Studentships for PhD study in Informatics@Edinburgh

Fri Dec 24 05:27:54 EST 2004

Studentships for PhD study in
the School of Informatics at
the University of Edinburgh
---------------------------

FORTY research studentships are available for:

* UK students
* EU students
* students worldwide

Many of these are full studentships, paying your tuition fees and a
stipend of 12000 pounds to cover living expenses in your first year,
rising in second and third years. The rest pay your fees and a
contribution of 6000 pounds per year towards living expenses. Payment
of fees for non-EU students is subject to successful competition for
an Overseas Research Studentship. PhD students are encouraged to make
contributions to teaching, for example by leading tutorial groups, and
for this you can expect to earn an additional 500-1000 pounds per year.

These studentships are funded from a variety of sources. New this
year are five full studentships in the Schools of Informatics and
Engineering & Electronics funded by Wolfson Microelectronics plc.
Also new are Principal's Scholarships; these are prestigious prizes
awarded to a few of the most promising new PhD students each year,
which provide an extra 2000 pounds per year for living costs on top of
any other funding that is offered.

Informatics
---------------------------

Informatics is the study of information and computation, in both
natural and engineered systems. It comprises a vast range of
scientific and engineering endeavour and has enormous economic and
social impact.

The University's School of Informatics brings together the former
Departments of Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and Computer
Science, together with the Artificial Intelligence Applications
Institute. The School possesses a combination of breadth and
strength unparallelled elsewhere in the UK and competitive world-wide;
as an intellectual endeavour it is strikingly original.

The School is the only university grouping in the UK to have
achieved the top 5*A rating in Computer Science in the UK government's
2001 Research Assessment Exercise round, and it is the UK's biggest
research group in this area. We currently have around 215 students
studying for PhD, and around 150 for MSc.

PhD study
---------------------------

PhD study is carried out within one of our six research Institutes:

   ANC:  Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation 
   CISA: Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications 
   ICCS: Institute for Communicating and Collaborative Systems 
   ICSA: Institute for Computing Systems Architecture 
   IPAB: Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour 
   LFCS: Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science 

ANC fosters the study of adaptive processes in both artificial and
biological systems; two themes are the study of artificial learning
systems and the analysis and modelling of brain processes. CISA
undertakes basic and applied research and development in knowledge
representation and reasoning. Through its applications institute AIAI,
it works with others to deploy the technologies associated with this
research. ICCS pursues basic research into the nature of
communication among humans and between humans and machines, using
text, speech and graphics, and the design of interactive dialogue
systems, using computational and algorithmic approaches.

ICSA seeks development of a better understanding of systems
components, both hardware and software, and their integration and
interaction; this involves not only improving their raw performance
and cost-effectiveness, but also making them more connectable and
interoperable, more reliable, more usable and more applicable. The
interests of IPAB are how to link computational perception,
representation, transformation and generation processes to external
worlds---whether real or virtual. The mission of LFCS is to achieve a
foundational understanding of problems and issues arising in
computation and communication through the development of appropriate
and applicable formal models and mathematical theories.

Projects
---------------------------

A very wide range of research projects is available for PhD study. Here
is an (incomplete!) list of project areas; see

   http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/postgraduate/phdprojects.html

for some information on each of these.

   ANC: Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation 
   --------------------------------------------------
   Flytrap: Building a Volumetric Map of the Fly Brain
   Flies in Space
   Exploration and Visualisation of Complex Data on Demand
   Development of Disparity and Spatial Frequency Preference in Visual Cortex
   Understanding Species Differences in Visual Maps

   CISA: Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications 
   -----------------------------------------------------------
   A Proof Management Tool
   Automating Diagrammatic Reasoning
   Improving Support for Mathematics in Mechanical Theorem Provers
   Multi-Agent Coordination in Open Environments
   Game-Theoretic Analysis of Multiagent Communication
   The Role of Communication in Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
   A Computational Model of Lying
   Controlling Open Multiagent Systems
   Argumentation-Based Ontology Conflict Resolution
   Human/Robotic Task Achieving Team

   ICCS: Institute for Communicating and Collaborative Systems 
   -----------------------------------------------------------
   Probabilistic Models of Human Parsing
   Integrating Linguistic and Visual Processing
   Dynamic Bayesian Networks for Speech Recognition
   Probabilistic Approaches to Natural Language Generation
   Translation of Text to British Sign Language
   Robust Construction of Semantics
   Robust Semantic Interpretation
   Statistical Machine Translation for Biomedical Domains
   Microphone-Array Based Speech Recognition
   Language Models for Multiparty Conversations
   Hidden Speech Production Models
   Multimodal Information Access
   Head Motion Synthesis for Lifelike Conversational Agents
   Multi-Unit Acoustic Models for Speech Recognition
   Induction of Wide-Coverage Categorial Lexicon from Large Amounts of Unlabeled Text
   Use of Intonation in Spoken Language Generation for Human-Machine Dialogue
   Temporal Semantics
   Grammar-Driven Language Models
   Automated Musical Analysis
   Projecting Discourse Annotation from Parallel Corpora
   Answering Comparison Questions: What's the Difference?

   ICSA: Institute for Computing Systems Architecture 
   --------------------------------------------------
   Skeletal Parallel Programming
   Automatic Test Pattern Generation and Scan Insertion for Asynchronous Circuits
   Noise-Tolerant Asynchronous Circuits
   Data-Dependent Processing for Energy-Aware Systems
   Combining Model Checking and Theorem Proving
   Automated Synthesis of Architectures and Compilers
   Energy and Area Modelling for Architecture Synthesis
   Low-Power Multi-Threaded Architectures
   Reconfigurable Data-Parallel Structures for Embedded Computation

   LFCS: Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science 
   ----------------------------------------------------
   Engineering Electronic Proof
   Independence-Friendly Temporal Logic
   Questions on Modal mu-Calculi
   Concurrency in (Computational) Linguistics
   Archiving of Scientific Data
   Integrity Constraints for XML and Beyond
   Keys for XML
   Provenance in Databases
   Vectorizing XML
   Randomized Algorithms for Transportation Polytopes
   Complexity of Approximate Counting
   Algorithmic Verification of Recursive Probabilistic Systems
   Schema-Directed XML Publishing
   A Security Model for XML
   XML Query Languages
   Service-Oriented Computing for the Overlay Computer
   PEPA Nets: Modelling Mobile Systems
   Performance Modelling with Process Algebras
   Computational Models for Systems Biology
   A Logic of Computational Effects
   Proof Carrying Code for the Grid
   Security for Mobile Devices
   Algebraic and Logical Foundations of Formal Software Development
   Topological Models of Computation
   Constructive Set Theories and their Applications
   Proof Theory for Programs and Processes
   Type Systems for Computational Effects
   Mathematical Models for Concurrent and Mobile Computation
   Modalities for Name Generation: Logic, Proof and the Meaning of New
   Designing Services in Service-Oriented Architecture 
   Combinations and Abstractions of Formal Games
   Links: Web Programming, Faster, Better, Cheaper

Further information
---------------------------

Information about graduate study, the School of Informatics, the
University as a whole and the city of Edinburgh is available from:

   http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/postgraduate/
   http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/
   http://www.ed.ac.uk

You can email queries to our Graduate Secretary at:

   phd-admissions at inf.ed.ac.uk

or to individual members of teaching staff. Application forms are
available from:

   http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/applications/forms.html

The application form should be returned before the end of March or
earlier if possible. Applications for an Overseas Research Studentship
must be completed by the beginning of February.