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 397 matching student topics
Displaying 85–96 of 397 results
Virus Search Algorithms
Meta-heuristics are powerful search algorithms for solving intractable optimization problems. There are many population based approaches, like genetic algorithms, evolutionary algorithms, particle swarm, etc. but most of these have a static population size.Viruses arise and attack populations periodically. They typically appear when populations become abundant. Viruses infect population members, and often reduce the number of individuals. Viruses create spaces for more individuals and balance competition.The concept of viruses may be mimicked and could be a useful optimization paradigm.
- Study level
- Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Network Flow Improvement
Network flow is impeded by the arcs present in the network and their associated length/weighting. Arcs can be added or removed to debottleneck the network. But which ones? At what cost?
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Scalable Bayesian Inference using Multilevel Monte Carlo
Bayesian inference is a popular statistical framework for estimating the parameters of statistical models based on data. However, Bayesian methods are well known to be computationally intensive. This fact inhibits the scalability of Bayesian analysis for real-world applications involving complex stochastic models. Such models are common in the fields of biology and ecology.Multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) methods are a promising class of techniques for dealing with the scalability challenge. These approaches use hierarchies of approximations to optimise the trade-off between …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Capture and reuse of phosphate nutrients
Nutrients such as ammonium and phosphate species are essential in agriculture. However, release of excessive amounts of nutrients to waterways may result in eutrophication which can lead to toxic algae blooms, killing of fish and destruction of the environment.Compounding this issue is the fact that phosphate rock sources are gradually being exhausted. Hence, finding a means to capture and reuse phosphate species from sources such as wastewater treatment plants is potentially attractive.Consequently, this project involves the development of new phosphate …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Making the most of many models
In the age of Big Data, machine learning methods, and modern statistics the adage "all models are wrong but some are useful" has never been so true. This project will investigate data science approaches where more than one model makes sense for the data. Is it better to choose a single model or is there something to be gained from multiple models?This project will look at variable selection methods, penalised regression, Bayesian model averaging and conformal prediction. The research has …
- Study level
- Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Structural assessment of 100+ years old masonry arch bridges
Masonry is an ancient and versatile material. It has been used since the beginning of civilisation for making civil structures. The Australian railway track network has many 100+ years old masonry arch bridges which are still in service.However, their structural assessment for increased train loads is essential. This project will use the digital image correlation (DIC) technique to evaluate the level of deflections and stains at the key locations of the masonry bridge arch.The aim of this project is to …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Predicting how fast the next Olympic medalists will swim
A 3-year strategic partnership on sports data science between the Centre for Data Science (CDS), the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and the Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) is currently under way. With a drive towards data informed decision making across the high performance sports network nationally, a number of collaborative, interdisciplinary research and scholarship opportunities ranging from VRES, to honours, masters and PhD have developed.
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Effect of VR construction tours on potential engineering and construction management students
Selecting a study topic and career path highly depends on perception of the profession among high school students and their parents. A lack of good understanding of career options and pathways often limits the choice. QUT has developed a VR based introduction to Construction and has performed surveys on high school students to investigate its impact. This project looks to analyse these surveys and to come up with future efforts to ensure that high school students can make a better …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Sampling to optimise training data
Training data is needed for fitting supervised machine learning models but may not always be plentiful, especially when labelling needs to be performed manually. In such a situation we may wish to target the new sample cases to be labelled to improve model performance for the least additional resource.In this project we’ll look at how active learning techniques - techniques which make use of the model outcomes – can be used to effectively determine a sampling strategy.
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Assessing the quality of training
Understanding the impact that training data quality has on model generation is important for industry’s looking to engage in responsible data science.In this project we’ll look at the use of instance space analysis for assessing the quality of training data and algorithm performance.
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
SECAN - Semi-continuum method software improvement and comparison with other bridge deck analyses
There exist a number of methods for bridge deck analysis, e.g. grillage analysis, finite element analysis.SECAN is a software based on Semi-continuum method for bridge deck analysis. Its latest version is developed using MicrosoftVisual Studio.This project aims to improve the software for comparison with other bridge deck analyses.
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Keeping carbon – ensuring soil carbon gains through improved grazing management persist through drought in Australia's tropical and semi-arid grasslands
Drought is the biggest barrier to sequestering soil organic carbon (SOC) in soils over the long-term. While options are limited during dry periods, how we manage our pastures prior to drought can influence the resilience of SOC to losses and enhance recovery.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
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