Studentships for PhD study in Informatics@Edinburgh

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

FIFTY 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 12600 pounds to cover living expenses in your first year,
rising in second and third years. The rest pay your fees and/or a
contribution towards living expenses. Payment of fees for non-EU
students is subject to successful competition for an Overseas Research
Student award. 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.

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.

Edinburgh 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 250 students
studying for PhD, and around 130 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 topics 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
--------------------------------------------------
Bioinformatics
Machine Learning
Neuroinformatics

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
Argumentation-Based Ontology Conflict Resolution
Social Algorithms
Political Coordination Mechanisms
A Simple Agent Programming Language
Intelligent Agents in Service-Oriented Architectures
Human/Robotic Task Achieving Team

ICCS: Institute for Communicating and Collaborative Systems
-----------------------------------------------------------
Concurrency in (Computational) Linguistics
Lexicalized Reasoning
Building Models of the Past
Statistical Methods in Dialogue System Design and Adaptation
Machine Learning for Complex Structures
Eyetracking Corpora as Experimental Data
Probabilistic Models of Human Parsing
Integrating Linguistic and Visual Processing
Dynamic Bayesian Networks for Speech Recognition
Probabilistic Approaches to Natural Language Generation
Probabilistic Models of Text-to-text Generation
Robust Construction of Semantics
Projecting Logical Forms in Parallel Corpora
Deep and Robust Semantic Interpretation
A Grammar of Situated Language
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
The Statistical Semantic Web
Extracting and Using Alternatives in Question Answering
Projecting Discourse Annotation from Parallel Corpora

ICSA: Institute for Computing Systems Architecture
--------------------------------------------------
Speculative Parallelisation for Multiprocessors
Cellular Multiprocessors
Skeletal Parallel Programming
Noise-Tolerant Asynchronous Circuits
Data-Dependent Processing for Energy-Aware Systems
Top-down Testability for Self-Timed Circuits
Micro-architectural Solutions for Fault-Tolerance
Delay Fault Testing of Self-Timed Circuits
Dynamic Spectrum Access in Heterogeneous Wireless Network Environments
Cross-layer and Coding Techniques for Reliable and Efficient
Wireless Networking
Low-cost, Robust Networking and Applications for Developing Regions
Auto-Parallelisation
Compilers that Learn to Optimise
Processor Design
Reconfigurable Caches
Searching the Embedded Program Optimisation Space
Automated Synthesis of Architectures and Compilers
Energy and Area Modelling for Architecture Synthesis
Microarchitecture Synthesis for Embedded Architectures
Low-Power Multi-Threaded Architectures
Reconfigurable Data-Parallel Structures for Embedded Computation

IPAB: Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour
---------------------------------------------------
Behaviour Composition in Video Sequence Analysis
Temporal 3D Model Recovery and Representation
Insect Robotics

LFCS: Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science
----------------------------------------------------
Engineering Electronic Proof
Independence-Friendly Temporal Logic
Questions on Modal mu-Calculi
Archiving of Scientific Data
Integrity Constraints for XML and Beyond
Keys for XML
Provenance in Databases
Information Preserving Schema Mapping
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
Data Cleaning
Schema Matching, Mapping and Embedding
Partial Evaluation and Distributed Query Processing
PEPA Nets: Modelling Mobile Systems
Performance Modelling with Process Algebras
Computational Models for Systems Biology
Combining Model Checking and Theorem Proving
Data Exchange
Databases and Verification
A Logic of Computational Effects
Algebraic and Logical Foundations of Formal Software Development
Proof Carrying Code for the Grid
Security for Mobile Devices
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
"Bad Smells" in Code
Combinations and Abstractions of Formal Games
Decision Procedures for Higher-Order Grammars
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:



and queries about the research topics above to individual members of
teaching staff. Application forms are available from:

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

Your application form should be returned by mid-March. Earlier
applications have access to a wider range of sources of financial aid.
Applications for an Overseas Research Student award must be completed
by mid-February at the latest. Chinese applicants who are interested
in funding from the China Scholarship Council should apply by 19th
January at the latest.