Post-doc research position at Aston University, England

[Chris Williams]

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Aston University, England

Combining Spatially-Distributed Predictions from Neural Networks

The Neural Computing Research Group at Aston is looking for a highly
motivated individual for a 2 year postdoctoral research position in
the area of "Combining Spatially-Distributed Predictions from Neural
Networks", working with Dr. Chris Williams and Dr. Ian Nabney.  The
aim of this project is to develop methods for the fusion of
spatially-distributed predictions from neural networks with prior
knowledge about possible spatial patterns. This post is funded by a
grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(UK), in collaboration with British Aerospace and the Meteorological
Office.

Potential candidates should have strong mathematical and computational
skills, with a background one or more of neural networks, Bayesian
belief networks and statistical Markov chain Monte Carlo computation.

Neural networks have been used very successfully in a wide variety of
domains for performing classification or regression tasks. A
characteristic of most currently successful applications is that the
input patterns are either independent (as in static pattern
classification) or related over time, rather than being spatially
distributed. To extend the use of neural networks to spatially
distributed tasks, such as the prediction of a wind vector-field from
remote-sensing data, typically it is necessary to combine local
bottom-up predictions (wind vector predictions on a pixel-by-pixel
basis) with global prior knowledge (typical wind-field configurations,
including weather fronts). This combination can be achieved by using
Bayes' theorem to obtain the posterior distribution for the features
of interest (the wind-field). The project will apply this framework in
the areas of remote sensing, the segmentation of images, and object
recognition.

Closing date: 29 July, 1996.

Informal enquiries can be made by email to Chris Williams
(C.K.I.Williams at aston.ac.uk) or to Ian Nabney
(I.T.Nabney at aston.ac.uk).  The target start date is October 1996,
although this may be somewhat flexible, More information on the Neural
Computing Research Group and the postdoc position is available from
http://www.ncrg.aston.ac.uk/

Salaries will be up to point 6 on the RA 1A scale, currently 15,986 UK
pounds. These salary scales are subject to annual increments.

If you wish to be considered for this position, please send a full CV
and publications list, together with the names of 3 referees, to:

Dr. Chris Williams
Neural Computing Research Group
Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
Aston University
Birmingham B4 7ET, U.K.

Tel: +44 121 333 4631
Fax: +44 121 333 4586
e-mail: C.K.I.Williams at aston.ac.uk
(email submission of postscript files is welcome)