QUT offers a diverse range of student topics for Honours, Masters and PhD study. Search to find a topic that interests you or propose your own research topic to a prospective QUT supervisor. You may also ask a prospective supervisor to help you identify or refine a research topic.
Found 239 matching student topics
Displaying 1–12 of 239 results
Using agricultural waste and organic amendments for sustainable agriculture and soil health
Optimising the application rates of organic amendments in agricultural soils is one of the most promising and practical solutions to reduce nitrogen (N) losses into the environment while maintaining an economically-adequate crop production.Organic amendments alone often don't meet the crop's needs. Consequently, a supplementary application of N synthetic fertiliser is needed in conventional farming systems to meet perceived production needs.Accounting for the amount of plant-available N (PAN) released by organic amendments and combining this with N-fertiliser will:ensure N demands of …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Surrogate models for accurate prediction and inference in mathematical biology
High fidelity mathematical models of biological phenomena are often complex and can require long computational runtimes which can make computational inference for parameter estimation intractable. In this project we will overcome this challenge by working with computationally simple low fidelity models and build a simple statistical model of the discrepancy between the high and low fidelity models. This approach provides the best of both worlds: we obtain high accuracy predictions using a computationally cheap model surrogate.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Citizen-developers: challenges and opportunities for low-code/no-code automation
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is becoming a popular choice for organisations to support their digital transformation and to maintain operational resilience. Many organisations are keen to adopt Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to dramatically improve operational efficiency. Many organisations train and assign their staff as “citizen-developer” to design, test, and maintain the bots using Low-Code/No-Code platforms. However, there are number of issues surfaced when using organisational employees as citizen developer ranging from technical & process capabilities to scalability of RPA.
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Information Systems
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
The dark side of robotic process automation
Pandemics such as COVID 19 have forced organisations to pursue hyper-automation to maintain operational sustainability. Many organisations are keen to adopt Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to dramatically improve operational efficiency. However, evidence to date highlighted various associated challenges associated with adoption of RPA in organisations.Furthermore, recent surveys by consultant organisations found a high RPA project fail rate and their inability to meet the expected return on investment.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Information Systems
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Future Enterprise
Alleviating corruption: a data driven perspective
Corruption is cited as among the greatest challenges faced by government and citizenry the world over and threatens to undermine the very trust that is essential for a functioning democratic society. In order to earn and maintain public trust, governments at all levels must continuously strive to reduce corruption and uphold the highest levels of integrity.Amidst the countless human interactions and electronic transactions that occur within the public service on a daily basis are a complex and ever-changing variety of …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Information Systems
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Parameter identifiability for stochastic processes in biological systems
Stochastic models are used in biology to account for inherent randomness in many cellular processes, for example gene regulatory networks. Noise is often thought to obscure information, however, there is an increasing understanding that some randomness contains vitally important information about underlying biological processes.When applying these models to interpret and learn from data, unknown parameters in the model need to be estimated. However, not all data will contribute to a given estimation task regardless of the data quantity and quality. …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Security analysis of open-source software
Several open-source projects drive modern-day IT applications. However, some open-source projects get compromised by malicious attackers, who include malware to the code to compromise the security of the application users.This project will investigate approaches for securing the open-source software.
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Computer Science
Atmospheric cooling and shading for the Great Barrier Reef
This research sits within the Cooling and Shading Subprogram of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP).RRAP is an ambitious and innovative R&D effort that places Australia as the leader of coral reef adaptation and restoration science. It is a consortium of Partners, including QUT, dedicated to creating an innovative toolkit of interventions to help the Reef resist, adapt to, and recover from the impacts of climate change. These partners include the Australian Institute of Marine Science, CSIRO, the Great …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for the Environment
Time-series analysis of 2D diffraction patterns for Synchrotron rock physics
The interaction between deformation, fluid flow, chemical reactions, and heat flow in rocks constitutes a research frontier in the Earth Sciences. In addition to fundamental academic interest in this subject, there are many applied industrial problems, which require a sound understanding of this coupling. Examples include: the long-term sequestration of carbon dioxide in rocks, the energy-efficient processing of future-mineral resources, the design of unconventional geothermal-energy operations, and the prediction of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.The advisory team pioneered new methods for …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Network Flow Improvement
Network flow is impeded by the arcs present in the network and their associated length/weighting. Arcs can be added or removed to debottleneck the network. But which ones? At what cost?
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Scalable Bayesian Inference using Multilevel Monte Carlo
Bayesian inference is a popular statistical framework for estimating the parameters of statistical models based on data. However, Bayesian methods are well known to be computationally intensive. This fact inhibits the scalability of Bayesian analysis for real-world applications involving complex stochastic models. Such models are common in the fields of biology and ecology.Multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) methods are a promising class of techniques for dealing with the scalability challenge. These approaches use hierarchies of approximations to optimise the trade-off between …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Climate vulnerability of nut and pulse food systems in Australia
Arable land, water resources and biodiversity are under pressure from increased human populations and resource needs. On top of that, natural and agri-food systems are rapidly changing due to natural disturbances, with climate change likely to increase the impacts of extreme events like drought and wildfire.With climate change, negative impacts on agriculture are predicted with disruptions to food supply; many ecosystems have already been impacted by increased frequency and severity of extreme fire events; coral reefs will be threatened by …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Centre for the Environment
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