PhD Studentship Available

[Mark Girolami]

PhD Studentship Available

Applied Computational Intelligence Research Unit 
University of Paisley
Scotland, UK. 
& 
Power Technology Research Centre 
POWERGEN (UK) 
Nottingham, UK. 

Title of Investigation:  
'The Discrimination of Novel Complex-Normal Behaviour from Faulty
Operating Conditions for Large Rotodynamic Machines'

A three year fully funded Phd studentship is available in the Applied
Computational Intelligence Research Unit at the University of Paisley. 
This is a joint research project with POWERGEN (UK) and it is envisaged
that the student will work over certain periods of time at the Power
Technology Centre in Nottingham. 

Project Brief:  
The automated discrimination of genuine fault conditions
from acceptable operating behaviour of large and complex rotodynamic
machines is a challenging engineering problem. This is effectively a
classification task, however as the available training samples consist
largely of acceptable operating conditions and the occurrence of genuine
fault conditions is relatively rare we have in effect to consider the
problem of novelty detection. Standard classification techniques are not
suitable for this particular problem as faults will be potentially diverse
and ill sampled. There are also multi-state situations when a machine can
be in a number of distinct states depending on operating history.

There have been attempts in the past to use regression and neural network
methods to try to model the relationship between machine vibration and
operating conditions, but with limited success. The development and
application of support vector/kernel methods to this problem domain is
proposed as a potential avenue of investigation.

Applications from prospective candidates with backgrounds in either
mathematics, statistics, physics, engineering are especially welcome. 

Informal Enquiries can be made to: 

Prof. M.A. Girolami 
Chair of Computational Intelligence 
Department of Computing and Information Systems 
University of Paisley 
High Street 
Paisley, PA1 2BE
Scotland, UK. 

e-mail: mark.girolami at paisley.ac.uk