UK : PhD Studentship - Supercomputing and Data Mining

Reference No RS/08/24

Studentship of £13,290 (current rate for 2009/10) [Tax Free] p.a. for 3 years plus tuition fees (at EU/Home rate) is available immediately.

Applications are invited for a full-time studentship available in the School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences in the Faculty of Science and Technology. The studentship is tenable for 3 years for the MPhil/PhD (subject to satisfactory progress). The studentship will cover the cost of tuition fees at UK/EU rates plus a tax free stipend (currently £13290 for 2009/10) per annum. International applicants may apply but will be required to pay the difference between UK/EU and international fees. The successful applicant is expected to start on 1st January 2010.

Across many applications, there is increasing utilisation of data mining algorithms to extract previously unknown knowledge from large datasets using Artificial Intelligence. Underpinning aspects of these algorithms include that they involve search space traversal and are relatively small and repeated frequently. Thus they are ideal for implementation on high performance accelerators and massively parallel machines. The project will investigate the area of parallel search and its application within a number of data mining approaches and application spaces. High Performance Computing (HPC) architectures and the new HPC technologies (GPGPU, IBM Cell (PS3), etc.) will be utilised.

Applicants should be highly motivated and have a good degree in Computer Science or a cognate discipline (e.g., Engineering, Mathematics, Physics or Chemistry) or a Bachelor degree with equivalent research or industry working experience. Previous research experience is an advantage, but not necessary. The successful applicant should have a good programming background (ideally in C/C++ programming). Parallel computing expertise is an advantage but not necessary as the successful candidate will be encouraged to attend to the relevant training available to UK researchers.

Informal queries about the project may be directed to Dr Firat Tekiner (+44 1772 893280, or email ftekiner@uclan.ac.uk ). For more information visit: www.star.uclan.ac.uk/~ft/

Application should include a CV and a letter of intent. Requests for an application pack (quoting the reference number RS/08/24) should be directed to the Graduate Research Office. Tel +44 (0)1772 895082 or e-mail researchdegrees@uclan.ac.uk .

Closing Date for Applications to the Graduate Research Office:
22nd of October 2009