28 December: fyi -- 40 phd stipends, Edinburgh

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

FORTY 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 12000 pounds to cover living expenses in your first year,
rising in second and third years. The rest pay your fees and a
contribution of 6000 pounds per year towards living expenses. Payment
of fees for non-EU students is subject to successful competition for
an Overseas Research Studentship. 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.

These studentships are funded from a variety of sources. New this
year are five full studentships in the Schools of Informatics and
Engineering & Electronics funded by Wolfson Microelectronics plc.
Also new are Principal's Scholarships; these are prestigious prizes
awarded to a few of the most promising new PhD students each year,
which provide an extra 2000 pounds per year for living costs on top of
any other funding that is offered.

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.

The 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 215 students
studying for PhD, and around 150 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 projects 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
--------------------------------------------------
Flytrap: Building a Volumetric Map of the Fly Brain
Flies in Space
Exploration and Visualisation of Complex Data on Demand
Development of Disparity and Spatial Frequency Preference in Visual Cortex
Understanding Species Differences in Visual Maps

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
The Role of Communication in Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
A Computational Model of Lying
Controlling Open Multiagent Systems
Argumentation-Based Ontology Conflict Resolution
Human/Robotic Task Achieving Team

ICCS: Institute for Communicating and Collaborative Systems
-----------------------------------------------------------
Probabilistic Models of Human Parsing
Integrating Linguistic and Visual Processing
Dynamic Bayesian Networks for Speech Recognition
Probabilistic Approaches to Natural Language Generation
Translation of Text to British Sign Language
Robust Construction of Semantics
Robust Semantic Interpretation
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
Projecting Discourse Annotation from Parallel Corpora
Answering Comparison Questions: What's the Difference?

ICSA: Institute for Computing Systems Architecture
--------------------------------------------------
Skeletal Parallel Programming
Automatic Test Pattern Generation and Scan Insertion for Asynchronous Circuit
s
Noise-Tolerant Asynchronous Circuits
Data-Dependent Processing for Energy-Aware Systems
Combining Model Checking and Theorem Proving
Automated Synthesis of Architectures and Compilers
Energy and Area Modelling for Architecture Synthesis
Low-Power Multi-Threaded Architectures
Reconfigurable Data-Parallel Structures for Embedded Computation

LFCS: Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science
----------------------------------------------------
Engineering Electronic Proof
Independence-Friendly Temporal Logic
Questions on Modal mu-Calculi
Concurrency in (Computational) Linguistics
Archiving of Scientific Data
Integrity Constraints for XML and Beyond
Keys for XML
Provenance in Databases
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
Service-Oriented Computing for the Overlay Computer
PEPA Nets: Modelling Mobile Systems
Performance Modelling with Process Algebras
Computational Models for Systems Biology
A Logic of Computational Effects
Proof Carrying Code for the Grid
Security for Mobile Devices
Algebraic and Logical Foundations of Formal Software Development
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
Designing Services in Service-Oriented Architecture
Combinations and Abstractions of Formal Games
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:

phd-admissions@inf.ed.ac.uk

or to individual members of teaching staff. Application forms are
available from:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/applications/forms.html

The application form should be returned before the end of March or
earlier if possible. Applications for an Overseas Research Studentship
must be completed by the beginning of February.

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