Ph.D. & Post-doc vacancies in European Network

[Roderick Murray-Smith]

Several positions in this European Commission funded research network
might be of interest to researchers who are active in
statistically-oriented work, Bayesian networks, or stochastic simulation
and who are interested in engineering applications, especially with
dynamic systems.

Multi-Agent Control: Probabilistic reasoning, optimal coordination,
stability analysis and controller design for intelligent hybrid systems

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/mac/

Vacancies in the MAC network (deadline 1st March 2000):
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Multi-Agent Control (MAC) network is a collaboration between the
Universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, Maynooth, NTNU, DTU and the Jozef
Stefan Insitute (participants). This project is funded by the European
Commission as a Research Training Network. The University of Glasgow
acts as the project coordinator. There are vacancies for researchers
at each of the members of the network as follows.

1.Pre-doctoral position at University of Glasgow
2.Pre-doctoral position at University of Strathclyde
3.Pre-doctoral position at National University of Ireland, Maynooth
4.Post-Doctoral Position at Norwegian University of Science and
Technology
5.Pre-doctoral Position at Technical University of Denmark
6.Post-Doctoral Position at Institut Jozef Stefan, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

NOTE:  To be elegible it is *essential* that applicants satisfy EU
requirements (i.e. be citizen/resident of EU member or associated state
- see below for further details).

Highlights of the programme for potential applicants are:

   Challenging programme of interdisciplinary research
   Industrially relevant research problems
   Excellent training programme
   Mobility between network nodes
   Industrial secondments
   Competitive salary and relocation package

Project Goals
----------------
The overall research objective of the network is to develop rigorous
methods for analysis and design of Multi-Agent Control systems. Due to
the interdisciplinary nature of this objective, the network has been
structured to include expertise from relevant problem domains;
probabilistic reasoning, optimisation, stability analysis, control
theory and computing science. The specific design problems to be
addressed are:

1.To develop probabilistic reasoning methods for design that
accommodate the inherent uncertainty in the system's knowledge of the
state of the world. The work will build on new developments of
computationally-intensive statistical inference tools, for modelling
complex physical systems and human control behaviour.
2.To develop tools for rigorously analysing the potentially very
strong and safety critical interactions between the outcome of
controller decisions and the dynamic behaviour of the overall system.
3.To develop formal methods of design, which incorporate in a single
framework, the design of the switching logic, co-ordination between
multiple agents as well as optimisation of performance within given
constraints on the overall system behaviour.

The emphasis in this network is to develop a theory to support the
design of computer-controlled systems where performance and safety are
crucial. The efficacy of the research results will be evaluated using a
number of test-bed industrial applications (aerospace, automotive,
process and renewable energy fields). These applications will be
supplied by a number of major European industrial companies, some of
which are members of the network, and others that have expressed an
interest in the scientific output of the network. Software tools
developed during prototyping, as well as the scientific results, will be

made available to the wider academic and industrial community.

Funding
----------
The project is funded by the European Commission under a Research
Training Network. The European Commission requires that the candidate is

aged 35 years or less at the time of his appointment and must be a
national of a Member State of the Community or of an Associated State
excluding the country in which you plan to work) or have resided in the
Community for at least five year prior to the appointment.  It is
emphasised
that these elegibility conditions are strict requirements.

Note that pre-doctoral positions are essentially fully paid Ph.D.
positions, where the candidate is expected to gain a Ph.D. by the end of

the work period. Post-doctoral positions require the candidate to have
qualified for a Ph.D. or equivalent before starting work.

Further information
-----------------------
Please visit the project web site http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/mac/ for more

information. Details about the individual vacancies can be found at
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/mac/vacancies.htm

--
Roderick Murray-Smith
Department of Computing Science
Glasgow University
Glasgow G12 8QQ
Scotland
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod