Logic List Mailing Archive

PhD student positions, postdoctoral positions, fellowships in "Formal Methods and Theoretical Computer Science", Macao

**************************************************************************
UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT

(http://www.iist.unu.edu/www/job/pearl20090323.pdf)

Positions are available at the United Nations University's International 
Institute for Software Technology (http://www.iist.unu.edu) (UNU-IIST) in 
Macao for post-doctoral researchers, PhD students and fellows. UNU-IIST is 
a Research and Training Centre of the United Nations University whose 
mission is to help developing countries strengthen their education and 
research in computer science and their ability to produce computer 
software. It thus provides a unique setting with a proven record in the 
application of mathematical methods to the production of useful theories 
for practical problems and for training young researchers in Formal 
Methods and Theoretical Computer Science.

The positions are funded by UNU-IIST and the Macau Science and Technology 
Development Fund through ``PEARL --- Process Expansion: Action Refinement 
in the Large", a project run in collaboration with the University of Macau 
(http://www.umac.mo). The PEARL team includes Jeff Sanders, Xu Qiwen, Wang 
Xu, Yang Shaofa and Chris Ma.

The project concerns the top-down development of information systems. One 
convincing way to understand the complex systems that confront us daily in 
Computer Science is to specify their behaviour, abstacting implementation 
detail. But usually it is the implementations themselves that are of 
interest; for instance we may have just a specification and wish to find 
an implementation; or we may wish to understand, in greater detail than 
its specification, an existing implementation. By adopting the standard 
approach of Science, the top-down incremental method posits a series of 
designs, starting with the specification and ending with the 
implementation and having the property that each design conforms to its 
successor in the series.

More specifically we concentrate on distributed systems and topics broadly 
in:

1. developing `grainless' semantic theories for concurrent systems, where 
coarse-grained actions can be refined into (subsystems of) fine-grained 
actions (or conversely);

2. exploiting the freedom of moving across levels of abstraction(i.e. 
grain size) to develop scalable model-checking techniques and law-based 
incremental development methods;

3. application of the theories, techniques and methods to the verification 
and development of case studies including but not limited to concurrent 
non- blocking algorithms, multithreaded Java programs (with a 
weak-ordering memory model) and web-based transaction systems.

Because they involve aspects of Formal Methods (specification, refinement, 
semantics and automation) these projects provide excellent training for 
young Computer Scientists. Applicants are expected to have an interest in 
the rigorous analysis of information systems and to have an appropriate 
background.

The fellowship positions are intended for students from developing 
countries with a first degree, and often engaged in an MSc, but wishing to 
develop skills to enable them to embark on an academic career. The primary 
requirement is that over a nine-month period the fellow write a research 
paper under supervision of one of the members of the PEARL team.

The PhD and postdoctoral positions conform to international standards and 
are under the supervision of members of the PEARL team. In the former case 
affiliation is intended with one of UNU-IIST's university contacts, either 
in Macao or outside it. In the latter case there are opportunities for 
supervision of fellows and teaching short courses as the position is 
viewed, like the others, as a training one.

Salaries depend on experience and circumstances but are exempt from Macao 
tax. In terms of US dollars per month, postdoctoral positions lie in the 
range of 2,000--3,000, PhD positions lie in the range 800--1250 and 
fellowships are 800.

Further information about Macao can be found via Wikipedia, and about the 
positions, currently open, from

Dr J W Sanders
Principal Research Fellow
UNU-IIST
(jeff at iist.unu.edu)