UNSW@ADFA Weekly News - Research Office Report

RESEARCH & RESEARCH TRAINING OFFICE REPORT

Travel Scholarships awarded for 2007

The Business Services Travel Scholarships were established in 2004 to enable full-time postgraduate research students to travel overseas to conduct activities relevant to the completion of their research. Competition for funding in 2007 was intense, and Prof Ian Petersen (Associate Dean (Research)) congratulates the following successful applicants:

Vinh Bui of ITEE will travel to Italy to undertake some collaborative research at the University of Napoli, aimed at verifying his approach to enhancing Quality of Service on real-time overlay networks. He will go on to attend the IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications at Aviero in Portugal.

Chris Roberts of HASS will travel to Singapore in order to take up a visiting fellowship at the prestigious Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. While based in Singapore, he will also visit Laos to complete his surveys in ASEAN countries on questions relating to peace and stability.

Kamaljit Singh (ACME) will present a paper on Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (NAPL)at the 23rd Annual International Conference on Soils, Sediments and Water, in Massachusetts, U.S.A. He will also visit the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, which has the world’s best laboratory for x-ray tomography.

Hongsen Zhang’s supervisor, Dr Robert Niven has taken up a Marie Curie Incoming International Fellowship at Copenhagen University. Hongsen (also ACME) will voyage to Denmark in order to work with Dr Niven and other top researchers at the Neils Bohr Institute, in the fields of fundamental physics and complex systems theory.

Early Career Researcher Grants

Applications for funding under the Early Career Researcher (ECR) scheme were assessed by the Faculty Research Grants Committee (FRGC). The Rector, Professor John Baird, and the Acting Associate Dean (Research), Professor Ian Petersen, would like to congratulate the early career researchers from UNSW@ADFA who were successful in obtaining funding under this new scheme.

The following projects totalling $87,224 were approved for funding to commence in 2007:

Dr Gregory Milford, High Frequency Equivalent Circuit Network Synthesis, $21,000.

Dr Sean O’Byrne, Laser-induced combustion enhancement,$19,224.

Dr Robert Stocker, Strategy, perception and emergent instability in large dynamic social network simulations, $20,000.

Dr Ingrid Takken, The impact of flow interception at road cut-slopes on catchment hydrology and water quality, $27,000.

Summer Scholarship students

Last year saw the implementation of the inaugural Rector-funded Summer Scholarships Scheme. This program provides an opportunity for students to interact with active researchers in order to gain research skills, learn how to present research results and test their abilities in a particular area of research. Students joining us at UNSW@ADFA during this summer will be:

Finnian Rachel Lattimore from the ANU, who will be working in the field of physical oceanography under the supervision of Dr Andrew Kiss and Dr Robin Robertson in the School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences (PEMS); and

Cara Elise Toscan of the University of Western Sydney, who will be supervised by A/Prof Grant Collins, also of PEMS, in the field of biological chemistry.

We hope that their summer proves both productive and instructive!

Congratulations to Dr Bob Hall from HASS

Professor Ian Petersen, A/g Associate Dean (Research) sends his congratulations to Dr Bob Hall from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) on his recent success in being awarded two substantial DSTO Grants. Bob won a prestigious Australian Research Council QE11 Fellowship last year for his work on understanding low-intensity conflict. Together with his collaborator Dr Andrew Ross who is a Visiting Fellow in HASS, Bob has made quite an impression with the sheer amount of work he has undertaken. Bob’s most recent grants are :

Historical Soldier Load Carrying Study: $34,950.
The load carried by the infantryman in battle has always been heavy, but now new, high technology devices are being added to his load in an effort to improve his lethality on the battlefield. DSTO is interested in determining how the soldier's lethality can be improved within a manageable weight. This study aims to assist DSTO by looking at the infantryman's load and lethality in the Vietnam War and Confrontation. It will draw on historical data held by the Australian War Memorial and our own database of Vietnam and Confrontation contacts to identify the factors contributing to the soldier's load and lethality in Low Intensity Conflict.

Combat Effectiveness of the Combined Arms Team in Urban Terrain: $27,500.
On 6-8 June 1969 soldiers of the 1st Australian Task Force fought a pitched battle with elements of the enemy's 33 NVA Regiment in the village of Binh Ba in Vietnam, inflicting over 100 casualties on the enemy for a loss to themselves of only one killed and several wounded. The battle demonstrated the effectiveness of the combined arms team (i.e., infantry, armour, artillery and air power) in urban terrain. This study will analyse the battle in detail assessing the contributions of a variety of factors such as protected mobility, command, control and communications, firepower and other factors, in the success of the operation. The study will also use secondary sources to analyse the performance of US Army and Marine Corps operations in Fallujah in 2004.

A First for UNSW@ADFA: Scientia Professorship

In its determination to be a truly world class university, UNSW must provide special support and particular recognition of research performance. With this in mind, in December 1997 the University Council approved a proposal by the Vice-Chancellor to establish a special category of Professor to recognise outstanding research performance. Such persons are known as Scientia Professors, the term "Scientia" being drawn from the University's arms and reflecting the University's commitment to the promotion of all branches of intellectual and practical scholarship.

The award of a Scientia Professorship is on recognition not only of past research eminence but also having regard to ongoing research and/or outstanding research stature. Scientia professorships are awarded for a period of six years. Criteria for the award centres on significant international recognition of prominence in research. Specific indicators include:
• An impressive portfolio of major publications with international publishers and world class journals;
• Internationally recognised prizes, awards, patents, honours, membership of one of the four learned academies or comparable organisations etc;
• Citation by a broad cross-section of peers internationally;
• Reports of eight referees, external to UNSW and all of international standing; and
• Evaluation of future research potential and benefits to the University's research profile.

Professor John Baird (Rector) is delighted to announce that Professor Ian Petersen, A/g Associate Dean (Research), has recently been awarded a prestigious Scientia Professorship. Ian, from the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, has long been known as an eminent researcher. Ian received a PhD in Electrical Engineering in 1984 from the University of Rochester. From 1983 to 1985 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National University. In 1985 he joined the School of Electrical Engineering, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy and he is a Full Professor who currently holds an Australian Research Council Australian Professorial Fellowship.

Ian served as the Executive Director for Mathematics, Information and Communication for the Australian Research Council from 2002-2004 and was Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) for the University of New South Wales in 2004. He has served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control and Systems and Control Letters. Currently he is an Editor for Automatica and an Associate Editor for SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization. His research interests are in robust control theory and its applications, robust filtering and state estimation, nonlinear control, optimal control, and quantum control.

We would like to wish everyone a safe and happy festive season. And because we’re known as being a tad ‘quirky’ over here in the RRTO, we leave you with one of the most memorable wishes we’ve ever heard.