PhD Studentship - Semantic Sensing Information Modelling and Service

Applications are invited to apply for one of our four year Postgraduate Research 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 provide 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 and a list of taught modules can be found here.

Financial Support

This studentship includes a fee bursary to cover the Home/EU tuition fee rate plus a maintenance allowance of £15,000 in 2015/16. In addition to these we are also offering two fully funded Overseas positions which will cover the Overseas tuition fee rate plus a maintenance allowance of £15,000 which will be awarded to exceptional candidates on a competitive basis.  Applicants from outside the EU who are not awarded the studentship will still be eligible for partial funding, and will need to pay the difference between the ‘Home/EU’ and the ‘Overseas’ tuition fees, for the 2015/16 academic year this will be £11,448.

Background of the Project

With the advent of ubiquitous sensing and the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of sensors deployed around the world is growing at a rapid pace. These sensors continuously generate enormous amounts of data. In order to add value to raw sensor data, we need to understand it. The ways of collection, modelling, reasoning, and distribution sensor data are critical in this challenge.

This PhD project aims to semantically characterize the sensing information and explore the approach to provide semantic context-aware service for smart city/building. The research will be built upon the relevant research efforts and state-of-the-art semantical modelling technologies. The semantic definition of the sensing information will enable the intelligent data mediation, spatial reasoning and data fusion. The exploitability of such semantic definition will be investigated through a practical scenario by building a semantic service testing platform which could be used to demonstrate the integration of sensors' functional and spatial properties to facilitate the vision of smart city/building.

Person Specification

The successful applicant will have a strong undergraduate (first class or upper second class) and/or masters degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics or a related discipline as well as excellent programming and analytical/mathematical skills. A demonstrable interest in information processing is essential. Applicants from non-English speaking countries will need to satisfy Aston’s English language entry requirements.

Enquiries about this project contact Dr. Hongxia Wang by email wangh25@aston.ac.uk.

Details of the online application process can be accessed here  Applications should also be accompanied by a brief review of relevant research literature, and an explanation of how your knowledge and experience will benefit the project.

This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:

http://jobs.aston.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=R150297