Archive for February, 2008

PhD Position: Control Systems Analysis and Dynamics of Cellular Self-Destruction.

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

When a cell is no longer needed, or has become damaged in some unrecoverable way, it executes a special process of controlled cellular self-destruction. This process –- called apoptosis – has many unknown feedback control functions. This PhD opportunity is to join a multi-disciplinary team working on trying to understand and analyse properties of programmed cell death from a control systems viewpoint.

Based at the Hamilton Institute, you would work with, and learn from, an experienced international team of mathematical modelers, control systems analysts. You would also be part of our close collaboration with biologist and medical researchers from the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland in nearby Dublin.

The team is particularly interested in why and how brain cells die. Your part in the team would be to focus on the analysis of key parts of this process and interact with mathematical modelers and experimental biologists to advance our understanding of the control principles underlying programmed cell death.

During the process of your PhD work you would have access to a comprehensive range of doctoral courses taught by a panel of internationally renowned experts. At the end of your PhD you would be perfectly placed to take advantage of the many opportunities in the rapidly growing new field of Systems Biology.

Your application for this PhD position in the Systems Biology Group of the Hamilton Institute at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM) should be sent to hamilton@nuim.ie. You can find further details of the Systems Biology group at www.systemsbiology.ie. For additional information about the project, the attractive PhD stipend levels and relocation package visit
www.hamilton.ie/systemsbiology/Vacancies.html.

3rd Hamilton Institute Workshop on Nonnegative Matrices and Related Topics

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

Venue: JH1, John Hume Building, North Campus, NUI Maynooth

Topics:

Theory of nonnegative matrices and applications in biology, computer science, communication networks, stability theory and related fields. The aim of the workshop is to give an overview of the recent advances in the theory and applications of nonnegative matrices and operators, including but not limited to the areas of biology, computer science, communication networks, and stability theory. The range of topics covered will be broad, and the workshop should be of interest to anyone working on either the theory or the applications of nonnegative matrices.

For more details go to
http://www.hamilton.ie/Nonnegative_Matrices_2008/nmw08.html

MSc position in the area of reachability analysis of positive dynamical systems.

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Applications are invited by well-qualified applicants for an MSc position in the area of reachability analysis of positive dynamical systems.

Positive dynamical systems provide the natural modeling framework for diverse applications in areas including Communications, Biology and Economics.  Essentially, a positive dynamical system is one in which the state variables are constrained to remain nonnegative for all time.  Systems of this class possess a number of very specific properties and their analysis has long been a fertile area of research within general systems theory.  At the current time there is a well-developed theory of positive linear time-invariant (LTI) systems; however many modern applications in Communications and Bio-medical engineering require extensions of this theory to incorporate more realistic time-varying and nonlinear models.  The aim of this project is to contribute to the state of the art in this area by developing results and tools for analysing the reachability properties of time-varying, and in particular, switched positive systems.  While the reachability properties of positive LTI systems have received considerable attention in the literature, to date relatively little has been written on the reachability properties of positive switched systems.  This project will explore the geometric properties of the reachability set for positive switched systems and investigate the possibility of obtaining useful necessary and sufficient conditions for reachability of positive switched systems.  

Applicants should have excellent mathematical and analytic skills and possess a solid background in linear algebra and advanced calculus. Familiarity with mathematical control theory would also be an advantage.

The Hamilton Institute is committed to research excellence. This post offers an exciting opportunity for successful candidates to tackle fundamental research problems within a stimulating multi-disciplinary research environment with state of the art facilities and strong links to the international research community.

MSc Stipend: €21000 (tax free)

To apply, candidates should submit a detailed CV, transcripts of undergraduate grades, motivation letter, and the names and addresses of two referees for letters of recommendation to: hamilton@nuim.ie. Informal enquiries to Dr. Oliver Mason (oliver.mason@nuim.ie)

Internship on Mobile Spatial Interaction

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Applications are invited from undergrad students for a funded three-month position in the area of Mobile Spatial Interaction.

Mobile spatial interaction (MSI) involves the interaction with a combined physical/virtual world using a mobile device in order to retrieve or interact with information relevant to a users current context or location. Location and orientation sensing hardware is now available in a number of mass market mobile phones and access to the mobile internet is becoming more ubiquitous making this field increasingly relevant.

The project will build on an existing MSI framework focusing on interaction design and the design of rich audio and vibrotactile feedback using a SHAKE blue tooth sensor box. Usability studies will test the implementation of these ideas. Examples of previous group work can be found at http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod/Videos.html.

Applicants should possess good software and numerate skills, with some familiarity of mobile handset programming. Familiarity with Python for
series 60 Nokia devices, web-design, the google maps API and SQL is desired but not essential.

To apply, candidates should submit a detailed CV and the names and addresses of two referees for letters of recommendation to: hamilton@nuim.ie. Informal enquiries to Prof. Roderick Murray-Smith (rod.murraysmith@nuim.ie).

PhD Position: Fairness in Wireless Mesh Networks. Now Closed.

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Applications are invited from well qualified candidates for a PhD position investigating fairness in wireless mesh networks.

The trend is increasingly towards the use of multiple wireless hops at the network edge e.g. in municipal mesh networks or for wireless media distribution in the home. A key challenge for mesh networks is the fair allocation of available wireless resources between users/flows. While fairness in general network topologies has been well studied in a wired context, wireless networks have received much less attention. Challenges include the lossy nature of links, the load-dependent behaviour of network capacity and cross-layer interactions between MAC and transport layers. This project aims to develop new analytic techniques for characterising utility fairness in wireless mesh networks, and to build on these to design efficient distributed algorithms for dynamically adapting resource allocation to maintain fairness as network load varies.

The candidate should have strong analytic skills. Some background in networking and/or optimisation is desirable. Some familiarity with the configuration and use of Linux or BSD systems and of scripting and programming will be helpful, but not essential, since it is intended that the project wll involve demonstration of developed techniques on our 802.11 wireless testbed.

The Hamilton Institute is committed to research excellence. This post offers an exciting opportunity for successful candidates to tackle fundamental research problems within a stimulating multi-disciplinary research environment with state of the art facilities and strong links to the international research community.

PhD Stipend: €21000 (tax free)

To apply, candidates should submit a detailed CV, transcripts of undergraduate grades, motivation letter, and the names and addresses of two referees for letters of recommendation to: hamilton@nuim.ie. Informal enquiries to Prof. Doug Leith (doug.leith@nuim.ie)

Internship on Road Traffic Congestion Sensing via GPS Phones

Saturday, February 9th, 2008

Applications are invited from undergraduate students for a funded three-month internship position in the area of road traffic congestion sensing.

It is becoming increasingly common for mobile phone handsets to be equipped with GPS positioning functionality as standard. This project will investigate the use of such handsets as a form of sensor network to monitor road traffic congestion in the Dublin city area. This will build on an existing deployment of handsets and involve, amongst other things, development of efficient techniques for online and offline statistical analysis of traffic measurements, novel approaches to web presentation of traffic information using the google maps API and efficient presentation on Nokia Series 60 mobile handsets using SVG-based graphics.

Applicants should good software skills, with some familiarity of the google maps API, SVG and mobile handset programming helpful. Good numerate and analytic skills will be essential.

To apply, candidates should submit a detailed CV and the names and addresses of two referees for letters of recommendation to: hamilton@nuim.ie. Informal enquiries to Prof. Doug Leith (doug.leith@nuim.ie)

MSc Position in Quality of Service for Multi-player Games over 802.11 Wireless

Friday, February 8th, 2008

Applications are invited by well-qualified applicants for an MSc position in the area of quality of service provisioning in 802.11 wireless networks to support multi-player games.

Online gaming is one of the most rapidly increasing sources of traffic in the modern internet. A key feature of multi-player games is the requirement for low latency to allow real-time interaction between players. A second major trend is the increasing use of an 802.11 wireless link as the last hop in homes. The recent 802.11e standard allows traffic classes to be distinguished and prioritised differently. The networking group at the Hamilton Institute has been at the forefront of 802.11e development, including development of the first public 802.11e testbed and of some of the first accurate analytic models capturing the behaviour of real traffic over 802.11e links. This project will build on this to investigate the use of 802.11e (and 802.11n) functionality to meet the quality of service requirements of online games over wireless links. This will require meeting a number of key challenges, including not only the tight delay requirements of games traffic but also 802.11 MAC related issues. The project will also explore linking of 802.11 MAC level resource allocation decisions to higher level policy-driven network management.

Applicants should have good numerate and analytic skills and an understanding of IP networking. Some familiarity with the configuration and use of Linux or BSD systems and of scripting and programming will be helpful since the project wll involve demonstration of developed techniques on our 802.11 wireless testbed.

The Hamilton Institute is committed to research excellence. This post offers an exciting opportunity for successful candidates to tackle fundamental research problems within a stimulating multi-disciplinary research environment with state of the art facilities and strong links to the international research community.

MSc Stipend: €21000 (tax free)

To apply, candidates should submit a detailed CV, transcripts of undergraduate grades, motivation letter, and the names and addresses of two referees for letters of recommendation to: hamilton@nuim.ie. Informal enquiries to Prof. Doug Leith (doug.leith@nuim.ie)