University of Newcastle receives over $5 million in research funding

Dr Hedda Askland; Dr Meg Sherval; Professor Nicola Mai

Mining voids and just transition: Reimagining post-mining landscapes

This project will advance insight into how communities in the Hunter Valley experience socio-cultural impacts of environmental disturbance and mining legacies, particularly where final voids are present. It will generate new knowledge into potentials for reimagining post-mining landscapes and how such landscapes can support a just transition towards a post-mining future.

$318,659

Enhancing marine bathymetry using new generation satellite sensors

Highly accurate marine bathymetry are currently lacking in 72% of the global ocean including around Australia, particularly in shallow seas and near-shore coastal zones, contributing to various navigation and marine safety accidents. This project will improve Australia’s marine bathymetry by using spatially comprehensive and unprecedented data from new radar and laser satellite sensors.

Dr Ali Eshragh; Emeritus Professor Jerzy Filar; Dr Konstantin Avrachenkov

Large Markov decision processes and combinatorial optimisation

Markov decision processes continue to gain in popularity for modelling a wide range of applications ranging from analysis of supply chains and queueing networks to cognitive science and control of autonomous vehicles. This project aims to provide frameworks for solving large Markov decision processes and exploit them to solve important combinatorial optimisation problems.

Professor Graham Goodwin; Associate Professor Galina Mirzaeva

Advanced multivariable nonlinear control methodology for matrix converters

Matrix converters are one of the key enabling technologies for the electric transport of the future. However, their penetration into practice has fallen short of their promise. This project will address these problems by using modern control system design methods to achieve a provably stable, closed-loop control system whose performance is independent of unmeasured disturbances and model errors.

Professor Jinsong Huang; Professor Anna Giacomini; Professor Andrei Lyamin; Dr Marc Elmouttie; Dr Jingjing Meng

A novel quantitative risk assessment framework for fractured rock slopes

Rock slope instabilities present grave risks to life and to the serviceability of major Australian infrastructure such as mines, roads and railways, and to coastal recreation areas. This project aims at developing tools for the quantitative risk assessment of fractured rock slopes. The research outcomes will improve our understanding of natural and engineering rock slopes, reduce the uncertainties in the prediction of the safety of infrastructures, and thus minimise loss and damage.

Professor David Lubans; Dr Nicole Nathan; Dr Jordan Smith; Professor Mark Beauchamp

Investigating the direct and indirect effects of a student leader program

This innovative project aims to investigate the direct and indirect effects of a school-based leadership program for primary school-aged children, generating new knowledge about the importance of leadership skills for students’ self-efficacy, classroom behaviour, and teachers’ well-being and work-related stress. Expected outcomes include a framework for understanding how children’s leadership behaviours shape school culture and an evidence-based program for Australian schools.

Professor Mark Masia; Professor Mark Stewart

Structural safety and reliability of unreinforced masonry shear walls

In masonry buildings, shear walls provide the primary means for safely resisting lateral loads due to wind and earthquake. Failure of the shear walls can result in building collapse causing injuries and death. Through experimental testing and numerical modelling, the project will enable improved techniques for the assessment and design of masonry walls which account, for the first time, for the influence that spatial variability of material properties has in determining the failure behaviour and capacity of masonry shear walls.

Professor Richard Middleton; Associate Professor Maria Seron; Dr Alejandro Donaire; Dr Joel Ferguson

Safe, plug and play, multi-agent dynamic systems

From driverless cars to networks of nano satellites, and complex biological networks, the modern world has many examples of multi-agent dynamic systems that need careful coordination and control to perform correctly. However, verifiable overall dynamic system properties need to be derived to give assurance of performance in situations not previously envisaged. It is also critical to understand stable system behaviours not just with fixed configurations, but with agile configurations such as splitting, merging, and morphing.

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Professor Bernt Nyberg; Dr Vanessa Bowden; Professor Christopher Wright

About time: Climate change adaptation in Australian industries

By investigating the interplay between industry practices and climate impacts, this project proposes to develop a theoretical conceptualisation of time. This is significant in addressing the temporal tension between financial short-termism and future climate commitments. The expected outcomes include the creation of a practical tool in the form of digital stories that will make sustainable futures actionable.

Associate Professor Stefania Paolini; Professor John Dixon; Professor Jake Harwood; Associate Professor Mark Rubin; Professor Kevin Dunn

Investigating voluntary and involuntary intergroup contact

Interactions between people of opposing groups - intergroup contact - reduce prejudices and improve social cohesion. Yet these benefits may not be realised if intergroup contact is actively avoided, passively received, or mandated. Drawing from social psychology and human geography, this project aims to establish the conditions under which voluntary contact occurs and how voluntary (vs involuntary) intergroup contact shapes diversity experiences and impacts social attitudes, trust, and civic participation. With data from multiple settings and participant populations, this project has the potential to inform interventions and policies that deliver harmonious, healthy and productive communities.

Associate Professor Jiabao Yi; Dr Jangmee Lee; Dr Jae-Hun Yang; Professor Kazunari Domen

Cold catalysis for water splitting

This project is to introduce cold catalysis in the area of production of renewable energy. The expected outcome is the creation of clean and low-cost catalysts to effectively harvest the chemical energy from the sun via splitting of water into H2 and O2 without causing any environmental damage. This unique technology will also help to address clean energy generation, which is in line with H2 economy plan by the Australia government and provide opportunities for new industries.

Associate Professor Hongyu Zhang; Dr Huong Ha

Intelligent incident management for software-intensive systems

This project aims to develop intelligent incident management methods for software-intensive systems. Incidents are unplanned system interruptions or outages that could affect the normal operations of an organisation and cause huge economic loss. This project expects to develop innovative, artificial intelligence (AI) based methods for automated incident management, including incident detection, incident identification, and incident triage. Expected outcomes of the project include a set of novel methods and tools that can facilitate incident diagnosis and resolution.