PhD Studentship Hyper-heuristics for Grouping Problems University of Nottingham - School of Computer Science http://jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/vacancies.aspx?cat=345#j7933 This studentship is associated with The LANCS Initiative (see: http://www.lancs-initiative.ac.uk/), particularly systems to build systems research cluster. The successful student will join the Automated Scheduling, OptimisAtion and Planning (ASAP) research group (see: http://www.asap.cs.nott.ac.uk/) and have the opportunity to interact with the leading scientists in the field. Most of the existing decision support systems are developed based on expert knowledge and they are custom made for a given problem solving environment. On the other hand, there is an emerging class of intelligent methodologies that allow decision support systems to learn, adapt and improve their behavior, and/or their structure automatically to accommodate complexities of real world problems. These methodologies are applicable to different problem domains and aim to raise the level of generality by selecting and/or generating new methodologies automatically during the search process. This exciting research area lies at the interface between operational research and computer science and involves understanding of representational issues, decision making mechanisms and learning, design, implementation and analysis of hyper-heuristics. The application domains will be cross disciplinary focusing on grouping problems. ASAP is one of four main research groups within the School of Computer Science at Nottingham. ASAP has been carrying out innovative research into the development and investigation of decision support, search methodologies and machine learning for a wide and diverse range of real world problem environments for the last decade. The group comprises 12 members of academic staff, 19 researchers, 48 PhD students and three administrators. Students should have an undergraduate or Masters Degree in computer science, operational research, mathematics or closely related area or at least an upper second-class honours degree (ideally a first class degree), or a combination of qualifications and/or experience equivalent to that level. Knowledge of computational complexity theory, single and multi-objective optimisation methodologies and machine learning is extremely desirable. Students with a mathematical background, if they have good programming experience, are also encouraged to apply. This studentship is available for 3.5 years and includes an approximate maintenance grant of £13,300 per year, maintenance grant and UK/EU tuition fees. Informal enquiries may be addressed to Dr E Ozcan, Email: [log in to unmask] Please note that applications sent directly to this email address will not be accepted. To apply, please access: http://pgstudy.nottingham.ac.uk/apply-for-postgraduate-courses.aspx. Please quote ref. SCI/879. Closing date: Open until filled.