2015 HONOURS PROJECTS Updated: September 2014
Table of Contents Synthesis and Animation of procedurally generated game characters... 1 Active gaming support for Quidditch... 1 Towards a Tricorder with Sensor scanning... 2 Enhanced display... 3 Application of depth cameras... 3 Gender and games does the divide still exist?... 3 Cutting edge technologies for cloud learning do we have them?... 4 Gamification in education... 4 Mobile learning elearning on tablets?... 5 Adaptive learning it s history and future... 5 Development of an anti collision protocol for RFID systems... 5 Routing in opportunistic networks... 6 Trust and Service Level Agreements (SLA) in cloud computing... 7 A single sign on system for a federation of clouds... 7 Toward HPC on PaaS and SaaS clouds... 8 A study into the enhancement of bio applications for execution in SaaS clouds... 8 Defining cloud learning and mapping Deakin to a cloud learning environment... 9 Cloud learning opportunities from pedagogical and technological issues... 9 The enabler of cloud learning: Cloud computing for education... 9 Highly Immersive Virtual Reality Training within a CAVE... 10 Baxter Using a human size humanoid robot for advanced Human Computer... 10 Design of an e security health check system... 10 Bonferroni means: theoretical developments and applications in decision making... 11 Mobile Apps for Deakin Education... 11 Mobile Mascots in Education... 11 Artificial Intelligence in Financial Markets... 12 Diversity indices in ecology... 12 Investigation of human values within mobile gaming technologies... 12 Kidney exchange optimisation... 13 Integer linear programming models for constrained clustering problems... 13 The 0 1 Knapsack Problem and the Cryptanalysis of Knapsack Ciphers... 14 0
Treatment planning optimisation with rectangular apertures... 14 Close enough travelling salesman problem (CETSP)... 14 Biobjective travelling purchaser problem (BTTP)... 15 Weight constrained shortest path problems with replenishment arcs... 15 Characterisation of the social media environment of the Australian Computer Society... 16 Raspberry Pi Application Development... 16 Real time Data Processing... 17 Evaluating E reader on Mobile Platforms... 17 F Sharp... 17 IT Security Analytics... 18 Towards Gamification of IT Security Education... 18 Facial Recognition using Point Cloud Models... 18 Mapping and Modelling of Biological Habitats using UAVs... 19 Facial Recognition in Crowd Video Sequences... 19 Activity Recognition in Augmented Reality Games... 20 Who is Tweeting on Twitter: Human, bot, or cyborg?... 20 Identifying Internet user behaviour through traffic classification... 21 Security and privacy for social networks... 21 Development of digital watermarking techniques for multimedia data protection... 21 Developing effective information recovery methods for wireless communication systems... 22 Spam Detection in Online Social Networks... 22 Uncovering malicious networks in cyberspace... 23 Networking for Big Data... 23 Data to Decisions CRC & Sentient Vision... 24 Contact Us... 24 The School of Information Technology offers students the opportunity to propose their own research projects, or to suggest modifications to the suggested projects above, so as to better align to individual learning objectives. 1
Synthesis and Animation of procedurally generated game characters Dr Shaun Bangay shaun.bangay@deakin.edu.au Procedurally generating game characters produce a large range of varied characters without the manual effort required to produce each one. Previous approaches create surface meshes but these are no longer sufficient for the demands of current applications. Previous Honours projects have: Investigated building all the internal structures of the body as components from the inside out, layer by layer. This approach provides valuable meta data specifying the purpose and parameters of each part of the creature, which can be used for subsequent manipulation of the model. Defined the development of the body as a grammar, progressively refining the structure in a way that resembles development of the organism. This ensures that the complex internal structures are correctly connected, and ensures that novel creatures are internally consistent. We plan to continue with this line of research. Problems that still need to be solved include: 1. Converting a grammatical description of a creature into the corresponding geometry. Here suitable representations need to be devised to suit the levels of deformation of the individual components (such as bone, muscles, tendons, skin). A constraint satisfaction problem must be expressed and solved to ensure that overlapping components are correctly placed. This goal would be validated by recreating the physical structure of existing creatures from a grammatical description. 2. Automatically generating suitable gaits producing movements that allow the creature to move and interact with its environment. This problem would be investigated by first reproducing a current state of the art approach (such as that described in Igor Mordatch, Zoran Popović, and Emanuel Todorov. 2012. Contact invariant optimization for hand manipulation. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA 12). Eurographics Association, Aire la Ville, Switzerland, Switzerland, 137 144). Active gaming support for Quidditch Dr Shaun Bangay shaun.bangay@deakin.edu.au This project builds on existing research into active gaming at Deakin. The objective is to investigate the integration of virtual and physical reality to create a pervasive reality in which game objects can interact with both the virtual game environment and the physical world. The game of Quidditch provides an opportunity to test mechanisms for achieving this, by recreating the 3 types of ball used in the game. Bludgers: These are large balls, existing purely in the physical world. They need to be self propelled and able to interact with players. 1
Quaffle: A medium sized ball, manipulated by players. This needs to respond to position changes accurately track which team has possession and when goals are scored. It exists in both the physical world (so it can be manipulated by players) but also needs to be tracked in the virtual world (for scoring and other game interaction). Snidget: This is a high speed autonomous entity capable of stealth and accessible only to a limited subset of the players. This game element can be controlled entirely from the virtual game environment, manifesting in the physical world using augmented reality techniques only. Consequently the challenge is to accurately track the player and portray the snidget s motion correctly. Questions that need to be answered in the course of this research project include: What sensor technologies would be appropriate for each of these balls and how well do they work? How can we control the selfpropelled elements in their respective realities? Ultimately: are these approaches suitable for use in an active gaming scenario? Towards a Tricorder with Sensor scanning Dr Shaun Bangay shaun.bangay@deakin.edu.au The mythical tricorder of Star Trek fame has as many uses as the script requires but many of them involve being able to scan the environment for particular properties. We now have many of the facilities required to construct a tricorder: mobile devices with processing and visualization facilities, ready access to a range of sensors either on smartphones or able to be interfaced, and access to location and orientation information that can allow any sensor reading to be associated with a particular position. This project involves investigating how all these elements can be combined to produce a novel tool; one that can extend human sensing capabilities by translating modalities. Examples include: Scan for life signs: It is already possible to use WiFi signals identify humans on the other side of walls (See Through Walls with Wi Fi!,Fadel Adib and Dina Katabi, ACM SIGCOMM 13, Hong Kong, August 2013). Reports exist indicating that this has been extended to measure breathing and pulse rates. This project could involve reproducing this work using the same, or alternative technologies. Enhanced sight: Camera images are already being used to extract other sensory information. The latest kinect uses the camera to measure pulse rates. Recent research shows that it is possible to recreate sounds by looking at vibrations on objects in high speed footage (Abe Davis, Michael Rubinstein, Neal Wadhwa, Gautham J. Mysore, Frédo Durand, and William T. Freeman. 2014. The visual microphone: passive recovery of sound from video. ACM Trans. Graph. 33, 4, Article 79 (July 2014), 10 pages. DOI=10.1145/2601097.2601119 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2601097.2601119). Sensory mapping: Combining location tracking and sensing allows mobile devices to produce maps of otherwise invisible properties of the environment. This could range from mapping wifi signal strength within a building to detecting pockets of toxic gas. Areas for research include: suitable processing of sensor information for a moving platform, accurate location tracking, visualization (or other forms of presentation) of the resulting information and use of multiple nodes as a wireless sensor network. 2
Enhanced display Dr Shaun Bangay shaun.bangay@deakin.edu.au New technologies are being proposed for displaying information. This project will involve reproducing one of the approaches described in the papers listed below, and investigating how it could be extended or applied: 1. Displays that correct vision problems at the source, rather than require the user to wear glasses. This could have value for use in head mounted displays. (Fu Chung Huang, Gordon Wetzstein, Brian A. Barsky, and Ramesh Raskar. 2014. Eyeglasses free display: towards correcting visual aberrations with computational light field displays. ACM Trans. Graph. 33, 4, Article 59 (July 2014), 12 pages. DOI=10.1145/2601097.2601122 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2601097.2601122) 2. A display created by using sound waves to levitate particles to place particles. (Yoichi Ochiai, Takayuki Hoshi, and Jun Rekimoto. 2014. Pixie dust: graphics generated by levitated and animated objects in computational acoustic potential field. ACM Trans. Graph. 33, 4, Article 85 (July 2014), 13 pages. DOI=10.1145/2601097.2601118 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2601097.2601118) 3. A techniques for potentially creating wide field of view head mounted displays. (Andrew Maimone, Douglas Lanman, Kishore Rathinavel, Kurtis Keller, David Luebke, and Henry Fuchs. 2014. Pinlight displays: wide field of view augmented reality eyeglasses using defocused point light sources. ACM Trans. Graph. 33, 4, Article 89 (July 2014), 11 pages. DOI=10.1145/2601097.2601141 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2601097.2601141 ) Application of depth cameras Dr Shaun Bangay shaun.bangay@deakin.edu.au This project investigates applications of readily available consumer level depth cameras (in the form of the kinect and similar products). One direction that can be investigation is the use of these devices as a 3D modelling tool. The initial investigation can involve recreating the scanning system described in: Hao Li, Etienne Vouga, Anton Gudym, Linjie Luo, Jonathan T. Barron, and Gleb Gusev. 2013. 3D self portraits. ACM Trans. Graph. 32, 6, Article 187 (November 2013), 9 pages. DOI=10.1145/2508363.2508407 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2508363.2508407. Gender and games does the divide still exist? Associate Professor Jo Coldwell Neilson jo.neilson@deakin.edu.au or Geelong Since the early 1960 s video games have been a popular form of entertainment. The early focus of research in the field was on the benefits and challenges to users. One aspect of this body of work was on the difference between males and females in the uptake of game playing and in their continued interaction with games. 3
The advent of mobile devices has had a significant impact on the way we interact with digital technologies, but has this also impacted on the game playing habits of digital technology users? Has the availability of games on mobile devices impacted on the game playing habits of different audiences for example? This project will investigate modern game playing habits on mobile devices of different audiences. The outcomes may lead to a better understanding of the categories of games that are deemed entertaining by mobile users in different groups leading to improved development of games that target a specific audience. Cutting edge technologies for cloud learning do we have them? Associate Professor Jo Coldwell Neilson jo.neilson@deakin.edu.au or Geelong In early 2012, Deakin University conducted a survey to gain a picture of the types of digital technologies both staff and students had available to them and which were being used to support educational activities (Oliver et al, 2012). The survey provided strong evidence that both staff and students have digital access to those services required to support Cloud Learning. About the same time a CloudDeakin Evaluation Survey was conducted of Deakin Students (Palmer and Holt, 2012). This survey reported some significant shortcomings when attempting to use mobile technologies to access some areas of a cloud learning environment. This project will investigate the technical affordances and barriers to accessing cloud learning through current digital technologies commonly used by students. Gamification in education Supervisors: Associate Professor Jo Coldwell Neilson Ms Sophie McKenzie jo.neilson@deakin.edu.au sophie.mckenzie@deakin.edu.au or Geelong There is a lot of hype about gamification. Everyone is looking to design a gamified experience, a supposedly sure route to the elusive engagement that makes free apps valuable amongst other things (http://mashable.com/2013/05/17/gamification buzzword/). What is gamification? What does it aim to achieve? What are the technology implications in an educational setting? This project will explore the world of gamification and experiment with incorporation of gamification elements in learning activities. 4
Mobile learning elearning on tablets? Associate Professor Jo Coldwell Neilson jo.neilson@deakin.edu.au or Geelong This project will start by exploring the various definitions and understandings of mlearning. The goal is to develop an understanding of mobile learning together with a framework of mlearning from a student s perspective that could be used to develop engaging (mobile) learning activities in the context of an IT unit of study. http://www.upsidelearning.com/blog/index.php/2013/02/19/the question of why not elearning on ipadsor tablets/ http://www.ascilite.org.au/index.php?p=news_detail&item=240 Adaptive learning it s history and future Associate Professor Jo Coldwell Neilson jo.neilson@deakin.edu.au or Geelong This project aims to explore how adaptive learning paradigms can be incorporated into a learning management system such as CloudDeakin to enhance and personalize students learning experiences (https://www.smartsparrow.com/adaptive elearning/) Development of an anti-collision protocol for RFID systems Dr Robin Doss robin.doss@deakin.edu.au Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that enables the non contact, automatic and unique identification of objects and people using radio waves. RFID technology uses a RFID tag (consisting of a microchip and an antenna) attached to each object to store unique identification and other information. This information can be later read by the use of a compatible RFID reader to uniquely identify and gather useful information about the object. With auto identification (auto ID) systems becoming common place in many economic sectors, potential RFID applications include homeland security (RFID enabled passports), e business (RFID enabled credit cards), e cash (RFID enabled bank notes) and automated supply chain management. The success of RFID systems depends on the ability of the reader to successfully interrogate and communicate with the tags. However, the broadcast nature of the wireless medium impacts negatively on RFID communication as it introduces interference effects when multiple tags and multiple readers are present. 5
It is observed that when numerous RFID tags are present within the reading range of a single reader, the messages from the tags collide and cancel each other. This is referred to as the collision problem in literature and protocols that aim to mitigate this negative effect are referred to as tag arbitration or anticollision protocols. In this project the research student will be involved in the design and development an efficient method of tag arbitration that can allow the bulk reading of RFID tags. Routing in opportunistic networks Dr Robin Doss robin.doss@deakin.edu.au In recent years, opportunistic networks have gained popularity in research and industry as a natural evolution from mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). In opportunistic networks, nodes come into contact with each other opportunistically and communicate wirelessly. Opportunistic networks are human centric because they opportunistically follow the way humans come into contact and exploit human relationships to build more efficient and trustworthy protocols. Technological advances are leading to a world replete with mobile and static sensors, user cell phones, and vehicles equipped with a variety of sensing and computing devices, thus paving the way for a multitude of opportunities for pair wise device contacts. Opportunistic computing exploits the opportunistic communication between pairs of devices (and applications executing on them) to share content, resources, and services. One of the major challenges in opportunistic networks is in data delivery routing messages to a destination in the absence of a complete end to end path from the source to the destination. A simple method to deal with the problem is to employ epidemic techniques to flood the network with multiple copies of a message. Although flooding many copies of a message in the network increases the chance of the message delivery, it can lead to a very high network overhead and can cause network congestion. Therefore, more efficient techniques that take into account user mobility patterns, context information and social links are needed. In this project the research student will be involved in the design and development of such a routing protocol for opportunistic networks that can achieve high delivery ratios while minimizing routing overhead. Required knowledge: Network Protocols (SIT202 Computer Networks and strong programming skills (C/C++). 6
Trust and Service Level Agreements (SLA) in cloud computing Professor Andrzej Goscinski ang@deakin.edu.au Geelong Clouds are so popular these days because: they relieve clients from the need of purchasing, deploying and maintaining their computing infrastructure that leads to major savings client payments for cloud services are based on the pay as you use model cloud services are provided on demand Cloud services are provided by cloud service providers. This implies that there is a business relationship between clients and service providers; thus, there is a need for trust. This aspect as well as Quality of Service (QoS) are/should be addressed in SLAs. This project will explore SLAs, currently provided by service providers, and explore the issue of trust: are clients sufficiently protected? could service providers feel secure, ie, clients will not mount attacks against providers infrastructure and other clients applications and data? The project is suitable for IT and IS/IT students. A single sign on system for a federation of clouds Professor Andrzej Goscinski ang@deakin.edu.au Geelong Services and resources exposed by these services must be protected against unauthorized access. This could lead to a need for logging in to every single service of a single cloud. Clients do not want to remember login and passwords to all these services. That leads to the idea to provide a Single Sign On (SSO) for all services of a cloud. Although cloud providers offer a number of different services within a single cloud, in some situations there is a need for a service that is provided within another cloud. This requires a Single Sign On for a federation of clouds. The project will require: a study into existing SSO systems the design of a SSO for a federation of clouds, and demonstration of its feasibility through the implementation of the proposed SSO system. The project is suitable for IT students who can solve problems and program. 7
Toward HPC on PaaS and SaaS clouds Professor Andrzej Goscinski ang@deakin.edu.au Geelong High Performance Computing (HPC) has helped to build new knowledge and add to existing knowledge in disciplines such as biology, medicine, physics and engineering by providing computer facilities (usually cluster based) that perform large and complex simulations / database searches / system modelling within reasonable time frames. The current trials of providing HPC clouds are based on the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) clouds enhanced by additional middleware to support HPC. Although HPC on IaaS clouds provides services on demand and lowers infrastructure costs, it is a very poor research environment. Two projects will address the problems of HPC based on PaaS and SaaS clouds. Project 1 will concentrate on providing HPC on Platform as a Service (PaaS) clouds. These platforms enhanced by middleware and user interfaces, that must be prepared before addressing application deployment, will hide from researchers services that are required to be performed when using IaaS clouds, relieve non computing specialists of mundane application oriented activities, and only require information that are oriented toward specialist s area of research. Project 2 will go even further and concentrate on providing HPC on Software as a Service (SaaS) clouds. These platforms enhanced by middleware and user interfaces will hide from researchers services that are required to be performed when using IaaS clouds, relieve non computing specialists of mundane application oriented activities, and only require information that are oriented toward specialist s area of research. The projects are suitable for IT students, who can solve problems and program. A study into the enhancement of bio applications for execution in SaaS clouds Professor Andrzej Goscinski ang@deakin.edu.au Geelong Non computing specialists do not want to acquire complete knowledge and skills to execute their application on HPC systems. Therefore, there is a need for providing these applications on such clouds, which relieve Bio specialists from relieve non computing specialists of mundane application oriented activities, and only require information that are oriented toward specialist s area of research. The project will require carrying out: study into most commonly used bio applications that require HPC design middleware for clouds that addresses specific aspects of the execution process of selected application execution process demonstrate its feasibility through the implementation of the proposed middleware that supports the execution on a SaaS cloud. The project is suitable for IT students, who can solve problems and program. 8
Defining cloud learning and mapping Deakin to a cloud learning environment Professor Andrzej Goscinski Dr Kok Leong Ong ang@deakin.edu.au kok leong.ong@deakin.edu.au Geelong In this project, the student will have to first conduct a thorough study of what cloud learning is, listing important attributes that separates a cloud learning institution from an established one. From these attributes, the student will develop a framework for a generic cloud learning institute and then show how current Deakin departments, services and infrastructure could be re organised within this new framework. Cloud learning opportunities from pedagogical and technological issues Professor Andrzej Goscinski Dr Kok Leong Ong ang@deakin.edu.au kok leong.ong@deakin.edu.au Geelong In this project, the student will investigate various known issues in cloud learning. Students will be provided with some issues as the starting point of investigation. The student working on this project is to investigate each issue in depth, drawing upon external relevant literature to highlight issues, solutions and opportunities. From the in depth study, student is expected to identify areas of strength in Deakin and provide an analysis on how those issues could be turned into opportunities for the university. The enabler of cloud learning: Cloud computing for education Professor Andrzej Goscinski Dr Kok Leong Ong ang@deakin.edu.au kok leong.ong@deakin.edu.au Geelong In this project, the student will investigate cloud learning and cloud computing. The project begins by understanding what cloud learning is about in the context of Deakin University s LIVE agenda. Then, the student will study cloud computing technologies and present a technical design to show case how cloud computing could help advance Deakin s LIVE agenda. Immediate examples of such technical designs could include a cloud based e Portfolio that follows the student and has strong integration to existing social networking sites like LinkedIn, a cloud based discussion forum where a post on DSO will be available through student s Twitter account or FaceBook wall, etc. 9
Highly Immersive Virtual Reality Training within a CAVE Dr Ben Horan, School of Engineering ben.horan@deakin.edu.au Geelong The School of Engineering, as part of CADET (Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training), has a new CAVE (CAVE Automated Virtual Virtual Environment Yes a recursive acronym). The CAVE is a 4 sided room with HD 3D stereoscopic projection, head tracking and other technologies, enabling full immersion within ultra realistic virtual environments. We are looking for students based in Geelong (or willing to relocate) with an interest in working with highly immersive Virtual Reality. We have several projects for Honours students to participate in including investigating the efficacy of large scale haptic interaction for cell injection training, human factors research for a new approach to vehicle driving and research into a physics modelling for haptic rendering for large scale devices. If you are interested please make contact to discuss. Baxter Using a human size humanoid robot for advanced Human Computer Dr Ben Horan, School of Engineering ben.horan@deakin.edu.au Geelong The School of Engineering has recently acquired Baxter, a human sized humanoid upper torso robot. Baxter (http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/) is a new introduction to the world of robotics and attempts to induce a paradigm shift in robotics, by being low cost, human safe, and run on open source software. Baxter uses the ROS operating system and we are interested in how he can facilitate touch and force based interaction between a person attempting to control and system, and the system itself. We are looking for students with the ability to work with C#, C++, Linux and interested in this type of HCI. If you are interested please make contact to discuss. Design of an e-security health check system Dr Damien Hutchinson d.hutchinson@deakin.edu.au Geelong With the National Broadband Network, the opportunity for attacks on business infrastructure is only going to continue to increase. Current security surveys provide evidence that security attacks remain a high concern for small and medium organisations where the priority is on conducting their day to day business and not security. Research has begun to investigate and develop a security assessment system that can provide these businesses with an e security health check. 10
This Honours project consists of 2 phases. The objective of Phase 1 is to derive an e security health check assessment model taking into consideration existing security standards, frameworks and approaches to developing security policies. The objective of Phase 2 is to implement and validate the model using and existing software framework. Bonferroni means: theoretical developments and applications in decision-making Dr Simon James simon.james@deakin.edu.au The Bonferroni mean takes the average of all input product pairs and allows us to ensure a number of mandatory requirements are satisfied in decision making. There have been a number of recent extensions and generalizations with potential applications in consensus and decision making, however the behaviour of these functions is still not well understood. This project aims to study the behaviour of various Bonferroni mean constructions, both theoretically and in application. Mobile Apps for Deakin Education Dr Henry Larkin henry.larkin@deakin.edu.au Deakin University has had a big push for offering online and cloud based learning to students. However there is still much that could be done. This project is for a student to pursue new mobile app ideas for providing courses over mobile devices. The platform can be either mobile web, ios or Android, depending on student preference. The project is to explore and test different methods of student communication and collaboration with lecturers in units, both in general and during class time. Mobile Mascots in Education Dr Henry Larkin henry.larkin@deakin.edu.au There is strong research to indicate that graphical and animated characters can aid in the personalisation and delivery of education. This project would be to explore different options in creating mascots and avatars for education, and testing the effectiveness in how education is received. The research would look into the style and type of character features which are most effective in retaining student attention and focus. Students with strong design and/or animation skills are encouraged to apply. 11
Artificial Intelligence in Financial Markets Dr Henry Larkin henry.larkin@deakin.edu.au Artificial Intelligence has had enormous impacts over various fields, including algorithmic trading both in day trading and high frequency trading. This project builds on existing research into the effectiveness of algorithmic financial and technical trading rules, and how different AI systems compliment or hinder the discovery and application of trading strategies. The project would explore programming and testing several algorithms, and analysing the effectiveness of new AI approaches applied to financial market data. Students with a strong programming background are encouraged to apply. Diversity indices in ecology Dr Simon James simon.james@deakin.edu.au A number of indices are used in ecology to quantify the biodiversity, richness and evenness of ecological communities. As most of these are based on aggregation functions, we can apply our understanding from this field to define more appropriate measures of diversity that are better aligned with human perceptions. This project will evaluate the currently used indices in the framework of aggregation functions and use parameter learning techniques to define new measures of biodiversity. Investigation of human values within mobile gaming technologies Ms Sophie McKenzie sophie.mckenzie@deakin.edu.au Geelong or In the study of Human Computer Interaction methods of eliciting human values have avoided the conceptual values domain. The conceptual domains require looking more into the philosophical side of analysis, representing trade offs and dialogues within user needs. This study will focus on the changes in HCI research which is shifting towards a focus on the conceptual domain. A focus on the use of mobile technologies, such as gaming applications, will be a direction of the research. 12
Kidney exchange optimisation maximal weighted matching problem with a cardinality constraint of k Dr Vicky Mak Hau vicky.mak@deakin.edu.au and Cloud online When a kidney failure patient needs a kidney transplant, sometimes a family member is willing to become a donor. Unfortunately, however, the donor s kidney may not match that of the patient s, hence we have an incompatible donor patient pair. Assuming we have two sets of incompatible donor patient pairs: Donor A Patient A and Donor B Patient B. If Donor B s kidney is compatible to Patient A and Donor A s kidney is compatible to Patient B, and that if they are both willing to exchange, i.e., Donor A donates a kidney to Patient B, and Donor B donates a kidney to Patient A, then both patients lives can be saved. This is the idea of kidney paired exchange. Kidney paired exchange can be represented on an undirected graph, with maximizing exchanges as the objective function. Such an optimisation problem is polynomially solvable. In some cases, however, paired exchange is not the best option. For example, if we have three sets of incompatible donor patient pairs, with Donor B s kidney a match for Patient A, Donor C s kidney a match for Patient B, and Donor A s kidney a match for Patient C. The pairwise exchange problem represented on an undirected graph will return no matches. However, there will be a solution if instead a directed graph is used to represent the donor patient match. The underlying combinatorial optimisation problem is the maximal weighted matching problem with an upper bound of k on the cycle length. The reason that there is an upper bound on the cycle length is that the number of kidney harvest and implant surgeries that can take place at one time is limited. Such a combinatorial optimisation problem is NP complete. Thus far, exact solution methods can only solve problems of modest size. The aim of this research project is to find efficient exact algorithms for solving the combinatorial optimisation problem described above, taking into consideration a number of other clinical constraints. Integer linear programming models for constrained clustering problems Dr Vicky Mak Hau vicky.mak@deakin.edu.au Data clustering is well known and important problem in data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, computer vision, biology, and even marketing. The problem primarily concerns the extraction of a set of cluster centres that best describe the input data. The problem can be modelled as a combinatorial optimisation problem, and modelled as an integer linear programming problem. In this research project, we review existing ILP models in the literature, develop our own models, and conduct comprehensive numerical comparisons of all models. 13
The 0-1 Knapsack Problem and the Cryptanalysis of Knapsack Ciphers Dr Vicky Mak Hau vicky.mak@deakin.edu.au The Knapsack Cryptosystem of Merkle and Hellman, 1978, is one of the earliest public key cryptography schemes. Many variations and extensions of the idea have been introduced in the subsequent literature in response to attacks by researchers. The one iteration version was broken by Shamir in 1982 while attacks on multi iteration versions have been proposed by, for instance, Adleman [1983], Odlyzko [1984], Lagarias and Odlyzko [1985]. All these attacks are successful for low density knapsack ciphers. Because of these attacks, a number of stronger variations on knapsack ciphers were proposed by, for example, Chor and Rivest [1985] and Qu and Vanstone [1994]; these were almost immediately followed by cryptanalysis attacks by authors such as Schnorr and Horner [1995] and Nguyen and Stern [1997]. These attacks are not successful in all circumstances. The security of the knapsack ciphers relies on the difficulty in solving Subset Sum Problems (also known as 0 1 Knapsack Problems). In this research, we will review the various knapsack ciphers and the advances in combinatorial optimization approaches to 0 1 Knapsack Problems, and will perform computa onal analyses of integer programming in the cryptanalysis of knapsack ciphers. Treatment planning optimisation with rectangular apertures Dr Vicky Mak Hau vicky.mak@deakin.edu.au Multileaf collimators (MLCs) are commonly used in intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) or volumetric arc therapy (VMAT). While MLC allows the formation of highly flexible apertures, they are expensive to manufacture, operate, and maintain. Hence, researchers are recently studying the use of conventional jaws that are much more economical to operate and maintain, but with the sacrifice on the flexibility of apertures it can create. In radiotherapy, one wishes to minimize radiation delivered to healthy organs, and maximize radiation delivered to tumours. In this study, we will conduct comprehensive computational experiments on MLCas that can form a large variety of shapes and conventional jaws that can produce only rectangular shapes, in order to explore the trade off between accuracy, treatment time, and treatment planning time. Close enough travelling salesman problem (CETSP) Dr Vicky Mak Hau vicky.mak@deakin.edu.au Given a directed or undirected graph with vertex set V and arc set A, the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) is a well studied combinatorial optimisation problem that concerns the finding of a tour that visits each vertex exactly once, with the total travelling cost/time minimized. 14
The CETSP, however, does not require that the traveller visit every node at its fixed location. Rather, the traveller can simply visit a node if it enters a compact neighbourhood set of the node. The CETSP has applications in wireless sensor network operations, as well as military airborne vehicle operations. This project is to study mixed integer linear programming models, exact methods, and heuristic methods for the CETSP. Biobjective travelling purchaser problem (BTTP) Dr Vicky Mak Hau vicky.mak@deakin.edu.au The Biobjective Travelling Purchaser Problem (BTPP) can be described as follows. Given a set of markets M and a set of products K. Each product pk for k K has a demand of dk, and can be purchased at a subset of markets, with the price of the product potentially different from different markets. A feasible solution is one that begins from the depot, travel through a subset of markets, and that meet the demand for each product. The ``optimal solution is one that minimizes the travel distance and the purchasing cost simultaneously. In this project, we will review the literature of the BTPP, compare existing solution methods, and present our own ideas. Weight-constrained shortest path problems with replenishment arcs Dr Vicky Mak Hau vicky.mak@deakin.edu.au The shortest path problem (SPP) is a well studied combinatorial optimisation problem. The SPP concerns the finding of a path between two vertices on a graph such that the total weights of vertices travelled along the path is minimized. The Dikjstra s algorithm solves the single source SPP in time, for V the set of vertices on the graph. The weight constrained shortest path problem (WCSPP) concerns the shortest path with the total weight no more than a given limit W. The WCSPP arise as a column generation subproblem in many large scale Integer Linear Programming problems, particularly in the area of crew scheduling, rostering, aircraft routing, and telecommunications. However it was discovered recently that these problems has an additional restriction that a feasible path from one node of a graph to another cannot accumulate more than W units of weight. Hence, the weight constrained shortest path problem with replenishment arcs (WCSPP R) was introduced as an extension to the WCSPP. The arc set of a graph is divided into two distinct sets: the set of ordinary arcs and the set of replenishment arcs. A feasible path may alternative between a sequence of ordinary arcs, and a replenishment arc, so as to guarantee no more than W units of weight are accumulated before a replenishment arc is used. The WCSPP R is a challenging problem in its own right, and there is room for the development of new, efficient exact and heuristic solution methodologies. 15
Characterisation of the social media environment of the Australian Computer Society Dr Stuart Palmer stuart.palmer@deakin.edu.au Geelong For organisations, social media provide new avenues for communication and collaboration with their stakeholders; however, any value created for an organisation through social media comes not from any particular platforms, but from how they are used. Simply having a social media presence does not guarantee stakeholder participation. Use of social media channels by organisational stakeholders is voluntary, so it is important for an organisation to attract a critical mass of members and facilitate their active participation in an online community. The network data inherently created by social media tools represent the connections between participants as they interact, and can be used to make visible the previously elusive social processes at play, and to identify strategically important components and participants in the social network, and to show the development of the communication links over time. The Australian Computer Society (ACS) is the professional association for Australia s Information and Communication Technology sector. This project will involve the longitudinal capture, visualisation and analysis of one of the social media channels of the ACS. This project will characterise one element of the social media environment of the ACS, provide insights for the ACS and others as to how they can best use this communication channel, and develop social media research methods. The project has the support of the ACS. The project would best suit a student with a familiarity with social media, and an interest in data visualisation and analysis. Raspberry Pi Application Development Dr Lei Pan Dr Shaun Bangay l.pan@deakin.edu.au shaun.bangay@deakin.edu.au It is innovative! It is affordable! And it is Raspberry Pi. Some cool project examples of Raspberry Pi can be found at http://www.themagpi.com/. Amongst these examples, many are game application programs and others are related to robots. In fact, comparing with its hardware capabilities, the software development is still in an infant stage. The proposed project will investigate the software development issues of Raspberry Pi. Some key literature references will be thoroughly discussed before identifying coding projects, proposing feasible designs and developing prototypes. The developed prototypes may (but not limited to) be used in vehicles, toys, classrooms and even your backyard. For example, smart farms, wild life observatories, car auto driving and smart sensing systems. The project has two aims: (1) evaluation of current software development model in the context of Raspberry Pi; and, (2) design, implementation and testing on an actual Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi supports a good range of programming languages ANSI C, C++, Python, C# and so on. Students with a major in computer science or software development are encouraged to apply. 16
Real-time Data Processing Dr Lei Pan Dr Shaun Bangay l.pan@deakin.edu.au shaun.bangay@deakin.edu.au Real time data are commonly used in our lives. For example, we accept blurriness of images in a web browser, brokenness of voice during a telephone chat, and loss of frames during a video conference meeting. However, it is challenging to recover the data lost during transmission or process. The proposed project will investigate possible improvements of processing real time data including picture images, voice and/or video streams. Some key literature references will be thoroughly discussed before identifying coding projects, proposing feasible designs and developing prototypes. The project has two aims: (1) review of current solutions processing real time data; and, (2) design, implementation and testing a new solution. Students with a solid programming background are encouraged to apply. Good understanding of mathematical concepts in linear algebra and calculus would be appreciated as well. Evaluating E-reader on Mobile Platforms Dr Lei Pan Dr Elicia Lanham l.pan@deakin.edu.au elicia.lanham@deakin.edu.au There are many varieties of electronic readers (e readers) on different platforms. We will focus the mobile platform IOS, Android and Windows 8 in this project. The project consists of a few stages: 1) identify a set of e readers and their supported data format, 2) compare and contrast the pros and cons of each combination, 3) develop a set of metrics which can be used to evaluate the usefulness of each e reader. Students with a broad IT background are encouraged to apply. F-Sharp Dr Lei Pan l.pan@deakin.edu.au F# (F Sharp) is a programming language invented by Microsoft and shipped with.net framework. F# has been influenced by OCaml, C# and Python. It is a relatively new programming language and its potentials haven t been thoroughly investigated. This project will examine the feasibility of adopting F# in the higher educational context. Some short programs and algorithms will be implemented in F# which will be compared with their C# or C++ counterparts. As most of the codes are available, the focus of this project is to investigate the differences whilst using functional programming as an instructive paradigm in university classrooms. Students with a broad IT background are encouraged to apply. 17