Centre for Research in Complex Systems (CRiCS)

The CSU's Centre for Research in Complex Systems (CRiCS), one of seven competitively funded research centers within the University was funded on a competitive basis in 2004 for the triennium 2005 to 2007, and reaccredited in 2007 until 2012. The centre has achieved over $2 million in National Competitive Grants, principally from the Australian Research Council (ARC). The Centre is a primary node of the ARC network in complex and open systems (COSNet) and a member of the ARC network in human and computer speech (HCSNet). It was also instrumental in the successful bid for the CRC in Spatial Information and has an ongoing project funded by this CRC. The centre supports its members through seed research funding, conference travel funding, a regular seminar program, administrative support for grant applications, bi-annual workshops involving high profile visiting speakers (Associate Professor Prof Barney Dalgarno, 2007) and CRiCS fellowships Several staff are currently receiving CRiCS fellowships, including Dr. Tulip and Dr Tien.

Major Research Groups

There are two major research groups within the Centre for Research in Complex Systems (CRiCS): The Computational Intelligence Research group and the Next Generation Technologies group. These two groups provide a focus for the research undertaken within the Centre for Research in Complex Systems (CRiCS) and work to facilitate research collaboration among the staff in the School of Computing and Mathematics.

The Computational Intelligence Research group

This group is led by A/Prof Jun bin Gao and most of the staff who are members in this group come from the Bathurst wing of the School of Computing and Mathematics but some also come from the Albury campus. The staff members within this group are actively involved in several research areas including Computational Modeling, Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Robotics, Image Processing, Parallel Processing, Visualization, Spatial Information Processing and Games Technology. The group enjoys several dedicated lab facilities established recently by CRiCS. The labs include a 3G Visualization Lab, a Computer Vision Lab, a Newcrest Mining lab, Robotics lab and High Performance Computing Lab. These labs not only enable the group members to conduct their research activities but also help the PhD students do their research. Below is a list of the members of this group along with their current research areas:

Staff member Main research area
Professor Terry Bossomaier Complexity Theory
Associate Professor Junbin Gao Machine Learning
Dr Michael Antolovich Newcrest Mining, Robotics and Visualisation
Jeff Ash Complex Systems
Michael Kemp Pattern Recognition
Dr David Tien Spatial Information
Dr Jim Tulip Machine vision
Dr Xiaodi Huang Visualization
Maumita Bhattacharya Bio-inspired Computation and Data mining

The Next Generation Technologies Group

People, particularly the 'Digital Natives' of the 'Y Generation', are complex and their interaction with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is highly variable. The Next Generation Technologies Group focuses on the many factors that influence this interaction. The group's interests range from the 'Digital Natives' use of Next Generation Technologies in teaching and learning to the wider ethical implications of the use of these technologies. The group is also interested in the social issues relating to digital natives operating in online communities and human issues relating to the design and development of interactive interfaces particularly for the disabled. The group members draw on a range of theoretical frameworks to allow this broad set of problems to be examined through different lenses. Technologies that fall within the scope of the group's activities include conventional computer and information systems as well as emerging and ubiquitous technologies that are becoming pervasive in all aspects of life. Below is a list of the members of this group along with their current research areas:

Staff member Main research area
Dr Yeslam Al-Saggaf ICT Ethics and Online Communities
Dr Tanveer Zia Network and Information Security
Dr Lihong Zheng Pattern Recognition
Ken Eustace Social Networking
Oliver Burmeister ICT Ethics and Human Computer Interaction
Anthony Chan Educational Technology
Jason Howarth Information Security
Geoff Fellows Online Social Networks

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