Research Projects
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Supply of training services for half day courses on 1)Fish Stock Handling and 2) Aquaculture Disease Prevention and Response
This ITQ invites training providers to submit proposals to conduct training courses for aquaculture farmers. To contribute to Singapore’s “30 by 30” local production goal, farmers will need guidance to mitigate the increased risk of diseases as they intensify production on limited space.
Development of the Singapore Workplace Wellbeing Scale
The present research described the development of the Singapore Workplace Wellbeing scale which identified the factors that influence employee wellbeing in the Singapore workplace context. Participants from various industries in Singapore completed an online survey containing a battery of measures including the new workplace wellbeing measure in two separate studies. Study 1 involved (N = 318) conducting a parallel analysis followed by exploratory factor analysis on items generated from a qualitative study by Yip et al., (2024) in which the authors identified 13 distinct factors that contributed to workplace wellbeing and concluded that expression of these factors was unique to the Singapore context. A confirmation factor analysis was conducted on study 2 (N = 303) which confirmed a 13-factor scale with 99 items. These factors were support from boss, fairness, autonomy, meaningful work, co-worker relationship, role clarity, work-life balance, learning and professional growth, person-organization fit, employee engagement, employee recognition, flexitime work, accomplishment, and organization support. The new scale showed sound construct reliability, internal consistency, convergent validity, discriminant, and nomological validity. Importantly, the scale showed significant and positive association with job performance and flourishing, but a significant and negative association with burnout and the negative emotional state of depression, anxiety, and stress. The scale has significant potential to be used as workplace wellbeing screening tool and in research in the the Singapore context. Implications, future directions, and limitations of the research are discussed.
Macrobiome Therapeutics Research Contract
This project involved Macrobiome contracting JCU to undertake R&D activities relating to the clinical development of two hookworm-derived proteins (MBT001 and MBT002) that are candidate drugs for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. The aim of this project is to acquire further data on the drug mechanism(s) of action (MOA) and efficacy is various pre-clinical models of colitis, as well as bioinformatically linking the MOA with the appropriate human disease population to target in future clinical trials.
LoRaWAN Rain Gauge Prototype Field Testing (Old ID 26229)
This project involves conducting field testing of a LoRaWAN rain gauge prototype that was developed collaboratively between JCU and CSIRO. The prototype system uses cutting-edge low-power long-range IoT communications technology to transmit rainfall data from rain gauges in to a cloud system designed by CSIRO. The objective of the field testing is to determine whether the developed prototype is suitable for a deployed system in the Wet Tropics.
Intertidal seagrass mapping of Mornington Island
The objectives of this work are to produce a comprehensive and complete map of the intertidal habitats of Mornington Island by completing mapping in collaboration with WILLSSED rangers.
Intertidal seagrass mapping of Mornington Island
The objectives of this work are to produce a comprehensive and complete map of the intertidal habitats of Mornington Island by completing mapping in collaboration with WILLSSED rangers.
Understanding the hydrology and water quality of a natural tropical wetland
This is a non-funded project done in collaboration with QLD DETSI, DPI and Terrain NRM to examine the hydrology and water quality behaviour of a natural wetland in tropical Far North Queensland. We will use tracers and extensive field monitoring to determine the water budget, residence time and dominant flow pathways of water through the wetland. We will also calculate nutrient/carbon/pesticide/herbicide load reductions from this natural wetland. These aims are achieved via multi-approach field data collection that includes water and soil sampling for nutrients, pesticides/herbicides, carbon and eDNA. This project represents a crucial collaboration between Queensland Government (DETSI) and important NRM group in our region and has the potential to secure future funding from the Federal Government.
Centre of Research Excellence in Tuberculosis Control on both sides of our border. (Old ID 26555)
This is a capacity building project on tuberculosis research including clinical trials, genomics, immunology and modelling for policy decision support. It involves researchers at USyd, U Melb, Monash and JCU. My role is in mathematical modelling of tuberculosis and this work will provide a network of tuberculosis researchers with which to collaborate.
Air nanobubbles enhance nitrifying bacteria activity in marine RAS
This publication stems from the findings in two special topic projects within the JCU Science Aquaculture major degree, on use of nanobubbles in marine recirculating aquaculture systems stocked with tilapia, red snapper and barramundi.
The two students have since graduated from JCUS, and completed or currently pursuing an MSc. Afifah Sean (1st author) carried out the microbiological assessment of the marine RAS during the 6 week experimental trial, using a flow cytometer on loan from Sysmex Asia Pacific PL. Tzer Shyun Lim (2nd author) managed the marine RAS injected with nanobubbles and the control system without nanobubbles, and determined the growth performance of fish stocked in these systems. The nanobubble delivery system was on loan from AquaPro Solutions PL.
Afifah's project was supervised by Susan Gibson-Kueh, and Tzer Chyun's was supervised by Jose Domingos. Xueyan Shen provided expertise to analyse and interprete the microbiome profile in the marine RAS based on 16S rRNA gene analysis.
These student projects are a fantastic showcase of our research impacting undergraduate teaching and learning, multidisciplinary collegial collaborations, and industry participation in higher education.
Implementation and evaluation of CONNECT: a framework to build social presence and connectedness to content, peers and staff in a 100% online postgraduate course.
A systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of the CONNECT framework in guiding teaching staff to use evidence-based strategies to promote a sense of belonging, social interaction, and community in online postgraduate students.