QUT offers a diverse range of student topics for Honours, Masters and PhD study. Search to find a topic that interests you or propose your own research topic to a prospective QUT supervisor. You may also ask a prospective supervisor to help you identify or refine a research topic.
Found 13 matching student topics
Displaying 1–12 of 13 results
Mathematical and statistical methods for change point detection in precision fermentation
Precision fermentation uses microorganisms such as yeast to produce valuable biological products for food, biotechnology and synthetic biology. A major challenge is that microbial growth and production can change when cells switch between different metabolic regimes. These changes may occur because of nutrient depletion, stress responses, dilution conditions, or shifts in how cells allocate resources between growth and product formation.This PhD project will develop new mathematical and statistical methods for detecting these metabolic change points from experimental data. The project …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Detecting metabolic regime switching using dilution-resolved growth data: mathematical modelling, statistical inference and uncertainty quantification
Microbial populations rarely grow according to a single fixed physiological program. As nutrients are consumed, waste products accumulate and environmental stress changes, cells can transition between distinct metabolic regimes associated with growth, maintenance, fermentation, respiration and survival. These transitions are biologically important and industrially relevant, but they are often difficult to detect directly from standard growth curve summaries such as maximum growth rate, lag time, carrying capacity or area under the curve.This project will develop new mathematical and statistical methods …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Social dilemmas among unequals
Inequality is often seen as a factor that negatively affects economic and social components of our everyday life. There are many ways how the inequality can be addressed. However, one thing we seem to understand now is that it is nearly impossible to prevent inequality from occurring in the first place.This project, one of a few, seeks to understand if and how can we incentivise pro-social behaviours in groups of unequals. Instead of un-doing inequality, we seek to find ways …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Making predictions using simulation-based stochastic mathematical models
Stochastic simulation-based models are very attractive to study population-biology, disease transmission, development and disease. These models naturally incorporate randomness in a way that is consistent with experimental measurements that describe natural phenomena.Standard statistical techniques are not directly compatible with data produced by simulation-based stochastic models since the model likelihood function is unavailable. Progress can be made, however, by introducing an auxiliary likelihood function can be formulated, and this auxiliary likelihood function can be used for identifiability analysis, parameter estimation and …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Capturing the impact of patient variability in a novel cancer treatment
In 2015, the Food and Drug Association (FDA) approved a lab-engineered virus for the treatment of melanoma (skin cancer). Since then, there has been a significant increase in the number of lab-grown viruses that are being tested in clinical trials as potential treatments of cancer. Unfortunately, it seems that a large number of patients in these clinical trials fail under this treatment and currently there is no way to distinguish between responders and non-responders to treatment.Fortunately, we can use mathematics …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Playing Tetris with Australian threatened species
Many of Australia's threatened species can only avoid extinction if we keep them on islands or behind fences, where foxes and cats can't kill them all. We call these places "safe havens".Some species can only exist in some safe havens. Maybe they need particular habitats, or particular temperatures, and these can't be found everywhere.Some pairs of species can't live together. Maybe one is a predator of another. Maybe they fight too much.So, we need to find a way to put …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for the Environment
Understanding international governance in Antarctica through cooperative game theory
Antarctica is governed by a coalition of 29 countries ('consultative parties') who must agree unanimously before a law can be passed. This project will apply theories from social network analysis and cooperative game theory to map relationships between the different parties, and to predict their behaviour on a series of important environmental issues.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for the Environment
Using catastrophe theory to prepare for global warming in Antarctica
According to dynamical systems theory, crises occur because couplings within a system (geophysical, ecological and social) create instabilities. Nonlinear feedbacks means that relatively small changes in circumstances can cause a rapid change to the system state. For example, a small increase in tourism visitors could lead to the invasion of a new species. Or, a gradual change in the average global temperature could lead to the collapse of Antarctic ice-shelves.In the coming decade, the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic are likely to …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for the Environment
Mathematical modelling of ecosystem feedbacks and value-of-information theory
Ecosystems respond to gradual change in unexpected ways. Feedback processes between different parts of an environment can perpetuate ecosystem collapse, leading to potentially irreversible biodiversity loss. However, it is unclear if greater knowledge of feedbacks will ultimately change environmental decisions.The project aims to identify when feedbacks matter for environmental decisions, by generating new methods that predict the economic benefit of knowing more about feedbacks. Combining ecological modelling and value-of-information theory, the outcomes of these novel methods will provide significant and …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Centre for the Environment
Conservation is a noisy business: modelling the effects of stochasticity on wildlife management decisions
To conserve species in disturbed natural environments, we need to use mathematical models to predict the consequences of different interventions. Unfortunately, these models are based on partial information of complex systems, and the systems themselves are subject to substantial observational and process noise.We often use ordinary differential equations to describe ecosystems, like the classic logistic growth model:dn/dt = r n (1 - n / k)However, these models are deterministic, and they assume we know the values of the key parameters …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Centre for the Environment
Predicting alternative states induced by multiple interacting feedbacks: seagrass ecosystems as a case study
This project seeks to explore the complex dynamics that might arise from multiple interacting feedbacks in marine ecosystems, by designing ordinary and/or partial differential equation models of these feedbacks and analysing the steady states and/or temporal dynamics of the proposed model(s).It has been hypothesised that many social and ecological systems exhibit alternative stable states due to feedback processes that keep the ecosystem in one state or the other. The result can be tipping points, which are difficult to predict but …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Centre for the Environment
Advanced numerical modelling to study fluid flow and heat transfer of ground-mounted photovoltaic panels for the power generation industry
The increase in global energy demand necessitates further advancement in photovoltaic (PV) systems. Advancements in PVs could potentially play a role to help meet the Paris Agreement of limiting global temperature increase to below 2°C.The performance of ground-mounted PV panels commonly found in solar farms depends on a myriad of factors such as tilt angle, microclimate i.e. wind loads, shading, solar irradiance, and dust deposition. This project aims to develop an advanced numerical model, namely computational fluid dynamics (CFD), backed …
- Study level
- PhD, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
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