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 11 matching student topics
Displaying 1–11 of 11 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
Simulating fluids using smoothed-particle hydrodynamics
Smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a computational method used for simulating the mechanics of continuum media, such as solid mechanics and fluid flows. PIXAR has used the method to make their movies such as Finding Nemo and Finding Dory more realistic looking when it comes to flowing water. However, it is not widely used in urban hydraulics and this project aims to change this.
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Spatial statistics for microchemical maps of rocks
Synchrotron X-ray Fluorescence Microscopy (XFM) provides exceptionally detailed, large multi-element microchemical maps of thin rock specimens. Together with conventional optical and electron-beam imaging methods, XFM maps permit novel insights into coupled mass transfer processes at the grain scale controlling important Earth processes such as earthquake formation, volcanism, reactive fluid flow, and CO2-sequestration.However, to this date, most scientific work using XFM is mostly qualitative and does not make full use of the statistical information that can be obtained from the data. …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Modelling and managing uncertain Antarctic species networks
Antarctic ecosystems are complex, and data is limited since it is expensive to collect. Species including penguins, seabirds, invertebrates, mosses, and marine species interact in food webs which can be modelled as mathematical networks. These networks can be large, span across terrestrial and marine systems, and are changing in response to environmental changes.These ecological networks can be modelled using differential equation predator prey models like Lotka-Volterra to describe these interactions. However, the relationships between species are not always known, or …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Centre for the Environment
Designing interactive art experiences that engage people with the issues around aged care
BackgroundThis PhD, concerned with the creation of interactive art works and funded through an ARC/QUT scholarship, is part of a larger ongoing project: ARC Discovery DP210100589 "Amplifying the Impact of the Royal Commission into Aged Care" (CI's Miller, Holland-Blatt, Thompson Seevinck, Gott.)About the Discovery project (the PhD study context)"The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is a singular opportunity to reform Australian aged care and redress the marginalisation of aged care residents—a vulnerable demographic whose voices too often …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice
- School
- School of Design
- Research centre(s)
-
Design Lab
Computational models for fractional dynamical system for Vacation Research Experience Scheme (VRES)
In recent years, fractional models have attracted considerable interest because of their ability to model many phenomena. This proposal aims to study novel numerical methods of fractional partial differential equations and application.
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Programming polymers
Radical polymerisations play a key role in both commercial and fundamental research (45% of all world polymer production, 100 million tons per year). However, radical polymerisations still suffer from synthetic drawbacks like all-carbon polymer backbones, which largely prevent their (bio)degradability. We will develop a polymerisation technique that allows to incorporate function into polymers - from degradability to catalytic activity.
- Study level
- Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Where’s the confusion? And can we make sense of it?
Confusion matrices characterise the performance of classification systems on training and test data, but they can be hard to make sense of, especially when there are many possible classes to which an example could be assigned.We have developed confusR a method to visualise confusion matrices and make distinct the contribution of the classifier and the contribution of the prior abundance of different classes. We have also recently developed approaches for visualising uncertainty in confusion matrices and the performance metrics derived …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Computer Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Interactive (and collaborative) robot programming using language (Project 2.5 - Joint CSIRO/ACC)
Programming robots to carry out desired tasks is difficult and time-consuming. This PhD project focuses on collaborative and instructional dialogue agents to help human operators program robot tasks.In this collaborative scenario, a human operator converses with an AI agent to explain the steps that are to be performed, using high-level references and abstractions that make sense to the human, as opposed to simple verbal instructions corresponding to rudimentary robot movements. The AI agent must interpret the high-level instructions and translate …
- Study level
- PhD
- School
- School of Design
- Research centre(s)
-
Design Lab
Linear programming for network capacity analysis
Road, rail and multi-modal transport networks consist of capital-intensive infrastructure with high operating costs due to ongoing maintenance. Whether it be passengers or freight, the efficiency of these transport networks is crucial for maximising the economic benefits and offsetting the substantial costs.It is therefore important to understand the carrying capacity of a transport network as a whole, rather than taking a local focus on individual segments. These networks can be modelled in a number of ways, but linear programming (LP) …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Scheduling of vessel movements in channel constrained ports
International trade is heavily reliant on maritime transportation which constitutes 80% of total volume. Ports have a significant impact on the efficiency of maritime transportation, with significant delays to vessels observed in accessing or departing ports. These delays can be a result of constraints on wharf capacity, channel capacity, access to tugs and pilots, or a combination of these factors. This project will focus on the development of novel operations research techniques to optimise the efficiency of scheduling vessel movements …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
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