R&D

the magazine of the office of ReseaRch anD Development winter 2013

power feed for computational

science

Built environmentliving the sustainable-city life

Applied economicsthe national call-up for women to the workforce

Human movementsedentary overload starts young

04

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contentscomputational science and engineering super ideas 2

isotope science comets, crystals and ice cores 4

energy from little things big things grow 6

profile professor fran ackermann 7

profile professor Kim scott 8

sustainable cities curtin’s urban gurus 8

global economic development spanning the divide: how to ensure a fair mining boom 10

conservation biology Unearthing the link between fire and flora 11

population health ct scans: too much of a good thing? 12

human movement sitting on a health risk 12

profile associate professor suzanne fraser 13

applied economics Wanted: all hands on deck 14

socio-economics Wealthy and wandering 15

humanities Q+a: associate professor John Byron 16

cURtin’s ReseaRchstRategyCurtin is committed to achieving its vision for 2030: to be a recognised international leader in research and education.

Curtin will:• strengthen as a research-intensive university• attract and retain iconic scholars to undertake

world-leading research in areas of global significance• change lives in Western australia, the nation and the world

through high-impact research.

curtin’s status as a research-intensive university will be determined by the quality, scale and significance of its research, as assessed against national and international benchmarks.

the University will focus its resources to invest in areas of high-quality research and creative production that truly matter, generating outputs that have relevant and significant impact on communities. it will lead through the discovery and practical application of knowledge that addresses real-world issues and changes lives. it will excel in thought-leadership through creative expression and through our influence on public debates, changing the minds of decision-makers at all levels on issues that matter to society.

By increasing our investment in areas of strategic significance, curtin will be home to a growing number of world-class researchers who will deliver research of greater global impact than ever before.

our areas of strength

mineRals anD eneRgy

ict anD emeRging technologies

sUstainaBle Development

health

The last issue of R&D Now was released in expectation of the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2012 results. Curtin’s performance in ERA 2012 surpassed its previous performance, with a 75 per cent increase

in the number of fields of research classified as ‘world standard or above’: from 20 to 35. In November 2012 the results of the Excellence in Innovation for Australia trial were released. Four Curtin case studies received the highest rank – representing ‘outstanding impacts’ – with research from across a range of disciplines, such as the compendium of Professors Newman and Kenworthy’s research titled ‘Sustainable Cities – new paradigms and practices’.

Computational science and engineering is a focus of research at Curtin in areas where complex interactions occur at micro scales too small for traditional experimentation, or in situations too inaccessible or hazardous. For example, in the Fluid Dynamics Research Group, Associate Professor Ben Mullins is using computational science in an Asthma Foundation-funded project, modelling airway deposition of liquid versus solid (powder) asthma medications. Even more remarkable is that Ben is an engineer working in the School of Public Health.

Health and environmental science are key features of this issue. The National Health and Medical Research Council is supporting research led by Associate Professor Rachael Moorin to determine changes in the utilisation of CT scanning, and Professor Leon Straker is leading a project investigating the prevalence of inactivity and sedentary behaviour in young adults.

Dr Tianhua He has an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant to investigate controlled fire regimes for maintaining the biodiversity in Mediterranean climate zones, with a view to revising conservation practices associated with prescribed burning.

The ARC is also funding important new research: the barriers to retaining mature-age women in the labour force; and research to devise new geochronological techniques.

John Curtin Distinguished Professor Chun-Zhu Li is working with industry partners on a $6.7 million grant for a biomass gasification demonstration plant. Industry partners include Cryofin Pty Ltd, Verve Energy and the Oil Mallee Association of Australia. In November 2012 the Australia–China Science and Research Fund announced its support for a new joint centre at Curtin. The Australia–China Joint Research Centre for Energy will be established in conjunction with Taiyuan University of Technology, Monash University, China Huadian Electric Research Institute and the National Institute of Clean-and-Low-Carbon Energy.

Curtin welcomes Professor Keith Hampson, who has joined the Faculty of Humanities as the CEO of the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre. On the international front, through Associate Professor Fay Rola-Rubzen, Curtin is leading an AusAID-funded project in Mongolia to build capacity and improve public sector skills to facilitate policy formulation for inclusive and sustainable economic development in this minerals-rich country.

The human side of research is also featured, with researcher profiles and insights from Associate Professor John Byron, Professor Kim Scott, Associate Professor Suzanne Fraser and Professor Fran Ackermann.

Uncertainties in global economic conditions continue to impact economies worldwide. Despite the robust performance of the Australian economy, recent across-the-board cuts announced to higher education funding, including nationally competitive research, have the potential to negatively impact the excellent progress of the past five years of government support for the sector. Investing in research remains one of the few ways to generate a creative and innovative nation.

Professor Graeme Wright Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Development

research.curtin.edu.au/about

Investing in research remains one of the few ways to generate a creative and innovative nation.

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R&D wINTER 2013 OVERVIEw

Computational science and engineering

suPe r

every researcher working in science and engineering should be using advanced ICT such as supercomputing in their research, says computational scientist Professor Andrew rohl.

Crystallisation, fluid dynamics, hydrogen storage, geosequestration and geodesy are just a few project areas in which

Curtin teams are applying computational simulations to advance their research.

“Simulation hastens research well beyond the scope of experimentation, ”says Professor Andrew Rohl.

“It expedites research in those fields where traditional experiments aren’t viable – either because they’re not possible or because of the time and expense required to obtain results.”

Advances in supercomputing have enabled computational science and engineering (CSE) to develop as a discipline. Typically, CSE projects use computational models and simulations to solve complex physical problems.

But without the benefits of high-end computing it would be near impossible for many of Curtin’s researchers to gain expertise in CSE techniques and expect their

research to be world-class. Fortunately, western Australian scientists have access to the supercomputing facility iVEC.

During his 12 years as iVEC’s inaugural director, Rohl oversaw phenomenal development of the centre’s capabilities, before returning to Curtin’s Nanochemistry Research Institute in 2012 to resume his fundamental research in crystallisation.

“Increasingly, researchers across the breadth of science fields are using advanced computing to address questions about natural phenomena, ”he says.

“It’s also allowing innovations in engineering design and analysis. Curtin’s School of Built Environment, for example, is creating simulated environments with building information modelling technologies.”

Expertise in computational science is growing across Curtin; materials science, geoscience, atomic physics and biomedicine teams are just a few that are taking advantage of iVEC’s resources.

“Most of these areas are using simulation and modelling – although radio astronomy is an example of an area that uses iVEC’s massive data storage capabilities for data-intensive research methods, ”Rohl says.

In fact, radio astronomer Professor Steven Tingay utilises iVEC’s storage capabilities more than any other scientist in wA.

As Co-Director of the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, Tingay leads the international Murchison widefield Array (MwA) project that is acquiring massive amounts of data from an advanced, new radio telescope that has begun surveying the sky.

Correspondingly, John Curtin Distinguished Professor Julian Gale and his group are the largest users of supercomputing in the state, undertaking advanced molecular modelling in minerals chemistry and speciation.

During 2013 iVEC will install supercomputing and data-storage systems at the new Pawsey Centre – a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient facility built with $80 million from the federal government’s Super Science Initiative, and with funding from the wA Government.

Dr Neil Stringfellow, a computational scientist from the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, in Zurich, commenced as iVEC’s Executive Director in April 2013. He will oversee the installation of a class-leading ‘Cray Cascade’ – a 200-teraflop supercomputer allowing data transfer of 40 gigabits per second that will serve the real-time processing and analysis needs of projects such as the MwA. This system will be upgraded to beyond one petaflop in 2014.

chemistry.curtin.edu.au/research

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Associate Professor Ben Mullins is a chemical and environmental engineer with a research background

in the minimisation of industrial emissions. Now based in Curtin’s School of Public Health, he is leading two interdisciplinary projects that apply aerosol science to biomedical research.

Funded by the Asthma Foundation, Mullins is comparing the airway penetration between liquid and powder medications to establish which is the better method of drug delivery.

To achieve this, he and Dr Andrew King, a mechanical engineer and Mullins’s colleague in the Fluid Dynamics Research Group at Curtin, are creating 3-D simulations to demonstrate particle deposition in the respiratory system.

King’s expertise is in computational fluid dynamics; in particular, using high-performance computing (HPC). To enable the simulations, he develops new algorithms and completes the computational modelling. Then, at the iVEC supercomputing centre, they generate the complex 3-D simulations of the respiratory system in action.

“HPC means our experiments are a thousand times faster. Simulations like this are possible not only because of the expertise within the Fluid Dynamics Research Group, but also because of our access to iVEC, ”Mullins explains.

“we need people who can make models, and we need exceptionally fast computers that can cope with computationally intensive simulations.”

Another of their studies is on the impacts of biodiesel exhaust exposure on respiratory health.

Funded by the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, that project forms part of Mullins’s wider investigation into the deposition of pollutants in the respiratory system.

“Aerosol science is very applicable to biomedicine and environmental health and safety, ”Mullins says.

“And right now we’re the only team in the world who has simulated realistic lung breathing.”

fdrg.curtin.edu.au

AerOsOL sCIeNCe: NOT TO BE SNEEZED AT

Aerosol science has an increasing role in public health research areas, including respiratory diseases and environmental health and safety.

iVeC@Curtin

Launched in March by Professor Graeme wright, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Development, iVEC@Curtin is the contact point for researchers requiring advanced ICT capabilities.

The resource combines Curtin’s ICT services with the supercomputing facility iVEC.

“Research is shifting towards larger and more complex data sets, and simulation often is replacing experimentation, ” wright says.

“iVEC@Curtin is designed to provide Curtin researchers with the ICT capabilities they’ll need from when they commence their research to the time they publish their findings.”

The resource provides fit-for-purpose ICT tools and services, and staff are constantly exploring the potential of new capabilities such as cloud computing and visualisation technologies.

iVEC was established in 2000 as an unincorporated joint venture between CSIRO and the four western Australian public universities, as the ‘hub of supercomputing in wA’. The facility offers researchers the benefits of supercomputing, cloud computing, data storage and visualisation services.

ivec.org/facilities/ivec-curtin

sAeDI

Isotope science

The John de Laeter Centre for Isotope Research (JdLC) is where researchers across the breadth of physical sciences can build the story of a material – what it is, where it came from and how it was created.

“Using advanced mass spectrometry techniques, we measure ionised atoms or molecules in samples to accurately determine age and chemical composition, ” explains the centre’s director, Professor Brent McInnes.

“On any given day we could have researchers analysing materials recovered from deep space and deep oceans, from remote deserts and Antarctic ice caps, and from erupting volcanoes.”

The JdLC is the site of many discoveries in nuclear sciences, earth sciences and chemistry.

The most famous is the discovery of the world’s oldest known material in the form of the mineral zircon from the Jack Hills in western Australia.

Led by John Curtin Distinguished Professor Simon wilde, a team of geologists ascertained that the zircon crystallised 4.4 billion years ago, and that continents and oceans existed on Earth at a time now known as the Hadean.

“Curtin’s research in zircon geochronology is ranked No.1 for citations worldwide for that reason, ” McInnes says.

The JdLC began in 1968 as a small but state-of-the-art laboratory built by an eminent Australian scientist, Dr John de Laeter. As head of physics of the wA Institute of Technology (now Curtin University), de Laeter commissioned the state’s first mass spectrometer, mainly as an instrument for nuclear physics and cosmochemistry, including the study of meteorites.

In the mid-1990s the facility was well used by exploration geologists looking to determine the age of geological formations and the chemical composition of rock samples.

A state Centre of Excellence since 1999, the JdLC is now a joint venture between Curtin, The University of western Australia, the Geological Survey of western Australia, and CSIRO. Chevron recently joined as a supporting industry partner.

“These organisations have collaborated to ensure that wA has one of the highest concentrations of higher education facilities for minerals, petroleum and environmental sciences research, ” McInnes says.

“Testament to their success, the national Excellence in Research for Australia assessment awarded the highest rating of 5 – ‘outstanding performance well above world standard’ – to Curtin’s research in earth sciences, geochemistry and geology.”

The achievement, McInnes believes, is directly related to the high standard of facilities available to researchers. Furthermore, a $700,000 grant from the state Research Facilities Program, which augments $2 million in Commonwealth grants awarded to the JdLC over the past two years, will deliver instrumentation for three new and three upgraded laboratories.

“Already the breadth and depth of the research effort here is amazing – it’s an inspiring place to work, ” he says. “The new laboratories will extend our analytical capabilities and the world-class research being undertaken.”

jdlc.curtin.edu.au

COMETS, CRYSTALS AND ICE CORES Isotope science can tell tales about outer space, Antarctic ice and the centre of the earth.

At the John de Laeter Centre for Isotope Research (JdLC),

Dr Fred Jourdan is studying grains from the asteroid Itokawa that passed close to Earth in 2005.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) collected particles of asteroidal material, a few tens of microns in diameter, when its space probe Hayabusa rendezvoused with Itokawa.

Jourdan, a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the JdLC’s Argon Isotope Facility, is working to determine the age and mineral composition of two of the largest grains collected by Hayabusa.

“we’ve been using argon dating to constrain the age of meteor impact craters, but this is the first time we’ll apply the technique to material directly brought back from an asteroid, ” he says.

“It’s significant research because the minerals in the asteroid are the building blocks of the solar system.”

Jourdan’s international standing in geochronology and isotope chemistry – particularly applied to extraterrestrial material – and the JdLC’s world-class equipment explains why JAXA has entrusted Jourdan with the analysis.

The grains were shipped directly to Curtin from Japan in November 2012, following preliminary analyses conducted by JAXA and other research teams.

The geochemical analysis of the grains should provide new knowledge about the history of the solar system. Unfortunately, the technique

to be used is destructive, and offers only one chance of successful analysis.

“Argon dating uses a vaporising laser beam, which is the best technique for constraining the age and providing other information about extraterrestrial material, ” Jourdan explains.

“It will enable us to determine when the asteroid was formed – probably from the collision of two larger asteroids.”

The analysis will also measure how long the grains have been exposed to cosmic rays at the surface of Itokawa. In addition, it will measure the argon composition of solar wind – a stream of charged particles from the upper atmosphere of the Sun – implanted at the surface of the grains.

“we can then compare measurements from Itokawa and Moon particles to learn more about how solar wind interacts with bodies exposed to the vacuum of space, ” Jourdan says.

“This should lead to new knowledge about the formation of the planets as well as the history of the solar system at large.”

Researchers from Curtin’s Department of Applied Geology and the western Australian Museum are collaborating on the project.

The analysis should be completed and the results released this year.

curtin.edu.au/rd/ fred-jourdan

curtin.edu.au/rd/aif

A ChIP Off THE OLD ASTEROIDMineral samples from the asteroid Itokawa, collected by the Japan Aerospace exploration Agency, are being analysed at Perth’s world-class isotope science laboratories.

NOWR&D 05

federal funding of $3.6 million will enable the fuels and energy Technology Institute to demonstrate that green base-load electricity from biomass will become a reality for Australia’s remote communities.

A biomass gasification demonstration plant based on Curtin’s award-winning proprietary gasification technology will be built in western Australia, with financial support from the federal government.

The development is an important milestone for John Curtin Distinguished Professor Chun-Zhu Li, who has been working to realise renewable energy from mallee and other biomass.

“Planting mallee is considered an important means to fighting dryland salinity. However, continued planting is feasible only if a cost-effective technology is developed to convert mallee into useful products, ” Li says.

“The Fuels and Energy Technology Institute (FETI) has responded to this, and focused on developing innovative bioenergy/biofuel

technologies. One such technology gasifies mallee biomass to produce a gaseous fuel for electricity generation.”

Mallee is a fast-growing tree that coppices well; that is, after harvesting it produces strong new growth from the root crown – which makes it an ideal species to use as a sustainable biomass resource.

The biomass gasification reactor developed at FETI is designed for use in remote areas that are far from the electricity grid but close to biomass resources such as mallee and wheat straw.

“The technology has many unique features that will help to reduce the capital and operating costs of generating green base-load electricity, using distributed biomass resources, in remote areas, ” Li says.

“These include a compact design of gasifier, integrated hot gas cleaning with gasification, and rapid gasification at atmospheric pressure and relatively low temperature.”

The federal grant of $3.6 million, through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, was awarded to Renergi Pty Ltd, a company established by Curtin to prepare for the technology’s commercialisation.

Energy

FROM LITTLE THINGS BIG THINGS

G wro

Dr Fran Ackermann commenced as Dean, Research and Development, and Professor of Strategy at Curtin Business School (CBS) in January 2013.

As dean, her overarching goal is to ensure CBS is known as the strongest business school in western Australia. To achieve this, she has begun working to promote a strong collegiate research culture across business academia and industry.

Ackermann’s expertise in strategy development and implementation commenced with a PhD in management science, from the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1991. Her current research activities include working with wA’s Department of Health in the areas of mapping and stakeholder management.

Ackermann also has a longstanding interest in complex project management and, more specifically, the modelling of disruption and delay, risk assessment and cost overruns. Accordingly, with the School of Built Environment, in Curtin’s Faculty of Humanities, she is seeking to develop this increasingly relevant area of applied research.

widely published, having authored or co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, Ackermann has produced 24 book chapters and four books – two of which focus on an approach to strategy-making she co-developed and which is now well established and used by several business schools.

Before joining Curtin she served as the head of department of management science at the University of Strathclyde. She sees Australia as an economically vibrant country and Curtin as “a proactive university, open to new ideas and opportunities for collaborative, multidisciplinary research”.

Among Ackermann’s many academic recognitions is her election as a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. Notably, she received Best Paper awards at four separate conferences of the Academy of Management (US): in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2011.

curtin.edu.au/rd/fran-ackermann

Professor fran AckermannDean, Research and Development

Curtin Business School

Profile

Australia–China Joint research Centre for energy

In November 2012 the Australia–China science and research fund announced its support for a new joint centre to help secure future energy supplies and reduce CO2 emissions – the two top priorities for Australia and China.

The Australia–China Joint Research Centre for Energy is now established at Curtin, with John Curtin Distinguished Professor Chun-Zhu Li appointed as the Australian Director.

Collaborative research for new, advanced technologies is underway to help both Australia and China grow their bioenergy industries, with biomass pyrolysis and gasification (including fuel cells) the two important areas of research.

Applying pyrolysis technology to biomass has the potential to produce a liquid fuel and leave behind a carbon-rich residue, biochar, which could be used for soil-improvement and, at the same time, serve as a method of carbon sequestration.

To advance the capability of solar and wind as reliable energy sources, research into energy storage will also be a focus.

The centre will also aim to develop cost-effective clean coal technologies for the Australian and Chinese economies to continue to take advantage of coal as a cheap energy source with reduced CO2 emissions.

Co-directed by Professor Ke-Chang Xie, of Taiyuan University of Technology, in China, the centre’s partners include Monash University, China Huadian Electric Research Institute and the National Institute of Clean-and-Low-Carbon Energy.

with the technology already proven in a laboratory pilot plant, the new funding enables Li’s team to scale up the technology and inform the design of a commercial-scale gasifier. Industry partners in the $6.7 million project include Cryofin Pty Ltd, Verve Energy and the Oil Mallee Association of Australia.

The commercial value of mallee biomass grown in wA’s wheatbelt is expected to encourage landowners to plant mallee.

“A major benefit is that planting mallee will become an economically feasible means to fight dryland salinity to ensure the sustainability of our agriculture and rural regions, ” Li says.

FETI was initially established in 2009 as the Curtin Centre for Advanced Energy Science and Engineering and expanded into the institute in 2012. It now has an interdisciplinary team of more than 50 researchers carrying out both basic and applied research in energy science and engineering, and developing advanced energy technologies that can be utilised by the commercial sector.

FETI also has numerous international research partnerships.

energy.curtin.edu.au

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Curtin’s inaugural Professor of writing, Dr Kim Scott, is internationally known for earning Australia’s highest literary honours – the Miles Franklin Literary Award

(twice), the Commonwealth writers’ Prize and the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal.

Scott’s creative work delivers narratives on Indigenous identity, place and relationships. His first novel, Benang: From the Heart, received the Miles Franklin award in 2000, and 11 years later he again won Australia’s pre-eminent literary competition with his third novel That Deadman Dance.

His academic focus includes representations of Indigenous history and the arts, and discussions on language and nation, cultural respect and Indigenous health issues.

As Professor of writing, Scott is promoting Aboriginal heritages as narratives informing contemporary creative production, but he also aims to build the profile of creative practice more generally, reasoning that it “deserves kudos equal with more traditional research”.

Currently, he is leading an Australian Research Council Discovery Indigenous project on Indigenous narratives, and is editing ‘The Best Australian Stories 2013’ for Black Inc. publishing.

He also works with Curtin’s Faculty of Health Sciences and the Centre for Aboriginal Studies – which, he believes, follows from his work being “naturally interdisciplinary”.

In 2012 Scott’s academic contribution saw him elected an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities; in the same year, he was honoured as western Australian of the Year.

Numerous other recognitions include the Centenary Medal, awarded in 2001 for his outstanding contributions to Australian society. In November this year he will speak at the Australian Ambassador’s Speaker Series in washington DC, on the relationship between regional literary ‘vernacular’ and national identity, and global narratives.

Scott received his PhD in creative writing from The University of western Australia in 2010. He was appointed Professor of writing at Curtin in 2011.

curtin.edu.au/rd/kim-scott

Professor Kim scottProfessor of writing

School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts

Profile Sustainable cities

For more than 25 years, Professors Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy have been researching how sustainability relates to cities, through understanding the relationship between transport, land use and energy.

They were the first researchers to collect comparative data on cities around the world, leading to their landmark academic papers and books that explained how traditional town planning policies were furthering ‘car dependence’. Sustainability and Cities, a book they co-authored and which was launched at the white House in 1999, was in 2011 named as one of the most influential books on sustainable cities, and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal as “the most thorough examination and explication of the relationship between transportation and sustainable cities”.

In 2008 Curtin established the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute (CUSP), with Newman and Kenworthy leading research projects in city policy, urban planning, renewable energy and resource planning.

The ensuing five years have seen global acceptance of their ideas, with the impact of CUSP’s work now evident in academic, government and industry sectors. Of note are the construction of more rail transport to reduce car dependency – including western Australia’s imminent light rail project; abundant recognitions and awards; and the expert representation on global, national and local planning and infrastructure bodies.

CUSP research has had clear impact on government planning and policy with regard to reforming land use and developing new transport paradigms in car-dependent cities around the world. The City of Fremantle, where CUSP is based, has a reputation as a leader in these kinds of sustainability initiatives and was the first carbon-neutral local government in wA.

Newman is currently leading an international project that is responding to the Indian government’s commitment to help stem car dependency and develop sustainable transport systems in India. Funded by a three-year AusAID grant, the CUSP team is collaborating with Indian research teams and government agencies.

To date, CUSP has attracted nine national competitive grants from the Australian Research Council and currently has leadership roles in five national research centres. The institute’s reputation for relevant, funded projects is a key reason it has more than 60 PhD students.

‘Sustainable Cities – new paradigms and practices’ is the summary of Newman and Kenworthy’s work that was submitted to the Excellence in Innovation for Australia assessment on ‘impact’ of research. The research earned the highest ranking, for having had “clear impact on local and state government planning and policy and [being] an exemplar in terms of research being put into practice”.

sustainability.curtin.edu.au

CURTIN’S URBAN GURUS

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Research moves into the zoneAustralia’s zone of the greatest resources and infrastructure growth is in Western Australia. recognising this, a research centre that serves the built environment sector has moved its headquarters to Perth.

Built environment research is flourishing at Curtin, with the CEO of the Sustainable Built Environment

National Research Centre (SBEnrc), Professor Keith Hampson, recently joining the Faculty of Humanities as a research professor.

The SBEnrc has three research streams, focused on the areas of environmental, social and economic sustainability, to promote safe, efficient and sustainable productivity in the sector.

The relocation of the centre’s headquarters from Queensland to its wA base at Curtin further strengthens Curtin’s applied research expertise in sustainable design, construction and operations.

Established in 2010 – as the successor to the Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation – the SBEnrc coordinates research and disseminates outputs among industry, government and research organisations in the built environment sector.

Two of the centre’s three programs – ‘Greening the Built Environment’ and ‘Productivity through Innovation’ – are led by Curtin; ‘People, Processes and Procurement’ is led by Swinburne University of Technology.

Hampson’s particular research expertise is in R&D leadership and innovation for competitive advantage.

“with wA being the nation’s zone of the greatest resources and infrastructure growth, relocating the SBEnrc’s base to Curtin increases the capability for the outcomes from all three programs to have the greatest impact, ” he says.

“And it provides a co-location for growing our centre’s influence.”

www.sbenrc.com.au

curtin.edu.au/rd/keith-hampson

cibworld.nl/site/commissions/ index.html

Worldwide, cities are developing and implementing sustainable city policies, and much of the credit goes to an Australian research team.CURTIN’S URBAN GURUS

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NOWR&D 09

Global economic development

ike Australia, Mongolia is a large and sparsely populated country dominated by non-arable desert lands. Mongolia is also experiencing a mining boom.

But despite the productive mining of coal, copper, gold and other minerals driving Mongolia’s economic growth, almost 40 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Practical research and development work supported by AusAID is an important way the Australian Government works to eradicate global poverty and hunger – one of eight ‘Millennium Development Goals’ established by the United Nations in 2000.

To ensure that poverty in Mongolia is alleviated and not exacerbated by the country’s rapid economic growth, AusAID has provided funding, under the Public Sector Linkages Program, to a Curtin team to help Mongolia’s public sector improve skills in pro-poor development, to meet its economic development needs.

Led by economist Associate Professor Fay Rola-Rubzen, the three-year project will build the capacity of Mongolia’s national and local governments to formulate

policies for inclusive and sustainable economic development.

“The danger of mining booms is the tendency for the rapid economic growth to serve some segments of society and exclude others, ” Rola-Rubzen says.

“The livelihoods of rural people in the agriculture and pastoral sectors, for example, can be destabilised due to the shift in the labour market from traditional industries to the mining sector.

“This impact is exhibited by an increase in mining of natural resources and a corresponding decline in the manufacturing and traditional sectors.”

She points out that Australia is still grappling with challenges brought about by the recent mining boom.

“Real estate is very expensive in mining towns in particular. That’s okay if you’re in the mining sector and earning high wages, but workers in other sectors have less capacity to bear the high cost of housing caused by the boom.

“For developing countries, this phenomenon is far more dangerous than in a country that has a public sector highly experienced in policymaking.”

The project comprises four stages: a needs assessment; capacity development of Mongolia’s public sector officials; an action learning project; and a study tour to Australia to observe policymaking and learn about best-practice models employed by the mining and agricultural sectors here to promote inclusive development.

“Policymakers need the particular knowledge and skills to ensure there is equitable distribution of the benefits from economic growth, ” Rola-Rubzen says.

“A key lesson the Australian experience can convey is that economic benefits from mining must be invested back into rural areas to support the development of sustainable communities.”

The project is being conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Development of Mongolia, the National University of Mongolia, and Australian agencies including Austrade and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It will also be complemented by multilateral agencies working in Mongolia, including the Asian Development Bank and United Nations Development Programme.

curtin.edu.au/rd/fay-rola-rubzen

A Curtin Business school research team

is helping one of the world’s fast-growing economies to

meet the challenges of an economic surge.

L

sPANNINg The DIVIDe:

HOw TO ENSURE A FAIR MINING

BOOM

Conservation biology

Scientific debate has continued for decades about the role of natural fire regimes in the evolution of Australia’s unique biodiversity.

with prescribed burning remaining a contentious conservation practice, the issue must be resolved through new research that can inform fire management procedures.

Dr Tianhua He, an ecologist at Curtin’s Department of Environment and Agriculture, and Emeritus Professor Byron Lamont have been investigating the evolution of fire-related traits in seed-plant families, including the iconic Australian Proteaceae.

“Many native plants need fire for population regeneration, but fire-adaptation could be a general characteristic of the flora of Mediterranean-type ecosystems such as ours, ” explains He.

“Evidence of this would support fire regimes as necessary to maintain the plant biodiversity of these ecosystems.”

He and Lamont have published several papers recently in leading journals, on the role of fire in shaping the evolution of plants globally, including in south-western Australia.

Internationally commended, these papers argue that high-biodiversity ecosystems resulted from evolutionary opportunities created when fires became frequent across the planet.

“About 100 million years ago atmospheric carbon dioxide was at a level that promoted photosynthesis, and therefore plant growth. Simultaneously, the higher oxygen concentration was enabling combustion of the plant material ignited by lightning strikes, ” He explains.

“Fire became frequent in ecosystems dominated by gymnosperms, or ‘naked-seed’ plants, creating spaces devoid of vegetation that enabled fire-adapted angiosperms [flowering plants] to move in, evolve and diversify.”

The Australian Research Council is now supporting the work as a three-year Discovery Project involving researchers from Curtin, Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, in South Africa.

The team will reconstruct the evolutionary trajectories of fire-related functional traits among 650 Proteaceae species across a 100-million-year evolutionary path.

By calibrating DNA sequences against fossil records, the research will connect the species’ evolution with identified environmental conditions.

The results should provide comprehensive new knowledge about plant evolution in fire-prone environments and the role of fire as an agent of natural selection – compared with other factors such as drought, herbivory and nutrient-poor soils – in the evolution of flammable flora in Australia.

“we expect to establish that the link between fire and the evolution of flora has been underestimated, ” He says.

“This would inform better fire–vegetation–climate models for nature conservation practices.”

curtin.edu.au/rd/tianhua-he

Controlled fire regimes could be essential for maintaining the biodiversity in Mediterranean climate zones, and new research may generate widespread revision of conservation practices.

UNEARTHING THE LINK BETWEEN FIRE AND FLORA

NOWR&D 11

Population health

Less than 10 per cent of young Australian adults get enough exercise, according to Curtin Professor of Physiotherapy Leon Straker.

“The past 20 years has seen a continual increase in sedentary activities across the entire spectrum of daily living – both in occupations and leisure time, ” Straker says

“Technology is reducing the amount of physically demanding labour required and is simultaneously encouraging leisure activities characterised by electronic devices.

“Adolescence and the early-20s are critical times in the life-course trajectory of behaviours and health, where lifelong health-risk behaviours – such as poor diet and physical inactivity – are often established.

“It’s a concern that these behaviours are likely to continue throughout one’s life, and be an increasing weight on the individual’s health and on the public healthcare system.”

The National Health and Medical Research Council is now funding a study to determine what leads to insufficient exercise and too much sedentary behaviour in young adults.

The project is being conducted by Straker, a musculoskeletal researcher, by national and international colleagues, and by Dr Anne Smith, a Senior Research Fellow in Curtin’s Faculty of Health Sciences’ area of Human Movement – which was recently rated ‘above world class standard’ by the Australian Research Council’s Excellence in Research for Australia exercise.

The research will utilise a unique resource, the Raine Study, which was established in 1989 as the western Australian Pregnancy Cohort and has been collecting longitudinal data on almost 3,000 children for the past 24 years.

“The research is establishing bio-psycho-social profiles that will help identify where interventions are most needed, ” Straker says.

“The project’s strength is that it combines the research competencies of ergonomics, occupational health, physical activity and epidemiological fields.”

curtin.edu.au/rd/leon-straker

www.rainestudy.org.au

The surge in diagnostic imaging and the impacts on the provision and cost of health care is being investigated by the leader of Curtin’s Health Services Research program.

Associate Professor Rachael Moorin says one indication of the higher expectations Australians have of

their health and the healthcare system is the eagerness to use medical technologies.

Funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Moorin’s current research is studying the escalation in medical imaging; in particular, X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning – one of the highest radiation-dose diagnostic procedures.

“CT scans are performed routinely for a range of non-cancer-related diagnoses – including sports injuries – where the risk versus benefit of this high-radiation modality is very different from that in the cancer setting, ” Moorin says.

“Technological advances mean the procedure is easier to administer, used more frequently and used in a wider setting than in the past.

Human movement

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?

CT SCANS:

LSITTING ON A heALTh rIsK

“For example, CT scanning is now performed regularly on young adults and children. A major concern is that the radiation burden is high, the risk from radiation is cumulative over a lifetime, and the risk is exponentially greater at younger ages.”

At the Centre for Population Health Research, Moorin’s team is using de-identified data from hospital imaging departments and the wA Data Linkage System to determine the changes in the utilisation of CT scanning for the 20-year period to 2009.

The project will also include a radiation dosimetry assessment of protocols followed in wA, expanding Moorin’s 2011 study undertaken for Cancer Council western Australia.

“we found that for the same clinical indication and diagnostic benefit, the radiation dose from a standard scan varied across providers due to differences in the technical factors used during the scan, ” she says.

“Also of concern is the large number of GPs who incorrectly believe that CT scans deliver only a low-to-medium dose of radiation, and that MRIs and ultrasound scans also deliver radiation.

“The lack of knowledge about the radiation burden and lack of consensus on the application of CT scanning has implications for patient safety, policy decisions and health resource allocation.”

The research outcomes to date were recently discussed in a paper in the Journal of Radiological Protection and presented at the 2013 Primary Health Care Research Conference in Sydney, in July.

curtin.edu.au/rd/rachael-moorin

curtin.edu.au/rd/cphr

what is addiction? How do individuals experience addiction? How do our ideas about it change over time? These questions inform the research of

Associate Professor Suzanne Fraser.

An Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow, Fraser joined the National Drug Research Institute (NDRI), in Curtin’s Faculty of Health Sciences, in early 2013. She began by establishing a new research program: ‘Social Studies of Addiction Concepts’. The program will draw on theoretical and methodological advances in the social sciences of health to contribute directly to policy and practice.

Based at NDRI’s Melbourne office, which is located within the Turning Point Alcohol & Drug Centre in Fitzroy, her research explores emerging understandings of addiction in Australia, depictions of addiction and compulsivity in the media and in public debate, and individual experiences of diagnosis and treatment for alcohol and drug dependence.

Another key area of her research concerns the blood-borne virus hepatitis C. Fraser is presently involved in a National Health and Medical Research Council-funded study on preventing hepatitis C in couples who inject illicit drugs together. Based at the University of New South wales, this two-state project, with Victoria, includes an innovation component that explores the design and use of injecting equipment.

Fraser’s research interests encompass a range of other areas that she describes as “all to do with the body, health and power ”. She is, for example, about to complete a project on obesity prevention health messages and their impact on mothers and their children. Also funded by the ARC, this project includes researchers from Monash and wollongong universities.

After being awarded her PhD by the University of Sydney in 2000, Fraser’s thesis became her first book: Cosmetic Surgery, Gender and Culture.

curtin.edu.au/rd/suzanne-fraser

Associate Professor suzanne fraserNational Drug Research Institute

Faculty of Health Sciences

Profile

The burden of disease and injury related to too little exercise is estimated to cost the Australian economy at least $14 billion annually. The cost of too much prolonged sitting is thought to be equally large.

SITTING ON A heALTh rIsK

NOWR&D 13

Labour market economists have long warned of a labour force dilemma when Australian baby boomers begin retiring. The critical problem for labour security is economic productivity, says the Director of the Centre for

Research in Applied Economics (CRAE) within Curtin Business School, Associate Professor Siobhan Austen.

“An insufficient workforce reduces Australia’s capacity for future economic development and our ability to provide for basic community needs, ” Austen says.

“Historically, women aged over 45 have a low rate of participation in the labour force; this demographic is now crucial to Australia’s future labour supply.”

However, she explains, the factors hindering the retention of mature-age women in paid work are poorly understood.

“Research on older workers in industrialised countries has focused on men. This has created a knowledge gap that undermines Australia’s capability to address both the challenges and the needs of an ageing population.”

Industries destined to feel the greatest impact of labour shortages are those Austen describes as ‘feminised’, such as aged care and hospitality. Part of the problem, she explains, is that gendered aspects of the big economic issues are often overlooked.

“Employers and policymakers tend to disregard gender differences and apply ‘the male model’ by default, ” Austen says.

“Yet many workforce participation limitations relate to a challenge that is unique to the current generation of women: ‘sandwich-care’ responsibilities. That is, simultaneously they are providing care for children and/or grandchildren, and for ageing parents and possibly in-laws.

“This generation of women is very pressed for time, but unfortunately Australia needs all hands on deck.”

In response, the Australian Research Council has funded a CRAE project led by Austen. The research comprises two years of data collection and analyses for a case study of the aged-care sector workforce.

“Our aims are to understand the barriers to retaining mature-age women in the labour force, and to generate a policy framework that encourages women to remain in or return to paid work, ” she says.

“we’ve established that policies are needed in the areas of workplace flexibility, leave provisions for elder care as well as childcare, education and training, and superannuation.”

The research has informed the team’s submission to the recent inquiry by the Australian Law Reform Commission into the legal barriers to older people participating in the workforce.

curtin.edu.au/rd/siobhan-austen

curtin.edu.au/rd/crae

Applied economics

ON DECKAustralia is moving further into an era of labour shortages, and part of the solution lies

in understanding why mature-age women leave the workforce.

WANTED:ALL HANDS

L

Socio-economics

NOWR&D 15

ANDwEALTHY

Post-retirement migration is an increasing phenomenon in Australia, and knowledge is needed for policies that account for the repercussions.

Australia’s increasing number of domestic ‘grey nomads’ presents major challenges for local and state government policy and planning.

“Retirees now are more socially independent than previous generations, ” says human geographer Dr Amanda Davies.

“They’ve acquired more assets and travelled more. So they don’t feel tied to where they grew up.”

Davies is a member of the Research Unit for the Study of Societies in Change (RUSSIC) in Curtin’s Faculty of Humanities. within her longstanding interest in the spatial characteristics of population ageing, she is currently investigating the impact of post-retirement relocation of Australians.

“The seasonal inflow to rural towns burdens healthcare services and other

amenities, and planning for the extra demand is difficult because the population flux is both cyclical and variable, ” she says.

“It’s a temporary population that utilises local resources without contributing as ratepayers. Governments can’t accommodate the demand if they’re allocated funding based on a permanent population but are providing services to residents of other states.”

Similarly, the impact of international migration also needs to be determined, to inform policies that will address these challenges.

“Retirees, and also fly-in/fly-out workers, are choosing to live in ‘holiday’ destinations, often based on their tourism experiences. Places such as Bali offer lower housing and living costs, and flights in and out of Australia are often cheaper than domestic travel, ” Davies says.

“However, when chronic health conditions arise, people realise they’d have better access to medical care and social support services in Australia.

“Aged health care here is excellent, so for older people there comes a point when they want to return. However, after living overseas for a period they often face

difficulties re-entering the Australian housing market.”

Davies’ research involves case studies in Australia and in the UK, where in 2011 she was a visiting fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, at the University of Oxford.

“The phenomenon is well understood in the UK, where migration of retirees to Spain is historical, due to cheaper housing, living costs and easy travel between the two countries, ” she says.

“And UK citizens have access to health care and other services in Spain – both countries belong to the European Union. This isn’t the case for Australian citizens moving to countries of the Asia-Pacific region, and retirees need to be particularly aware of the laws and cultures of their destination country.

“Furthermore, Spain’s economic crisis is causing financial problems for UK retirees who sold assets and emigrated. The risks are greater for Australian retirees who are relocating to countries that do not have reciprocal agreements with Australia.”

curtin.edu.au/rd/russic

WN

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Humanities

with ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR jOHN ByRON

Associate Professor John Byron joined Curtin in mid-2012 as Dean, Research and Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Humanities. He has a PhD in English from the University of Sydney (2005) and more than 15 years’ experience

in higher education and research policy. Prior to joining Curtin, he served as the Australian Government’s senior advisor for science and research.

What is the global direction of humanities research, or has the discipline had its heyday?

People everywhere remain engaged with the astounding breadth of humanities topics: history, education, urban design, literature, fashion, sociology, archaeology, demography, politics, international relations, philosophy – they all still fascinate! Television audiences, for example, have an appetite for reportage and entertainment that’s all about people: what we are like, how we interact, the weird stuff we do. Some of this human interest is fairly close to the surface, but much of it requires expertise, specialised methods and dedicated time – rigorous professional research, in other words. Far from being sidelined, the humanities are more relevant than ever in a world where so much turns on our ability to understand one another.

If there is an overarching trend it is the move from the notion of the solo researcher – which was never as dominant as the mythology holds, by the way – towards a more collaborative approach. Disciplinary training remains crucial as an induction into a well-established methodology, theoretical framework and community of practice, but its exercise is just as likely to be with a team of people from complementary backgrounds working on problems of convergent interest.

so the trend for cross-disciplinary collaboration is relevant for the humanities?

Sure, and it extends to partnerships with the sciences and engineering. There is too much to gain on both sides of what I call the ‘ivory curtain’ for people not to work together, in so many fields. Built environment is an obvious example, but there’s also the use of advanced materials science by artists, the engineering involved in transit planning, technology in the classroom, and the cultural factors in healthcare delivery. There are impediments – different vocabularies, traditions, perspectives, methodologies – so it takes patience and generosity to learn each other’s ways. But the natural sciences need the humanities and vice versa, and the most productive partnerships are built on mutual recognition, respect and curiosity.

What does this mean for humanities research at Curtin?

Curtin’s Faculty of Humanities is a good deal broader in scope than the usual anglophone definition of the humanities: we have experts in fields as diverse as construction management, curriculum design, deliberative democracy and data visualisation, as well as linguistics, history, cultural studies and the social sciences. we’re focused also on creative production – creative writing, film and television, painting, performance studies, drawing and interior design (to name a few) – which is held in equal esteem to more traditional research. we continue to value those working in ‘old school’ humanities because fundamental advances will always be critical, but every field plays its part in opening out the styles of research. In many ways, bold universities like Curtin have led the global evolution of the humanities in the ways I’ve talked about, and for that reason we are brilliantly positioned to thrive in this new environment.

curtin.edu.au/rd/john-byron

Q+A

institUtes & centRes

StrAtegiC reSeArCH inStituteS

australian sustainable Development institutecurtin health innovation Research institutecurtin institute of minerals and energy

univerSity reSeArCH inStituteS

australia–asia-pacific institutecurtin institute of Radio astronomycurtin University sustainability policy institutefuels and energy technology instituteinstitute for multi-sensor processing and content analysisinternational institute of agri-food securityJohn curtin institute of public policynanochemistry Research institutenational Drug Research institutethe institute for geoscience Research

univerSity reSeArCH CentreS

centre for Behavioural Research in cancer controlcentre for culture and technologycentre for population health Researchcentre for process systems computationscentre for Research in applied economicscentre for smart grid and sustainable power systemscurtin industrial modelling and optimisationWestern australian centre for health promotion Research

externAl CollABorAtive reSeArCH CentreS

australasian Joint Research centre for Building information modellingaustralia–china Joint Research centre for energyBankwest curtin economics centrecentre for marine science and technologycentre for sport and Recreation Researchcentre of excellence for science, seafood and healthcorrosion centre for education, Research and technologycurtin Water Quality Research centreJohn de laeter centre for isotope Researchnational centre for student equity in higher educationRadio astronomy science and engineering centre of excellence

Multi-inStitutionAl reSeArCH CentreS

centre for exploration targetingcurtin–monash accident Research centrehousing and Urban Research institute of Western australiainternational centre for Radio astronomy Researchivec – the hub of advanced computing in Western australiaplanning and transport Research centresustainable Built environment national Research centreWestern australian energy Research allianceWestern australian marine science instituteWestern australian satellite technology and applications consortium

CooperAtive reSeArCH CentreS

Coreaustralian seafood cRccRc for contamination assessment and Remediation of the environmentcRc for greenhouse gas technologiescRc for integrated engineering asset managementcRc for living with autism spectrum DisorderscRc for low carbon livingcRc for Remote economic participationcRc for spatial informationcRc miningDeep exploration technologies cRcWound management innovation cRc

curtin.edu.au/research/institutes

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