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A full-time PhD position is available within the project
Smoothed Analysis of Belief Propagation
in the group Discrete Mathematics and Mathematical Programming (DMMP) at
the Department of Applied Mathematics. The project is funded by
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and is embedded
in the University of Twente's Centre for Telematics and Information
Technology (CTIT), the largest academic ICT research institute in the
Netherlands.
REQUIREMENTS
The successful candidate should have a Master's degree in Mathematics,
Computer Science, Econometrics, or a related field. A solid background
in Discrete Optimization, Theoretical Computer Science, or the Analysis
of Algorithms is highly appreciated but not a must as the candidate will
be given the opportunity to follow courses in the LNMB PhD program
during her/his first year (see www.lnmb.nl).
WHAT WE OFFER
We offer a 4-year research position in a dynamic and international
environment. The salary increases from 2042 Euro in the first year to
2612 in the fourth, plus holiday allowance and end-year bonus. The DMMP
group consists currently consists of 10 faculty members and 13 PhD
students and is headed by Prof. Marc Uetz. Please see
www.utwente.nl/ewi/dmmp/ for more details. The University of Twente
provides excellent campus facilities, and actively supports professional
and personal development.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Belief propagation is a heuristic approach for solving large-scale
statistical inference problems. It is an easy-to-implement heuristic has
become very popular in a wide range of applications.
Its success in practice, however, is at sharp contrast to the lack of
theoretical understanding of its performance. To provide a more
realistic analysis of algorithms, the concept of smoothed analysis has
been developed. In smoothed analysis, performance is not measured in
terms of worst-case instances. Instead, an adversary specifies an
instance, and then the expected performance is measured when this
instance is slightly randomly perturbed. Smoothed analysis takes into
account that practical data is often noisy, e.g., due to measurement errors.
The aim of this project is smoothed analysis of belief propagation. The
goal is to get a deeper understanding of its performance and to bridge
the gap between theoretical and practical performance of belief propagation.
INFORMATION AND APPLICATION
You are invited to send your application (including curriculum vitae,
copies of certificates, and a letter of motivation) to as well as two
letters of recommendation to the address below. Electronic submissions
are highly encouraged (please attach relevant documents as PDF).
Deadline for applications is March 31, 2011. The letters of
recommendation can be sent after the application, but not later than
April 15, 2011. The intended starting date is late summer 2011.
Please do not hesitate to send any questions to the email given above.
Bodo Manthey
University of Twente
Department of Applied Mathematics
P.O. Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands
Email: b.manthey@utwente.nl
Phone: +31 53 4893385
http://www.math.utwente.nl/~mantheyb/
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