Safeguarding Australia

The Australian Research Council has announced the winners of its 2005 National Competitive Grants. Below are those projects which will contribute to the national research priority of Safeguarding Australia. It is important to note that the funding figures may underestimate the actual project budgets as they do not include the projects' industry contributions.

Administering Institution: Macquarie University
Funding: 2005 $61,000, 2006 $56,000, 2007 $61,000

Summary: The protection of information infrastructures in the ever-increasing digital world has become essential for businesses, governments and individuals. Secure interactions over the Internet have become a strategic necessity and it is critically important for Australia to possess the technology to anticipate and respond to security threats to industry and society. The research will result in computing technologies that will enable secure ecommerce applications and on-line services, and trusted interactions between users over the Internet.

The overall objective of the proposed research project is to investigate systematically the issue of trust in peer-to-peer systems and propose models and techniques that can be used to represent and evaluate effectively the trustworthiness of peers. It will investigate the various infrastructures to illustrate how different architectural design choices impact availability, redundancy, trust and security. Propose a comprehensive trust model for P2P systems and specify trust computation and metric functions to measure trust of a peer in the presence of unknown and unfamiliar peers and possible misbehaviors from some of them. Develop a decentralized security and trust management architecture integrating the proposed trust model and mechanisms. Develop a secure agent based peer-to-peer electronic commerce application based on the proposed trust model and management architecture.

Contact: Professor Vijay Varadharajan
Director: Information and Networked System Security Research (INSS)
T. 02 9850 9534
E. vijay@ics.mq.edu.au
http://www.comp.mq.edu.au/research/inss/

Administering Institution: Bond University
Funding: 2005 $52,230, 2006 $54,059
Partner Organisations: Gold Coast Safety Camera Network, Crime Prevention Queensland, Queensland Rail Crime Prevention

Summary: Crime costs Australia an estimated $32 billion annually. Increased national and international criminal and terrorist activities have caused major breaches of security in public places, resulting in a heightened investment in crime prevention strategies, including the use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV). However, rigorous research into CCTV’s effectiveness on crimes in public places has not been undertaken.

This project will identify CCTV’s impact on crime and key socio-legal issues of security in public places. The outcomes will contribute to an important decision-making model for local, state, and federal departments, and private sector organisations responsible for CCTV and related crime prevention technologies.

Contact: Professor Paul Wilson
T. 07 5595 2501
E. pwilson@staff.bond.edu.au

Administering Institution: Edith Cowan University
Funding: 2005 $53,000, 2006 $53,000, 2007 $52,000

Summary: Government agencies in Australia and around the world are taking strong measures to introduce biometric-enhanced official identification documents such as passports, visas, and ID cards. This project will develop a face-detection and tracking system to help personal identification and human activity monitoring. The system could be used in the areas of surveillance, security and law enforcement, and ICT.

The research will help protect Australia from crime, including acts of terrorism. The project outcomes will also enhance Australia’s reputation as a leader in frontier technologies and smart information use.

Contact: Professor Abdesselam Bouzerdoum
T. 02 4221 3065
E. a.bouzerdoum@uow.edu.au

* Professor Bouzerdoum is currently with the University of Wollongong, where the work on this project will be conducted. Industry support to complement the ARC funds and to seek commercialisation opportunities for the developed technologies would be welcome.

Funding: Funding: 2005: $136,000, 2006: $111,000, 2007: $116,000
Administering Institution: Macquarie University

Summary: Since September 11, terrorism and its prevention has been high on the agenda of modern governments. On reflection, there were many signs that could have alerted US government officials to what was about to transpire and saved many lives. But much of the knowledge needed to detect and handle such situations can not be learnt from a book. Many things we need to experience in order to learn. This project combines the investigators' expertise in knowledge based, agent based and natural language fields to produce an interactive virtual environment for the user to engage with.

Funding: 2005: $37,500, 2006: $32,500, 2007: $32,500, 2008 : $32,500, 2009 : $32,500
Administering Institution: The University of New South Wales

Summary: The Spying Game will explore the human dimensions of espionage in the contexts of Australian history and culture. While technological aspects of spying and institutional histories of intelligence and security organisations have been prominent, very few scholarly investigations have been made of the cultures of espionage and the human dilemmas of spying. By investigating the ways in which spying has been understood and represented in Australian society, and comparing these representations with international examples, I will contribute significant new knowledge and understanding of a burgeoning field of employment and activity during a period of crisis for the intelligence community and wider society.

Contact Prof BH Bennett

Funding: 2005: $90,000, 2006: $90,000, 2007: $90,000 2008 : $70,000 2009 : $70,000
Administering Institution: The University of New South Wales

Summary: The threat posed by terrorism is multifaceted. It can directly or indirectly affect the lives of almost every citizen, whether through a relationship with a person affected by terrorism, such as the Bali bombing, or even through increased airport security. The law lies at the forefront of responses to terrorism in the wake of September 11. New laws are important to protect the community from violent harm, but must also ensure that the democratic values that governments seek to protect are not undermined. This project, in providing sustained research and legal analysis in this area, offers significant security, personal, economic and social benefits to Australia as well as to other nations affected by the threat of terrorism.

Funding: 2005: $80,000, 2006: $63,000, 2007: $65,000
Administering Institution: The University of Newcastle

Summary: The cost of providing blast-resistant protective measures to potentially hundreds or thousands of existing buildings is immense and beyond the resources of government and society. The decision-making framework proposed herein provides a means to allocate funds to those buildings shown to have high risk of damage in the event of bomb blast. This will enable existing risks to be quantified and compared in a rational and consistent manner, thus ensuring that risk mitigation is maximised given expenditure of limited resources. Public safety will be governed by the extent and effectiveness of building protective measures. Lives will be saved, likelihood and extent of injury reduced and social and economic disruption minimised.

Funding: 2005: $61,270, 2006: $63,519 , 2007: $70,768
Administering Institution: University of Technology, Sydney

Summary: The Australian national counter-terrorism committee indicates that Australia should have a strong intelligence-led prevention and preparedness to support Australia on risk management, emergency services and maintaining capabilities to manage various types of terrorist attacks. The proposed situation awareness support technique can be used to develop situation analysis software systems or directly support Australia government agencies and industries to correctly assess a situation, increase awareness for crisis problems, and therefore improve emergency management and decision-making effectiveness, in particular, for avoiding disaster problems in the first place and preparing plans for those that undoubtedly will occur.

Funding: 2005: $52,235, 2006: $40,000, 2007: $30,360
Administering Institution: Monash University

Summary: To enhance security without compromising civil rights and democracy is a key challenge facing government in Australia and internationally. Legislative and policy developments related to combating the financing of terrorism are at the forefront of attempts to safeguard Australia from terrorism. The research will bring new knowledge to these policy and legislative developments; stimulate debate, provide important insights to government, law enforcement, and financial regulators; and give voice to communities, organisations, and individuals directly affected. The project will assist in ensuring that government measures meet the challenge of being effective without unduly compromising civil rights or democracy.

Dr J McCulloch; Prof R McQueen; Dr SJ Pickering; Mr J Tham; Dr DP Wright-Neville

Funding: 2005: $127,000, 2006: $140,000, 2007: $165,000, 2008 : $145,000, 2009 : $110,000
Administering Institution: The University of Melbourne

Summary: Climate change is dangerous to many Pacific societies and countries, which will in turn generate problems for Australian aid, diplomatic, immigration and security policy. The practical benefits of this project will be improved understanding of the security risks that climate change poses; and knowledge about the capacity of, and ways to improve, the climate change and security institutions that are necessary to manage these risks. The intellectual benefits include the application of a novel, multi-scale and longitudinal approach of relevance to both climate impacts and environmental security research; the project will enhance Australia's reputation, and advance expertise, in both these fields.

Funding: 2005: $122,000, 2006: $80,000, 2007: $82,000
Administering Institution: University of Western Sydney

Summary: This project will fundamentally provide a new paradigm of the security protocol verification and modification. As such, it will significantly enhance Australia's already leading role in the cutting edge research on information security. By applying the new methodology and technology, Australian IT industry will be able to develop more secure communication systems in real world domains. With a very strong research team across different areas such as knowledge reasoning, temporal logics and information security, and a collaborative research training environment, this project will further enhance Australia's international reputation as a leader in computing and IT research.

A/Prof Y Zhang; A/Prof MA Orgun; Dr AC Nayak; Dr Y Mu; Dr F Bao

Funding: 2005: $50,000, 2006: $50,000, 2007: $50,000
Administering Institution: The University of Queensland

Summary: The project provides a rigorous way to enhance our understanding of the mechanisms that bring about catastrophic rare events such as urban flooding, electricity shortages and financial bankruptcy. Australia is at the forefront of exciting recent developments in rare event simulation. The advancement of the knowledge in this area will generate a competitive advantage for various sections of the Australian industry, including the areas of industrial reliability, finance and insurance, were accurate simulation techniques are becoming increasingly important.

Funding: 2005: $188,000, 2006: $170,000, 2007: $157,000, 2008 : $157,000, 2009 : $157,000
Administering Institution: The Flinders University of South Australia

Summary: Bali attacks were a powerful reminder that Australians are not immune from terrorism. Suicide terrorism is the most lethal form of terrorism. It constitutes 3 % of all terrorist attacks but accounts for 48 % of all deaths. Australia's involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq and East Timor has made Australia a more likely terrorist target. An informed understanding of suicide terrorism in our region would assist in developing appropriate policies for protecting Australia from terrorism. The research will also contribute to evaluation of costs and benefits of Australian government policies of democratisation in the region and War on Terror.

Funding: 2005: $70,000, 2006: $40,000, 2007: $40,000
Administering Institution: The University of Adelaide

Summary: This project will provide detailed empirical research results plus conceptual innovations in the areas of peace and conflict studies. These will contribute to better understanding of contemporary threats and the effects of using force, and will enable the development of more effective policy options. The project will contribute strongly to the ARC's research priority 4, 'Safeguarding Australia', by providing important studies, analytical tools and policy recommendations that will strengthen Australia's national security, contribute to reducing conflict, and help us shape the regional and global security environment in our interests.

Funding: 2005: $75,000, 2006: $50,000, 2007: $35,000
Administering Institution: The University of Adelaide

Summary:In a world where electronic communication is ever-present, the security of electronic information, e-security, is an issue of the utmost concern for government, business and individuals alike. Public-key cryptography is a powerful tool in the esecurity toolkit. Using this technology it is possible to confirm the identity of individuals, maintain the privacy of personal data and guarantee the authenticity of transactions. The aim of this project is to design new public-key cryptography hardware to provide faster, more secure communications for computers, networks and smart cards. Achieving this will require innovations in the way computers perform arithmetic and how this arithmetic is realised as an integrated circuit.

Funding: 2005: $73,000, 2006: $63,000, 2007: $68,000
Administering Institution: University of South Australia

Summary: Australia's economy is becoming increasingly dependent on many complex distributed systems. Some important examples are the Internet, electronic commerce, financial networks, transportation systems, health care networks, telecommunication networks, defence systems, intelligent manufacturing systems and organisational workflow management systems. Failure in these systems can result in serious financial loss (in banking applications) and loss of life or serious accidents in safety critical areas (medical, transport and defence applications). It is thus of utmost importance that distributed systems are designed correctly. This project aims to advance the state of the art in verifying that distributed systems will work correctly.

Funding: 2005: $31,000, 2006: $31,000, 2007: $31,000
Administering Institution: University of South Australia

Summary: Australia is a geographically dispersed country with locations of high concentrations of technology resources. Australia requires the ability to gather real time intelligence information in the field to support planning and operational decisions by a command team for military and civil defence operations. Currently Australia supports such operations in remote areas of the country and numerous overseas operations. A major research outcome is the design and development of interaction techniques for the mobile users in through walls collaboration systems to control and manipulate augmented reality information in the field across a number of application domains, such as medical, maintenance, military, search and rescue, and GIS visualization.

A/Prof BH Thomas; Dr W Piekarski

Funding: 2005: $36,000, 2006: $60,000, 2007: $50,000
Administering Institution: Edith Cowan University

Summary: The world was changed on 9/11. Small-scale studies indicate half the Australian non-Muslim population is now anti-Muslim and up to 80% of Muslims are in a siege mentality. This research examines Australian perceptions of the other, of terrorism, of refugees and of fears about these. In seeking to analyse these influences upon contemporary society, the project investigates ways that policy can drive appropriate communication responses to racism and to social isolation, particularly in supporting fear-filled communities. Arguing that the global response to 9/11 is out of proportion to the events themselves, the study suggests strategies to support ethnically diverse groups that feel threatened by media discourses and adverse public opinion.

A/Prof LR Green; Prof M Balnaves

Funding: 2005: $85,000, 2006: $75,000, 2007: $75,000
Administering Institution: The University of Sydney

Summary: Information awareness is critical in many applications of national importance: from bush fire fighting and defence to transportation and health care. These applications involve tasks in which timely delivery and fusion of heterogeneous information streams is of critical importance. They can all benefit from the use of robotic and embedded sensor networks considered in this project. Human operators, acting as users or supervisors, will remain at the centre of these systems. The technology and algorithms developed in this project will efficiently structure information exchange between humans and sensor networks.

Funding: 2005: $83,600, 2006: $78,102 , 2007: $73,802
Administering Institution: The University of Sydney

Summary: It is imperative to remain technological leading for Australian research community. But current lack of reliable technique in structural health monitoring in Australia is considerably impeding her competition with other developed countries in areas of forefront technology. Outcomes of the project will lead to an online structural health monitoring system incorporated with active diagnostic sensor network, related software and hardware, novel signal processing technique, and artificial intelligence algorithm-based damage identification scheme. Its successful applications in various industries, e.g. aerospace, maritime and civil, are expected to bring significant improvement in operation safety and great benefit in reducing maintenance cost.

Funding: 2005: $92,000, 2006: $92,000, 2007: $91,000
Administering Institution: The University of Sydney

Summary: The proposed project will contribute to theory, design and deployment of forthcoming wireless systems. The new technology will enable a breakthrough in available data rates leading to introduction of novel multimedia services. Indirectly, the project will impact implementation and penetration of wireless devices and services. In society will advanced wireless services remote home medical care, diagnosis and surgery will become common. Compact wireless devices attached to various objects, flora and fauna, will contribute to logistics efficiency, protecting global environment and preventing disasters. At a broader scale these developments will thus contribute to the overall quality of life.

Funding: 2005: $85,000, 2006: $71,000, 2007: $75,000
Administering Institution: The University of Sydney

Summary: The work specifically addresses the National Research Priorities in sustainable use of Australia's biodiversity, techniques for transforming Australian industry and Safeguarding Australia. Without a thorough understanding of processes that affect the state of health of our oceans they will continue to be affected by natural phenomena and stresses caused by human activity. A more comprehensive understanding of these natural systems and the interplay with human activities is therefore essential.

Dr SB Williams; Dr AD Blair

Funding: 2005: $130,000, 2006: $115,000, 2007: $120,000
Administering Institution: The University of Sydney

Summary: The project addresses frontier technologies that lead to solutions to one of the critical key issues forming the Australian community - online integrity/safety assessment of structures or asset including aircraft, ships, buildings and bridges. The community benefits significantly if potential disaster due to occurrence of damage associated with those structures can be prevented - the ultimate aim of researchers for decades. It is imperative that Australian industries remain technologically ahead of international competitors. Outcomes of the project will lead to novel technologies for real-time structural health monitoring and integrity assessment, bringing significant improvement in operation safety and driving down maintenance cost.

Prof L Ye; Dr A Afaghi-Khatibi; Dr X Wang

Funding: 2005: $90,546 , 2006: $58,416 , 2007: $58,926
Administering Institution: University of Wollongong

Summary: Using radio frequency identity (RFID) tags to revolutionise sensor network technologies has the potential to have wide ranging impacts on many of Australia's key industries, including precision agriculture, health care and habitat monitoring (e.g., bush fires). This fundamental research will create a new type of communication network that will have tremendous impact by allowing monitoring and tracking technologies to be deployed over large, infrastructure-free areas at nominal cost. By contributing to the solution of the cost and complexity problems that limit practical deployment of sensor networks, we hope help Australia become a global leader in realizing real-world benefits from information communication technologies.

Dr K Chin; Mr DD Lowe; Mr R Raad

Funding: 2005: $56,000, 2006: $51,000, 2007: $50,000
Administering Institution: University of Wollongong

Summary: Many companies provide value for customers by exploiting information and communication technology in support of networks of self-organising employee teams. Such network-centric approaches to organisational structure and function are becoming desired in diverse government organisations and societal settings. On one hand, the civil society is increasing reliant on virtual networks and online communities. On the other, the military's imperative to learn how to fight smarter in the information age heralds a fundamental shift from platform-centred warfare to a mode with diffuseness of command and control. The findings of this research will enable the potential benefits of network-centrism to be realised in these nationally critical areas.

A/Prof HM Hasan; Dr KP Crawford; Dr DN Hart; Dr H Linger; Dr L Warne; Ms IM Ali

Funding: 2005: $68,000, 2006: $61,000, 2007: $63,000
Administering Institution: University of Wollongong

Summary: Next generation broadband wireless/mobile communications is considered a critical component in the ICT industry sector of advanced national economies and their potential future growth. The proposed project will develop a superior solution when compared with existing methods in the sense that it will be characterised by higher capacity, more flexible signal format, lower complexity, more power efficient and better overall performance in fast fading channels. Successful completion of this project will place Australia at the forefront of this enabling technology as well establishing cutting edge expertise. This will lead to significant commercial opportunities that can easily translate into new employment/manufacturing opportunities.

Funding: 2005: $112,000, 2006: $80,000
Administering Institution: University of Wollongong

Summary: The expected result of this project will be frontier technologies that are essential in applications and services, eg. transactions over mobile devices, whose acceptance will be dependent on users' assurance about their security in the Cyber world. The result will also contribute to maintaining Australia's leading position in the telecommunication and information technology industries, which is well recognised by the government increasing Funding levels. Using provably secure short signature schemes in the Internet world will ultimately contribute to lowering costs, increasing productivity and therefore, a more competitive economy. The project will produce high quality graduates by generating research opportunities for students.

Funding: 2005: $90,000, 2006: $60,000, 2007: $60,000
Administering Institution: The University of Melbourne

Summary: Industrial disasters, terrorist attacks and corporate collapses create increased demands by Australians for safety and financial security. This project will trace the effects of three such events on regulatory frameworks and compliance efforts by our airports, ports and major hazard facilities. It will ascertain whether regulatory reform following disasters does increase protection for Australians, or whether multiple and competing demands mean that significant gaps are created. This work will be an invaluable resource for investigators, regulators and policymakers charged with preventing corporate disasters and terrorist attacks.

Dr FS Haines; Dr AC Sutton

Funding: 2005: $106,000, 2006: $66,000, 2007: $66,000
Administering Institution: The University of Melbourne

Summary: There is tremendous commercial potential in the development of wireless multi-hop and sensor networks. This project will help realize such networks, with commercial benefits for the network providers, and the customers that use them (low cost networking). Particular outcomes targeted for Australian needs include: 1) protocols allowing advanced telecommunications services to cover greater geographic areas with less infrastructure 2) improved reliability of local communication services in remote or rugged areas 3) protocols for sensor networks, allowing remote monitoring and control of many environmental factors.

Dr FS Haines; Dr AC Sutton

Funding: 2005: $135,000, 2006: $55,000, 2007: $55,000
Administering Institution: The University of Melbourne

Summary: Considering its importance to Australia, too little research is being done here on Europe. The EU alone accounts for c.40% of Australia's trade. Yet most research on Europe undertaken here is either historical (pre-1945) and/or of individual countries. Relatively little is in the social sciences. One benefit of this project is that it ensures that comparative social science research on Europe is conducted in Australia. Second, Australia experiences many problems facing European states, albeit usually on a smaller scale. The potential benefits of learning vicariously from others' experiences are obvious. Third, this will enhance this country's expertise in this strategically important area.

Funding: 2005: $95,000, 2006: $80,000, 2007: $80,000
Administering Institution: Queensland University of Technology

Summary: In 2003 we saw major blackouts of power systems for US/Canada, Italy and London leading to billions of dollars of lost production and major impacts on many peoples lives. One aspect contributing to some of these is the control of system dynamic response and the targeted use of emergency controls such as load and generator shedding. This project is contributing to the development of an integrated control response such that appropriate levels of emergency controls are determined and the probability of cascading blackouts reduced through automated systems.

Prof GF Ledwich; Dr ZY Dong; Dr TK Saha

Funding: 2005: $89,098, 2006: $80,000, 2007: $86,198
Administering Institution: The Australian National University

Summary: Most animal production enterprises could be considerably more productive if the physiological status of each animal were to be continuously monitored, and the appropriate adjustments were made in real time. The proposed project will develop technologies that will enable continuous, real-time monitoring resulting in more efficient use of Australia's resources. Furthermore, research on wireless sensor networks, or ambient intelligence as it is sometimes called, is at the forefront of wireless communications and indeed ICT technology. This project will benefit Australia's ICT community both by training new professional and research leaders in this area, and by developing technologies that will further enable this rapidly growing field.

Dr S Roundy; Mr K Taylor

Funding: 2005: $150,000, 2006: $150,000, 2007: $150,000
Partner Organisations: Australian Project Management Services, AZURN International Pty Ltd , Specialised Container Transport Limited
Administering Institution: Curtin University of Technology

Summary: Internet business transactions highlight Trust. This project explores creating trust between business peers to aid business contact. Aims:

1 Define concepts & relationship of Trust between peers
2 Develop Trust protocol & infrastructure managing P2P communication
>3 Propose methodology showing trustworthiness values after interaction
4 Develop trust modelling language specifying trust relationships between peers for storing in trust repositories
5 Apply trust management protocol creating identity & behaviour trust in decentralized environments
6 Apply trust support system
7 Develop trust modelling language letting partners realize trust interaction outcomes.
Prof E Chang; Prof TS Dillon; Dr JW Rahayu; Dr L Brankovic, Mr A Talevski

Funding: 2005: $50,000, 2006: $50,000, 2007: $50,000
Administering Institution: The University of New South Wales

Summary: Agricultural, fishing and forestry groups are united in supporting strict biosecurity measures, such as quarantine, in order to prevent any possibility of the importation of diseases. However, the importation of certain products from 'diseased' countries does not necessarily mean that the disease will also be imported, and even if imported it may not result in the destruction of the local industry. The "diseased" countries obviously remain competitive if they are able to export the products. Foreign quarantine restrictions are restricting Australia's access to international markets. The costs to consumers of the current zero-tolerance policy has not been quantified. The costs may indeed exceed the benefit.

Contact: A/Prof KJ Fox; Dr RQ Grafton

Funding: 2005: $67,494 , 2006: $71,822 , 2007: $71,822
Administering Institution: The University of New South Wales

Summary: Although Australian researchers have played an important role in the development of carrier phase-based GPS kinematic positioning algorithms and methodologies over the last two decades, investigations concerning high precision multi- sensor integration have been comparatively limited. This ARC project would go a significant way towards remedying this situation by building up theoretical and practical expertise in sensor integration techniques at the postdoctoral level. The outcomes of this project will represent a significant contribution to Australian R&D in the fields of precise positioning and navigation, since they will be directly applicable to the design and development of a variety of integrated multi-sensor systems.

Funding: 2005: $202,000, 2006: $142,000, 2007: $141,000, 2008 : $160,000, 2009 : $160,00 0
Administering Institution: The University of New South Wales

Summary: Feedback control systems are becoming increasingly important in manufacturing industry, the automotive industry, defence applications as well as in many non-industrial applications such as the management of the environment or the economy. By developing new techniques for the design of high performance robust nonlinear controllers and filters which are widely applicable in industrial applications, this project will help make existing industrial technologies more efficient and make new industrial technologies feasible. Moreover, the research training carried out in the project will add to available a pool of experts in the areas of robust nonlinear control and filtering.

Funding: 2005: $91,000, 2006 : $81,000, 2007 : $86,000
Administering Institution: The University of New South Wales

Summary: GNSS products & services are continually being developed to make Australian farmers & miners more productive, road transport & air & marine navigation safer, & geospatial data capture more efficient. The value of GNSS products & services will grow rapidly, and may be over a billion dollars pa in Australia by the end of the decade. In addition, the impact on society of ubiquitous positioning made possible using GNSS will be profound. GNSS devices will be embedded within mobilephones, consumer items, clothing & other personal effects. An enhancement of Australia's R&D capabilities as proposed in this project will allow new GNSS receiver designs to be quickly developed & tested that take advantage of the next generation GNSS signals.

Prof C Rizos; Dr AG Dempster; Dr IG Petrovski; Mr KJ Parkinson

Funding: 2005: $111,000, 2006: $95,000, 2007: $90,000
Administering Institution: Macquarie University

Summary: The deliverables of this project will enhance information protection which is essential for rapidly expanding e-commerce applications and network communication. It will maintain and strengthen national capability of protecting the confidential integrity of digital systems and the network infrastructure in Australia. It will contribute to maintaining Australia's leading position in telecommunications and information industries. It will enhance the quality of our culture by protecting individual's privacy and providing security for sensitive data.

Contact: Dr H Wang; Dr C Charnes

Funding: 2005: $28,016 , 2006: $30,366 , 2007: $30,366
Administering Institution: The University of New South Wales

Summary: This project will investigate the phenomenon of delay propagation in airline schedules and potential ways to mitigate the impact on network reliability. This project will improve our understanding of the complex behaviour of airline schedule systems in dealing with delay propagation and significantly enhance airlines' ability of controlling schedule delays. Australian airlines and passengers will benefit from this project by improving schedule reliability, reducing schedule delays and delay costs, which are estimated at a hundred million dollars per year. This saving will also benefit passengers through lower fares. Developed scheduling methodologies are applicable to all other airlines.

Administering Institution: Victoria University of Technology
Funding: 2005 $118,792, 2006 $123,964
Partner Organisations: OneSteel Manufacturing P/L, BlueScope Steel Ltd

Summary: The project will develop a fire risk model for the cost-effective design of commercial buildings which maintain appropriate levels of fire safety.

Contact: Dr Ian Bennetts
T. 03 9216 8029
E. ian.bennetts@vu.edu.au

Australian Academy of Science (on behalf of the National Academies Forum) received $110,000 for the project “An Australian Policy Framework for Systemic Assessments of Emerging Risks”.