No subject

[Frank Doyle]

Postdoctoral position available in :   
    
NEURO-MODELING   
    
in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University
 
 
Position for 2 years (beginning Fall 1993; salary: $25,000 per year). 
    
Subject:  Neuro-modeling of blood pressure control   
    
This project is part of an interdisciplinary program involving
industrial and academic participants from DuPont, Purdue University,
the University of Pennsylvannia, and Louisiana State University.  The
program encompasses the disciplines of chemical engineering, automatic
control, and neuroscience.  Active interactions with engineers and
nonlinear control and modeling community at Purdue and DuPont as well
as with the neuroscientists at DuPont and Penn will be necessary for
the success of the project. A strong background in neuro-modeling is
required.  The facilities at Purdue include state-of-the art
computational workstations (HP 735s and Sun 10/41s).

The postdoctoral candidate will work on the development of models of
the control mechanisms responsible for blood pressure regulation.   The
neural system under investigation is the cardiorespiratory control
system, which integrates sensory information on respiratory and
cardiovascular variables to regulate and coordinate cardiac, vascular
and respiratory activity. In order to better understand this system our
program does neurobiolgical research and computational modeling. In
effect, these results reverse engineer neuronal and systems
function, which can have implications for engineering application; and
the engineering applications of our first interest are in chemical
engineering. The overall effort involves neurobiologists, chemical
engineers, computer scientists, bioengineers and neural systems
modelers.  The present position is meant to contribute to the neural
systems modeling - chemical engineering interaction.

The neural computational-modeling work is progressing at several
levels: (1) systems-level modeling modeling of the closed-loop
cardiorespiratory system, (2) cellular level modeling of nonlinear
computation in Hodgkin-Huxley style neuron models, and (3) network
modeling of networks built-up from HH-style neurons incorporating
channel kinetics and synaptic conductances to capture the mechanisms in
the baroreceptor vagal reflex. The macroscopic model will be used (in
conjunction with experimental data from the literature and from the
laboratory of Dr. Schwaber) in developing structures to represent the
control functions. The synaptic level modeling activities will be used
in developing the building blocks which achieve the control function.
The present position will focus towards research goals, under the
supervision of Dr. Frank Doyle, that include the identification of
novel control and modeling techniques.

 
Interested candidates should send their curriculum vitae to BOTH:
 
Prof. Francis J. Doyle III
School of Chemical Engineering
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1283
(317) 497-9228
E-mail: fdoyle at ecn.purdue.edu  

& 

Dr. James Schwaber
Neural Computation Group
E.I. DuPont deNemours & Co., Inc.
P.O. Box 80352
Wilmington, DE 19880-0352
(302) 695-7136
E-mail: schwaber at eplrx7.es.duPont.com