Student topics

Dengue is a major mosquito-borne disease affecting 390 million people annually across 100 countries. Disease results from infection with dengue viruses, which are single positive-stranded RNA viruses in the family Flaviviridae. Defective interfering particles (DIPs) are virus-like particles with greatly reduced genomes that are byproducts of RNA virus replication and replicate only in the presence of standard virus (Vignuzzi and Lopez 2019, doi: 10.1038/s41564-019-0465-y). DIPs occur naturally during Dengue infection (Li et al. 2011, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019447) and suppress DENV replication …

Study level

Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Respiratory infections such as influenza, SARS-COV-2, COVID-19, and MERS are increasingly prevalent. Complications and related deaths arising from these infections are often the result of a “cytokine storm”, whereby there is an over production of proinflammatory soluble factors by immune cells, which dictates symptoms severity and mortality risk. Recent works showed that immunomodulatory therapy, with or without antiviral agents, may improve recovery outcome. However, the screening of suitable immune-modulatory and antiviral agents relies heavily on animal models which can't capture …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering

Due to stakeholder attention, companies are increasingly disclosing social and environmental performance information within their annual and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports.OutcomesThis study will investigate whether these disclosures reflect real performance, and thereby create accountability practices by corporations. Both Australian and international companies are the focus of this project.The project considers both qualitative and quantitative methods.

Study level

Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Law

School

School of Accountancy

The teaching profession is a rewarding yet intensive occupation, with teachers being at increased risk of mental health disorders. Poor mental health does not only affect the wellbeing of teachers but can also have ramifications on the health and wellbeing of students with whom teachers interact (Harding et al., 2019). Although there is a large body of research that focuses on student mental health and wellbeing, less attention has been given to understanding mental health interventions targeting teachers. Furthermore, despite …

Study level

Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Public Health and Social Work

Complex manufacturing environments characterised by high value and high product mix manufacturing processes pose challenges to Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC). Allowing people to see what robots are ‘thinking’ will allow workers to efficiently collaborate with co-located robotic partners. A tighter integration of work routines requires improved approaches to support awareness in human-robotic co-working spaces. There is a need for solutions that also let people see what the robot is intending to do so that they can also efficiently adjust their actions …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

School

School of Design

Research centre(s)

Design Lab

The incidence of both dementia and chronic wounds increases with age, thus, given the ageing population, the overlap is strong.Clinicians report managing wounds in adults with dementia is a frequent and challenging problem, yet people with dementia are generally excluded from research into evidence-based wound care despite impaired cognition, high incidence of falls, immobility and incontinence, all of which are recognised risk factors for skin tears and chronic wounds.This project aims to investigate the evidence in regard to dementia and …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Nursing

As airway infections become pandemic worldwide, airway models to investigate pathogen infection mechanism and nasal drug delivery is now increasingly important. However, current airway models cannot mimic the triad coupling of human nasal anatomical geometries, aerosol flow and biological responses (e.g. infection and inflammation) from the nasal epithelium.Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models are used for simulating pathological airflow patterns resulting from anatomical structural changes of the nasal cavities, but they cannot measure phenotypic or functional alterations in the nasal epithelium …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering

Research centre(s)

Centre for Biomedical Technologies

Barriers to health care for regional/rural residents often relate to the limited availability of local health services and resources and the distance needed to seek suitable specialised services. Wounds experienced in rural and regional areas are often dependent upon the types of employment available, recreational pursuits and risk-taking behaviours.The prevalence of non-communicable lifestyle related risk factors (such as obesity and poor nutrition) and the propensity for an ageing population in rural and regional areas, positions this population group as one …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Nursing

Venous leg ulcers (VLUs) make up 70% of all chronic leg ulcers. Unfortunately, around 30% of VLUs fail to heal in a 24-week period often despite evidence-based practice. Chronic VLUs impose a significant burden on people with these ulcers. Disease related distress has been explored in diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease but has not been explored in chronic wounds.Research has completed phase one of this study (secondary analysis of existing data), phase two (focus group to explore the findings), phase …

Study level

Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Nursing

Approximately 30% of venous leg ulcers (VLUs) fail to respond to evidence-based treatments and remain unhealed; while after healing, 60–70% of ulcers recur. Currently most clinicians use only their experience to identify patients with VLUs at high risk of failure to heal or recurrence after healing.To address this problem objectively, this project team has developed and validated two risk assessment tools to identify patients at high risk of failure to heal or ulcer recurrence. A prospective, multi-site study has demonstrated …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Nursing

The last fifteen years have witnessed an unprecedented rise in the rates of antimicrobial resistance among Gram-negative bacteria, described by the World Health organisation as a global health crisis (1). Escherichia coli sequence type 131 (E. coli ST131) is a ‘high-risk’ group of Gram-negative pathogens that have emerged rapidly and spread worldwide in the period of the last 10 years (2). E. coli ST131 strains are typically resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics and cause bloodstream and urinary tract infections …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Trustees have a duty to act in the best interests of beneficiaries. In particular, it has been held that “(w)hen the purpose of the trust is to provide financial benefits for the beneficiaries, as is usually the case, the best interests of the beneficiaries are normally their best financial interests.” (Cowan v Scargill [1985] 1 Ch 270 at 286 per Megarry VC) This may require consideration of not only the economic well-being of the trust fund more generally, but also …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Law

School

School of Law

Research centre(s)

Australian Centre for Health Law Research