Aston University - Engineering & Applied Science, School of Engineering and Applied Science PhD Studentship (3 years)
Qualification type: | PhD |
Location: | Birmingham |
Funding for: | UK Students, EU Students, International Students |
Funding amount: | £15,500 |
Hours: | Full Time |
Placed on: | 20th February 2015 |
Closes: | 30th June 2015 |
Reference: | R150054 |
Contract Type: Fixed Term (3 Years)
Trust and Reputation in Multi-agent Systems
Applications are invited to apply for one of our seven three-year PhD studentships, supported by the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to be undertaken within the Computer Science Research Group at Aston University. The successful applicant will join the newly formed Aston Institute for Systems Analytics.
This studentship is combined with a teaching assistant role. The successful candidate will be required to carry out up to seven hours per week of teaching support for a distance learning programme under the direction of the project supervisor; therefore the student must be capable of teaching on a specific module. Details of teaching responsibilities can be found here and a list of taught modules can be found here.
Start Date: September/October 2015
Financial Support
This studentship includes a fee bursary to cover the home/EU fees rate plus a maintenance allowance of £15,500 in 2014/15 paid in monthly instalments. Applicants from outside the EU may apply for this studentship but will need to pay the difference between the ‘Home/EU’ and the ‘Overseas’ tuition fees, currently this is £10,914 in 2014/15.
Background of the Projects
The recent trend in computing is towards increasingly larger, open and distributed systems such as electronic marketplaces (eBay), distributed file and information sharing systems (Gnutella, BitTorrent), social and professional networking sites (Facebook, Linkedln). These are used by numerous human and software agents, each acting in a self-interested manner and often required to make decisions under uncertainty. Ensuring users enjoy a useful, fair service of consistent quality is difficult to achieve through enforcing centralised control measures due to the distributed and largely anonymous nature of these systems. This project will deliver a fully automated trust and reputation decision-making system to be used locally by each participant.
For further details of the project please visit the Computer Science research website athttp://www.aston.ac.uk/eas/about-eas/academic-groups/computer-science/research/
Please note that a maximum of three projects can be applied for, and a project proposal should be submitted for each project as part of your application. The proposal should detail your relevant experience and knowledge of the subject, and details of how you intend to develop the research problem and structure your research as part of the project team.
Person Specification
The successful applicant should have a first class or upper second class honours degree or equivalent qualification in computer science, mathematics, engineering or a related discipline. Programming experience and excellent analytical and presentational skills, along with a demonstrable interest in the chosen research topic, are essential.
For informal enquiries about this opportunity, contact Dr Maria Chli (email: chlim<στο>aston.ac.uk, tel.: +44 (0)121 204 3443) or Dr George Vogiatzis (email: g.vogiatzis<στο>aston.ac.uk, +44 (0)121 204 3452).
The online application form, reference forms and details of entry requirements, including English language are available at http://www1.aston.ac.uk/eas/research/prospective-research-students/how-to-apply/