30 January 2012
Platform Technologies News – Issue 1, January 2012
Platform Technologies News is the quarterly newsletter of the Platform Technologies Research Institute (PTRI).
The Institute aims to sustain an open, inclusive and supportive research culture that nurtures careers, celebrates achievements and promotes industry-oriented research and innovation. Platform Technologies News has been developed to celebrate achievements of researchers within the Institute.
Regulars
From the Director’s desk
Director,
Professor Xinghuo Yu
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the first edition of Platform Technologies for 2012, hope you enjoy reading about the activities of all our members during the final quarter of 2011.
I hope you all had a restful break and enjoyed some time with your families and friends during the festive season and are settling in back at work and thinking about the year ahead. In the Chinese New Year it is the Year of the Dragon, and in line with this I hope that this year will bring abundance and good fortune to you and your families.
Just to update you on a few things at PTRI: in 2012 we will be working with you to develop new initiatives and projects for the 11 new research groupings which were established during 2011. To assist with this activity, a new business development position has been developed within R&I who will be working directly with PTRI and its researchers to provide direction to research groups on the identification and pursuit of research and industry opportunities, working across several disciplines and domains of professional practice and in a variety of local and international contexts. The recruitment process is expected to be finalised in April 2012 but in the short term, PTRI has set aside some seed funding for those initiatives requiring funding support for market analysis and other activities associated with the establishment of new projects. So there are some internal challenges ahead for all of us.
We should also not forget the external challenges. In December 2011, the Industrial Transformation Research Program was announced. This is a new component in the ARC Linkage Program, and consists of Industrial Transformation Research Hubs and Industrial Transformation Training Centres. The ARC anticipates that the first round of the Industrial Transformation Research Hubs will open for proposals in March 2012 for funding commencing in July 2012, and the first round of the Industrial Transformation Training Centres will open for proposals in March 2012 for funding commencing in January 2013. Another change is that the Linkage Projects scheme will only have one round for funding to commence in 2013. The ARC expects that this round will open for proposals in September 2012 for funding commencing in July 2013. The year 2012 will be a year of many changes in funding opportunities. There will be a new CRC application round which should be considered as well as part of Institute planning,
On a lighter note, I am sure we are all looking forward to the move to the Design Hub which is expected in the next few months. While some areas of PTRI will be located in the Design Hub, PTRI headquarters will move to level 3 of Building 91 at the City Campus
It definitely looks like 2012 is going to be another exciting and very challenging year and I am looking forward to working with you all to overcome all these challenges and move forward to a new and exciting future. Please visit me in 10.10.13A if you would like to discuss new initiatives, concerns or just for a chat!
Warm regards,
Professor Xinghuo Yu
Director
Awards and achievements
Congratulations go to the following members and students who have been recognised for their contributions to research and industry:
Dr Kandeepan Sithamparanathan was awarded the honour IEEE Exemplary Reviewer for IEEE Communications Letters, provided by the IEEE Communications Society, 2011.
Professor Irene Yarovsky has been awarded a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) to work at Imperial College London on a project entitled Engineering nanomaterials for biomedical applications: exploring the role of protein - surface interactions.
Dr Madhu Bhaskaran was awarded the 2011 Research Media Star Award.
At the 2011 RMIT Research Awards, Dr Madhu Bhaskaran was awarded the 2011 Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Emerging Researcher and Dr Sharath Sriram received the 2011 Ian Permezel Award.
In December 2011, Professor Jinhu Lu received the prestigious Top 10 Most Cited Papers Award for the period from 2006 to 2010 in ISI Database from the Library of Chinese Academy of Sciences for the following highly cited paper: Jinhu Lu and Guanrong Chen, “Generating multiscroll chaotic attractors: Theories, methods and applications”, International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 775-858, April 2006. This paper has been cited 131 times from the Web of Science. Professor Lu was also invited to write an essay to briefly introduce the hot topic of complex multiscroll circuits and systems in the last issue of SCIENCE FOCUS in December 2011.
Professor Lu has also been appointed as the Associate Editor for three flagship journals in electronic engineering: IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics (2012-), IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II (2012-2013), and International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos (2012-2014), all starting from 1 January 2012. Professor Jinhu Lu is very active in the emerging field of complex systems and complex networks. Over the last five years, he has been invited to serve as Editors in various ranks for more than 10 SCI top journals.
Professor Chun Wang, Director of Sir Lawrence Wackett Aerospace Research Centre was awarded the DSTO Achievement Award for Science and Engineering Excellence at a ceremony held in Melbourne on 9 December 2011. The citation for this award reads: “For providing scientific leadership to a team of people in the development of innovative repairs to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft. This team was selected by the JSF Program Office via an internationally competitive process to contribute to the JSF program. You have also made significant personal contributions to the program which has developed many novel solutions to restore the strength to damaged structural components”.
Professor Paul Slatter from the School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering was awarded a medal for his Service to the Scientific Community - in recognition of his contribution to Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences at the International Conference on Transport and Sedimentation of Solid Particles in Poland.
The School of Computer Science and IT team of Professor Lin Padgham, Dr John Thangarajah and Dr Wilson Wong - along with Andrew Hodgson from industry partner Real Thing Entertainment - were one of the five winners of the Telstra Innovation award. The Open-ended Conversational System project aims to develop a cost-effective automated system for conducting customer service dialogue which could make Call Centres a thing of the past.
Professor Mike Xie from the School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering has been elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) at ATSE’s 2011 annual meeting held on 26 November.
Professor Xinghuo Yu has been appointed Vice President for Publications of IEEE Industrial Electronics Society at its AdCom meeting help on 12 November in Melbourne.
Katherine Szpakolski, a student affiliated with PTRI, and supervised by staff members Dr Kay Latham and Adjunct Professor Colin Rix from the School of Applied Sciences recently passed her PhD. Both examiners were highly impressed by the quality of the work Katherine had performed and remarked on the written clarity of her thesis.
Katherine’s project was entitled “The design and synthesis of metal-amine networks with applications to solar energy capture” and involved interdisciplinary co-operation between Applied Sciences and Associate Professor Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh from the microelectronics group in Electrical & Computer Engineering, who provided the instrumentation for evaluating the efficiency of solar energy capture by the compounds prepared by Dr. Szpakolski during her PhD program.
Computer science PhD candidate Naimah Yaakob has won the award for Best Student Paper at the Mobi Health 2011, the 2nd International ICST Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare, held on the island of Kos, Greece. The paper was titled, “Effectiveness of relaxation theory for controlling high traffic volumes in body sensor networks”.
Comings and goings
We welcomed the following new staff and members to RMIT and PTRI during the last few months of 2011:
Staff appointments
Professor Chun-Qing Li joined RMIT as the new Head of the School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering. Professor Chun-Qing Li held the first Atkins Chair in Civil Engineering at the University of Greenwich and Honorary Professorship at Zhejiang University of Technology. Over the past 15 years or so, Professor Li has gained specific expertise in time-dependent reliability methods and their applications to risk assessment and service life prediction for civil infrastructure.
His recent work has focussed on modelling of concrete structural deterioration through reinforcement corrosion and the service life prediction of deteriorating concrete infrastructure, using stochastic approaches. Since starting his academic career in 1996, Professor Li has been awarded more than 16 research grants from national research granting bodies (such as, the Australian Research Council (ARC), the UK EPSRC and Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE)) for a variety of projects, involving fundamental and applied aspects of his research portfolio.
In a recently completed EPSRC project (GR/R28348), Professor Li led a multidisciplinary research team to develop a quantitative maintenance strategy for coastal concrete structures. By publishing over 120 refereed papers since 1992, Professor Li has established his research expertise in both theoretical (e.g. risk and reliability theories) and practical (e.g., materials and structural deterioration) areas.
Professor Leslie Yeo joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and is currently an ARC Aust Research Fellow. He is considered to have a high profile among microfluidics researches in the Pacific Rim region and is considered the leading research group worldwide in surface acoustic wave microfluidics. Leslie has over 120 research publications and 19 patent applications. He has also won several Honours and Awards including an Australian Research Fellowship by the Australian Research Council, Monash University Faculty of Engineering, and both the Dean and Vice-Chancellors awards for excellence in early career research. He is also the Editor of the American Institute of Physics journal Biomicrofluidics. His research interests are in acoustically and electrokinetically driven microfluidics for bioapplications that span drug delivery, point-of-care diagnostics and tissue engineering.
Vice- Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellowships
Professor James Friend joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and is a MCN Tech Fellow at the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication. He is an associate editor of Biomicrofluidics and is a member of the IEEE Nanotechnology for Biology, Ultrasonics Technical Committees, and has over 120 peer-reviewed publications and twenty-five patents and patent applications. He received an excellence in teaching, early career research, and research awards from the Monash Faculty of Engineering in 2006, 2008, and 2011, respectively, a Future Leader award from the Davos Future Summit in 2008, and was awarded as a Top 10 emerging scientific leader of Australia by ‘Microsoft’ and ‘The Australian’ newspaper in 2009.
Assoc Professor Andrew Greentree joined the School of Applied Sciences and his interest and experience centres around the research of quantum devices in the field of Solid Light, Diamond micro and nano fabrication and Coherent Tunnelling Adiabatic Passage (CTAP). Assoc Prof Greentree’s work in Diamond photonics and CTAP have afforded an outstanding citation record with a breadth of publications in A and A* journals. A world recognised expert in the application and fabrication of diamond for quantum purposes with strong international research and funding links in USA, Europe, Israel and an ARC QE ll (Solid Light) Fellowship in Tokyo. Assoc Prof Greentree’s work aligns closely with Australian National University, University of New South Wales and Adelaide University.
Assoc Professor Gary Rosengarten joined the School of Aerospace, Mechanical, Manufacturing and Engineering and he has proven experience as a mechanical engineer in the disciplines of micro/nano technology, chemical engineering and biotechnology. With a research background in novel solutions for innovative technology in solar thermal energy and CSIRO cluster and ARC funded studies in biomimetic design of low energy membranes. Assoc Prof Rosengarten’s has publications in high quality journals and strong research background which has garnered large grants from the Australian Solar Institute (ASI) and collaborations as lead or co-initiator with Berkeley, ETHZ and Intel.
Academic Promotions
Congratulations to the following members who were successful in the 2011 Academic Promotion process:
Promotion to Professor
Associate Professor Dinesh Kumar, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Promotion to Associate Professor:
- Dr Firoz Alam, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
- Dr Yasuhiro Tachibana, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
- Dr Alan Wong, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Dr Anthony Bedford, School of Maths and Geospacial Science
- Dr Asha Rao, School of Maths and Geospacial Science
Promotion to Senior Lecturer / Senior Research Fellow
- Dr Victor Gekara, School of Business IT & Logistics
- Dr Madhu Bhaskaran, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Dr Sharath Sriram, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Dr Stephen Davis, School of Maths and Geospacial Science
New PTRI Members
Welcome to the following new members:
- Professor Mike Xie, School of Civil, Environmental & Chemical Engineering
- Professor Andrew Eberhard, School of Math & Geospatial Sciences
- Dr Caspar Ryan, School of Computer Science & Information Technology
- Professor Dinesh Kant Kumar, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Professor Stephen Bird, School of Medical Sciences
- Professor Kevin Massey, School of Aerospace Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering
- Dr Sebastian Sardina, School of Computer Science & Information Technology
- Professor Chun-Qing Li, School of Civil , Environmental & Chemical Engineering
Visiting Professors
Welcome to the following Visiting Professors:
Professor Michael Papazoglou joins RMIT University for a three year honorary appointment as Visiting Professor in the School of Computer Science and IT. He is currently Chair in Computer Science and Executive Director of the European Research Institute in Service Science (ERISS), Tilburg University, Netherlands (since May 1996), as well as being the Scientific Director of the European Network of Excellence in Software Services and Systems (S-Cube) and a scientific advisor to the European Union. Professor Papazoglou is one of the leaders in the field of Service Oriented computing Computing and is credited with coining the term in 2000.
With more than 250 publications, including 23 books, his research has been cited more than 8,200 times, while his reputation for accruing research funds is also well-earned.
Professor HJ Choi of Inha University continued to visit the RMPC of RMIT University during 2011. He has been collaborating on the development of biodegradable polymer composites for packaging applications with Professor Sati Bhattacharya and Dr Rahul Gupta.
Farewell
Dr Zhengya (Yale) Xu completed his three-year contract as Senior Research Fellow at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the end of December 2011. Since 2009, Dr Xu has been concurrently working on ARC Discovery Project (DP0988654) "Modelling and removal of noise and artefacts in surveillance video for forensic image analysis and enhancement" (CIs: Profs H.R. Wu, X. Yu and Z. Man, 2009-2011), and PTRI's Research Project on "Forensic Information Processing and Engineering (FIPE)" (CIs: Profs H.R. Wu, K. Horadam and X. Yu, 2009-2011). We would like to thank Zhengya for his commitment to these projects and wish him well for his future endeavours.
Conferences/Invited Talks
Participation in conferences is an important aspect of research at RMIT. PTRI would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following members:
Professor Franz (Tino) Fuss was invited to give two keynote lectures at the 1st International Rock Climbing Research Congress in Christchurch, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, 28 November - 2 December, 2011. His lectures covered instrumented and smart climbing holds and walls, as well as mechanics and optimisation of safety devices for mountaineering. The conference resulted in the foundation of an International Rock Climbing Research Association with Professor Fuss as founding member.
Professor Sati Bhattacharya and Dr Rahul Gupta presented a keynote address entitled “Foam processing of HMS-PP/clay nanocomposites in a continuous foam injection molding system”, in Marrakech, Morocco from 10 – 14 May 2011.
Professor Sati Bhattacharya and Dr Rahul Gupta presented a keynote address on “Importance of extensional rheology in polymer blends and composites”, 25- 27 September, 2011, Daejeon, Korea.
Professor Xinghuo Yu and Assoc Professor John Adrews attended the RMIT-Tianjin Research Symposium which was held in China from 21– 22 November 2011 and presented invited talks. They have also visited several Tianjin universities to explore collaboration opportunities.
Australia-India Joint Symposium on Smart Nanomaterials
Professor Suresh K Bhargava, Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor (International), Symposium Chair and RMIT Head, Advanced Materials and Industrial Chemistry, hosted this joint symposium in honour of Professor C N R Rao and in celebration of the International Year of Chemistry from 2-4 November 2011.
The symposium comprised two-and-a-half days of scientific presentations followed by a half-day workshop and focused on topics such as Development of nanomaterials and composites, Biomedical, catalysis and sensing applications of nanomaterials and Modelling and theoretical aspects of nanomaterials
A key event at the symposium was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between RMIT University and the International Centre for Materials Science in Bangalore, India. The significant collaboration builds on RMIT’s existing engagement with some of Indian’s leading institutions, including the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology in Hyderabad, the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee and the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur.
IECON2011
More than 800 of the world’s experts in industrial electronics participated in the 37th annual conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON 2011) in Melbourne from 7-10 November 2011.
Professor Xinghuo Yu was the General Chair of the event, which included the fifth International Conference on E-Learning in Industrial Electronics (ICELIE 2011), came as the IES celebrated its 60th anniversary. It was also the first time that the conference had been held in the southern hemisphere.
Delegates enjoyed four days of intensive technical sessions in industrial and manufacturing theory and applications of electronics, controls, communications, instrumentation and computational intelligence.
The success of the conference was demonstrated by the fact that IECON 2011 received 1,137 paper submissions, accepted 739 papers, and featured 47 special sessions with a focus on future technology trends and 11 tutorials on emerging issues.
The technical program was accompanied by four distinguished plenary speakers, industry panel discussions on smart grids, emerging technologies, knowledge management and integrated technologies, a postgraduate forum and Australian Synchrotron technical tours.
In conjunction with IECON2011, the annual management meetings of IEEE Industrial Electronics Society were held at RMIT Storey Hall.
Supply Chain Symposium
More than 40 academics and industry professionals attended the inaugural Supply Chain Industry
Symposium at RMIT University during November 2011. The event was organised by Professor Caroline Chan and Dr Prem Chhetri from the School of Business IT and Logistics and provided an opportunity to develop understanding about the profound, complex and interconnected challenges facing the supply chain and logistics sector.
International Workshop on Hadamard Matrices and their Applications
A highly specialized mathematics conference in honour of the 60th birthday of Professor Kathy Horadam, ran from 28 to 30 November in the School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences at RMIT University. There were a total of 38 participants; 17 international researchers representing the USA, Canada, Spain, Hungary, Ireland and New Zealand, as well as researchers from a number of Australian universities, including ANU, Universities of Melbourne, Newcastle, Wollongong, Queensland, Western Australia, RMIT, Monash University and QUT.
The researchers gathered at RMIT to share their knowledge and love for Hadamard matrices. Opening the workshop, Winthrop Professor/ARC Federation Fellow Cheryl Prager of the University of Western Australia, said that Kathy was a woman in mathematics par excellence and a great role model for young mathematicians in this country.
The workshop fits in the area of Design theory, a branch of combinatorial mathematics, and Professor Jennifer Seberry of the University of Woolongong suggested that the beautiful art being produced by many of the researchers to visualize their work needed to be publicized to make the public more aware of the “beauty” of mathematics.
In her invited talk, Professor Kathy Horadam spoke of the need to work on the “hard” problems and remembered the late Dr. Warwick de Launey, who with her co-founded the area of cocyclic Hadamard matrices.
External links and collaborations
There are many examples of external collaborations amongst the various research groups, listed below is one of them:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
RMIT University researchers are collaborating with German colleagues to improve the architectural design and maintenance of complex software systems. As part of the project, Professor Heinrich Schmidt, eResearch Director at RMIT and a researcher in the School of Computer Science and Information Technology, is hosting Nelli Kaiser, a research student from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.
She is helping with research on Agile Architecture Refactoring using Palladio and Rich Architecture Description Language (RADL) in the School’s Software Engineering research group.
Ms Kaiser has been studying the myTARDIS research data curation platform and is co-located with the tool developers in the RMIT eResearch group.
TARDIS helps multiple institutions share and archive data and metadata collected at major facilities such as the Australian Synchrotron and ANSTO and within institutions.
Software architects need to be able to handle big variations in the software platforms to cater to the needs of different research disciplines and to interoperate with the different instruments that generate the data or consume it in analytics and visualisation at the fingertip of the researcher. Flexibility includes the need to automatically extract relevant domain-specific descriptions and significant programmatic customisations to cope with specific research practices. Changes often involve unplanned variation, making later changes more expensive and requiring “refactoring”.
The refactoring of myTARDIS aims to identify suitable variation points in the current open-source software solution and contribute to the design decision documentation.
In this project, these could include metadata harvesters for scientific data sets, identity management in federated deployments, discipline-specific user interface elements and interoperability to various back-ends.
Research seminars
PTRI is committed to collaborations between researchers across RMIT, from national and international institutions and industry. The following seminars were held during the past quarter:
4 November 2011
Public Lecture on “There was movement at the station…: Recent developments in space activities in Australia” was hosted by the SPACE Research Centre and the School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences and presented by Brett Biddington. This presentation described the most important developments in Australian space research and will also point to risks, threats and some rapidly emerging opportunities, notably in Earth observation from space.
14 November 2011
PTRI Distinguished Lecture presented by Professor Ren C Luo on “Intelligent robotics and automation: the state of the art development, technical challenges and perspectives”. Professor Luo is is the Director, Center for Intelligent Robotics and Automation Research of the National Taiwan University as well as President, Robotics Society of Taiwan
24 January 2012
A public forum on Unmanned Aerial Systems was hosted by Professor Aleksandar Subic, Head of School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering where defence, security and industry leaders from the US and Australia discussed the latest developments and future visions for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
Upcoming seminars/lectures
3 February 2012
PTRI Distinguished Lecture presented by Professor Okyay Kaynak on “Intelligent systems: an assessment of the past and the prospects for the future” at the RMIT Research Lounge. Professor Kaynak is Director of the Mechatronics Research and Application Centre and Professor at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey.
22 February 2012
Professor Richard Kaner will be presenting a lecture on “Synthesis and applications of conducting polymer nanofibers”. Professor Kaner has been elected as a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Materials Research Society (MRSand is an Adjunct Professor at RMIT.
Unable to attend? Don’t worry. All past seminar presentation material is available from the PTRI events website.
Grants
Congratulations to all members who were successful in winning research grants.
ARC Future Fellowship
O'Mullane, Dr Anthony P
“Surface modification of semiconducting organic charge transfer complexes with metal nanoparticles to create a new class of multifunctional materials”, 2011-2015, $583,528.
Project Summary: This project aims to deliver a facile and cheap method to produce a class of nanostructured composite materials to be used in applications which will have environmental and social benefits such as photocatalyst development for water purification, biosensing and the creation of antibacterial fabrics to prevent the spread of infection.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
Tovar, Dr Francisco
“Lab-on-a-chip platforms for hemodynamics research: new approaches for the study of blood diseases”, 2012-2014, $375,000.
Project Summary: This project will use advanced microfluidic technologies to study how and why blood clotting occurs. New devices will be created that can precisely analyse the ability of blood to form clots and these will become powerful tools for the diagnosis of blood disorders and the research and validation of drugs for the treatment of these disorders.
Khoshmanesh, Dr Khashayar
“Analysing cell-cell communication mechanisms using microfluidic platforms”, 2012-2014, $375,000.
Project Summary: The project employs advanced micro-engineered systems to explore the communication of cells. Cells are patterned in close contact and stimulated with physical and chemical stimulus while their response is monitored in real-time. The findings elucidate how malfunctioned cells affect neighbouring cells and how diseases are propagated in tissues.
ARC Discovery Grants
DP120102976 on “Accurate transport theory for nanofluidic separation science”
Project team: Professor Peter J. Daivis, Professor Billy D Todd, Professor Ian K. Snook, Dr Kaloian Koynov, 2012 -2014, $315,000.
DP120101188 on “Novel dissimilarity techniques for characterising noisy spatial networks”
Project team: Professor Kathryn J. Horadam, Dr Stephen A Davis, 2012-2014, $285,000.
DP120102205 on “Novel decomposition methods for large scale optimisation”
Project team: Dr Xiaodong Li, Prof Xin Yao, 2012 -2014, $317,000.
DP120103958 on “An integrated model for assessing health effects of nanoparticle inhalation”
Project team: Professor Jiyuan Y Tu, Dr Kiao Inthavong, Professor Chunying Chen, Professor Goodarz Ahmadi, 2012-2014, $290,000.
DP120103430 on “Towards autonomous structural safety prognostics: integrating in-situ imaging and predictive modelling”
Project team: Professor Chun Hui Wang, Assoc Professor Martin Veidt, Dr Francis Rose, 2012-2014, $285,000.
DP 120100332 on “Optimisation of embedded virtual complex systems by re-using a library of available components”
Project team: Dr Sebastian Sardina, Assoc Professor Maurice Pagnucco, Professor Guiseppe De Giacomo, 2012-2014, $300,000.
ARC LIEF (Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities) Grants
LE120100004 on “Thin film processing cluster: precise synthesis and nano-patterning of functional coatings”
Project team: Professor Arnan Mitchell, Professor Dougal G McCulloch, Professor James R Friend, Assoc Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, Assoc Professor Leslie Yeo, Assoc Professor Dan Li, Dr Sharath Sriram, Dr Madhu Bhaskaran, Assoc Professor Dragomir Neshev, $470,000.
LE120100043 on “Development of an ultra-high speed spinning disk confocal micro-particle image velocimetry (PIV) platform for the investigation of cardiovascular disease”
Project team: Professor Shaun Jackson, Dr Warwick Nesbitt, Professor Arnan Mitchell, Dr Francisco Tovar, Professor Mark Cooper, $330,000.
LE120100124 on “Coherent detection based characterisation facility for ultra broadband photonic and RF systems”
Project Team: Assoc Professor William Shieh, Professor Benjamin Eggletonm, Professor Rodney Tucker, Professor Ampalavanapillai S Nirmalathas, Assoc Professor Christina Lim, Profesor Efstratios Skafidas, S. Pelusi, Dr Mark Pelusi, Dr Jochen Schröder, Professor Michael Austin, Dr Thach Nguyen, Dr Lam Bui, $300,000.
Ian Potter Foundation Travel Grant
Dr Sharath Sriram won an Ian Potter Travel Grant ($2400) in 2011 Round 2 to give an invited presentation at the CMOS Emerging Technologies meeting in Vancouver in July 2012.
Platform in the media!!
During the last quarter, the following researchers were called upon to express their expert views on current topics:
Dr Mark Gregory, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Topic: Telstra data problems
- Outlet: The Age, Monday, 7 November
- And 1 other website
- Topic: E-Commerce regulation
- Outlet: The Conversation, Tuesday, 15 November
- Also Technology Spectator
- Topic: The performance of Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy
- Outlet: Business Spectator, Friday, 18 November
- Topic: Computer passwords
- Outlet: ABC 720 Perth, Monday, 21 November
- Topic: Stop Online Piracy Act
- Outlet: The Conversation, Monday, 21 November
- Also Technology Spectator
- Topic: Password security
- Outlet: ABC Sunshine and Cooloola Coasts (Sunshine Coast), Wednesday, 30 November x2
- Topic: Australian international roaming charges
- Outlet: The Conversation, Wednesday, 30 November
- Topic: Involvement of telecommunications companies in early warning system
- Outlet: ABC PM, Friday, 2 December
- Topic: Global roaming charges for mobiles
- Outlet: Brisbane Times, Tuesday, 6 December
- Also ABC 612 Brisbane
- Topic: Commonwealth Bank online glitch
- Outlet: Radio National (Canberra) The World Today, Thursday, 15 December
- Also ABC NewsRadio (Sydney
- Topic: Online Security Plans
- Outlet: Power Retail, Tuesday, 10 January
- Topic: Domain name changes
- Outlet: The Conversation, Thursday, 12 January
Professor Suresh Bhargava, Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor International, College of Science, Engineering and Health
- Topic: Indian-Australian symposium
- Outlet: Campus Daily, Wednesday, 9 November
- Also Asia PR News
- Topic: Research review
- Outlet: Analyst Blog, Wednesday, 23 November
Professor Aleksandar Subic, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
- Topic: Hydrogen fuel cell truck
- Outlet: Transports and Logistics News, Thursday, 10 November
- Also Zee News, Asian Scientist, Knoxville Times, Philippine times, Fuel Cell Works, PhysOrg, Japan Herald, Cambodian Times, MSN News, India Interacts, Arab Herald, Ohio Standard, Webindia123.com, Irish Sun, NewKerala.com, Zimbabwe Star, Sify.com, Hamara Photos, Mangalorean.com, Thaindian, MyNews.In, News.SmasHits.com, Toronto Telegraph
- Topic: Hydrogen truck
- Outlet: New India, Sunday, 13 November
- Also MedIndia, International business Times, Register, Democratic Underground, City Journal IN, MSN India, Net India 123, One Newspage, The Australian, Logistics Business Review, International Freighting Weekly, IFW net, Rail and Road, Earth Techling
- Topic: Links with Czechoslovakian universities
- Outlet: SBS, Monday, 14 November
- Topic: Hydrogen fuel cell truck
- Outlet: The Conversation, Monday, 21 November
- Topic: Hydrogen truck
- Outlet: Sunday Times (Perth), Sunday, 27 November
Professor Milan Brandt, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
- Topic: Additive manufacturing
- Outlet: Campus Daily, Monday, 14 November
- Also The Engineer
Associate Professor John Andrews, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
- Topic: Using hydrogen as a fuel
- Outlet: Baird Maritime, Tuesday, 22 November
- Topic: Hydrogen truck
- Outlet: Sunday Times (Perth), Sunday, 27 November
- Topic: Hydrogen truck
- Outlet: Just-Auto, Tuesday, 6 December
- Topic: Sustainable hydrogen economy
- Outlet: Eureka Alert, Thursday, 8 December
- Also Science Codex, Phys Org.com
- Topic: Building a sustainable hydrogen economy
- Outlet: Web News Wire, Sunday, 11 December
- Also Democratic Underground and Fuel Cell Works, Terra Daily
- Topic: Building a sustainable hydrogen economy
- Outlet: Defense and Aerospace Week, Wednesday, 28 December
- Topic: Building a Sustainable Hydrogen Economy
- Outlet: Environmental News Network, Monday, 16 January
Professor John Mo, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
- Topic: LED lighting technologies research
- Outlet: Facilities Management Magazine, Wednesday, 23 November
- Topic: Masters in System Support
- Outlet: Australian Defence, Thursday, 8 December
Dr Anthony O’Mullane, School of Applied Sciences
- Topic: Research review
- Outlet: Analyst Blog, Wednesday, 23 November
Associate Professor Prem Chhetri, School of Business IT and Logistics
- Topic: Supply Chain symposium
- Outlet: Campus Daily, Wednesday, 23 November
Professor Kathryn Horadam, School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences
- Topic: Infant vaccination research
- Outlet: Asian Scientist, Monday, 12 December
- Also International Business Times
Dr Stephen Davis, School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences
- Topic: Infant vaccination research
- Outlet: Asian Scientist, Monday, 12 December
- Also International Business Times
- Topic: Grant for research funding into child
- Outlet: SciDev, Wednesday, 21 December
- Topic: Building a sustainable hydrogen economy
- Outlet: Defense and Aerospace Week, Wednesday, 28 December
Dr Madhu Bhaskaran, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Topic: Piezoelectrics research(video) , Piezoelectrics research (podcasts)
- Outlet: BBC World Service, Friday, 30 December
- Topic: Piezzoelectrics research
- Outlet: Stories of Australian Science 2011, Monday, 9 January
Professor Dinesh Kumar, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Topic: Conference in Manaus
- Outlet: Globo.com, Wednesday, 11 January
Want to know what PTRI are working on? Here are some project updates:
SportzEdge Program
Education
Exciting news for SportzEdge in December 2012 was that the VCE approved two new programs:
- Bachelor of Applied Science (Exercise and Sports Science), proposed by Assoc Professor Noel Lythgo, and
- Master of Science (International Sports Technology), proposed by Professor F. K. Tino Fuss. The academic case for the programs to start in 2013 is currently in development. This is 4-semester course with double degree option at a European partner university.
Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN)
An Australian Sports Technologies Network is currently established around Geelong and Melbourne with participation of national and Australia-based international sports equipment companies and SMEs, Universities and venture capital companies. Its purpose will be to foster development of sports technologies businesses, commercialisation of new Australian sports technologies and being an Australian knowledge network for sports technologies. RMIT (via the Sportz Edge program) is one of the foundation members of ASTN.
Research
At the beginning of November 2011, the Australian Ski Cross team attended another testing and training session (after October 2010) at the SAMME large industrial wind tunnel at Bundoora East. The athletes participated in an aerodynamics training programme with a newly developed biofeedback system, allowing the athletes to hear their own drag force and optimising their racing positions. The system was designed and developed by Robert Morrison (final year project student, mechanical engineering), Robert Smith (master student, mechanical engineering) and Professor F. K. Tino Fuss. The athletes also tested their new jerseys which were tailored from that fabric which performed best in wind tunnel tests, conducted by Professor F. K. Tino Fuss. The research results attracted a lot of interest from the Australian Wool Innovation. The tests resulted in the discovery of a hitherto unknown aerodynamic phenomenon and fundamental research in this topic.
At the end of November 2011, Richard Colman, multiple paralympian medallist, visited the SAMME Sports Engineering lab at Bundoora East for preliminary performance testing and for exploring possibilities of improving performance.
Other presentations
In mid-November 2011, Prof F. K. Tino Fuss was invited to give a presentation to the VC during the professoriate luncheon on Smart Sports Equipment and the Future of Sports.
Outreach
SportzEdge is listed in the Winning Edge directory of the Australian International Sporting Events Secretariat AISES (http://www.aises.gov.au/en/publications/directories?task=item&id=367). The directory is a compendium of experienced Australian companies working in the international sporting and related events industry and is designed to target games and event organisers, host and bidding cities and governments. The directory is considered to be translated to Portuguese in the prospect of the Rio Olympic Games.
Student feature….focus on….
Platform Technologies News recently talked to Yan Yan, PhD student within the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
PhD Student Yan Yan
Name: Yan Yan
Primary supervisor: Professor Xinghuo Yu
Co-Supervisor: Shuanghe Yu, Dalian Maritime University, China
Scolarship: Chinese Government
Tell us about your project, title and an outline of your research:
My project focuses on sliding-mode control, and nonlinear control and is titled Discretization and quantization of sliding-mode control systems. It is basically studying the dynamical properties and characteristic of discrete or continuous quantized sliding-mode control systems.
Tell us about your educational background
I received the Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Dalian Maritime University, China, in 2007 and 2009, respectively. Now I am an international exchange PhD student at RMIT.
What made you choose RMIT as a place to study?
When considering options for an international exchange PhD student place, it was actually my co- supervisor in China - Professor Shuanghe Yu who recommended RMIT to me.
Tell us about any career plans you may have?
My career plans include a position as a Research Fellow or lecturer in a University, or work in the Research & Development department of a large organisation.
What are the top three things you like/dislike about living in Melbourne?
What I like about living in Melbourne is the birds and the nature are wonderful; the friendly people; and the feeling of freedom.
The only thing I really dislike is the high cost of living compared to China.
The best advice you have ever received would be?
The best advice I have ever received would be to try to apply the chance that study in overseas.
Your advice to any student entering your field of study would be…..?
I would like to advise students to have a clear aim for your PhD and formulate both short-term and long-term study plans. And when you have problems with study, talk with your supervisors and colleagues.
Staff feature….focus on….
Platform Technologies News recently talked to Dr Anthony O’Mullane, ARC Future Fellow in the School of Applied Sciences.
ARC Future Fellow Dr Anthony O’Mullane
Dr Anthony O’Mullane
ARC Future Fellow, School of Applied Sciences
City Campus, 03.02.22
How long have you been with RMIT?
I have been at RMIT for three and half years.
What is your current position at RMIT?
I am currently an ARC Future Fellow working in the School of Applied Sciences.
Tell us a bit about your research and what attracted you to this field?
My main area of interest is electrochemistry with an emphasis on the electrochemical fabrication of nanostructured materials with applications in areas such as electrocatalytic processes relevant to fuel cells and electrochemical sensing. I am also interested in the fabrication of organic semiconductors and their use as photocatalysts and heterogeneous catalysts and Li battery technology. The main reason I was attracted to this field is that it is an extremely versatile science and allows for both the study of fundamental processes such as electron transfer using interesting experimental approaches as well as being highly relevant to applications in the energy, sensing and biological areas.
Have you ever considered embarking on a different direction – if yes, which direction and if no, why not?
I briefly considered heterogeneous catalysis but was persuaded by my future PhD supervisor to tackle electrochemistry. As I mentioned the versatility of the discipline allows you to experiment in many areas and so I haven’t considered too greatly going in a different direction. However, if age and talent were not an issue the life of a professional sportsperson would be great!
What is important to you in your work?
The most important thing for me is to maintain creativity and avoid as much as possible mundane research – to continually be excited by new observations and discoveries and to enjoy the research question at hand. The collegial aspect of academia and working collaboratively on tough research problems is also highly satisfying and necessary to generate significant outcomes.
What is your favourite place in the world and why?
I definitely believe that people make places and anywhere with my family is my place to be. I have to mention my little girl Meesha here who cracks me up with her antics.
What is the best piece of advice you have received?
It is probably that good ideas are rarely generated from a stressed mind. The ability to be relaxed and not rush your research allows you to be far more creative as well as thorough.
What is something about yourself that most of your colleagues wouldn’t know?
I have run a few marathons and also that I am a huge Pearl Jam fan.
Publications
The following is only a small representation of the achievements of members of PTRI in terms of journal articles, conference papers, book chapters and citations. Congratulations to all of you, in particular the following researchers who submitted their achievements for publication in PlatformTechnologies News.
Book chapter
Slatter P. T., and Gupta R. K., (2011); “Australasia; Wastewater sludge: a global overview of the current status and future prospects”, 2nd Edition, Ed. Spinosa L, IWA Publishing UK, ISBN 13 9781843393887, pp 87-92 .
Journal and magazine articles
Balendhran S., Ou J., Bhaskaran M., Sriram S., Ippolito S., Vasic Z., Kats E., Bhargava S., Zhuiykov S., and Kalantar-zadeh K., (2012), “Atomically thin layers of MoS2 via a two step thermal evaporation–exfoliation method”, Nanoscale 4 461-466, [Impact Factor: 4.1].
Bhaskaran M., Sriram S., Rodriguez B.J., Devendra G.C., Latham K., McCulloch D.G. and Mitchell A., (2012), “Lattice guiding for sputter deposition of single domain (Sr0.6Ba0.4)Nb2O6 ferroelectric thin films”, CrystEngComm 14 359 [Impact Factor: 4.1].
He X., and Deng H., (2011), “An area-based approach to ranking fuzzy numbers in fuzzy decision making”, Journal of Computational Information Systems 7 (9): 3333-3342.
Karunasena K. and Deng H., (2012), “Critical factors for evaluating the public value government in Sri Lanka”, Government Information Quarterly 29: 76-84.
Karunasena K. and Deng H., (2011), “Structural equation modelling for evaluating the public value of service delivery through e government: a case study from Sri Lanka”, Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences 6987: 216–225.
Le T., O’Mullane A., Martin L., and Bond A., (2011), “A new method for electrocrystallization of AgTCNQF4 and Ag2TCNQF4 (TCNQF4 = 2,3,5,6-tetrafluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane) in acetonitrile”, J. Solid State Electrochem, 15, 2293.
Najdovski I., Selvakannan P., O’Mullane A., Bhargava S., (2011), “Rapid synthesis of porous honeycomb Cu/Pd through a hydrogen bubble templating method”, Chem. Eur. J, 17, 10058.
Plowman B., Bhargava S., and O’Mullane A., (2011), “Electrochemical fabrication of metallic nanostructured electrodes for electroanalytical applications”, Analyst, 136, 5107 (cover page).
Shiddiky M., O'Mullane A, Zhang J., Burke L., and Bond A., (2011), Large amplitude fourier transformed ac voltammetric investigation of the active state electrochemistry of a copper/aqueous base interface and implications for electrocatalysis”, Langmuir, 27, 10302.
Tan C., Deng H. and Liu J., (2011), “Multicriteria group decision making in a linguistic environment”, Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences 7002:508-516.
Wibowo S., and Deng H., (2012), “A fuzzy multicriteria group decision making approach for hotel location evaluation and selection”, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 107: 1599-1608.
Feature article published in IEEE Spectrum, (December 2011), Kalantar-Zadeh K., Strano M., “Nanodynamite”, http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/nanotechnology/nanodynamite, Stories of Australian Science 2011.
Research by Dr Madhu Bhaskaran on piezoelectric energy harvesting was featured in the 2011 edition of the Stories of Australian Science.
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