2017 S 1 Sample Projectsin CISv 1

Department of Computing
and Information Systems
Sample research projects in 2017

for students in: MIS, MIT, MSc (CS), MIT-Health
Updated: semester 1, 2017, v1

Finding research projects in 2017
This document is aimed at helping students to find supervisors and projects by listing sample
research projects offered by various staff members.
However, this list is not definitive and you will also find it useful to search the CIS research
group pages
http://cis.unimelb.edu.au/research/
This list is a guide and shows the kinds of projects different staff members might supervise, and
is a useful starting point in the search for an appropriate project. Students are strongly
encouraged to speak to staff about a project as early in their studies as possible.
Important: For official web-pages where you can find contact details and other information
about potential supervisors see http://cis.unimelb.edu.au/people.
Table of Contents
Topics 1-76 are most relevant for students who want to do a Computer Science
related project. Topics 79-144 are most relevant for students who want to do a
project in Information Systems or Human Computer Interaction.
1. Project title: Social IoT Platform ........................................................................................................... 8

2. Exploiting the User in High-Security Systems ...................................................................................... 8
3. Understanding how Compiler Optimisations Affect Timing Leaks ...................................................... 8
4. Topic: Extending a Formal Theory of Concurrent Information Flow Security .................................... 9
5. Mobile Phone App Development .......................................................................................................... 9
6. Big Data Analytics................................................................................................................................. 9
7. Graphical user interface (GUI) for a surgical simulator ...................................................................... 10
8. Automated summative assessment of surgical performance in a VR simulator ................................. 10
9. Ear surgery simulation with Oculus Rift and Leap Motion ................................................................. 10
10. Simulation of bone drilling dust and suction for virtual ear surgery................................................. 11
11. Simulation of bleeding and irrigation for virtual ear surgery ............................................................ 11
12. Physics-based haptic bone drilling simulation ...................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
13. Automated modelling of elements of educational videos ................................................................. 11
14. Visualising learning analytics for curriculum review ....................................................................... 12
15. Political Text Analytics ..................................................................................................................... 12
16. Modelling informal settlements using complex adaptive systems .................................................... 12
17. Co-evolution of Cooperation ............................................................................................................. 13
18. Twitter Sampling Strategies .............................................................................................................. 13
19. Finite state entropy coders ................................................................................................................. 14
20. Deduplication in file systems ............................................................................................................ 14
21. Designing and engineering algorithms for effective resource allocation .......................................... 14
22. Data structures for multi-core processors .......................................................................................... 15
23. Election Robustness .......................................................................................................................... 15
24. Electronic Voting for Australia ......................................................................................................... 15
25. Auditing Senate Counting Code ........................................................................................................ 16
26. Complete lattices for reasoning about program correctness ............................................................. 16
27. Web Information Extraction and Mining .......................................................................................... 17
28. A Facility Location Problem on Road Networks .............................................................................. 17
29. Mining Trends in Sequence Data ...................................................................................................... 17
30. Developing a pore network construction algorithm for Computerised Tomography images of
geomaterials ................................................................................................................................................ 18
31. Passwordless Websites ...................................................................................................................... 19
32. Exploiting Instruction-Based Scheduling .......................................................................................... 19
33. Semantic Concepts in AI and Boolean Function Classes.................................................................. 20
34. Bit-Precise Program Analysis ........................................................................................................... 20
35. Sharing and Groundness Dependencies in Logic Programs ............................................................. 21
36. Parallelizing Lazy Clause Generation ............................................................................................... 21
37. Lazy lex with explanations ................................................................................................................ 22
38. Computational Methods for Identifying Genetic Contamination...................................................... 22
39. Implementations of elliptic curve cryptosystems over prime and prime power fields. .................... 23
40. Accurate Measurement of Computational Methods .......................................................................... 23
41. Watermarking Technique using pseudorandom arrays. .................................................................... 23
42. Person Controlled Encryption Prototype for Electronic Health Records .......................................... 24
43. Implementation of Identity Based Signcryption scheme- A primitive for one pass key exchange
protocol. ...................................................................................................................................................... 24
44. Highly Concurrent Stream Processing for Big Data Analytics ......................................................... 24
45. Big data analytics for pedestrian monitoring .................................................................................... 25
46. Agent-based foraging models ............................................................................................................ 25
47. Pattern search via Inverted Indexing ................................................................................................. 26
48. Methods for efficient N-gram counting: State of the art and Beyond ...................................... 26
49. In-processing for Lazy clause generation. ......................................................................................... 26
50. Graph analysis for identification of genetic anomalies ..................................................................... 27
51. Getting the best of declarative and imperative programming ........................................................... 27
52. .People-oriented modelling to design and implement smart fall detection technologies .................. 28
53. Robot Software development projects .............................................................................................. 28
54. String Solving with MiniZinc............................................................................................................ 28
55. Model analysis and transformation for MiniZinc: ............................................................................ 29
56. Automated planning in human-agent settings ................................................................................... 29
57. AI Planning for autonomous systems ................................................................................................ 29
58. Inferring supertrees............................................................................................................................ 30
59. Spatial and Temporal Data Analytics ................................................................................................ 30
60. Automatic segmentation of surgical procedures ............................................................................... 30
61. Graphical user interface (GUI) for a surgical simulator.................................................................... 31
62. Automated summative assessment of surgical performance in a VR simulator ............................... 31
63. Ear surgery simulation with Oculus Rift and Leap Motion .............................................................. 31
64. Simulation of bone drilling dust and suction for virtual ear surgery................................................. 32
65. Simulation of bleeding and irrigation for virtual ear surgery ............................................................ 32
66. Physics-based haptic bone drilling simulation .................................................................................. 32
67. OpenGL rendering of an ear surgery simulator for GeForce graphics cards .................................... 33
68. Planning Visualization Toolkit .......................................................................................................... 33
69. Biomedical Term Matching across Vocabularies [Research project] .............................................. 34
70. Evaluating CommViz: A Novel Communication Visualization Technique [Research project] ....... 34
71. Exploring CommViz for intelligence analysis [Research project] .................................................... 35
72. BioMRKRS (BioMarker Retrieval and Knowledge Reasoning System) [Software Development
project] ........................................................................................................................................................ 35
73. Alveo Upload functionality [Software Development project] ......................................................... 35
74. Alveo/PubAnnotation integration [Software Development project] ............................................... 36
75. Linguistic analysis of MOOC data in Epigenetics [Research project] ........................................... 36
76. Comparing methods for Entity Recognition and Mapping (in Biomedical Literature) [Research
project] ........................................................................................................................................................ 36
77. Landmark importance measure with location-based social network data ......................................... 37
78. Activity pattern mining with location-based social network data ..................................................... 37
79. Interactive Evolutionary Algorithms ................................................................................................. 37
The topics to follow are most relevant for students who would like to do a project in the areas of
Information Systems or Human-Computer Interaction. ..................................................................... 38
80. Uber, Airbnb and Lyft: How Does the 'Sharing Economy' Transform Service? .............................. 38
81. Augmented Reality and Service Experiences ................................................................................... 38
82. Service Innovation and Open Data .................................................................................................... 38
83. Engagement Platforms and Engagement Ecosystems ....................................................................... 39
84. Outsourcing Success.......................................................................................................................... 39
85. Strategic IT Decision-Making ........................................................................................................... 40
86. Business Intelligence Maturity .......................................................................................................... 40
87. ICT-enabled Sustainability Innovation ............................................................................................. 40
88. Quantified Self: Using Wearable Technology to Track Personal Activities ..................................... 41
89. Improving Urban Journeys through Digital Sharing Technologies .................................................. 41
90. Exploring the Potential of Electronic Commerce in Developing Countries ..................................... 41
91. Designing interfaces to support group coordination in online multiplayer games............................ 42
92. HoloLens .......................................................................................................................................... 42
93. Augmented Learning Environment for Physiotherapy Education ........................................... 42
94. Spinal Assessment with Passive Haptic Force Sensing Technology ..................................... 43
95. Attentive User Interfaces ............................................................................................................... 43
96. Eye Tracking for Game User Research ...................................................................................... 44
97. Eye Tracking as a Game Controller ............................................................................................. 44
98. A Review of Quantified Self Systems for Sports and Fitness.................................................. 44
99. Wearable Support for Weight Lifting Activities ........................................................................... 45
100. Measuring the Level of Trust between Trading Partners ................................................................ 45
101. Managing knowledge in organizational contexts ............................................................................ 45
102. Digital history-telling ...................................................................................................................... 46
103. Adoption of Green Supply Chain Management (GrSCM) Initiatives ............................................ 46
104. The role of Social networks and Artefacts in Technology Appropriation ...................................... 46
105. What contribution does an educational background in coding make to career performance for
graduates entering the ICT professional workforce?" ................................................................................ 47
106. Teaching Strategies for Information Security Management ........................................................... 47
107. Teleworking and (In)security .......................................................................................................... 48
108. Security and mobility:What does Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) mean for security? .............. 48
109. The best defense is a good offense: Legal limitations to offensive activities by private enterprise 48
110. Preserving the confidentiality of electronic patient records ............................................................ 49
111. What can Information Security learn from Information Warfare? ................................................. 49
112. The application of formal and informal theories to information security management.................. 49
113. An Investigation into How to Classify Information ........................................................................ 49
114. The DARK WEB A training ground for new types of security attacks ....................................... 50
115. Using SETA to alter security culture .............................................................................................. 50
116. The psychology of Information Security Risk ................................................................................ 50
117. An Investigation of Teaching Cases in Information Security Management ................................... 51
118. Influencing the Aging populations perceptions and awareness of information security thought
Security Education Training and Awareness (SETA) ................................................................................ 51
119. Digital Memorials and Commemoration Practices ......................................................................... 52
120. Sustainable Supply Chain Management: How IT mitigates the implementation challenges ......... 52
121. Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) Capability Maturity........................................... 52
122. On-line health support services ....................................................................................................... 53
123. The Use of Educational Technologies and Social Media in Higher Education .............................. 53
124. Health information presentation for patient treatment adherence ................................................... 53
125. Information Seeking Strategies amongst Transient Migrants ......................................................... 54
126. Analysing the Potential of Social Media as a Public Health Education Platform .......................... 54
127. Analysing the Potential of Online Learning Tools and Social Media in Educating Vulnerable
Communities ............................................................................................................................................... 54
128. A Synthesised decision support methodology that integrates human cognition and data mining. . 54
129. Technology in Aged-Care Service Provision .................................................................................. 55
130. YouTube Videos as Research Data: Methodological and Ethical Issues ....................................... 55
131. Big Data Quality ............................................................................................................................. 55
132. Privacy and big data analytics ......................................................................................................... 56
The following projects are based in the The Microsoft Research Centre for Social Natural User
Interfaces (SocialNUI) ............................................................................................................................ 56
133. Annotation for Spatial Augmented Reality System ........................................................................ 56
134. Natural User Interfaces for Controlling Sensor-Enabled Spaces. ................................................... 56
135. Human & Animal Computer Interaction at the Zoo ....................................................................... 57
136. Eye Gaze - Implicit and Fun Eye Tracker Calibration .................................................................... 57
137. Gesture in Games ............................................................................................................................ 57
138. Eye Tracking for Game User Research ........................................................................................... 57
139. Eye Tracking as a Game Controller ................................................................................................ 58
140. Towards conversational IR: navigating to a particular Wikipedia page one question at a time ..... 58
141. Augmented Fitness - A Review of Quantified Self Systems for Sports and Fitness ...................... 58
142. Wearable Support for Weight Lifting Activities ............................................................................. 58
143. Natural Language Processing for Human Motion Analysis ........................................................... 59
144. Bodies and Embodied Interactions - Avatars as Agents that Effect Behaviour .............................. 59
145. Towards conversational IR: navigating to a particular Wikipedia page one question at a time ..... 59
1. Project title: Social IoT Platform
The aim of this project, is to develop a smart, collaborative and social IoT platform where technical and
non-technical users have the ability to manage "spaces as interfaces" by processing data collected from
heterogeneous sensors and devices. In this model, users can create chains of simple conditional
statements, called ``recipes," which will be triggered based on changes in sensor data input or web
services (many-to-many relationship), thus providing a mechanism to manage devices in physical space.
This project is suitable for students with a background and interest in distributed computing,
programming and human-computer interaction. Expected background: Strong Angular JS and NodeJS
(Javascript), basic Arduino or Raspberry Pi, some experience with cloud servers and NoSQL, but not
essential.
Supervisors: Michael Kirley and Eduardo Oliviera
2. Exploiting the User in High-Security Systems

High-assurance, cross domain systems protect highly sensitive information from well-resourced attackers,
while processing it alongside public information. They inherently trust their users to make correct security
decisions: a user who is tricked into typing their classified password into an unclassified window can
catastrophically compromise security. In this project, you will develop a suite of attack scenarios to be
implemented as custom Windows applications that attempt to fool users into unintentionally leaking
sensitive information, to serve as foundation for future empirical evaluations or for building formal (i.e.
mathematical) models of user behaviour under different threat models.
Expected background: An interest in security.
Preferred background: Additionally, some Windows programming experience would be beneficial.
Supervisors: Toby Murray
3. Understanding how Compiler Optimisations Affect Timing Leaks

One of the hottest research topics in security right now involves finding timing leaks in cryptographic
algorithms: bugs that allow an attacker to infer your secret encryption key by timing how long the crypto
code takes to execute under various scenarios. In this project you will explore how compiler optimisations
affect these attacks by making timing measurements of code with known timing leaks when compiled
with differing levels of optimisation. This work could form the foundation for a long-term study of secure
compilation techniques to prevent timing leaks, which is a major research challenge.
Expected background: C programming experience.
Preferred Background: Additionally, some knowledge of information theory would be beneficial.

4. Topic: Extending a Formal Theory of Concurrent Information Flow
Security
Recent work has produced the world's first theory for proving that concurrent programs do not leak
information, i.e. are information flow secure. However, so far it is restricted to systems with very simple
security policies. In this project, you will extend that theory to support more diverse security policies. A
simple first step will be to accommodate multiple security classifications in the theory, which will serve
as an ideal introduction to the Isabelle/HOL proof assistant, in which the theory has been formalised.
Expected background: Discrete mathematics and logic.
Preferred background: Some experience with an interactive theorem prover (e.g. Isabelle or Coq) would
be beneficial.
5. Mobile Phone App Development

The student will develop innovative mobile phone Apps for various interesting applications. This
is mainly a software development project. The application will be discussed with the supervisor:
it might be from the students own interested application, or one with an existing project led by
the supervisor. Many of them involve some algorithms and data analysis. Therefore, the project
will provide training in both software development on phones as well as a bit of research skills.
Expected background: programming skills, data structures and algorithms
Preferred background: experience in mobile phone app development (either iOS or Android); strong
programming skills.
Supervisor: Rui Zhang
6. Big Data Analytics

The student will perform big data analytics including data mining, machine learning, and
database research tasks for various interesting applications. This is a research centred project.
The specific topic will be discussed with the supervisor: it might be from the students own
interested application, or one with an existing project led by the supervisor. The project will
provide intensive training in research skills in big data analytics.
Expected background: programming skills, data structures and algorithms
Preferred background: experience in data mining, machine learning or databases; strong
programming skills.
7. Graphical user interface (GUI) for a surgical simulator
The virtual reality simulation group of the Department of Otolaryngology is a multi disciplinary team of
researchers who conduct research into simulation based surgical training. They have developed a virtual reality
simulator with haptic (tactile / force) feedback to train ear surgeons. The aim of this project is to develop a
graphical user interface for this simulator that supports user input (for example, loading different cases and
changing parameter values such as magnification level) and allows the presentation of external feedback on
performance. Prerequisites Good understanding of human computer interaction (HCI) is required and
experience in GUI development is preferable.
Supervisor: Yun Zhou--
8. Automated summative assessment of surgical performance in a VR

simulator
Virtual reality surgical simulators record a variety of performance metrics during a surgical task. Data mining
or rule-based techniques can be utilised to provide automated post-hoc assessment of surgical competency
using simulator metrics as input. Automated assessment is more objective than expert evaluation and allows
VR simulators to be used as self-guided training tools that do not require the presence of expert surgeons to
provide feedback to trainees. The aim of this project is to design a module for a VR temporal bone surgery
simulator that will provided a report card after each surgical task, containing a meaningful and constructive
automated assessment of performance. This report card may consist of numerical scores on a variety of
performance indices as well as visual feedback. This module could be extended to provide a history of past
performance for each user of the surgical simulator.
Expected background: Good programming skills. Knowledge of machine learning would be beneficial.
Experience with Python and GUI programming preferable.
Contact: Yun Zhou ----
9. Ear surgery simulation with Oculus Rift and Leap Motion

Head-mounted displays such as the Oculus Rift offer the opportunity to completely immerse oneself in a
virtual environment. Immersion has been shown to have pedagogical benefits in virtual reality based training
systems by fostering increased user engagement with the activity being simulated. This project aims to
integrate the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion technologies into an existing 3D virtual ear surgery simulator with
haptic feedback. The scope of the project includes the implementation of modules to handle graphical
rendering for the Oculus Rift, as well as the design of appropriate interactions within the virtual operating
room provided by the Oculus Rift.
Expected background: Good C++ programming skills. Experience with interaction design, graphics
programming and OpenGL preferable.
Contact: Yun Zhou
-----
10. Simulation of bone drilling dust and suction for virtual ear surgery
Ear surgery on the temporal bone typically involves the removal of mastoid bone using a surgical drill. This
process produces bone dust which must be removed using irrigation and suction. The University of
Melbournes virtual reality ear surgery simulator does not currently have the ability to simulate the production
and removal of bone dust during drilling. This limits the visual realism of the simulator. The aim of this project
is to develop a module for this simulator that will simulate the production of bone dust and its removal using a
virtual suction tool.
Expected background: Good C++ programming skills. Knowledge of basic physics and experience with GPU
Contact: Sudanthi Wijiewickrema
11. Simulation of bleeding and irrigation for virtual ear surgery

Ear surgery on the temporal bone typically involves the removal of mastoid bone using a surgical drill. Drilling
the mastoid bone causes bleeding from small blood vessels embedded within the bone. Accidental damage to
anatomical structures such as veins (sigmoid sinus) can also cause the patient to bleed. Surgeons must
minimise bleeding and remove excess blood with a suction tool. The University of Melbournes virtual reality
ear surgery simulator does not currently have the ability to simulate bleeding. The aim of this project is to
develop a fluid simulation module that will simulate bleeding from the bone as well as bleeding from
accidental damage to the sigmoid sinus, and the removal of blood using a virtual suction tool.
Expected background: Good C++ programming skills. Knowledge of basic physics and experience with GPU
12. Automated modelling of elements of educational videos

Video is increasingly being used in education as a method for helping students engage with complex ideas
and content. Despite the rapid growth in the use of video in learning, there has been limited research to
date on how videos are consumed and in what form they are best designed in order to both engage and
inform students. For example, it is not clear what the most effective forms of representation are for what
purposes and what audiences. The aim of the proposed project is to create a tool for extracting features of
videos (e.g. design features such as video style, presenter presence and content features such as whether
the videos are introductory, procedural or focused on conceptual knowledge).
The project will be completed in collaboration with Dr Jason Lodge and Professor Gregor Kennedy
(Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education & Learning Analytics Research Group).
Reading:
Dorado, A., Calic, J., & Izquierdo, E. (2004). A rule-based video annotation system. IEEE Transactions
on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, 14(5), 622-633.
Supervisor: Jason Lodge (contact jason.lodge@unimelb.edu.au) and Professor James Bailey

13. Visualising learning analytics for curriculum review
Learning analytics involves the use of data about students engagement with learning systems to
understanding and improve learning and the environments in which it occurs. Large amounts of data are
collected through such learning systems, but there are currently only a limited number of generic, single-
system reports available to academics based on this data. We are interested in exploring new ways to
integrate, analyse and visualise such data to provide meaningful feedback to academics. This project will
involve the extraction, analysis and visualisation of data from the Universitys learning management
system (Blackboard) and other related systems (e.g. YouTube, Turnitin, Echo360) to support the delivery
and review of curriculum. Analysis and data mining techniques required will vary depending on the
design of learning activities in the each subject in the project, but may include basic descriptive statistics,
text analysis, and social network analysis.
Contact: Linda Corrin (linda.corrin@unimelb.edu.au)
14. Political Text Analytics

The Australian federal parliament generates thousands of lines of text every day: speeches, reports,
committee minutes, Hansard, press releases and so on. We are interested in analysing this text to answer
two main questions.
Firstly, what is the difference between a successful idea (gets into legislation) and a failed idea (never
legislated)? Secondly, what is the factual content of parliamentary Question Time, and has it changed
over the years? Both projects will make use of topic modelling and other text analytics tools.
Expected background: Strong Scripting and Python, basic probability & statistics, some experience with
text processing desirable, but not essential.
Supervisors: Tim Baldwin and Andrew Turpin
15. Modelling informal settlements using complex adaptive systems

Summary:
In this project, simulation models will be designed and developed to investigate the urban morphology of
informal settlements. Using selected favelas in Sao Paulo, Brazil as case studies, an agent-based
simulation model will be developed. Simulation experiments will be used to identify the emergent
interaction rules guiding the fragmented publicprivate interface and fuzzy boundaries within informal
settlements. The key research question to be answered is: What are the underlying characteristics that
allow favelas to adapt and reconfigure in responses to external stimuli?
This project will be completed in collaboration with A/Prof Justyna Karakiewicz (Faulty of Architecture,
Building and Planning).
Expected background:
This project will suit independent students with strong programming abilities, particularly in Java, and an
interest in artificial intelligence, agents and simulation.
Reading:
Barros, J. (2012). Exploring Urban Dynamics in Latin American Cities Using an Agent-Based Simulation
Approach. A.J. Heppenstall et al. (eds.), Agent-Based
Models of Geographical Systems, 571.
Portugali, J. (2011). Cognition and the City (Understanding Complex Systems). Springer.
Supervisor: Michael Kirley
16. Co-evolution of Cooperation

Summary:
In this project, an evolutionary game theoretic framework will be used to investigate the evolution of
cooperation. Multi-player normal form games encapsulating cooperative dilemmas will guide the
investigation. Specifically, we will examine how "signalling" of intentions and stochastic rewards affect
evolutionary trajectories. The implications of varying levels of agent cognitive capacity will also be
explored.
This project will be completed in collaboration with Prof Yoshi Kashima (Melbourne School of
Psychology Sciences).
Expected background:
This project will suit independent students with strong programming abilities, an interest in game theory
and artificial intelligence.
Reading:
Rand, D. and Nowak, M. (2013). Human Cooperation. Trends in Cognitive Science 17(8):413-425.
De Weerd, Harmen, Rineke Verbrugge, and Bart Verheij. "How much does it help to know what she
knows you know? An agent-based simulation study." Artificial Intelligence 199 (2013): 67-92.
Supervisor: Michael Kirley
17. Twitter Sampling Strategies

Twitter allows free access of up to 1% of the all tweets entering the platform in real time. However, if
more tweets are required, up to 10% of the current stream can be accessed via subscription (at a cost).
Both the 1%- and the 10%-streams are samples of the full stream
of tweets. This project explores to what extent different sample strategies conserve features (such as the
degree sequence or textual content) of the full stream.
Expected background: C programming and proficiency in algorithms.
Supervisors: Matthias Petri and Tony Wirth
18. Finite state entropy coders

Finite state entropy (FSE) coders represent a new compression technique that achieves compression
effectiveness of arithmetic coding schemes, while surpassing the speed of state-of-the-art Huffman
coders. The FSE coding scheme is based on asymmetric numeral systems (ANS), recently proposed by
Jarek Duda. This projects explores the theoretical underpinnings of ANS and their connection to FSE
coders, and reasons why they are both effective and efficient in practice.
Expected background: C programming and proficiency in mathematics and in algorithms.
*This project requires an exceptionally talented student
19. Deduplication in file systems

File systems such as ZFS offer file duplication: at the cost of several Gigabytes of RAM, the system can
store terabytes of files in which every duplicated block is only stored once only. In this project, we
explore parameter settings and hashing functions to determine the suitable settings for such a file system.
Expected background: C programming and proficiency in algorithms and data structures.
20. Designing and engineering algorithms for effective resource allocation
Data storage, server replicas/mirrors, virtual machines, and so on can all be regarded as different types of
resources. Effective allocation of resources to geographically distributed clients becomes a key challenge
due to the large numbers of resources and clients, enormous potential operating costs, and multiple
constraints. Resource allocation plays an important role in modern computing such as content-distribution
networks (say deployed for fast Youtube video streaming) and cloud computing (think Amazon EC2).
This project provides opportunities in some or all of:
Exploring resource-allocation models underpinned by classical combinatorial optimisation

problems like covering, facility location, and network flows;
Studying existing algorithms for solving these classical problems and design algorithms for the
resource allocation models.
Engineering and experimenting to evaluate the designed algorithm(s).
Expected background: Programming and proficiency in mathematics and in algorithms.
Supervisors: Kewen Liao and Tony Wirth
21. Data structures for multi-core processors
Research over the last two decades has found that some commonly used in-memory data structures and
algorithms could be made dramatically more efficient by effective use of CPU cache. The complexity of
the interaction between cache and memory meant that some of these results were counter-intuitive, with
for example the observation that in some cases hash tables could be made more efficient by reducing table
size, even though this increased the collision rate. This research, however, was largely undertaken in the
context of single-core processors; the emergence of multi-core and multi-thread architectures has opened
new possibilities for further efficiency gains. This project will investigate how to design and configure
string data structures for current machines and applications, building on previous work on string hashing
and trie sorting.
Expected background: Proficiency in C programming and algorithmic experience.
Supervisors: Justin Zobel and Tony Wirth
22. Election Robustness

Australias preferential voting system has the advantage that with only a single election a winner (or
multiple winners) can be determined. But given that votes can be lost or miscounted it is interesting to
know how many votes would need to be changed to modify the result of an election. This is a
challenging combinatorial problem. While some approaches are known for the single electorate case,
the current technology to solve this problem does not scale well. And we are unaware of any modelling
of the case for multi-position preferential voting (the Australian Senate). The aim of this project is to
develop algorithms and software to determine how many votes would be need to modifies to change
the results of a preferential election.

Expected background: Discrete maths, Data structures and algorithms

Supervisors: Vanessa Teague and Peter Stuckey
23. Electronic Voting for Australia

Electronic voting could be more secure and transparent than paper-based voting, because recent
advances in cryptography allow voters to verify that their vote is cast as they intended, included
in the count, and tallied correctly, without compromising privacy. Computers could also prevent
people from accidentally voting informally and produce almost-instant Senate results. However,
international research generally overlooks complex voting systems like Australia's, so Australian
electoral authorities have had to resort to software systems that are not verifiable, and hence not
trustworthy. The aim of our research agenda is to design a secure and verifiable system suitable
for Australian elections.
The size and focus of the project could be tailored to suit the students' interests and aptitudes.
Some examples are:
Designing the cryptographic building blocks of a secure voting scheme.
Implementing the front end to a voting system.
Investigating empirically some questions about Australian voting. (I'd like
to know how often you can predict the winners in an upper-house election based only on
the ticket or first-preference of the vote. I have the data for several past state and federal
elections. You would figure out some conditions for inferring a particular result and then
write a program to test whether those conditions appear in the data.)
Expected background: This could be either a programming project for maths majors, or a
mathematical project for computer scientists. The underlying cryptography uses some
number theory, which would be useful (but not essential) background.
Supervisors: Vanessa Teague and Lee Naish
24. Auditing Senate Counting Code
The recent US election has shown the importance of being able to audit an election result. Foreign
hackers, buggy software, and ordinary cheating could all sway an election outcome derived from
computers. How could we check? Australian Senate votes are counted in an entirely automated process
although paper records exist, current law doesnt require any sort of audit to check that the paper votes
match the official outcome. We have some background ideas and open-source software to address this
problem, described at https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.00127
The project has two separate directions, suitable for two different students. One part is to improve the
user interface and offer an intuitive way for users to interact with the complex auditing process. The
other is more suitable for statisticians to extend the existing methods to make finer inferences based on
a better understanding of the data.
Supervisors: Vanessa Teague (CIS); Damjan Vukcevic (maths and stats).
25. Complete lattices for reasoning about program correctness

Lattice theory is used extensively in the study of programming language semantics. A function
which returns a Boolean could either return True or return False or not return at all - it could loop
or encounter an error. This is typically modelled using a lattice containing True, False and a
"bottom" element corresponding to undefined/error/loop. In general we have a more complex
structure above this bottom element, containing other data types such as numbers, lists and
functions. When considering correctness of code we often rely on the code being used in
restricted ways - we talk of "preconditions", "contracts", "garbage in, garbage out", etc. We have
recently proposed (in the context of logic programming) that this be modelled with an additional
"top" element of the lattice (so we have top and bottom elements - a complete lattice rather than
a semilattice). The aim of this project is to expand on this general idea. For example, flesh out
the details of how it can be applied to other programming languages (such as functional
programming languages) and how it could be applied to specification languages, verification and
debugging.
Supervisors: Lee Naish and Harald Sondergaard
26. Web Information Extraction and Mining

This project aims to extract information from personal homepages and perform mining tasks on
them, e.g., finding persons' interests, contacts, relationships, etc.
Expected background: web programming skills, data structures and algorithms, database
systems
27. A Facility Location Problem on Road Networks

When planning a meeting for a group of people, a venue can be found from all available
locations by issuing a group nearest neighbor query, to find the one minimizing their total (or
equivalently, average) travel distance. With the maturity of teleconference techniques, people
can aggregate to several convenient locations in order to further reduce the traveling cost. Due to
the consideration such as the budget limit or administration cost, the maximum number of
venues k is usually limited. Under this constraint, we are interested in how to efficiently select a
set of venues from the database containing all the candidate locations, such that the average
distance for people to go to their respective venues is minimal.
In general, a few similar geometric facility location problems have been addressed in Euclidean
space where the transportation cost is decided by spatial coordinates. However, on road
networks, the cost metric based on the distances should be re-defined. The query processing
should be based on shortest path calculation on road networks.
Expected background: C/Java programming required; data structures and algorithms,
mathematics/geometry.
28. Mining Trends in Sequence Data

Many important applications have sequence data such as biological data (proteins, genes), stock
price changes, video sequences, music scores. Analyzing trends in these data can help finding
similar sequences, predicting important events, identifying features, etc.
This project exploits various data mining techniques to efficiently complete the above tasks,
especially in case of a huge volume of data.
Expected background: C/Java programming required; data structures and algorithms,
mathematics, database systems.
29. Developing a pore network construction algorithm for

Computerised Tomography images of geomaterials
Developing a pore network construction algorithm for Computerised Tomography images of

geomaterials.
Understanding the microstructure of granular, porous media is crucial in modelling geo-mechanical

phenomena and flow processes in, for example, civil and petroleum engineering applications. Pore
networks have emerged as a valuable tool in characterizing the void space and connecting pore-scale
characteristics with engineering properties. The physical network of voids controls fluid flow, playing
critical roles in a range of applications such as waste disposal, filtration, CO2 geosequestration and dam
design and maintenance. A pore network model characterizes the geometric complexity and
inhomogeneous nature of the voids through the identification of individual pores (as network nodes)
which are connected via throat-like constrictions (as network edges). Consequently, the construction of
pore networks from real or artificially generated granular, porous media has been a long-standing research
topic of interest.
However, access to the source code of these pore network construction methods is frequently lacking, and
the omittance of subtle details in the implementation hinder reproduction of existing approaches.
Therefore, this project proposes to develop a fast pore network construction algorithm for 3D images of
real geomaterials (recently obtained from the Australian Synchrotron). The proposed stages of this inter-
disciplinary project are (1) a literature study on existing pore network construction methods, (2) an
implementation of one of these methods (possibly improved) in a langue of choice, (3) a case study using
the algorithm on the 3D images.
The student will gain in-depth knowledge of developing an end-to-end application in an inter-disciplinary
setting, building skills in software design and applied algorithms and data structures. The expected
outcomes of this project are to develop a source code for the algorithm that is potentially patentable (IP
ownership to be shared among students and supervisors involved) and/or publishable (in a co-authored
publication) in an academic journal.
Expected/preferred background
No prior knowledge of relevant physics is required. The algorithm may be implemented in a language of
choice, with a preference for a fast, object-oriented language (C++). A basic understanding of algorithms
and data structures (graphs and trees) is required.
Supervisors
Joost van der Linden - Infrastructure Engineering (contact)
Guillermo Narsilio - Infrastructure Engineering
Benjamin Rubinstein - Computing and Information Systems
30. Passwordless Websites
The seemingly never-ending stream of password breaches seen over the past decade has highlighted the
dangers and prevalence of password reuse. Many websites already allow users who have entered their
password once to avoid having to do so again by storing a long-term authentication cookie in the user's
browser. This project will investigate whether passwords can be avoided altogether by using long-term
http:// authentication cookies instead, which effectively act as high-entry, phishing resistant passwords
that the user never has to remember.
You will implement a proof-of-concept authentication mechanism based on authentication cookies: when
a user creates a new account, rather than setting a password a high-entropy authentication cookie is set
instead.
To allow cookies, and thus accounts, to be used from multiple devices, you will also implement a browser
extension for syncing authentication cookies to the cloud (e.g. Google drive).
Expected background: Interest in and understanding of security issues,plus strong programming

experience.
Preferred background: Web programming experience (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).
Supervisor: Toby Murray
31. Exploiting Instruction-Based Scheduling
Title: Exploiting Instruction-Based Scheduling

Timing channels are a tricky problem in systems built from multiple components running concurrently to
one another, in which sensitive data must be kept secret. When two components both race for access to
common data, one can detect changes in the execution speed of the other relative to itself, allowing it to
learn potentially sensitive information that might have affected the execution speed due to cache effects
for instance. Instruction-based scheduling (IBS) mitigates this problem by scheduling each component not
based on wall-clock time but instead on the number of instructions it has executed, to make the outcomes
of data races deterministic. However, IBS is known to be imprefectly implemented on modern processors,
and so still allows unwanted information leakage when straightforwardly implemented.
In this project you will implement attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information from systems built
with instruction-based scheduling, by exploiting the imprecision of IBS. You will carry out measurements
to determine how effective your attacks are and so to quantify the real effectiveness of IBS against skilled
adversaries.
Expected background: Strong C programming experience.
Preferred background: Embedded / microkernel programming experience and
knowledge of timing channels.
Supervisor: Toby Murray
32. Semantic Concepts in AI and Boolean Function Classes

In the field of artificial intelligence, much of the literature on Boolean classes assumes that
functions are represented in conjunctive normal form, and the taxonomic toolbox is mainly
"syntactic". For example, classes are defined as "closed under resolution" or "closed under
substitution". It would be interesting to see if there are semantic characterisations that subsume
the syntactic ones while weakening the assumptions about how functions are represented. Maybe
this would allow a better characterisation/understanding of Boolean classes such as "unate",
"renamable Horn", and "k-quasi-Horn". There is plenty of scope in this for a 75 point project, but
a smaller project could possibly also be carved out.
Expected background: Discrete maths, computational logic.
Reading: P. Schachte and H. Sondergaard, Closure operators for ROBDDs, Verification, Model
Checking and Abstract Interpretation (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3855), pages 1-16,
Springer 2006.
Supervisors: Peter Schachte and Harald Sondergaard.
33. Bit-Precise Program Analysis

Many proposed program analyses (for C, Java or assembly code, say) work only for linear
integer expressions (as in the C assignment z = 2*x + y). However, for limited chunks of code,
so-called bit-blasting is feasible, also for non-linear expressions (as in the C assignment z = x &
y). Bit-blasting means expressing or approximating all relations amongst the variables' bits as a
(large!) Boolean function. The first step of the project is to implement bit-precise summarisation
for program basic blocks. The next task is to utilize this for so-called linear congruence analysis
and to discuss the applications of this analysis in compiler optimization and/or software
verification. A final, optional, task is to explore whether the ideas from the congruence analysis
can be transferred to other numerical analyses based on geometric domains, such as variants of
convex polyhedra, and possibly also how state-of-the-art SAT/SMT solver technology can be
utilised. This is a 75 point project, not suited as a smaller project.
Expected background: Good programming skills, mathematical maturity, understanding
of propositional logic and linear algebra.
Reading: A. King and H. Sondergaard, Automatic abstraction for congruences, Verification,
Model Checking and Abstract Interpretation (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 5944), pages
197-213, Springer, 2010.
Supervisors: Peter Schachte and Harald Sondergaard
34. Sharing and Groundness Dependencies in Logic Programs

The two most important types of dataflow analysis for (constraint) logic programs are sharing
and groundness analysis. Although the two look very different on the surface, closer inspection
shows that they have much in common. Because of this commonality, it should be possible to
implement the combination of the two analyses in a way that is more efficient than simply
performing them separately. The proposed project would be to (a) get an understanding of the
two analyses and the so-called reduced product in abstract interpretation and (b) experiment with
two or three different ways to implement the combination, comparing the resulting analyses. It
would also be interesting to explore whether Gulwani and Tiwari's "logical product" is
applicable to abstract domains used in analysis of logic programs. Probably best as a 75 point
project.
Expected background: Good understanding of propositional logic and logic programming,
together with solid programming skills.
Reading: M. Codish, H. Sondergaard and P. J. Stuckey, Sharing and groundness dependencies in
logic programs, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems 21: 948-976, 1999.
Supervisors: Peter Schachte and Harald Sondergaard
35. Parallelizing Lazy Clause Generation

Lazy clause generation is a hybrid approach to solving complex combinatorial optimization
problems that defines the state of the art for many problem classes. It was awarded the 2010
Eureka Prize for Innovation in Computer Science (the "Australian Academy Awards for
Science"). Lazy clause generation solves these problems by very large, and very fast search,
while recording information to avoid searching similar things again.
Parallelizing lazy clause generation requires sending information from a CPU/core in one part of
the search to that in another. The question of how much and what information to be sent, as well
as when and how to work steal when a core runs out of work are crucial for making this
technology effective on multi-core CPUs and distributed computing platforms.
Expected background: Parallel Computing, Discrete Maths, Data Structures and
Algorithms. Supervisor: Peter Stuckey
36. Lazy lex with explanations

The lex constraint represents when one array is lexicographically less than another: e.g. lex(x,y) if
x[0] < y[0] || ( x[0] == y[0] && ( x[1] < y[1] || (x[1] == y[1] && ... ))). The aim of this project is
to investigate the best way to implement lex in a state-of-the-art constraint programming system
using explanation. The project will implement and extend various algorithms for lex and compare
them on hard combinatorial problems.
Expected background: Discrete Maths, Data Structures and Algorithms
Supervisor: Peter Stuckey
37. Computational Methods for Identifying Genetic Contamination

New technologies have drastically reduced the cost of sequencing genomes, from $3 billion for a
human in 2001 to around $3000 today (and still falling). This collapse in cost has opened up
many new applications for sequencing, including disease diagnosis and treatment, accelerated
breeding of variant crops, and population-wide investigation of genetic variant. These
technologies promise to revolutionise health delivery and agriculture, but are presenting new
computational challenges, in particular because the data they produce is highly fragmented. We
are pursing research into new ways of storing, validating, processing, and interpreting this data,
in the context of the massive collections of reference DNA material that are now freely available.
Some of the data produced by current sequencing machines - sometimes more than third - cannot
be identified using current widely used matching techniques. In this project, the aim is to
investigate methods for assigning this data to other species (that is, determining if it is
contaminant DNA) through search of genome repositories. Specific challenges include making
this search efficient in the presence of large data volumes, and determining whether error or
contamination is the most likely explanation. A related challenge is removal of DNA data from a
sample to a level that guarantees that a human individual cannot be identified from what remains.
This project is expected to involve academics based in biomedical research groups.
Expected background: Undergraduate computer science with strength in algorithms,
C/C++ programming; good knowledge of theory and analysis preferred but not essential.
Knowledge of biology helpful but not necessary.
Supervisors: Justin Zobel , Thomas Conway
38. Implementations of elliptic curve cryptosystems over prime and prime
power fields.
The work will be the extension of earlier work done in the group. We will use recent
representation of Elliptic curve groups by Edwards and Hessian. We will also look at the
implementations from the perspective of side channel attacks. Several optimizations are
proposed for hardware implementations in the literature. In this project we will concentrate on
software implementations. For more details contact Udaya.
Expected background: C and Java, Background in Discrete mathematics.
Supervisor: Udaya Parampalli
39. Accurate Measurement of Computational Methods

Computer science research often involves proposals of new computational methods. Validating
these methods - that is, demonstrating that they are superior in some respect to their predecessors
- requires the use of robust and trusted measurement techniques. However, in many areas of
research there is no agreement on best approaches to measurement, and methods are often
measured in incomparable ways. In this wide-ranging and long-standing research activity,
projects have involved surveys of existing approaches, development of frameworks for
comparative measurement, development and application of statistical techniques, and practical
demonstrations of the strengths and failings of existing and proposed approaches. Application
areas where new contributions in approaches to measurement can have impact include text
retrieval, distributed computing, and machine learning. We seek to engage interested students to
advance work in this area, and thus help set computer science research in general on a stronger
footing.
Supervisors: Justin Zobel , Alistair Moffat, Tim Baldwin
40. Watermarking Technique using pseudorandom arrays.

Digital media like images, audio and video are vulnerable to theft, misuse or manipulation when
distributed over Internet. Watermarking is a technology which can thwart such vulnerabilities.
This project is about constructing watermarking techniques for video and images using
pseudorandom arrays. Pseudorandom sequences have been used in watermarking in the
literature. Here a random signature sequence with good correlations will be embedded in image
or video such that they are not easily erased during the transmission. The embedded sequence
can be retrieved from the image or video to ascertain the ownership due to its correlation
property. In this project, we will use recently constructed multi-dimensional pseudorandom
arrays with good cross-correlation properties. Multi-dimensional arrays will perfectly suit the
modern media which inherently multi-dimensional.
Expected background: C and Java, and some experience in handling JPEG and MPEG
formats. Supervisors: Udaya Parampalli and Shanika Karunasekera
41. Person Controlled Encryption Prototype for Electronic Health Records
This project will design a new web based secure electronic health data repository (HDR) for
storing patient records. Our HDR is modeled on the lines of secure Electronic Health Record
system mandated by NEHTA. Such methods will preserve the privacy of patients health
data received from hospitals and health professionals. The HDR is secure even if the records are
stored by un-trusted data centers. Our approach is to use novel cryptographic techniques and role
based access control for electronic health records. This allows the records to be stored on un-
trusted data centers without privacy leak. The method lets authorized higher authorities to search
for key words in encrypted data which is an important requirement from
hospitals/Doctors/healthcare service providers perspective. The aim of the project is to
develop a modular software prototype to test effectiveness of our design. The experience realized
from this project will be used to develop future funding applications.
42. Implementation of Identity Based Signcryption scheme- A primitive for

one pass key exchange protocol.
Most of the current security applications are based on directory based crypto services and use
public key infrastructure. These systems make use of random looking key materials for entities
and relating the key material to the actual identity of the entities is an important authentication
problem. Non directory based framework can be defined using the actual identities as the key
material and this framework can handle the authentication problems in a simplified and scaled
manner. However, till recently there were not many cryptographic options to implement this
framework. Recently a concrete realization of Identity Based Cryptography was discovered when
Boneh and Franklin proposed a practical Identity Based Encryption (IBE) Schemes using Weil
Pairing defined over super singular elliptic curve groups. After this there are several
cryptographic schemes developed based pairing based cryptography (signatures, signcryption
etc). Coming up with practical protocols and their analysis is an active research area. In this
project we plan to implement efficient Identity based signcryption primitives for groups defined
non-super singular curves. Signcryption schemes over non-super singular curves are compact
and can be used in one pass key exchange protocols.
Expected background: C and Java, Background in Discrete mathematics.
43. Highly Concurrent Stream Processing for Big Data Analytics

The lack of explicit support for information passing between concurrent stream operators,
severely hampers the efficiency of complex stream processing systems. In the absence of such
support, programmers are required to either make use of ill-defined streams (for example
creating cycles) or to use an out-of-bound mechanism such as message queues, for example via a
shared file system interface or using a third-party product like Kafka or RabbitMQ. While this is
certainly possible, and indeed there are Apache Storm developments such as KafkaBolt that
pursue this direction, none of these approaches are strictly desirable for lack of formalism and
rigorous understanding of concurrency phenomenon. In this project our main aim is to research
and incorporate explicit operations, that provide sideways and upstream information passing,
into a topology-based stream processing system, making significant improvements to efficiency
over the state-of-the-art today.
Our Big Systems Research Group focuses on distributed computing approaches for achieving
ultimate scalability and high performance. We are interested in applications that scale to include
a significant fraction of Internet users and that utilize the rapidly increasing wealth of big data.
Our research projects cover real-time social network and user generated content analysis, smart
cities, mobility classification and prediction, collaborative repair of wireless broadcasts, GPGPU
simulation of large scale systems and decentralized data aggregation and processing.
http://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/aharwood/BigSystems
Contact Aaron Harwood (aharwood@unimelb.edu.au) for details.
44. Big data analytics for pedestrian monitoring
Pedestrian monitoring is an important problem application domains such as public safety, retail and
building management. Recently, low cost sensors are becoming available to collect measurements about
the movements of pedestrians. However, the challenge remains to how to interpret the stream of data that
these sensors provide in order to detect higher-level events of interest, such as how people interact with
the building during normal activities or in an emergency. This project will investigate the use of data
mining techniques to (1) detect and summarise movement pedestrian patterns using low-cost commercial
sensors, and (2) correlate these movement patterns over time to identify events of interest. This project
will provide the opportunity to learn about data mining and machine learning techniques, and apply these
techniques to real-life data in an important infrastructure management problem.
Expected background: C and Java.
Supervisors: Chris Leckie and Sutharshan Rajasegarar
45. Agent-based foraging models

Agent based computational models can be used to generate explanatory and predictive accounts
of individual and population-level dynamics in a range of social, ecological and economic
phenomena. In this project, an agent based computational model will be developed to investigate
adaptive behaviour in social dilemmas such as the common pool resource game or foraging
tasks. The individual agents are engaged in the iterative process of choosing a joint activity from
a set of available activities at a time. The agents are mapped to a virtual environment, where
resources are spatially and temporally distributed. Movement and harvest decision rules can be
encapsulated within an agent. Computational simulations can then be used to explore the effects
that variation among individual agents has on the global behaviour of the system.
Background reading: Roberts, M.E., & Goldstone, R.L., (2006). EPICURE: Spatial and
Knowledge Limitations in Group Foraging. Adaptive Behavior 14: 291
Supervisors: Michael Kirley, Tim Miller
46. Pattern search via Inverted Indexing

Traditional pattern search mechanisms process the text sequentially. Inverted indexes provide
access to text, but only in terms of pre-identified tokens. This project will explore approaches to
q-gram indexing, where arbitrary strings can be searched for as a conjunction of indexed q-
grams. Detailed implementation using succinct data structures will be undertaken, and
experimentation in regard to construction and querying time.
Supervisor: Alistair Moffat
47. Methods for efficient N-gram counting: State of the art and
Beyond
N-grams are fragments of text of length N words. Many technologies rely on N-gram counts or
their derivatives, N-gram probabilities, such as spell checking (how likely is the spelling of a
particular word given a particular context), or query auto completion (given some previously
entered words, what are the most likely next words). Some questions that arise are: what is the
state of the art of counting N-grams, and what are the opportunities to improve on these
methods? How can we make best use of additional term information (such as knowing that a
particular term is a singleton or that a term predominantly followed by a specific other the term
such as Saudi and Arabia) and detect and remove incomplete phrases? How can we cope
with misspellings and lexical variants? How can we automatically classify some N-grams as
accidental consequences of the scattering of words, and others as meaningful phrases? Can we
further apply these insights to the area of Language Modelling to create synthetic text
collections which adhere to certain properties?. Other project proposals, particularly in the area
of Information Retrieval, will be considered.
Expected background: a keen interest in search engine technologies and could lead to further
academic work in this area (academic publication and/or postgraduate studies) or employment
opportunities in the search engine industry. A suitable student would be proficient in C coding
and be keen to work independently.
Supervisors: Bodo Billerbeck bodob@microsoft.com and Matthias Petri
matthias.petri@unimelb.edu.au (External supervisor: David Hawking dahawkin@microsoft.com)
48. In-processing for Lazy clause generation.

Lazy clause generation is a hybrid approach to solving complex combinatorial optimization
problems that defines the state of the art for many problem classes. It was awarded the 2010
Eureka Prize for Innovation in Computer Science (the "Australian Academy Awards for
Science"). Lazy clause generation solves these problems by very large, and very fast search,
while recording information to avoid searching similar things again.
Lazy clause generation solvers periodically restart the search from scratch making use of the fact
that they store information from the previous search that will prevent them to make the same
mistakes. On restarting the solver has an opportunity to simplify the representation of the
problem and/or use more powerful inference techniques to learn new information. This is called
"in-processing" (as opposed to pre-processing). Current lazy clause generation solvers do not
apply any in-processing. SAT solvers apply pre-processing techniques using various forms of
binary resolution, variable elimination and subsumption.
In this project we want to explore SAT constraints processing techniques not just before but
repeatedly during search. This means the processing needs to strike a balance between being
efficient and effective. We want to examine existing techniques as well as develop new ones for
the specific context of CP solving.
Expected background: Discrete Maths, Data Structures and Algorithms, Propositional
Logic
Supervisor: Peter Stuckey and Thibaut Feydy
49. Graph analysis for identification of genetic anomalies
High throughput sequencing technologies produce massive volumes of genetic data, in the form
of billions of 'reads' consisting of short substrings randomly extracted from an input genome. A
common operation on this data is to attempt to assemble it into a continuous string representing
this genome, an operation that is complicated by biases and errors, using structures such as a de
Bruijn graph. However, a graph built from the reads can also be used to address other biological
questions, such as detection of irregularities in the genome, which may be indicative of disease
risk or of mechanisms for disease progression. We propose exploration of new applications of
genomic de Bruijn graphs, making use of data derived from sources such as cancer genomes.
Expected background: Undergraduate computer science with strength in algorithms,
C/C++ programming; good knowledge of theory and analysis preferred but not essential.
Knowledge of biology helpful but not necessary.
Supervisors: Jan Schroeder (WEHI), Justin Zobel
50. Getting the best of declarative and imperative programming
Programming languages today are either declarative, which make it easy for the programmer to
reason about the correctness of each part of the program separately, or imperative, which usually
produce more efficient programs because they allow programmers to use more efficient data
structures. Attempts to date to combine the two paradigms have generally sacrificed the ability to
reason declaratively. In this project we will develop a language to get the best of both worlds
without sacrificing the key characteristics of either. Depending on interest and ability, the
project could concentrate on anything from language implementation to proving properties of
type systems.
Supervisors: Peter Schachte and Lee Naish
51. .People-oriented modelling to design and implement smart fall detection

technologies
This area examines how emotional driven modelling can inform the design, implementation and
adoption of smart fall detection technologies to support and enable older Australians to live
independently in the home and community, including those living in regional, rural and remote
settings. Research in this area applies theories from a range of disciplines that include: software
engineering, agent oriented modelling, information systems, HCI and psychology. The outcome
of this research will support both the elderly and health care professionals in the delivery of
patient services using mobile technologies.
Supervisors Dr Antonette Mendoza, Dr Tim Miller
52. Robot Software development projects
The CIS Department has NAO robots that are used to demonstrate the wonders of Computer Science
and Information systems to high school students. These humanoid robots are fully programmable,
with vision, hearing, speech, facial recognition, motion, and so on. We need some clever students to
develop cool demonstration programs including: a day in the life of a robot, cooperative
interactions (e.g. Fist bumps, hand shakes, and so on), magic card tricks, performance art and so on.
You need excellent Python or C++ skills, creativity, and patience for these projects.
Supervisor: A/Prof Andrew Turpin. http://www.aldebaran.com/en
53. String Solving with MiniZinc

MiniZinc (www.minizinc.org) is an emerging standard for modelling combinatorial optimization
problems. MiniZinc is high-level enough to express most combinatorial problems easily and in a largely
solver-independent way; for example, it supports sets, arrays, and user-defined predicates, some
overloading, and some automatic coercions. While MiniZinc currently supports strings for output, its does
not support string variables, and constraint solving on strings. The aim of this project would be to extend
MiniZinc to support string variables, initially by mapping them to integer constraint solving, but then also
considering the possiblilty of mapping them directly to an underlying string constraint solver.
Expected background: Discrete maths, data structures and algorithms, compilers and program analysis
would be preferable.
Supervisor: Peter Stuckey, Graeme Gange, and Roberto Amadini

54. Model analysis and transformation for MiniZinc:
MiniZinc (www.minizinc.org) is an emerging standard for modelling combinatorial optimization
problems. MiniZinc is high-level enough to express most combinatorial problems easily and in a largely
solver-independent way; for example, it supports sets, arrays, and user-defined predicates, some
overloading, and some automatic coercions. However, MiniZinc is low-level enough that it can be
mapped easily onto many solvers. For example, it is first-order, and it only supports decision variable
types that are supported by most existing constraint programming solvers: integers, floats, Booleans and
sets of integers. Other MiniZinc features include: it allows separation of a model from its data; it
provides a library containing declarative definitions of many global constraints; and it also has a system
of annotations which allows non-declarative information (such as search strategies) and solver-specific
information (such as variable representations) to be layered on top of declarative models.
The new MiniZinc software is a component based system for model analysis and transformation. We have
a number of interesting model analyses and transformations to investigate. A list can be found at
www.minizinc.org/projects.html. These projects will involve working with the NICTA optimization
research group, and designing and building components for the most widespread constraint programming
modelling language
Expected background: Discrete maths, data structures and algorithms, compilers and program analysis
would be preferable.
Supervisor: Peter Stuckey
55. Automated planning in human-agent settings

Complex operations involving mixed teams of humans, software agents, and robots require
sophisticated tools to support coordination of interdependencies among the participants. In domains
such as teleoperation of unmanned vehicles and planning in disaster management, which involve
unpredictable interactions between participants, the ability to plan actions as events unfold is required.
This project will develop and implement automated planning techniques for software agents to
synthesis plans individually, in settings where the beliefs, goals, and intentions of others affect the
outcome of their actions, including when an agent is part of a team with a collective intention to achieve
some goal. An important aspect of this is that the planning agent must be able to reason about the
possible actions of the others, including humans, as affected by their beliefs, goals, and intentions.

A project on this topic would suit students with an interest in automated planning, logic, artificial
intelligence, and multi-agent systems.

Supervisors: Tim Miller, Adrian Pearce, and Liz Sonenberg
56. AI Planning for autonomous systems

We have a range of projects in the areas of automated planning for autonomous systems. Most existing
work in artificial intelligence planning considers that single agents operate by themselves in an
environment. In constrast, we are researching agents that can plan their behaviour in teamwork and
adversial environments, such as teams of aerial vehicles and disaster response robots.
A project on this topic would suit students with an interest in automated planning, logic, artificial
intelligence, and multi-agent systems.
Supervisors: Tim Miller and Nir Lipovetsky
57. Inferring supertrees

One of the central tasks of computational evolutionary biology is to construct phylogenetic trees.
These represent the evolutionary history of a given set of species. Supertree methods build a
large phylogenetic tree, covering multiple species, from a collection of small trees, each
describing the relationship between just three or four species. Chester, Dondi and Wirth have
made some significant theoretical advances in understanding supertree methods. In this project,
building on effective algorithms for clustering and ranking data, we will develop practical
supertree techniques. Programming for mathematical optimization will be a significant part of
this project.
Supervisor: Tony Wirth
58. Spatial and Temporal Data Analytics

Spatial and temporal data are everywhere and generated at an extremely high rate in our daily lives as we
travel, use smart phones, make diaries, record scientific observations and so on. There is huge value
hidden in the "big" spatial and temporal data. Through smart knowledge discovery techniques and data
management algorithms, we obtain key insights from the data and provide efficient solutions to problems.
As a result, we can support exciting next generation applications that are of enormous scientific and
economic values.
Supervisor: Assoc Prof Rui Zhang

For details see: http://spatialanalytics.cis.unimelb.edu.au/
59. Automatic segmentation of surgical procedures

When training surgeons on how to perform surgical procedures using virtual reality simulation, it is
important to provide step-by-step guidance on where to drill. This can be done by segmenting pre-
recorded procedures of expert surgeons into steps and presenting them sequentially. A step in this
context is a group of spatially and temporally connected points in the surgical procedure. This project
aims at developing a method of automatically segmenting a surgical procedure using machine learning
techniques.
Prerequisites Good knowledge of algorithms is required and experience in machine learning techniques
is preferable.

60. Graphical user interface (GUI) for a surgical simulator
The virtual reality simulation group of the Department of Otolaryngology is a multi disciplinary team of
researchers who conduct research into simulation based surgical training. They have developed a virtual
reality simulator with haptic (tactile / force) feedback to train ear surgeons. The aim of this project is to
develop a graphical user interface for this simulator that supports user input (for example, loading
different cases and changing parameter values such as magnification level) and allows the presentation of
external feedback on performance.
Prerequisites Good understanding of human computer interaction (HCI) is required and experience in
GUI development is preferable.
61. Automated summative assessment of surgical performance in a VR

simulator
Virtual reality surgical simulators record a variety of performance metrics during a surgical task. Data
mining or rule-based techniques can be utilised to provide automated post-hoc assessment of surgical
competency using simulator metrics as input. Automated assessment is more objective than expert
evaluation and allows VR simulators to be used as self-guided training tools that do not require the
presence of expert surgeons to provide feedback to trainees. The aim of this project is to design a module
for a VR temporal bone surgery simulator that will provided a report card after each surgical task,
containing a meaningful and constructive automated assessment of performance. This report card may
consist of numerical scores on a variety of performance indices as well as visual feedback. This module
could be extended to provide a history of past performance for each user of the surgical simulator.
Expected background: Good programming skills. Knowledge of machine learning would be beneficial.
Experience with Python and GUI programming preferable.
62. Ear surgery simulation with Oculus Rift and Leap Motion
Head-mounted displays such as the Oculus Rift offer the opportunity to completely immerse oneself in a
virtual environment. Immersion has been shown to have pedagogical benefits in virtual reality based
training systems by fostering increased user engagement with the activity being simulated. This project
aims to integrate the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion technologies into an existing 3D virtual ear surgery
simulator with haptic feedback. The scope of the project includes the implementation of modules to
handle graphical rendering for the Oculus Rift, as well as the design of appropriate interactions within the
virtual operating room provided by the Oculus Rift.
Expected background: Good C++ programming skills. Experience with interaction design, graphics
63. Simulation of bone drilling dust and suction for virtual ear surgery
Ear surgery on the temporal bone typically involves the removal of mastoid bone using a surgical drill.
This process produces bone dust which must be removed using irrigation and suction. The University of
Melbournes virtual reality ear surgery simulator does not currently have the ability to simulate the
production and removal of bone dust during drilling. This limits the visual realism of the simulator. The
aim of this project is to develop a module for this simulator that will simulate the production of bone dust
and its removal using a virtual suction tool.
Expected background: Good C++ programming skills. Knowledge of basic physics and experience with
GPU programming and OpenGL preferable.
64. Simulation of bleeding and irrigation for virtual ear surgery

Ear surgery on the temporal bone typically involves the removal of mastoid bone using a surgical drill.
Drilling the mastoid bone causes bleeding from small blood vessels embedded within the bone.
Accidental damage to anatomical structures such as veins (sigmoid sinus) can also cause the patient to
bleed. Surgeons must minimise bleeding and remove excess blood with a suction tool. The University of
Melbournes virtual reality ear surgery simulator does not currently have the ability to simulate bleeding.
The aim of this project is to develop a fluid simulation module that will simulate bleeding from the bone
as well as bleeding from accidental damage to the sigmoid sinus, and the removal of blood using a virtual
suction tool.
GPU programming and OpenGL preferable.
65. Physics-based haptic bone drilling simulation

The aim of this project is to improve the fidelity of the bone removal algorithm being used in the
University of Melbourne VR ear surgery simulator. This algorithm simulates the removal of bone using a
spherical burr. The current algorithm uses an approximation of the physical properties of the surgical
burr. Sometimes this approximation is too simplistic, resulting in surgeons using different drilling
technique on the simulator than what they would use on a real patient. This project aims to design and
implement a more physically realistic simulation of the interaction between burr and bone, which will
facilitate more faithful representation of real drilling technique within the simulator.
algorithm development preferable.
66. OpenGL rendering of an ear surgery simulator for GeForce graphics cards
The current version of the University of Melbourne VR ear surgery simulator requires expensive
professional-level graphics cards to achieve adequate graphical rendering frame rates, due to the use of
OpenGL features that are not well supported on consumer-level graphics cards (such as DisplayLists).
This limitation restricts the hardware on which the simulator can be operated, and limits the wider
acceptability of the simulator. This project aims to refactor the graphical rendering component of the
simulator to utilise modern OpenGL features (such as Vertex Buffer Objects) that will allow adequate
rendering speeds on consumer-level NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards.
Expected background: Good C++ programming skills. Experience with GPU programming and OpenGL
preferable.
67. Planning Visualization Toolkit
Automated Planning involves finding a sequence of actions (i.e., a plan) that maps a given initial state of
the world to a goal state. Most planning solvers accept an input that describes succinctly the environment
to plan within as well as the problem itself: the Planning Domain Definition Language (PDDL). This
language consists of a set of actions that define the transition function, the predicates and objects defining
the variables, the initial valuations that describe the initial state, and the goal situation. As this language is
general, many different benchmarks and instances can be encoded (e.g., logistics, navigation, etc.) by
attaching different semantics to the actions.
Validating and understanding the quality of plans is an important task that assesses the correctness of the
PDDL encoding, as well as the usefulness of the solver solution. Surprisingly, there is little work that
focuses on developing a tool to visualize graphically the course of action from the initial configuration to
the goal. To do so, one needs to extend the actions and objects described in the problem with annotations,
binding images from a gallery to variables and transformations to actions that will automatically animate
the course of action.
The Lightweight Automated Planning Toolkit (http://lapkt.org) is a framework written in C++ and Python
that contains some of the most successful solvers, developed with clear interfaces for generic proposes.
This project will implement the visualization framework and extend the annotations needed for PDDL to
animate paths in the possible world states of a problem. Finally, the visualization will be set up as a web
service with tight integration into the Planning.Domains (http://planning.domains) project that exposes
the planning experience in a browser. It is a great opportunity for interns to learn about the practical
issues of state-of-the-art automated planning solvers, and contribute to a larger project used by
researchers world-wide.
Requirements: HTML5, Javascript, python
Supervisors: Nir Lipovetzky, University of Melbourne, and Christian Muise, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT).
68. Biomedical Term Matching across Vocabularies [Research project]

Biomeical vocabularies vary in scope and it is often necessary to utilize multiple vocabularies
simultaneously in order to cover the full range of concepts relevant to a given biomedical application.
However, as the number and size of these resources grows, both redundancy i.e., different vocabularies
containing the same or similar terms and inconsistency i.e., different terms in multiple vocabularies
referring to the same underlying entity between the vocabularies increase. We have an existing software
solution that develops upon our research ideas for different techniques of finding coverage across
ontologies. We would like to: i) further develop our ideas to improve the current term matching
algorithms, and ii) compare and evaluate our algorithms with the UMLS MetaMap system that finds
similar terms across biomedical ontologies and terminology lists. The student needs to demonstrate strong
research abilities (judgement and creativity), an understanding of machine learning concepts, Java
programming skills, as well as enthusiasm to work on an exciting and significant domain of knowledge.
Supervisor: Dr. Bahadorreza Ofoghi Secondary supervisor: A/Prof. Karin Verspoor
69. Evaluating CommViz: A Novel Communication Visualization Technique

[Research project]
CommViz,is a novel information visualisation solution to the requirements of analysts who are struggling
to gain insight into the patterns of communication in complex message datasets. The solution brings
together multiple dimensions of communication data including thematic (topic-based), time-based, and
individual-level (sender/recipient) patterns. The solution has been developed at the University of
Melbourne in collaboration with the Defence Science and Technology Group of Australia. (User)
Evaluation of visualization techniques is a necessary task for any visualization which will shed light on
the utility and effectiveness of the visualization. Therefore, the proposed project will focus on the best
practice for evaluating the effectiveness and usefulness of CommViz as a complementary step to the
previous research on this solution. In carrying out this project, the student needs to be demonstrating
strong research abilities (judgement and creativity), an understanding of visualization techniques, good
Java programming skills, as well as enthusiasm to work on an exciting and significant domain of
knowledge. A previous user study has been completed with Cytoscape node-and-link visualisation; we
would now like to do another user study with a Parallel Coordinates or Sankey representation.
Primary Supervisor: Dr. Bahadorreza Ofoghi Secondary supervisor: A/Prof Karin Verspoor
70. Exploring CommViz for intelligence analysis [Research project]
CommViz,is a novel information visualisation solution to the requirements of analysts who are struggling
to gain insight into the patterns of communication in complex message datasets. The solution brings
together multiple dimensions of communication data including thematic (topic-based), time-based, and
individual-level (sender/recipient) patterns. The solution has been developed at the University of
Melbourne in collaboration with the Defence Science and Technology Organization of Australia.
In this project, we will adapt CommViz to a new data set of 17,000+ ISIS communications on Twitter,
and explore the characteristics of that data through the lens of information visualisation. We will also
apply social network analysis strategies to the data, to understand the connectivity in the network from a
quantitative perspective. We are interested in comparing the insights we are able to derive from the
dataset through the visualisation to the quantitative analysis.
Primary Supervisor: A/Prof Karin Verspoor Secondary supervisor: Dr. Bahadorreza Ofoghi
71. BioMRKRS (BioMarker Retrieval and Knowledge Reasoning System)

[Software Development project]
The BioMRKRS system [1], has been implemented in C#. We would like to port it to a web-based
application using PHP. This project will involve porting the existing system to a browser context, and
adapting the functionality of the tool as needed to that environment.
The student needs to demonstrate an understanding of the C# programming language, as well as PHP and
a good understanding of web system development concepts and technologies. Some knowledge of
ontologies is desirable.
[1] Ofoghi B, Lopez Campos GH, Verspoor K, Martin Sanchez FJ. (2014) BiomRKRS: A Biomarker
Retrieval and Knowledge Reasoning System. Health Information and Knowledge Management conf.
(HIKM 2013), Auckland, NZ.
Supervisor: Dr. Bahadorreza Ofoghi Secondary supervisor: A/Prof. Karin Verspoor
72. Alveo Upload functionality [Software Development project]

The Alveo virtual lab (http://alveo.edu.au) is a repository for human communication data, including text
and speech data, as well as tools for analysing that data (via a Galaxy interface). The virtual lab is
available to the broad human communication science research community throughout Australia.
Currently, it is not possible for users to add their own data to the system. This project will add this
functionality and thereby will provide a very valuable extension to the system, allowing the system to be
more useful for users who are collecting their own data resources and would like to analyse their own
data.
Requirements: familiarity or willingness to learn about REST, JSON, and other web data exchange
protocols.
Supervisor: A/Prof. Karin Verspoor Secondary Supervisor: Dr. Bahadorreza Ofoghi
Collaborator: Dr. Steve Cassidy, Macquarie University

73. Alveo/PubAnnotation integration [Software Development project]
The Alveo virtual lab (http://alveo.edu.au) is a repository for human communication data, including text
and speech data, as well as tools for analysing that data (via a Galaxy interface). The virtual lab is
available to the broad human communication science research community throughout Australia.
Pubannotation (http://pubannotation.org) is, similarly, a repository for annotated corpora of biomedical

text.
This project will explore connecting the two projects together can corpora available in Pubannotation be
made available in Alveo for analysis? If this turns out to be easy, we will also explore how the TextAE
visualisation currently available in Pubannotation could be adopted within Alveo.
Requirements: familiarity or willingness to learn about REST, JSON, and other web data exchange
protocols and models for text annotation on the semantic web.
Supervisor: A/Prof. Karin Verspoor Secondary Supervisor: Dr. Bahadorreza Ofoghi
Collaborator: Dr. Steve Cassidy, Macquarie University
74. Linguistic analysis of MOOC data in Epigenetics [Research project]

The objective of the project is to explore the application of automated text analytics tools to the graded
essay responses submitted to the University of Melbourne Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) on
Epigenetics (from Coursera). The availability of the background materials, student essay responses to
specific questions, and peer-review marks for those essays, will allow analysis that will inform broader
development of natural language processing (NLP) techniques for the biomedical literature.
We will analyse linguistic characteristics of previously collected MOOC essay responses using automated
NLP tools to assess the grammatical structure and well-formedness of the responses, linguistic
complexity such as use of prepositions, adjectives, and diversity of vocabulary. We will perform analysis
of the key terms in responses, and clustering of responses to identify themes, as well as considering the
overlap of terminology between the responses and the reading assignment. We will also analyse the peer
review graph, in order to consider the relationship of the peer feedback to the characteristics of the
reviewed writing, and potentially identify bias or other graph-based influences in that feedback. We will
apply machine learning methods to build a quantitative predictive model capable of detecting high-quality
responses.
Supervisor: A/Prof. Karin Verspoor
Collaborator: Dr Ivo Georgiev, U. Colorado Denver
75. Comparing methods for Entity Recognition and Mapping (in Biomedical
Literature) [Research project]
This project consists of finding protein/gene names (codes) in biomedical literature, and maps them to the
correct entry in a dictionary. The student will explore and develop mainly two methods: (1) A machine
learning based approach for entity recognition (see GNAT http://gnat.sourceforge.net/) VS (2) a
straightforward method, which consists of defining rules and patterns that may spot protein/gene names
from the text. Then, the student will perform computational experiments to evaluate the performance of
those methods on testing data (see: http://www.biocreative.org/tasks/biocreative-iii/gn/).
Qualifications
Good knowledge in Information Retrieval
Good knowledge in JAVA and Lucene
Skills in machine learning are welcome
[1] Ricardo Baeza-Yates and Berthier Ribeiro-Neto. Modern Information Retrieval. Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company, USA, 2nd edition, 2010.
Supervisor: Dr Reda Boudjanek Secondary Supervisor: A/Prof Karin Verspoor
76. Landmark importance measure with location-based social network data

Spatial cognition studies have demonstrated the importance of landmarks in navigation. To measure the
significance of different landmarks in navigation, most existing studies have relied on manual evaluation
by experts, which is expensive and difficult to scale. This project aims to automate the computation of
landmark significance through discovering grassroots wisdom from social network data such as tweets
and Foursquare check-ins, which contain geo-tagged texts describing different landmarks.
Expected background: programming skills, database querying (SQL)
Preferred background: accessing public Internet APIs, NoSQL databases, text mining techniques.
Supervisor: Jianzhong Qi
77. Activity pattern mining with location-based social network data

Massive geo-tagged social network data such as tweets contains location and textual content describing
peoples activities at different places. This project aims at discovering those activities and their spatial
distribution at the level of small geographic regions (e.g., watching a tennis game at Federation Square).
Expected background: programming skills, database querying (SQL)
Preferred background: accessing public Internet APIs, NoSQL databases, text mining techniques.
Supervisor: Jianzhong Qi
78. Interactive Evolutionary Algorithms

Evolutionary algorithms (EA) are stochastic search method based on the generate-and-test principle. Each
'individual' encodes a possible solution to the problem, which 'evolves' over time. In this project, you will
design and implement an interactive EA for the generation of architectural/urban form, to aid designer
and virtually display designs in an effective manner.
This project will be undertaken in collaboration with researchers from the Melbourne School of Design.
The outcome of this project will be the design, implementation and evaluation of the interactive EA.
There is also scope to extend this work to build a plug-in for commercial packages such as Grasshopper
and Rhino http://www.grasshopper3d.com
Expected background: strong programming skills in Python and GUI development; some experience with
Artificial Intelligence techniques and/or evolutionary computing
Supervisor: A/Prof Michael Kirley
The topics to follow are most relevant for students who would like to
do a project in the areas of Information Systems or Human-
Computer Interaction.
79. Uber, Airbnb and Lyft: How Does the 'Sharing Economy' Transform
Service?
'Airbnb' and 'Uber' represent the forerunners of the so-called 'sharing economy' and have found novel
ways to utilize ICTs for facilitating the co-creation of value between service providers and customers. The
sharing economy is based on the fundamental premise that non-traditional economic actors (i.e. 'anyone')
can utilize their physical assets (i.e. car or apartment) to engage in service. By providing the necessary
infrastructure, Airbnb and Uber introduce service capabilities ranging from payment systems to
advertising. While the immediate economic benefits are obvious - Airbnb is currently valued at US$10bn
- the implications resulting from the socio-economic disruptions on society and established service sectors
remain ambiguous.
Supervisor: Christoph Breidbach
80. Augmented Reality and Service Experiences

Augmented Reality (AR) applications and technologies (i.e. Google 'Glass') represent an emerging
category of ICTs that blend the physical with a virtual reality. This process intends to enhance a user's
perception of his or her physical environment, objects, or experiences. Within Australasia, Westpac
recently announced the first AR app for commercial banking, while retail, entertainment, or transportation
represent other service contexts where AR technologies are currently introduced. However, despite the
substantial potential of AR technologies, the wider impact of AR on service experiences and systems
remain uninvestigated to date.
81. Service Innovation and Open Data

The desire to increase the transparency of government operations and, at the same time, foster innovations
in service that should, conversely, spur social and economic growth, led to the idea of open data as an
economic asset. Open data refers to data sets that are (1) accessible online at no more than the cost of
reproduction, (2) are provided in a digital and machine-readable format, and (3) are free of restriction on
use or redistribution. For example, the US Library of Congress currently collects all Twitter feeds, with
the resulting data set being expected to be made available to the public. While governments and
corporations begin to embrace open data, our knowledge regarding its opportunities in regard to service
innovation is very limited to date.
82. Engagement Platforms and Engagement Ecosystems

In the last decade, traditional services, such as financial- and retail services that rely on direct face-to-
face interactions, shifted or expanded their customer-firm interactions from physical, into virtual realms
(e.g. Tescos traditional bricks-and-mortar stores supplemented with emerging virtual Tesco retail
platforms); thus generating new online self-service environments. This resulted in the formation of new,
potentially unique customer experiences and behaviors; thus requiring the development of new conceptual
models and lenses that allow us to understand these dynamics. One particular lens are engagement
platforms - physical or virtual touch points designed to provide structural support for the exchange and
integration of resources, and thereby co-creation of value, between actors in a service system.
83. Outsourcing Success
The importance of inter-organisational relationships in ICT supply chain management and outsourcing
has been widely recognised in the literature. However, factors affecting inter- personal relationships
between the people in both parties who are involved in crafting and managing these arrangements and the
impact on the successful outcomes are not well studied. This project is aimed at exploring how the
personal styles, values and behaviours of actors who are involved in managing inter-organisational
relationship affect the success of contracts between buyers and sellers of ICT services and products. The
research method can be negotiated with the supervisors. Options include a critical literature analysis to
refine a number of propositions, or analysis of existing data on a typology developed and collected by the
industry partner (The Cullen Group).
Useful readings:
Cullen, S. (2009) Team Chemistry: Are the individuals in the parties well suited?, Sourcing & Vendor
Relationships Executive Update, Cutter Consortium, Vol 10: No 6.
Cullen, S. (2012) A study of contract management styles in Australia 2011-12: The different values and behaviours
exhibited by the people who develop and manage contracts, Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply,
Melbourne.
Supervisors: Sherah Kurnia, Danny Samson, Sarah Cullen

84. Strategic IT Decision-Making
Strategic IT decisions are important and infrequent IT-related decisions made by the top leaders
of an organization that have, or potentially have, a major impact on organizational health and
survival. Many strategic IT decisions made by senior executives have yielded unintended
consequences and currently there has been very limited research that investigates strategic IT
decision-making processes. This project is aimed at testing and refining a model of strategic IT
decision-making (Tamm et al. 2014) through the analysis of interviews with senior executives
that have been collected (or to be collected) or publicly available cases (eg. Myki, Queensland
Health, NAB NextGen). The selection of cases can be negotiated with the supervisors. This
project is part of a larger study funded by the Australian Research Council, titled Testing the
Big-Bets Theory of Strategic IT Decision-making.
Useful reading: Tamm, T., Seddon, P., Parkes, A. and Kurnia, S. (2014) A Model of Strategic IT Decision-Making
Processes, 25th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 8th -10th Dec 2014, Auckland, New Zealand
Supervisors: Sherah Kurnia and Toomas Tamm
85. Business Intelligence Maturity

50 point project to be spread over two semesters
Business Intelligence (BI) systems improve decision-making and optimise business processes.
Understanding how and why BI systems provide value and competitive advantage for organisations is
important. One useful perspective on this is the maturity of organizational BI infrastructure and
capabilities.
Maturity models may be used to assess the level of development of an organisations BI infrastructure
and capabilities. Two main types of maturity model are staged and contextual. Staged maturity models
comprise a simple and broad set of stages that build on each other in a linear fashion. Contextual maturity
models comprise a larger number of components that may each mature at different rates and interact with
each other.
This project will examine the BI maturity of an organisation using both a staged BI maturity model (from
the Data Warehousing Institute) and a contextual BI maturity model (from the PhD work of Ranko
Cosic). The project will identify the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and provide the
organisation involved with useful information about their BI maturity.
86. ICT-enabled Sustainability Innovation

The current pervasiveness of ICT in individual and organisations day-to-day functions
highlights the important role of ICT in steering the development of innovations that improve
efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. Many of ICT-enabled innovations also benefit the
environment and enhance the welfare of the community. This project aims to explore the
experience of successful organisations in developing and introducing ICT-enabled innovations
that can address the three pillars of sustainability (profit, planet and people). The research
approach can be negotiated with the supervisors which may include, but not limited to, analysing
published case studies, or conducting an in-depth case study.
Supervisors: Sherah Kurnia and Rahim Mahbubur (Monash University)
87. Quantified Self: Using Wearable Technology to Track Personal Activities

The Quantified Self is a worldwide movement of early adopters and developers of self-tracking
technology. It is based on the idea that tracking oneself including one's behaviours, habits, thoughts and
feelings-and reflecting on that data enhances self-knowledge. This approach is particularly popular in the
wellbeing domain, e.g., through Fitbit wristbands and smartwatches that track physical activity and sleep.
However, emerging mobile and wearable technologies as well as developments in sensor technologies
make this approach suitable for many other areas.
We tend to use methods and theories from HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) and data from qualitative
field work to contribute to the design of new tracking technology and data visualisations. We are
particularly interested how tracking data gets used collaboratively, e.g., by sharing data with peers, or by
analysing data in collaboration with domain experts.
Supervisor: Thuong Hoang
88. Improving Urban Journeys through Digital Sharing Technologies

This project aims to understand the potential of new digital sharing technologies to enable more effective
use of transport in cities. This includes technologies across different modes of transport including
walking, cycling, car-sharing, public transport options, and which provide resources to consider utility,
health and environmental impacts.
We tend to use methods and theories from HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) and data from qualitative
field work to contribute to the design of new technology.
Supervisors: Wally Smith, Greg Wadley, and Bernd Ploderer
89. Exploring the Potential of Electronic Commerce in Developing

Countries
Electronic commerce has the potential to improve efficiency and productivity in many areas and,
therefore, has received significant attention in many countries. However, there has been some
doubt about the relevance of e-commerce for developing countries. Currently, there are still a
limited number of studies on e-commerce adoption by developing countries. To address the gap
in the literature, this project aims to assess the adoption of e-commerce in one developing
country and its relevance by assessing the adoption level, benefits experienced, negative
consequences and problems encountered due to e-commerce adoption. The choice of country and
the research method can be negotiated with the supervisor.
Supervisor: Sherah Kurnia
90. Designing interfaces to support group coordination in online

multiplayer games
This project examines how players of online multiplayer computer games customize their
interface to better meet the exigencies of game play. It could involve interviewing players about
how and why they customize their interface as well as inspecting their interfaces to understand
their modifications. It could also involve the studies of how people engage in game play,
including what parts of the interface they attend to during play. The purpose of the project is to
better understand how people interact with computers while using information intensive
applications such as multiplayer computer games.
This is a research project and will require students to write a minor thesis.
Supervisor: Martin Gibbs
91. HoloLens
We aim to explore the combined possibilities of body tracking and holograms using
HoloLens and Kinect. The project will develop Windows 10 Universal app that
connects to a Unity application that provides body tracking using a Microsoft Kinect.
The project also expands to integrate other natural user interfaces with HoloLens,
such as gaze tracking and voice.
Expected background: software engineering, augmented reality, human computer

interaction, sensor, as well as windows app development.
92. Augmented Learning Environment for Physiotherapy Education
We aim to develop a spatially augmented learning environment using Microsoft Kinect and
projectors. The system provides an innovative way for instructor and student to facilitate
learning, especially in the area of physiotherapy education. We propose augmented-
feedback via live annotations (text and graphical) on moving human body. The project will
develop software that enables annotation on the scene via a touch screen tablet.

Expected background: augmented reality, human computer interaction, touch screen app
development.
Preferred background: computer vision, and computer graphics
93. Spinal Assessment with Passive Haptic Force Sensing

Technology
This project aims to enhance students mastery of manual skills in physiotherapy

using passive haptic sensor technology. This project targets experiential learning for
important manual skills, such as spinal assessment and mobilisation. We propose
using a haptic device that uses conductive foam sensors to measure the pressure
being applied by the whole hand or by individual fingers.
Expected background: human computer interaction, internet of things, 3D printing,

and open hardware development.
94. Attentive User Interfaces

We now live in a world where multiple devices and application are fighting for our
attention, leading to undesired interruptions and annoying distractions. This project
aims at developing interfaces that monitor our cognitive processes through eye
tracking and thermal imaging to focus our attention and increase our productivity.
Expected background: strong programming skills, combining data analysis with

human-computer interaction.
Supervisor: Eduardo Velloso

95. Eye Tracking for Game User Research
The eyes offer a powerful window into users' cognitive processes. The goal of this project is
to design an optimal methodology for evaluating games using eye tracking. Though there is
some understanding of how to evaluate conventional systems using eye tracking data, little
is known about how it can be useful for evaluating games. It will involve recording eye
tracking data of novice and experienced players and analyse how the data can inform the
game design.
Expected background: strong data analysis skills, interest in games and in conducting user
studies.
96. Eye Tracking as a Game Controller

Modern eye trackers, such as the Tobii EyeX and the SteelSeries Sentry, are being marketed
specifically for the gaming market. In this context, creating novel game mechanics and
experiences that benefit from gaze information is a largely untapped gold mine. The goal of
the project is to design and build these novel game experiences involving the players' gaze.

Expected background: strong programming skills (C# and Unity), interested in building
games.
97. A Review of Quantified Self Systems for Sports

and Fitness
As wearable sensors become increasingly more popular and inexpensive, the number of
available systems in the market increases every day. Fitbit, Microsoft Band, Apple Watch---
all offer some kind of fitness functionality. However, upon closer inspection, we see that
these systems are very different, coming in various shapes and forms, as well as offering
very different types of functionality. The goal of this project is to understand the landscape
of fitness trackers currently in the market as well as how these systems relate to the
existing academic literature.

Expected background: Wearable Computing, Fitness, and/or Human Computer Interaction.
strong writing skills, the ability to synthesise concepts from the literature, and will involve
substantial qualitative research.
98. Wearable Support for Weight Lifting Activities

Though there are many fitness trackers available in the market nowadays, few of them aim
at providing qualitative feedback for weights training. The goal of this project is to
investigate different approaches for providing feedback to weight lifters. We will investigate
how different feedback modalities (e.g. audio, smart watch, smart phone, web) can operate
at different temporal (during the exercise, after each repetition, after each set, after the
whole programme) and spatial (at the gym, on the go, at home) levels.

Expected background: a strong programming background, interested in building cross-
device (I.e. integrating several devices, such as watches, phones and laptops) interactions,
who are able to build functional and aesthetically pleasing interfaces.
99. Measuring the Level of Trust between Trading Partners

Trust between trading partners has been identified as an important factor for the success of the
adoption of supply chain management initiatives in various industries. The aims of this project
are to explore the level of trust required for the success of the adoption of an electronic
commerce-enabled supply chain management initiative and to identify a method of measuring
the level of trust between trading partners. The outcome of this project will be a framework that
can be potentially used by organisations to measure the level of trust of trading partners and to
optimise their relationship with trading partners.
100. Managing knowledge in organizational contexts

Many of todays small and large organizations are considering ways in which they can better
manage their existing information and knowledge to improve their competitive advantage. In an
attempt to do so, organisations need to understand their data, information and knowledge sources
and processes associated with managing all three elements. Knowledge Management Systems
(KMS) are a special category of Information Systems that support the linking of people to people
and people to content to enable and support one or more or the human processes associated with
knowledge management namely knowledge creation, knowledge codification, knowledge
sharing and knowledge application. Knowledge Management related projects in this space will
likely focus on: ways in which ICT can foster knowledge flows in social networks, creative ways
in which ICT can link people with content, any aspects related to the modelling of information
for KMS, the modelling and design of KMS, and strategies to improve Knowledge Management
on the individual, team or organisational level.
Supervisor: Rachelle Bosua
101. Digital history-telling

All around the world there are movements to document and share history and heritage through
digital technologies. Examples are Europeana and Historypin, which are two major global sites,
also local history FaceBook groups (eg Lost Melbourne), and many local walking tour apps that
allow people to explore historic places and exchange reactions and experience. This project
involves investigating the design of selected digital history-telling technologies and conducting a
study of people using them to learn about history and history places.
Background knowledge: understanding of human-computer interaction design and evaluation

principles
Supervisor: Wally Smith
102. Adoption of Green Supply Chain Management (GrSCM)

Initiatives
Research has indicated that 80% of the green house gas (GHG) emission comes from supply
chain activities. To address the global environmental sustainability concerns, various green
supply chain management (GrSCM) initiatives have been developed in different parts of the
world. However, the attitude of organisations toward the adoption of such initiatives has varied
across industries and countries. This project is concerned with exploring the adoption of
technology-enabled GrSCM initiatives by organisations. The choice of aspects of adoption,
industry, country and research method for the study can be negotiated with the supervisor.
Possible aspects of adoption could be related, but not limited, to identifying the impacts, key
issues, barriers or possible ways to encourage wider adoption of such initiatives.
103. The role of Social networks and Artefacts in Technology

Appropriation
There are many factors that influence the introduction and use of Information Systems in
organisations. Technology appropriation concerns the adoption and longer-term use of
technology in organizations. Prior case-study research in educational settings suggest that Social
networks and accompanying Artefacts evolve and are key to the successful adoption and longer
term use of Information Systems. Based on qualitative, exploratory research, we have developed
a model that suggests that there are three ways in which users appropriate technology for
successful longer-term use namely: adapting work practices to fit the technology, adapting both
technology and work practices and integrating technologies and redesigning work practices in a
work environment. This research will extend the initial study by further exploring the evolving
nature of social networks and artefacts and testing the model in a variety of organizational
settings.
Supervisors: Dr Rachelle Bosua and Dr Antonette Mendoza
104. What contribution does an educational background in coding make to

career performance for graduates entering the ICT professional
workforce?"
There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that in a strategic technology consulting role, an educational and/or
experiential background in technical coding contributes significantly to becoming a successful
consultant.
This research project aims to test whether a positive correlation between technical coding skills and
performance exists in a professional consulting firm. This research will assess level of coding
understanding in newly employed graduates and monitor how this contributes to performance as a
consultant after one, two and three years. These outcomes will be measured in terms of performance
indicators used for assess salary rates and promotions and link into the firms employee performance
measurement system.
The study will conduct a literature review, design and apply the data collection instrument, analyse the
results and report findings. Data will be collected by survey and face to face interviews.
Supervisor: Rod Dilnutt
105. Teaching Strategies for Information Security Management
Preparing Information Security (InfoSec) Managers for the challenges they face in the workplace is one
of the key objectives of any InfoSec teaching subject. There are a number of textbooks in the area of
InfoSec management that focus on the fundamental concepts, principles and methods that govern the
discipline. Unfortunately, some of the key challenges facing practitioners such as security strategizing in
crises, building effective teams, and security decision-making are not covered in such textbooks and are
therefore not included in such curricula. This project requires the student to conduct a literature review of
innovative teaching strategies and initiatives that may be usefully included into an ISM teaching
curriculum. For example, innovative ways of teaching strategy using playing cards may be adapted for
Security Education Training and Awareness (SETA).
Expected background: Students attempting this project will benefit from having completed the
elective subject ISYS90070 Information Security Consulting.
Supervisors: Atif Ahmad Sean Maynard
106. Teleworking and (In)security
High-speed broadband networking over the last mile makes teleworking an increasingly attractive
prospect for organizations. A flexible work environment has a number of benefits to employees as well as
significant cost savings for employers. However, allowing employees to work outside organizational
premises introduces new security risks (e.g. employees accessing sensitive organizational information
over untrusted networks using unsupported devices). This project requires the student to explore the range
of novel security risks that may arise in teleworking. The primary source of research data will come from
literature, however the student is encouraged to arrange interviews with security experts as well.
Supervisors: Atif Ahmad, Rachelle Bosua, Sean Maynard
107. Security and mobility:What does Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
mean for security?
The distinction between work and personal devices has all but disappeared as organizations embrace the
convenience and cost-effectiveness of BYOD. However, lack of control over employee devices poses
security challenges for organizations. Does information security policy apply to employee-owned
devices? What if an employees device is stolen or lost? How can organizational information be protected
in these circumstances? This project requires the student to identify the security challenges to
organizations arising from BYOD. The primary source of research data will come from literature,
however the student is encouraged to arrange interviews with security experts as well.
Supervisors: Atif Ahmad, Sean Maynard
108. The best defense is a good offense: Legal limitations to offensive

activities by private enterprise
Most operational security models are designed to assist organizations to build a defensive rather than an
offensive program. However, as the old adage goes, taking the fight to the enemy may be the best way to
prevent future attacks. This project requires the student to investigate the legal limitations to offensive
actions taken by private enterprise in (predominantly) western countries. The primary source of research
data will come from literature, however the student is encouraged to arrange interviews with legal experts
as well.

109. Preserving the confidentiality of electronic patient records
Many western countries have developed comprehensive privacy legislation designed to facilitate the
sharing of electronic health data. However, it remains unclear if state-of-the-art security models and
mechanisms provide adequate support for such initiatives. This project requires the student to identify the
security requirements of privacy legislation electronic health provisions towards evaluating security
models and mechanisms. The primary source of research data will come from literature, however the
student is encouraged to arrange interviews with security experts in the health domain as well.
110. What can Information Security learn from Information Warfare?

Information Security and Information Warfare share many formal, informal and technical controls. These
similarities lead many to believe that Information Warfare is simply a more intensive form of information
security practice. However, the two areas follow different paradigms drawn from contrasting views of
risk, safeguards and strategy. This project requires the student to review the literature in Information
Warfare with a view to identifying contrasting principles and practices that may be used to improve
Information Security in private enterprise.
111. The application of formal and informal theories to information security

management
Theories (both formal and informal) have not played a significant role in informing research in the
domain of information security management. This project requires the student to conduct a broad review
of information systems literature towards identifying theories applied in the organizational context. The
resulting thesis is expected to contribute a research agenda that will identify new opportunities for
innovative research in the area of information security management.
112. An Investigation into How to Classify Information

All information is created equally, but not all information is of equal value. Organizations classify
information to establish the appropriate levels of protection for those resources. Because resources are
limited, it will be necessary to prioritize and identify what really needs protection. One of the reasons to
classify information is to ensure that scarce security resources be allocated where they will do the most
good. This project requires the student to conduct a broad review of classification techniques in
interdisciplinary literature. The resulting thesis will contribute towards practice-based initiatives towards
classifying information assets and improving the effectiveness of security strategies.
113. The DARK WEB A training ground for new types of security attacks
The layers of the Internet go far beyond the surface content that many can easily access in their daily
searches. The other content is that of the Deep Web, content that has not been indexed by traditional
search engines such as Google. The furthest corners of the Deep Web, segments known as the Dark Web,
contain content that has been intentionally concealed. The Dark Web may be used for legitimate purposes
as well as to conceal criminal or otherwise malicious activities. It is the exploitation of the Dark Web for
illegal practices that has garnered the interest of officials and policy makers. This project requires the
student to review security and related literature on the Dark Web with the aim of understanding the
implications for the evolution of security threats to organizations. The resulting thesis will contribute
towards understanding security threats and the high-level tactics used to attack organizations.
114. Using SETA to alter security culture

Information security culture in an organisation is the beliefs and values that members of the organisation
have in relation to information security. One way in which a security culture can be developed is through
the use of security education, training and awareness (SETA). This project will explore the concept of
using SETA specifically to alter an organisations culture. This project requires the student to conduct a
literature review on security culture, SETA and related literature towards identifying how SETA can be
used for culture change. The resulting thesis is expected to develop a model of how SETA alters culture.
115. The psychology of Information Security Risk

Organizations operate within a complex and evolving security threat landscape. The last ten years in
particular have seen new and sophisticated threats emerge with new skills and increased effectiveness.
However, organizational security remains driven by the need to comply with obsolete security standards.
A key reason why this remains the case is the security risk perceptions of senior management. This
project requires the student to review the extant literature on the psychology of information security risk,
risk perceptions and how these are influenced. The resulting thesis will explain how risk perceptions are
formed and how they can be modified to align with the reality of security threats facing the organization.
116. An Investigation of Teaching Cases in Information Security

Management
Information Security Administrators must be both business managers and warfare strategists. The modern
information security curriculum must cater to the needs of both roles. Teaching with cases allows for
interactive, student-centered exploration of realistic and specific narratives that provide grist for inductive
learning. The students are engaged in the intellectual, and emotional, exercise of facing complex
problems and making critical decisions without the constraints imposed by reality, for example, limited
time and information and pervasive uncertainty. Considering the situations from the protagonists
perspective, which calls on analysis to inform action, the students strive to resolve questions that have no
single right answer. This project requires the student to review teaching cases and related literature to
determine those suited to teaching in information security curricula. The resulting thesis will contribute
towards teaching research as well as security research specifically towards addressing a key gap in
information security skills.
117. Influencing the Aging populations perceptions and awareness of

information security thought Security Education Training and Awareness
(SETA)
One of the key factors in successful information security management is the effective compliance of
security policies and proper integration of people, process and technology. When it comes to the
issue of people, this effectiveness can be achieved through several mechanisms, one of which is the
security awareness training of employees. Although there has been some research on training people, a
key factor, i.e. age has not been considered. Related research in the area of risk and compliance
indicates that age is a key factor that influences perceptions and compliance-related behavior of
employees in organizations. This project requires the student to reviewing the training and education
literature to determine teaching strategies aimed at different age groups. The resulting thesis will
contribute towards research in SETA.

118. Digital Memorials and Commemoration Practices
Digital platforms are increasingly important for contemporary practices associated with commemorating
the deceased. Growing numbers of people are deploying the general-purpose resources of social
networking sites, websites and blogs to connect with others and share in the commemoration of their
loved ones, and commercial providers are in turn responding to these practices through the provision of a
specialist range of platforms and services. This project will investigate a digital memorial case-study.
The student will be encouraged to analysis the entwined commemorative practices, technology platforms
and social formations associated with the case-study.
Supervisor: Martin Gibbs
119. Sustainable Supply Chain Management: How IT mitigates the

implementation challenges
The significance of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) practices has been widely recognized
by organisations and governments around the globe. However, the implementation of SSCM has been
challenging due to the involvement of various parties along the supply chain, which are often located in
different geographical locations. This project involves identifying challenges experienced by
organizations in Australia and exploring the roles of IT to mitigate these challenges through a quantitative
survey. Some experience in survey design and quantitative data analysis would be desirable but not
necessary to undertake this project.
120. Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) Capability Maturity

Due to the significance of the global sustainability concern, many organisations are becoming aware of
the need to implement sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices. However, most SSCM
practices are inter-organisational in nature and therefore are difficult to implement. Currently, there is still
a lack of studies assessing the required organizational capability for implementing SSCM practices. This
project involves refining and extending a preliminary SSCM capability maturity framework that has been
developed to identify and measure the capability of organizations in implementing SSCM practices. A
qualitative research method will be deployed to validate the existing framework and identify areas for
improvement.

121. On-line health support services
What makes people go online for health support and what design factors encourage them to stay
online? This project explores the use of on-line therapy with regard to the user-experience.
While the use and prevalence of web-based health applications and use of online health forums
has grown over the last decade many of these services have high rates of attrition and few long
term users.
The popularity of the internet has meant that many health consumers seek medical advice and
assistance on-line. This is the case for a full range of physical and mental health conditions.
The user experience for the online health consumer has not yet been fully explored, nor has the
efficacy of online treatment programs when compared to face to face equivalents. In this project
you may explore issues of trust, credibility and the assessment of information quality as well as
how it feels to be a health consumer in an online environment.
The project can look at the many roles these health apps and forums can have in promoting
physical and psychological health. I am open to discussing a range of possible topics with
students examining the design of these apps, who uses them, what benefits they can bring, how
can they work with face to face services and what risks they might carry.
We are able to partner in this research with an established centre for both online and face to face
weight loss therapy but can explore partners in other environemtns.
Supervisor: Reeva Lederman
122. The Use of Educational Technologies and Social Media in Higher

Education
Despite the increasing use of various educational technologies (including social media) in higher
education, there is not a lot of understanding about the impacts, veracity and adaptability of IT
for the educational context. Research in this space would involve looking at various aspects of
the use of IT in higher education. This would contribute to a greater understanding of the
changing landscape of higher education because of the use of IT and how it changes traditional
educational practices.
Supervisor: Shanton Chang
123. Health information presentation for patient treatment adherence

Previous research has shown that people take notice of and remember information that is easy to
read and is structured to fit the individuals cognitive style. People are also more likely to take
action when the information emphasizes issues and consequences that are personally relevant.
Based on these principles we propose a method for tailoring health information based on an
individuals dominant attitudes and information processing style. This project uses these ideas to
examine ways of presenting health information to patients so they are more likely to remember
information and adhere to treatment programs.
Supervisor: Reeva Lederman and Suelette Dreyfus
124. Information Seeking Strategies amongst Transient Migrants
Transient migrants are those who move to a new country for a temporary period (eg. expatriates and
international students). The information seeking strategies and behaviours of this group of migrants are
often evolving and changing. This project seeks to understand these online behaviours in order to provide
better online information and services to them.
Supervisor: Shanton Chang
125. Analysing the Potential of Social Media as a Public Health Education

Platform
Social media is increasingly being used as a platform for public health communication and education.
However, the effectiveness varies in different contexts. This project requires a student to be familiar with
content and text analysis with live public health sites. In particular, the site for this project will be the Being
Brendo Facebook and YouTube sites (with a focus on the context of the health of Men who have sex
with Men (MSM)). Therefore, the topic contains sexual health information and contexts. The project has
implications of understanding the veracity of social media platforms as a way for public health
communication. The outcome of the project will include publications in practitioner and academic outlets.
Supervisor: Associate Professor Shanton Chang
126. Analysing the Potential of Online Learning Tools and Social Media in
Educating Vulnerable Communities
Social media can also be used in the community sector to support the education and empowerment of
vulnerable communities. This project will involve the student working with Project Respect, an NGO that
works with women in the sex industry. It seeks to understand the potential of ICT solutions for this sector.
For information of Project Respect, see www.projectrespect.org.au
Supervisor: Associate Professor Shanton Chang
127. A Synthesised decision support methodology that integrates human

cognition and data mining.
This project explores the complementary nature of emerging decision support tools and human cognitive
abilities as antecedents for effective, intelligent decision-making. The project will involve the design and
development of an automated decision-making tool that interprets health-care datasets and integrate
these with human cognitive elements for decision making using an interdisciplinary approach. The
acquired knowledge will be an important step forward with respect to sense-making for decision makers
in organizations.
Supervisors: Antonette Mendoza and Rachelle Bosua
128. Technology in Aged-Care Service Provision

Recent changes in the aged care industry include the implementation of consumer-directed care, a new
model of service provision for clients living at home. With the advent of consumer-directed care, service
providers are exploring new ways of using technology to support the management and provision of aged
care services. This project will investigate the opportunities that communication technologies provide for
aged care services and identify constraints impeding adoption. The project could involve conducting a
case study or survey to examine how aged care service provider(s) are using communication technologies
to support their provision of home-based care services.
Supervisor: Jenny Waycott
129. YouTube Videos as Research Data: Methodological and Ethical Issues

Social media provides researchers with access to vast quantities of data about peoples social lives.
Researchers are now using publicly available social media posts as research data to investigate a range of
topics, including sensitive issues such as peoples experiences of living with chronic illness. Social media
data includes user-generated visual media such as YouTube videos and Instagram images. These provide
rich and valuable data, but questions are now being asked about the ethics of using this material for
research purposes, and what methodologies are appropriate for accessing and analysing these data. This
project will involve a systematic review and analysis of the literature to identify how ethical and
methodological issues are being considered in research that draws on YouTube videos and other user-
generated content to understand complex social issues.
Supervisor: Jenny Waycott
130. Big Data Quality

Big data is usually sourced from our everyday interactions with social network websites, sensory devices
and other online applications and is commonly characterised using the volume, velocity and variety
attributes of data. Volume meaning that the data is too big; velocity means that data is too fast and variety
refers to the data that is captured in different types. However, there is less attention to the fourth attribute
of big data, Veracity. Veracity refers to the reliability and quality of big data sets. Unreliable data can
be associated with huge risks and consequences for individuals and organizations.
This project will examine the quality criteria for Big Data sets that can be collected and aggregated from
social networks, sensory devices and organisational transactions. This data can be structured or
unstructured in nature. The project will identify and prioritise the big data quality/reliability criteria, and
provide the organisations involved with useful information about their big data projects.
Supervisors: Graeme Shanks and Ida Asadi Someh

131. Privacy and big data analytics
Big data analytics translates big data, the result of our new ability to collect, store, and process
increasingly large and complex data sets from a variety of sources, into competitive advantages.
Potentially positive implications associated with big data range from service innovations, higher product
margins, to new business models. However, big data analytics can also have unintended and potentially
negative consequences for individuals. As individuals interact with big data technologies such as social
networks, sensory devices and mobile applications, they contribute more and more data to big data
service providers on a daily basis. For individuals, this means that they agree to receive some benefits at
the cost of losing control over their personal information, losing their privacy and having restricted
freedom of choice.
This project will examine the factors that individuals consider when contributing their personal data to big
data service providers such as Google and Facebook and the potential privacy and ethical issues that
might arise from using such big data technologies.
Supervisors: Graeme Shanks and Ida Asadi Someh
The following projects are based in the The Microsoft Research Centre for Social
Natural User Interfaces (SocialNUI)
132. Annotation for Spatial Augmented Reality System

We aim to develop a spatially augmented learning environment using Microsoft Kinect and projectors.
The system provides an innovative way for instructor and student to facilitate learning, especially in the
area of physiotherapy education. We propose augmented-feedback via live annotations (text and
graphical) on moving human body. The project will develop software that enables annotation on the scene
via a touch screen tablet. This project will suit a student with interest and background in augmented
reality, human computer interaction, computer vision, and computer graphics, as well as touch screen app
development.
Supervisor: Thuong Hoang thuong.hoang@unimelb.edu.au
133. Natural User Interfaces for Controlling Sensor-Enabled Spaces.

With the rise (and rise) of the Internet of Things the questions of how best to interface with these systems
comes to the fore. If the spaces of the future are sensor enabled on a large scale how can users be
empowered through NUI interfaces to use that information to change or modify their public and private
spaces? In this project the student will develop a natural user interface for a rule-based system that allows
a user to modify an environment (lights, screens) based on incoming sensor data. This project would
likely interest students with a background in NUI, HCI, interface design, prototyping, physical computing
and pervasive computing.
Supervisor: Eduardo Velloso & Travis Cox eduardo.velloso@unimelb.edu.au

134. Human & Animal Computer Interaction at the Zoo
Zoos are increasingly leveraging digital technologies to enhance animal monitoring, animal welfare, and
improve visitor experience. In this project, the student will develop a novel technology that satisfies one
of these aims, and evaluate it in the context of the zoo. The student will ideally build off the prior work
we have conducted developing digital enrichment for Melbourne Zoo's Orangutans and Werribee Zoo
Gorilla's & Lions. The project will interest students with a background in NUI & HCI, and an interest in
animals and their wellbeing.
Supervisor: Marcus Carter marcus.carter@unimelb.edu.au
135. Eye Gaze - Implicit and Fun Eye Tracker Calibration

We are now starting to see an increasing number of eye trackers available in the market. Even though
they are more accurate and easy to use than ever, a tedious calibration procedure is required. This
involves staring at a sequence of points on the screen. This project will explore how to embed the
calibration procedure into the application so that users do not even realise that the tracker is being
calibrated. Possible strategies include building calibration mini-games, deriving where the user should be
looking from their eye behaviour, or using probabilistic models based on the appearance of the
application. This project will suit students with a strong programming background with an interest in Data
Science, Machine Learning, and/or Human Computer Interaction.
Supervisor: Eduardo Velloso eduardo.velloso@unimelb.edu.au
136. Gesture in Games

The Microsoft Kinect was released in 2010, and has enabled gesture based interaction in a wide variety of
games. We are interested in exploring the use of gesture in games, and its capacity to generate new
playful experiences not present in other modalities. There exists no comprehensive review or history of
the use of gesture in games, and a synthesis of the many studies of game-based gesture user experience. A
minor thesis project could fill this gap. A larger project could then further involve developing a novel
gesture-based game, utilizing the Microsoft Kinect. The project will interest students with a background
in NUI & HCI, and an interest in game design.
Supervisor: Marcus Carter marcus.carter@unimelb.edu.au
137. Eye Tracking for Game User Research

The eyes offer a powerful window into users' cognitive processes. The goal of this project is to design an
optimal methodology for evaluating games using eye tracking. Though there is some understanding of
how to evaluate conventional systems using eye tracking data, little is known about how it can be useful
for evaluating games. The project will suit students with strong data analysis skills, who are interested in
games and in conducting user studies. It will involve recording eye tracking data of novice and
experienced players and analyse how the data can inform the game design.

138. Eye Tracking as a Game Controller
Modern eye trackers, such as the Tobii EyeX and the SteelSeries Sentry, are being marketed specifically
for the gaming market. In this context, creating novel game mechanics and experiences that benefit from
gaze information is a largely untapped gold mine. The goal of the project is to design and build these
novel game experiences involving the players' gaze. The project will suit students with strong
programming skills (C# and Unity), who are interested in building games.
139. Towards conversational IR: navigating to a particular Wikipedia page

one question at a time
Imagine a user of a low bandwidth interface (such as limited voice interaction or selecting from a limited
number of options on a smart phone where typing isnt an option) wanting to navigate to particular
Wikipedia page to satisfy their existing information need. There are many interesting aspects to pursue:
What input modalities should one consider? How can you define a minimal interface that is highly
efficient? What is the quickest way to navigate to an individual page? How can we bias the system if we
have context (such as a conversation that is concurrently being held, or a search history, or a selection of
recently written emails)? What data structures and algorithms are appropriate to facilitate such a search?
This project would suit a student with an interest in search engine technologies and could lead to further
academic work in this area (postgraduate studies) or employment opportunities in the search engine
industry.
Supervisor: Bodo Billerbeck bodob@microsoft.com
140. Augmented Fitness - A Review of Quantified Self Systems for Sports

and Fitness
As wearable sensors become increasingly more popular and inexpensive, the number of available systems
in the market increases every day. Fitbit, Microsoft Band, Apple Watch---all offer some kind of fitness
functionality. However, upon closer inspection, we see that these systems are very different, coming in
various shapes and forms, as well as offering very different types of functionality. The goal of this project
is to understand the landscape of fitness trackers currently in the market as well as how these systems
relate to the existing academic literature. The project will suit students with an interest in Wearable
Computing, Fitness, and/or Human Computer Interaction. The project will require strong writing skills,
the ability to synthesise concepts from the literature, and will involve substantial qualitative research.
141. Wearable Support for Weight Lifting Activities

Though there are many fitness trackers available in the market nowadays, few of them aim at providing
qualitative feedback for weights training. The goal of this project is to investigate different approaches for
providing feedback to weight lifters. We will investigate how different feedback modalities (e.g. audio,
smart watch, smart phone, web) can operate at different temporal (during the exercise, after each
repetition, after each set, after the whole programme) and spatial (at the gym, on the go, at home) levels.
The project will suit students with a strong programming background, interested in building cross-device
(I.e. integrating several devices, such as watches, phones and laptops) interactions, who are able to build
functional and aesthetically pleasing interfaces.
142. Natural Language Processing for Human Motion Analysis

For many activities, such as weight lifting and physiotherapy exercises, determining whether a
performance is correct or incorrect is crucial for ensuring safe and optimal outcomes. However,
specifying what a correct movement looks like is still a challenge. The goal of this project is to derive
human motion models (e.g. how a weight lifting exercise should be executed in terms of the movement on
the joints of the body) based on a textual description (e.g. the exercise instructions on a weight lifting
book). The project will suit students with a strong programming background, interested in Machine
Learning and Natural Language Processing.
143. Bodies and Embodied Interactions - Avatars as Agents that Effect

Behaviour
Experiments by social psychologists have demonstrated that showing college students avatars of
themselves as older people, impacts their attitudes towards saving for the future. The impact is so
significant that major banks have started to incorporate the technique into their retirement planning tools.
We are interested in how avatars that depict older people as younger versions of themselves may similarly
impact on their sense of self, and by extension, effect their ability to complete tasks in virtual
environments. The project will suit students who are interested in human-computer interaction,
prototyping, field work and gaming.
Supervisor: Steven Baker steven.baker@unimelb.edu.au
144. Towards conversational IR: navigating to a particular Wikipedia page

one question at a time
Imagine a user of a low bandwidth interface (such as limited voice interaction or selecting from a limited
number of options on a smart phone where typing isnt an option) wanting to navigate to particular
Wikipedia page to satisfy their existing information need. There are many interesting aspects to pursue:
What input modalities should one consider? How can you define a minimal interface that is highly
efficient? What is the quickest way to navigate to an individual page? How can we bias the system if we
have context (such as a conversation that is concurrently being held, or a search history, or a selection of
recently written emails)? What data structures and algorithms are appropriate to facilitate such a search?
This project would suit a student with an interest in search engine technologies and could lead to further
academic work in this area (postgraduate studies) or employment opportunities in the search engine
industry.
Supervisor: Bodo Billerbeck bodob@microsoft.com Lab: Microsoft Centre for Social NUI at the
University of Melbourne

2017 S 1 Sample Projectsin CISv 1

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Department of Computing

and Information Systems

Sample research projects in 2017

Updated: semester 1, 2017, v1

1. Project title: Social IoT Platform ........................................................................................................... 8

Supervisors: Michael Kirley and Eduardo Oliviera

2. Exploiting the User in High-Security Systems

Expected background: An interest in security.

Preferred background: Additionally, some Windows programming experience would be beneficial.

Supervisors: Toby Murray

3. Understanding how Compiler Optimisations Affect Timing Leaks

Expected background: C programming experience.

Preferred Background: Additionally, some knowledge of information theory would be beneficial.

Supervisors: Toby Murray

Expected background: Discrete mathematics and logic.

Supervisors: Toby Murray

5. Mobile Phone App Development

Supervisor: Rui Zhang

6. Big Data Analytics

Supervisor: Yun Zhou--

8. Automated summative assessment of surgical performance in a VR

Contact: Yun Zhou ----

9. Ear surgery simulation with Oculus Rift and Leap Motion

Contact: Yun Zhou

Contact: Sudanthi Wijiewickrema

11. Simulation of bleeding and irrigation for virtual ear surgery

Contact: Sudanthi Wijiewickrema

12. Automated modelling of elements of educational videos

Supervisor: Jason Lodge (contact jason.lodge@unimelb.edu.au) and Professor James Bailey

Contact: Linda Corrin (linda.corrin@unimelb.edu.au)

14. Political Text Analytics

Supervisors: Tim Baldwin and Andrew Turpin

15. Modelling informal settlements using complex adaptive systems

Models of Geographical Systems, 571.

Supervisor: Michael Kirley

16. Co-evolution of Cooperation

Supervisor: Michael Kirley

17. Twitter Sampling Strategies

Supervisors: Matthias Petri and Tony Wirth

18. Finite state entropy coders

Expected background: C programming and proficiency in mathematics and in algorithms.

Supervisors: Matthias Petri and Tony Wirth

*This project requires an exceptionally talented student

19. Deduplication in file systems

Expected background: C programming and proficiency in algorithms and data structures.

Supervisors: Matthias Petri and Tony Wirth

20. Designing and engineering algorithms for effective resource allocation

This project provides opportunities in some or all of:

Exploring resource-allocation models underpinned by classical combinatorial optimisation

21. Data structures for multi-core processors

Expected background: Proficiency in C programming and algorithmic experience.

Supervisors: Justin Zobel and Tony Wirth

22. Election Robustness

23. Electronic Voting for Australia

24. Auditing Senate Counting Code

Supervisors: Vanessa Teague (CIS); Damjan Vukcevic (maths and stats).

25. Complete lattices for reasoning about program correctness

26. Web Information Extraction and Mining

27. A Facility Location Problem on Road Networks

28. Mining Trends in Sequence Data

29. Developing a pore network construction algorithm for

Developing a pore network construction algorithm for Computerised Tomography images of

Understanding the microstructure of granular, porous media is crucial in modelling geo-mechanical