GWR PhD Studentships
Smart Technology Research Centre
School of Design, Engineering and Computing

Two 3 year, fully funded PhD studentships are available on exciting research projects at the Computational Intelligence Research Group (CIRG) within the Smart Technology Research Centre (STRC) at Bournemouth University, United Kingdom.

Both projects are research collaborations between Smart Technology Research Centre from Bournemouth University, Artificial Intelligence Research Group from Bristol University and a large industrial/commercial partner which in the first case is the British Telecommunications plc (BT) and in the second case the Screwfix Direct Ltd.

The students will be joining the Smart Technology Research Centre (STRC) and will be primarily based in the School of Design, Engineering & Computing in Bournemouth but will also be required to frequently visit and work in the top R&D labs of the commercial sponsors as well as the other academic partner which provide an outstanding opportunity to gain a diverse experience of both academic and commercial environments.

The studentships carry a basic remuneration of £12900 pa tax-free and payment of tuition fees at home/EU rate. The successful applicants will normally need to be EU citizens though outstanding non-EU candidates will also be considered.

For both projects applicants should have a strong mathematical background and hold a first or upper second class honours degree or equivalent in computer science, mathematics, physics, engineering, statistics or a similar discipline. Additionally the candidates should have strong programming experience using any or combination of C++, Matlab or Java and very good knowledge of database systems like MS SQL Server, Oracle, and Sybase.

Both projects are expected to start by September 2008 at the latest but all interested candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.

Project 1: Probabilistic modelling of customer behaviour using nature-inspired hybrid optimisation techniques

Prof Bogdan Gabrys (STRC), Dr Dymitr Ruta (BT Intelligent Systems Labs/STRC), Prof Trevor Martin (Bristol University)

This application driven collaborative project with BT Intelligent Systems Labs, one of the largest R&D labs of this type in UK, has two primary objectives:

1. To explore, identify, develop and test a family of predictive models that given historical sequences of customer behaviour would be capable of delivering a range of soft probabilistic predictions related to the future evolution of such customer event sequences; and


2. To configure and deploy at least one of the devised models to the real-time operational trial carried out in the BT call centre in order to evaluate their performance in the real-life operations and demonstrate added value both to the customer service provider and the customers themselves.

For further details please follow this link.

Project 2: Robust Adaptive Algorithms for Relational Data Mining

Prof Bogdan Gabrys (STRC), Dr Stephen Mc Kearney (STRC), Prof Trevor Martin (Bristol University), Dr Michael Barker (Screwfix Direct)

This collaborative project with Screwfix Direct, the UK's largest direct and online supplier of trade tools, accessories and hardware products, will investigate the application of relational data mining to large real-world data sets. In order to address problems related to:

1. large amount of data to be processed;
2. the complexity and the dynamic nature of the relationships; and
3. the poor quality of the data;

the project will investigate and develop novel approaches within the following research themes:

1. scalability and algorithm design;
2. learning and adaptive mechanisms; and
3. data uncertainty modeling and propagation.

In practical terms related to the software development the overall approach of the project will include: a) Implementing robust versions of proposed relational learning algorithms; b) Developing algorithms that link to commercial database management systems; c) Adapting relational learning to handle real world data; and d) Designing user-friendly interfaces to relational learning algorithms.

For further details please follow this link.

Interested candidates should follow the application procedure listed on the School of Design, Engineering and Computing web pages.

Further details concerning the studentships and application procedure can be also obtained from the School of DEC Research Administrator - Ms Jo Sawyer, Email: jsawyer@bournemouth.ac.uk. Tel: +44 (0)1202 965985