[TYPES] PhD studentship, Probabilistic Model Checking with PRISM

[Marta Kwiatkowska]

[Please forward to anyone interested.  Apologies for multiple mailing.]

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School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham
Ph.D. Studentship in Probabilistic Model Checking

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One PhD studentship is available in the School of Computer Science at the
University of Birmingham to work on probabilistic model checking under the
supervision of Professor Marta Kwiatkowska.

Probabilistic model checking is an automatic verification method that can
establish whether a given specification holds for a probabilistic system.
For example, for the randomised Bluetooth protocol one might obtain
quantitative answers to the expected time to device discovery and the
probability of delivery by a deadline.  PRISM
(http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~dxp/prism/), the leading and widely used
probabilistic model checker developed at the University of Birmingham under
Kwiatkowska's leadership, is an open source tool that has been used to model
and analyse over 30 real-world protocols, with flaws discovered in six of
those. PRISM is a symbolic model checker, and it combines numerical solution
techniques, simulation-based methods (for approximate analysis) and
parallelization.  This project is to contribute to the implementation of
probabilistic model checking techniques within PRISM.  Possible topics
include an extension of probabilistic model checking to real source code,
statistical model checking, efficient algorithms and data structures,
probabilistic real-time verification and online analysis methods.  More
detail about this project is available at
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mzk/research_probmc_stud.html

Applicants are encouraged to contact Marta Kwiatkowska directly (email:
mzk at cs.bham.ac.uk) and refer to her group's work on probabilistic modelling
and verification (http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/systems/probabilistic/).

The studentship is available for UK and European applicants who want to work
full time on their research degree and lasts for up to three years.
Candidates should have, or be predicted to gain, a very good degree in
computer science, mathematics or a relevant scientific discipline. Informal
inquiries are welcome, preferably via e-mail. Information about admission
for PhD in Computer Science at the University of Birmingham is available at
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/.
Applications can be made until 10th July 2005.

Professor Marta Kwiatkowska,
School of Computer Science,
University of Birmingham,
Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT.
E-mail: mzk at cs.bham.ac.uk
URL: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mzk
Tel: +44 121 4147264
Fax: +44 121 4144281