Professor Mary-Anne Williams

AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL GRANTS

1. Australia Research Council Discovery Project 2016 - 2018 $380,000; Project Title: Robust Intelligence: Rational Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty; Chief Investigator: Mary-Anne Williams; Partners: Peter Gärdenfors (Lund University, Sweden), Henri Prade (CNRS); Summary: Intelligent agents exercise profound and growing impact in business and society. However, significant problems arise in intelligent agent deployment as their theoretical underpinnings do not ensure rational decision making in complex real-world settings. This project will bridge the gap between theory and practice with an innovative framework for rational decision making under risk and uncertainty. It will open the door to transformational technologies that will drive new entrepreneurial opportunities in agent-based global services.
2. Australia Research Council Linkage Project 2012 - 2014 $335,000 + significant in-kind support; Project Title: A Framework for Physical and Social Collaboration: Towards the Smarter Planet Vision; Chief Investigators: Mary-Anne Williams, and Benjamin Johnston; Partner: IBM Australia; Summary: This project developed a new approach to intelligent collaborative technologies by advancing the theory of collaborative action and developing an innovative framework and practical methods which will allow intelligent systems to undertake the collaborative actions required for applications in transport, energy management, sustainability, and healthcare.
3. Australia Research Council Discovery Project 2012 - 2014 $320,000; Project Title: Adaptive Cyber-Physical Technologies with Attention Driven Common-sense Behaviours; Chief Investigator: Mary-Anne Williams; Partner Investigator: Peter Gärdenfors (Lund University, Sweden); Summary: This project focused on intelligent cyber-physical systems for open, complex and changing environments presents enormous scientific challenges. It developed an innovative framework, methods and tools that provide cyber-physical technologies with attention based common-sense capabilities for adapting to new, unexpected and unforeseen situations.
4. Australia Research Council Linkage Project 2011 - 2014 $280,000 + significant in kind support; Project Title: Establishing a Next Generation Framework to Determine the Influence of Intelligent Water Metering on Householder Attitudes and Behaviours; Chief Investigators: Stuart B White, Rodney A Stewart, Mary-Anne Williams, Damien P Giurco, Kelvin R O'Hallora; Partners: Mid Coast Water and the Institute of Sustainable Futures; Summary: This project tested competing theories on how householders respond to interactive water consumption data from smart meters. The outcome is a novel framework for intelligent water management; underpinned by innovative research into causal mechanisms linking data communication to knowledge, and the impact of knowledge on attitudes and behaviours.
5. Australia Research Council Discovery Project 2008 - 2011 $270,000; Project Title: Developing and Managing Sustainable Technology-enabled Innovation Capabilities; Chief Investigators: Steve Elliot (University of Sydney) and Mary-Anne Williams; Summary: This project helped organisations develop sustainable innovation capabilities using disruptive technologies.
6. Australia Research Council Discovery Project 2007 - 2011 $340,000; Project Title: Planning, Communication, and Collaboration in Cognitive Systems; Chief Investigator: Mary-Anne Williams; Partner: Peter Gärdenfors (Lund University, Sweden); Summary: This project developed a better understanding of collaboration in complex environments.
7. Australia Research Council Discovery Project 2004 – 2007 $150,000; Project Title: Intelligent Agent and Semantic Web empowered eFinance: A Knowledge Management Approach to enable and sustain Innovation; Chief Investigators: Mary-Anne Williams and Steve Elliot (University of Sydney) Partner: Dieter Fensel (University of Innsbruck, Austria); Summary: This research project made strong theoretical advances by developing an integrated and scalable knowledge engineering approach to the problems confronting Australian Industry.
8. Australia Research Council Discovery Project 2002 – 2006 $200,000; Project Title: Agent-Oriented Concept Management; Chief Investigator: Mary-Anne Williams; Partner: Peter Gärdenfors (Lund University, Sweden); Summary: In order for agents to communicate effectively they must share concepts, and attribute the same meaning to shared concepts. We developed a innovative approach to concept management a new area of research with important application to intelligent systems.
9. Australia Research Council Project 2000 - 2003 $200,000; Project Title: Information and Knowledge Integration; Chief Investigator: Mary-Anne Williams; Partner: Grigoris Antoniou (University of Crete, Greece); Summary: One of the key issues in global information infrastructures like the World Wide Web and enterprise networks is the ability to combine information from different sources in meaningful ways.
10. Australia Research Council Project 1998 - 2001 $180,000; Project Title: Exception-Tolerant Information Systems for Managing Uncertain Information; Chief Investigators: Mary-Anne Williams; Partners: Didier Dubois and Henri Prade (CNRS, France); Summary: This project designed and developed exception-tolerant techniques to allow business systems to perform effectively when using qualitatively uncertain information.
11. Australia Research Council Project 1997 - 2000 $200,000; Project Title: Reasoning with Changing and Incomplete Information Project; Chief Investigators: Mary-Anne Williams and Grigoris Antoniou; Summary: Developed a decision making framework for handling decisions based on changing and incomplete information using techniques from Knowledge Representation and Reasoning.
12. Australia Research Council Project 1996 - 1999 $170,000; Project Title: Entrenchment Based Reasoning about Action; Chief Investigators: Norman Foo UNSW, Pavlos Peppas and Mary-Anne Williams; Summary: This project developed innovative algorithms for challenging planning problems that allowed for changing requirements.