[agents] PhD Position at the Centre for Policy Modelling on: Data-mining, Visualisation and Agent-Based Modelling

[Bruce Edmonds]

PhD Position at the Centre for Policy Modelling on: Data-mining,
Visualisation and Agent-Based Modelling

Stipend: £13,290 per annum + applicable fees for 3 years funded by EPSRC

Centre for Policy Modelling
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School

Applications are invited to apply for this fully-funded doctoral
position at the Centre for Policy Modelling, to investigate some of
the potential synergies between data-mining, visualisation techniques
and agent-based modelling.  This studentship is within the umbrella of
the SCID project (scid-project.org), funded by the Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council’s Cross-disciplinary Interfaces
Programme, 'Complexity Science in the Real World'.  This project is in
association with the University of Manchester's Institute for Social
Change and its Department of Theoretical Physics.  This is a
high-profile and ambitious project that aims to develop a new approach
to using simulations to gain understanding of important social issues.
 The project is from September 2010 to August 2015 so the funding will
end August 2015.

The period of study will involve the development of techniques to
apply data-mining, visualisation and agent-based simulation in
innovative and complementary ways drawing on the evidence and data
from the SCID project, which is centered around 3 areas: diversity,
homophily and social trust, socio-political integration, and
socio-economic inequality.  Thus the data and target of the techniques
and approaches developed would be to do with one of these areas.

The data and evidence will be provided by experts at the Institute for
Social Change. The central challenge of the PhD will be to find
synergies between data-mining, visualisation techniques and
agent-based modelling, for example: visualising the output from
simulations, using data-mining techniques to inform the specification
of agent-based models, or using data-mining to locate “phases” in the
behaviour of simulations. Depending on the exact area identified for
investigation this studentship will be jointly supervised with the
department for computer science.

Applicants should preferably have a Masters-level degree in a relevant
discipline, preferably with an element of computer science or
computational social science. The candidate should thus have a
reasonable level programming and/or simulation experience. The
candidate has to be an EU national and not already have a PhD.

The CPM is a world-leading research centre in social simulation.
Since its inception in 1992 it has developed its unique blend of
trans-disciplinary research, crossing the areas of: artificial
intelligence, complexity science, philosophy and computational social
science (to get an idea of its scope browse its discussion papers).
It has built up a reputation and track-record over that time being
involved in a number of EU and UK projects (Ocopomo, EMIL, Nania,
NeWater, GIACS, CAVES, CCDEW, FIRMA, IMIS).  The CPM is a happy,
informal but creative lab.  For more information about the work of the
Centre see its website at http://cfpm.org

For informal discussions about the post, contact Bruce Edmonds on +44
(0) 161 247 6479 or email bruce at edmonds.name.

To apply, send a CV with a covering letter to Bruce Edmonds, Centre
for Policy Modelling, MMUBS, Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, M1 3GH,
UK.  Closing date for applications: 16h March 2012.

The University is committed to an Equal Opportunities Policy.


Regards.

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Bruce Edmonds
Centre for Policy Modelling
Manchester Metropolitan University
Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, Manchester M1 3GH, UK.
Tel. +161 247 6479  Fax. +161 247 6802
http://bruce.edmonds.name