of Western Sydney | Funding
2008: $79,983
2009: $70,000
2010: $70,000
| | RFCD | Linguistics | Recipients | Dr Michael Tyler | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | The majority of the world's population speaks two or more languages, yet we know little about how multiple languages are accommodated within a single speaker. Why do children appear to learn a second language 'like a native' but adults invariably develop a clearly perceptible foreign accent? This project investigates a little-known fact - adult second language speakers also 'hear' with a foreign accent. As Australia becomes increasingly multilingual increasing our understanding of the human capacity for language learning would strengthen Australia's social and economic fabric by leading to improved educational practices, work prospects for migrants and, most importantly, understanding between cultures. |
Acoustic, spatial and informational cues used to solve the cocktail party problem | | Grant ID | DP0881471 | Institution | The University of Sydney | Funding
2008: $40,000
2009: $35,000
2010: $35,000
| | RFCD | Psychology | Recipients | A/Prof Simon Carlile | | Funding Body | ARC | Year of Award | 2008 | | Speech is the principal mode of human communication and yet we understand little about how we are able to concentrate on one talker against a noisy background. Significant improvements in supporting listening by the hearing impaired, in teleconferencing systems and computer speech interfaces are dependent on a more advanced understanding of how we solve this cocktail party problem. This research explores the acoustic, spatial and informational cues used by the healthy auditory system to achieve this remarkable feat of signal processing. There is significant potential for commercialization of the IP that will arise from this research. |
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