ARC Discovery Projects 2024 Success

Big congratulations to CIRES CIs who have been awarded 2024 ARC Discovery Projects:

Professor Zi Huang; Dr Tong Chen; Dr Yadan Luo; Dr Sen Wang; Professor Shazia Sadiq: Video-sharing platforms are a critical information channel for the public. Increasing scale and shifts in user base, with Generation Z now as the dominant user, have resulted in an unprecedented amount of ubiquitous changes in the content and users of these platforms which greatly challenges the responsiveness and quality of the services provided. This project aims to design innovative algorithms to effectively predict and leverage changes, optimise the value of changes, and extract insights from changes for diverse downstream applications of video-sharing platforms. The expected outcomes will create new-generation representation learning techniques, and provide practical tools to amplify the socioeconomic values of video-sharing platforms.

Dr Quoc Viet Hung Nguyen; Associate Professor Hongzhi Yin: AI-powered recommender systems provide recommendations for daily lives, but they need to be legally interpretable and explainable. This project aims to transform existing black-box recommender models into transparent and trustworthy decision-support systems. The resulting tools will offer granular, explorable rationales for the recommendations in real time, creating greater public confidence while advancing the field. The expected outcomes include graph embedding methods for capturing real-world relationships in all their messiness and complexity. The anticipated contributions include impartial and accountable recommender models that are resistant to adversarial attacks and that slow the spread of misinformation.

 

 

CIRES CI Hongzhi Yin 2023 Young Tall Poppy Science Award Finalist

A huge congratulations to CIRES Chief Investigator and Associate Professor Yin Hongzhi for being a finalist in Queensland’s 2023 Young Tall Poppy Awards! Hongzhi was nominated for his research to return control of AI and its reliance on data to users. The award ceremony was held in Brisbane on the 18th October 2023.

Privacy and AI domination are significant challenges that humankind faces in the context of big data and AI, and AI’s reliance on data has led to the empowerment of tech giants and reshaping the global order. Hongzhi has developed a new decentralised intelligent computing model that collaboratively processes and analyses data on connected personal devices, providing real-time intelligent services without relying on a central controller.

Held annually around Australia, in Queensland the Young Tall Poppy Science Awards are hosted by the Australian Institute of Policy and Science in partnership with the Office of the Queensland Chief Scientist. The awards recognise and celebrate researchers who demonstrate scientific excellence combined with a unique passion for science communication, which can inspire young people to enter STEM study and careers.

Read the full media release here

ITRP Managers Symposium

On 16-17 October, CIRES Centre Manager Kate Aldridge and Coordinator Kathleen Williamson attended the 2023 ARC National ITRP Managers Symposium held in Adelaide; meeting with ARC representatives and fellow Managers from across Australia and sharing tips, insights and experience in the operational management of our ARC Hubs and Training Centres. This important knowledge sharing and problem solving event, also included a professional training session “Speaking with Influence” presented by Gary Edwards which provided many tactics and strategies to improve communication, and get better results in any situation. Below is a photo of the UQ representatives at the Symposium.