PhD Scholarships

[Joachim Diederich]

               NEUROCOMPUTING RESEARCH CENTRE
         QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (QUT)
                    BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

                   FOUR PhD SCHOLARSHIPS

QUT  is  offering  PhD   scholarships   in   the   area   of
Neurocomputing   and   Artificial   Intelligence.   Research
activities  will  include  natural   language   acquisition,
grammar  induction  and  connectionist  forms  of analytical
learning.

The scholarships include an annual tax-free living allowance
as  well  as  the  tuition  fees  for  students from outside
Australia/New Zealand.

The successful applicants are expected to have  a  four-year
degree  in  Computer  Science/Cognitive Science (e.g. upper-
levels Honours or Masters).  Good  knowledge  of  artificial
neural  networks and symbolic machine learning is essential;
good programming skills are desirable.

The scholars will work in the Neurocomputing Research Centre
and  will  be  part of a high-profile team comprising senior
researchers  and  other  PhD  students.  The  centre  offers
state-of-the-art  computing  facilities  including networked
Unix   workstations   plus   support   for   national    and
international conference travel.

Potential  applicants  should  contact   Professor   Joachim
Diederich,    Neurocomputing    Research   Centre,   e-mail:
joachim at fit.qut.edu.au.  Enquiries should  include  a  brief
resume  plus  a  reference  to  the scholarship of interest.
These positions will be filled immediately.

                       SCHOLARSHIP 1
        NEUROCOMPUTING AND NATURAL LANGUAGE LEARNING

QUT is offering a  PhD  scholarship  in  neurocomputing  and
natural language learning as part of a collaborative project
with  the  University  of  California,  Berkeley   and   the
Australian National University.

Research   activities   will   include    theoretical    and
experimental   aspects  of  Connectionist  Natural  Language
Processing, in  particular,  language  learning.   A  strong
background    in    computer   science   is   required   and
qualifications in linguistics are an advantage.

                       SCHOLARSHIP 2
   COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR THE PRIMARY INDUSTRIES

This project investigates computerised  techniques  for  the
support  of  primary  industies.  In particular, statistical
methods,   neurocomputing   and   artificial    intelligence
techniques  are  evaluated.  The  comparison will be done by
methods such as cross-validation and bootstrap, as  well  as
by  the  use  of "real world scenarios." The objective is an
integrated   information   system   which   combines   these
techniques  and  aims  at  a  performance  which  cannot  be
achieved by any of the above mentioned methods in isolation.

                       SCHOLARSHIP 3
    RECURRENT NEURAL NETWORKS AND CONTEXT-FREE LANGUAGES

Various kinds of simple recurrent networks (SRNs) and  their
learning  strategies  will be evaluated and compared towards
the implementation of a recogniser of context free languages
modelled  on  a  pushdown  automaton. Starting with a Giles-
style higher order network at the core, it  is  expected  to
devolve  into  a higher order recurrent network and a number
of SRNs each with clearly delineated responsibilities.

                       SCHOLARSHIP 4
       CONNECTIONIST SYSTEMS AND ANALYTICAL LEARNING

This  project  will  focus  on   connectionists   forms   of
analytical     learning     such     as    explanation-based
generalisation. Connectionist systems for the representation
of  structured  knowledge  will  be  used  for deduction and
learning.


               Neurocomputing Research Centre
            Queensland University of Technology
                 Box 2434, Brisbane Q 4001
                         AUSTRALIA
                   Phone: +61 7 3864-2143
                   Fax:   +61 7 3864-1801
               http://www.fit.qut.edu.au/NRC/