Prof. Chuck Anderson – E.T.S. Walton Lecture Flyer

Professor Charles Anderson of the Department of Computer Science, Colorado State University, will present an E.T.S. Walton Lecture entitled “Translating Thoughts into Actions by Finding Patterns in Brainwaves” on December 4th at 7pm in the Royal Irish Academy. There is a reception before the lecture at 6.30pm. All welcome.

Prof. Chuck Anderson, Science Foundation Ireland ETS Walton Visiting Professor at the Hamilton Institute, will be presenting a public lecture at the Royal Irish Academy on “Translating Thoughts into Actions by Finding Patterns in Brainwaves”.

Date: 6.30pm Dec 4th 2007. Preceded by wine reception.

For further details see flyer.

Prof Chuck Anderson and wife Stacey at Walton lecture in RIA.

Applications are invited by well-qualified applicants for a PhD position in the area of dynamic routing and coding for 802.11 wireless networks.

Wireless networks are fundamentally different from wired networks in a number of respects. A key difference is that transmissions are inherently broadcast in nature. We are interested in taking advantage of this to develop powerful new approaches for dynamically routing packets through multi-hop wireless networks. By opportunistically exploiting reception of packets at neighbouring stations, initial tests indicate that gains of x5 or greater in network capacity can potentially be achieved. However, it is not sufficient to consider just capacity, but also quality of service and so our interest is in development optimal algorithms that meet specified quality of service constraints. There is an intimate interaction between broadcast transmission and the choice of coding used. Joint design of routing and coding is therefore also expected to play a key role. Fountain codes and related methods, are very natural in this context.

The candidate should hold a BSc in Engineering/CS or a related field, and have strong analytic skills. Some background in networking, optimisation, and/or coding theory is desirable but not essential.

More information on the networking group at the Hamilton Institute is available at www.hamilton.ie/netlab/. The Hamilton Institute is committed to research excellence. These posts offer an exciting opportunity for successful candidates to tackle fundamental research problems within a stimulating multi-disciplinary research environment with state of the art facilitiesand strong links to the international research community.

Stipend: €21000 (tax free)

To apply, candidates should submit a detailed CV, 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).

Dr. Wilhelm Huisinga has just signed a research collaboration contract with Bayer Schering Pharma in the field of mathematical modelling in pharmacokinetics. For more details, see www.hamilton.ie/compphysiol.

Following the competitions run in 2005 and 2006 we are running the Hamilton Maths Challenge for schools once again this year. The competition starts the week of Oct 15th to coincide with Maths Week. Please go to the competition home page for details.

SFI has awarded €2.7M to Prof. Doug Leith and Prof. Robert Shorten of the Hamilton Institute to continue their research into Next Generation Communication Networks. With additional costs and overheads the value to the university is approximately €4.1M.

Prof. Leith commented that “This award will build upon the foundation laid by researchers at the Hamilton Institute over the past six years, with the aim of reaching the level of technical breadth and critical mass necessary to create long-term impact both within Ireland and internationally.”

Prof. Shorten added that “The need for a principled understanding of complex network behavior is becoming widely recognized. Our approach has been to work at the interface between mathematics and its applications in networks, and it is the success of this inter-disciplinary approach in making real progress on challenging problems that underpins this new project. ”

Prof Doug Leith and Prof. Robert Shorten

Hamilton Institute researcher Tianji Li has been awarded a prestigious personal fellowship from the rish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET). This two year fellowship, won in competition against researchers from all areas of science and engineering, will enable Tianji to pursue his research into next generation wireless networks.

Work on SUV rollover prevention by Hamilton Institute researchers Prof. Robert Shorten and Selim Solmaz, has made the news with a front page article in the Irish Times motoring supplement. See article at the Irish Times web site.

Applications are invited by well-qualified applicants for an MSc
position in the areas of IPv6 testbed development and testing of
new TCP congestion control variants.

TCP is known to perform poorly in high bandwidth-delay product paths
and this has led to a number of proposals for redesign of the
congestion control strategy, including Cubic TCP (currently enabled
by default in Linux), Compound TCP (proposed by Microsoft and under
review at the IRTF) and H-TCP (proposed by researchers at the
Hamilton Institute and implemented in Linux). This project will
build on initial evaluation work carried out at the Hamilton Institute
with a view to enhancing our understanding of the new issues raised
by these, and other, proposed changes and taking an active role in
the current IRTF/IETF review process.

IPv6 is a replacement for the Internet’s transport layer, which has
been developed by the IETF over the last 15 years. A number of
standards now make use of IPv6, including the Internet Messaging
System (IMS). The Hamilton Institute is to provide and support IPv6
test-bed connectivity between the partners of the IMS ARCS
(www.ims-arcs.ie).

Applicants should have a basic understanding of IP networking and
should have some familiarity with the configuration and use of Linux
or BSD systems. Good numerate and analytic skills will be essential,
and the candidate should be comfortable with scripting and programming.

The Hamilton Institute is committed to research excellence. These
posts offer 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, 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) or Dr. David Malone (david.malone@nuim.ie).

Applications are invited for a number of PhD positions at the Hamilton Institute. Candidates should have an outstanding academic record.

We currently have opportunities in the following areas:

• 802.11 Wireless Networks
  Topics of interest include Interference management, oppportunistic routing and throughput optimisation in multi-hop wireless mesh networks. Cross-layer interactions between link adaptation, MAC scheduler, routing and transport layers and related topics.

• TCP & Network Congestion Control
  Applicationof dynamics systems theory to internet and related network congestion control problems. This includes decentralised design and adaptation techniques for TCP; stability, convergence, efficiency and fairness issues; novel protocols for heterogeneous networks including wireless links. Also th development of new models and measurement techniques tailored including design of network experiments; dynamic modelling for TCP design.

• Hybrid Systems Theory
  Analysis and design of hybrid and switched linear systems. This includes both computational and analytical methodsand we are especially interested inapplications to adaptive/reconfigurableand heterogeneous systems.

• Control issues in distributed systems
  There are a range of theoretical and practical issues in the cooperative control of a distributed system of vehicles, such as platoons of cars, UAVs etc. In particular, limited communications imposes some restrictions on the ability to achieve high control performance in a large distributed group of vehicles. There are a number of open research problems in this research area connecting control and communications.

• Bipedal Walking Dynamics and Control
  Motivated by problems in RoboCup soccer, we wish to research, implement and test algorithms for highly agile, flexible, yet robust motion systems for bipedal walking. This includes examination of appropriate control system architectures, modelling and design of ‘low-level’ reaction feedback mechanisms, gait design, and transitions between different modes of operation.

• Systems Biology – Networks and Dynamics
  Systems Biology is a broad field of study with a range of application areas. Within this field, studies of the dynamics of networks of bio-molecular reactions is of interest. These studies aim to give a deeper mathematical foundation to enhance our understanding of biological processes such as cell signalling networks; metabolic systems etc.

The Hamilton Institute is committed to research excellence. These posts offer 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 stronglinks to the international research community.
PhD Stipend: €21000 (tax free)

To apply, candidates should submit a detailed CV, motivation letter, and the names and addresses of three referees for letters of recommendation to: hamilton@nuim.ie. Informal enquiries to Prof. Doug Leith (doug.leith@nuim.ie) or Prof. Robert Shorten (robert.shorten@nuim.ie)