Using extracts from one of Australia’s most invasive weeds to help prevent toxic waste material from escaping end of life mines and investigating the use of AI in the financial services sector are two of the research projects to benefit from Australian Research Council (ARC) grants announced recently.
Six University of South Australia research teams were awarded more than $3.5 million in research grants from the ARC’s Discovery Projects scheme which aims to support projects that provide economic, commercial, environmental, social and/or cultural benefits to the community.
The successful Discovery projects are:
Associate Professor Erik Champion, UniSA Creative ($520,686): Gamified collaborative exhibitions for an immersive 3D heritage repository.
Few research infrastructures support engaging and useful 3D heritage content for both archaeology and architecture. A user-focused, experiential immersive environment with AI content creation will be developed and evaluated. Audience and international expert feedback will create a flexible feature list. Workshops with museums and galleries will test the prototype’s usefulness for communication and preservation. The system will allow groups to explore 3D models in conjectural and imaginative contexts and pose counterfactual arguments. The project will also consider how to convey levels of authenticity and uncertainty. Outputs will be a website with open-source tools and data, publications, a conference and a demonstration as an exhibition.
Professor Anthony Elliott AM, UniSA Justice and Society, $724,942: Enacting ChatGPT in Fintech: Identities, institutions, iterations.
The project investigates practices of user engagement with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in organisational and workplace contexts and will propose solutions to counter growing social and political concerns about human-machine interaction. The research aims to advance understandings about the formation of GenAI knowledge communities in the financial services sector, and how these communities of practice are reshaping the social and cultural consequences of emergent technologies. Expected outcomes include benchmark publications, enhanced international research capacity and an improved ability to address socio-technological problems in an area of vital importance to Australian society.
Associate Professor Philip Gregory, Centre for Cancer Biology ($750,292): Illuminating the functions of alternative splicing.
Almost all human genes produce several species of messenger RNA by a process called alternative splicing. These alternative RNAs make different proteins (isoforms) that are presumed to have different functions within a cell. However, the functions of most of these protein isoforms remain a mystery. This project aims to capitalise on advances in gene editing technology to determine the functional consequences of alternative splicing. It’s expected to reveal functions of protein isoforms that are essential for cell growth, movement, and cell state transitions. This technology is anticipated to facilitate better understanding of human development, future treatments, and improvements in agricultural applications.
Professor Sharad Kumar, Centre for Cancer Biology, ($733,179): A new mechanism regulating cell death.
Cell death in multicellular organisms is vital for disposing of damaged and unwanted cells to maintain homeostasis. The project aims to understand how specific protein modification via the process of ubiquitination regulates Gasdermins, the executioners of pyroptosis, a distinct type of cell death. State-of-the-art molecular and cellular approaches will be used to discover mechanisms that control Gasdermins to manage cell death response. Given the essential nature of cell death the outcomes will generate high value conceptual knowledge in a topical field of broad biological significance. This is expected to enhance Australia’s research reputation and capability, foster international collaborations and provide training for PhD students.
Professor Md Mizanur Rahman, UniSA STEM, ($401,500): Stabilising tailings dam capping with plant-based enzymes.
This project will extract cheaper plant-based urease enzymes from an Australian weed, Paddy melon seeds, and develop their kinetics framework for calcium carbonate precipitation for binding and stabilising tailings, by-products of the mining operation. It significantly reduces the cost of cementation and will be a sustainable alternative to cement and other chemical additives with a very high carbon footprint. This novel approach will stabilise tailings storage facilities (TSFs) surface/capping upon ceasing mining operations. A constitutive and user-defined model for numerical software will be developed to ensure faster and greener technology transfer in mining closer activities, which currently is the largest industry for the national GDP.
Professor Yan Zhuge, UniSA STEM, ($402,221): 3D printed strain-graded green concrete with co-extruded FRP reinforcement.
3D concrete printing (3DCP) offers many advantages over traditional construction methods, but its practical application is hindered by the reinforcement implementation. This project aims to develop a novel co-extrusion technique for 3DCP, integrating flexural fibre-reinforced polymer grid reinforcement. It also seeks to leverage alkali-activated slag binder as a sustainable alternative to Portland cement, with significantly lower CO2 emissions and excellent early age strength required for high-quality 3DCP. Expected outcomes include innovative techniques for reinforced 3DCP and optimized models for strain-graded concrete. The findings will shape the next generation of digital construction for safety, durability and sustainability.
