Infrastructure is so ubiquitous and reliable that most people do not realize that it is even there. But when we do get a failure in one of our infrastructure systems, well then we really do notice. Think about the last time there was a power cut, or you were caught in a traffic jam – or worse, you could not access social media. It is amazing how upset most people get when they don’t have access to the services that our infrastructure usually provides – even for a short time.
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Tag Archives: research
A heuristic combinatorial optimisation approach to synthesising a population for agent based modelling purposes
By Nam Huynh
Micro-simulations, such as epidemiology models or activity-based models for urban transport demanding forecasting purposes, usually involve a large number of agents representing the real population living in the area being studied. It is however extremely expensive, if not impossible (due to stringent privacy laws in certain countries), to carry out a survey that obtains a fully disaggregated data set to describe the demographics and characteristics of the agents of interest. Continue reading
Big data platform for mining user-generated content (UGC)
I am currently undertaking a study which uses an innovative cloud-computing tool – developed here at SMART Infrastructure Facility – to collect, analyse, and visualise data from different social media networks in Australia, China and Korea. Specifically, it aims to investigate how different countries are using social media platforms respectively to contribute to topical conversations on culture and politics. By gathering, sorting, and displaying information from millions of data records on various topics such as films and TV dramas, this project will increase public awareness among three different countries. Continue reading
SMART Metadata System
By Tim Davies
Ever since the ceremonial turning of the sod, the SMART Infrastructure Facility has had its sights firmly fixed on establishing a National Infrastructure Data Centre. Policies were created, a framework was established and procedures with colourful flowcharts were produced. These tools were all well and good; however the vision of the National Infrastructure Data Centre was never going to be realised while all the data SMART had collected and produced remained hidden within the depths of its shared drives and databases; hidden in such a way that not even the SMART academics themselves knew the full extent of the SMART data collection. Continue reading
Discussing regional employment estimations
By Ashkan Masouman, Associate Research Fellow
This was my second presentation at the Western Region Science Association (WRSA) Annual Meeting (first being in 2013). So far, WRSA has been the only conference I have attended which has two sessions dedicated to input-output techniques and innovations. The chair, Prof. Geoffrey Hewings, and many of the attendees were experts in this field, and they all provided useful feedback into my research. Continue reading