Several Postdoc / Research Associate positions in the Finnish Center of Excellence in Computational Inference

Keywords: Machine learning, computational statistics, Bayesian
statistics, information-theoretic learning, satisfiability checking,
proactive interfaces, computational biology

The Finnish Center of Excellence in Computational Inference Research
(COIN), run by Aalto University, University of Helsinki, and Helsinki
Institute for Information Technology HIIT, announces several new
postdoc or research associate positions in Computational
Inference. The objective of COIN is to push the boundaries of
inference in the data-rich world of today and tomorrow, and the COIN
consortium brings together several leading researchers in the relevant
research areas.

Successful candidates will work on fundamental questions of inference
and in applications in Intelligent Information Access, Computational
Molecular Biology and Medicine, Computational History, Computational
Climate, Computational Neuroscience or other directions yet to be
determined. Applicants with suitable background in machine learning,
mathematics, statistics, computational logic, combinatorial optimization
or statistical physics are encouraged to apply.

For further information, please see
http://research.ics.tkk.fi/coin/vacancies.shtml

Ph.D. vacancy at the School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, supervised by Prof. Roderick Murray-Smith

Available immediately, part-funded and run in collaboration with Bang & Olufsen ( http://www.bang-olufsen.com ). There will be opportunities for internships at Bang & Olufsen’s labs in Denmark during the Ph.D.

Natural Interaction with Products
Living rooms now contain a large number of different sensors and interactive surfaces. The Microsoft Kinect can detect movements and voice, a multitude of different sensors that can detect movements, presence, identity, voice, etc. are now widely available and TVs have video cameras and microphones that detect gestures and voice commands. Input and output are spread across many different devices with different capabilities and accuracies.

Based on this it is relevant to study how best to take advantage of the various technologies in the best possible way when creating interactive products. Areas of research in this project are include: 1. Combining sensing for precise positioning and control – A wide range of sensors are available in the living room context. 2. Modality scheduling – if we can improve positioning and gesture recognition, how should we give feedback to users at each stage of the interaction? Which sensors or channels dominate might be different at different points in the interaction. Combining multi-sensor input with multimodal feedback we can then investigate the best ways of closing the loop between input and output in the context of the living room.

The stipend funding is at standard UK rates (£13,590), which are usually tax-free, and the project also includes fees for EU citizens. Please apply ASAP to Roderick.Murray-Smith@glasgow.ac.uk
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod/

Post-doctoral position in Computational Metagenomics of Deep Biosphere (DL Nov 15) – Aalto

http://www.aalto.fi/en/current/jobs/teaching_and_research/deep_biosphere_postdoc/

The Department of Information and Computer Science at Aalto University in Espoo/Helsinki, Finland, pursues research on advanced computational methods for modelling, analysing, and solving complex tasks in technology and science. The research aims at the development of fundamental computer science methods for the analysis of large and high-dimensional data sets, and for the modelling and design of complex software, networking and other computational systems.

The geobiology research consortium at Biotechnology cluster of VTT (www.vtt.fi) in Espoo/Helsinki Finland is studying terrestrial deep biosphere. The research is connected to biogeochemistry and microbial ecology of deep earth crust ecosystems. Metadata and metapathway analysis of multispecies microbial communities will be studied in collaboration with multidiscicplinary research team of Aalto University and VTT.

We are looking for a motivated, self-driven post-doctoral researcher to join our multidisciplinary research team deciphering the metagenomics and meta-transcriptomics of deep earth crust microbial communities.

Research is connected to ICDP (International Continental Scientific Drilling Program) and global network of Deep carbon observatory (https://dco.gl.ciw.edu/) as well as the National Centre of Excellence on Algorithmic Data Analysis.

We expect the applicants to have a PhD (or to have submitted a dissertation for evaluation) in Computer Science, Statistics, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics or a related field, with excellent publication record and expertise in one or more of the following fields:
• Next generation sequencing
• Algorithm design
• Machine learning and data mining
• Systems biology

Excellent programming (Python, MATLAB, R) and technical skills, as well as excellent written and oral communication skills are required. Previous expertise in metagenomics data analysis or metabolic modelling is considered an advantage. In addition to research work, a postdoctoral researcher is expected to participate in the supervision of students and teaching related to their research topic. Good command of English is a necessary prerequisite.

The successful candidate will join a team of researches led by Docent Merja Itävaara (VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland) and Professor Juho Rousu (Aalto University and Helsinki Institute for Information Technology). The post doc position is for two years and is jointly affiliated with both VTT and Aalto University.

Application procedure
The applications should be sent by email to registry@aalto.fi and they should contain the following documents in pdf format:

• Expression of interest that includes contact information of the applicant, and names and contact information of two senior academics available for reference per e-mail.
• A complete curriculum vitae describing education and employment history
• List of publications, with pointers to openly available online versions of at most three of the most relevant publications Please use “DeepBiosphere” as a reference in the application. Applications received by November 15, 2012 will receive full consideration.

The salary level for a starting postdoctoral researcher is between 3200 and 3600 euros per month, depending on experience and qualifications. The contract includes occupational health services and Finland has a comprehensive social security system. Candidates may be invited for an interview on the Otaniemi campus of Aalto University in Espoo/Helsinki.

For further information, please contact:

Professor Juho Rousu
Department of Information and Computer Science, Aalto University PO Box 15400 (Konemiehentie 2, Espoo), 00076 Aalto, Finland Firstname.lastname@aalto.fi

Docent Merja Itävaara
VTT Technical Research Center of Finland Tietotie 2, 02044 VTT, Finland Firstname.lastname@vtt.fi

About the Department of Information and Computer Science In the recent Research Assessment Exercise covering all the 46 units of Aalto University, the Department of Information and Computer Science was one of two units achieving an almost perfect score of 24 out of 25, from review panels assessing the units on a scale of 1 to 5 in the five subareas of scientific quality, scientific impact, societal impact, research environment, and future potential. For more information about the Department’s research profile and activities, see the full RAE report available at “http://dept.ics.aalto.fi/calls/rae2009/“.

About Aalto University
Aalto University is a new university created in 2010 from the merger of the Helsinki University of Technology TKK, the Helsinki School of Economics, and the University of Art and Design Helsinki. The University’s cornerstones are its strengths in education and research, with 20,000 basic degree and graduate students, and a staff of 4,500 of whom 300 are professors. For further information, see http://www.aalto.fi/en

About VTT
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is an impartial expert organisation. Its objective is to develop new technologies, create new innovations and value added thus increasing customer’s competitiveness. With its know how VTT produces research, development, testing and information services to public sector and companies as well as international organisations. Through its international scientific and technology network, VTT can produce information, upgrade technology knowledge, create business intelligence and value added to its stakeholders. VTT is a non-profit-making research organisation.

Research Associate in Statistics for Natural Hazards, – Ref:1288815

Applications are invited for the position of Research Associate, to be
held jointly in the UCL Department of Statistical Science and Institute
for Risk and Disaster Reduction. The postholder will conduct research in
Statistics related to the £2m interdisciplinary consortium RACER (Robust
Assessment and Communication of Environmental Risk) funded by the
Probability, Uncertainty and Risk in the Environment (PURE) program of
the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The research will focus
in particular on models for seismic and tsunami hazards and involves
using state-of-the-art statistical methodology for uncertainty
assessment and calibration of computer codes.

Candidates should hold or be close to completing a PhD (or equivalent
qualification) in statistical methodology or applied statistics. It is
essential that the successful candidate will have experience of Bayesian
methods and uncertainty quantification of complex computer models.

The post is available from January 2013 (or as soon as possible
thereafter) and is initially funded for 36 months. Salary (inclusive of
London allowance) will be Grade 7 of the UCL salary scale
(32,055-33,826GBP per annum). If the successful candidate has not yet
been awarded their PhD, the appointment will initially be made as
Research Assistant on Grade 6 (28,057-29,585GBP per annum), and the
appointee will be regraded to Research Associate on completion of the PhD.

Further particulars including a job description and person specification
for the post can be accessed at
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/statistics/department/jobs. Informal inquiries
regarding the vacancy may be addressed to Dr Serge Guillas,
email:s.guillas@ucl.ac.uk, tel: +44(0)20 7679 1867. For any queries
regarding the application process please contact Dr Russell Evans,
email:russell.evans@ucl.ac.uk, tel: +44 (0)20 7679 8311.

Closing Date: 3 December 2012

Statistical Physics of inference and control videolectures

Dear friends and colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to announce the video lectures of the recent Workshop on the Statistical Physics of inference and control that was
held from 12-16 september in Granada, Spain. The workshop is the first of its type explore the relations between stochastic optimal control theory, machine learning, robotics, statistical mechanics, quantum theory and the theory of large deviations.

The workshop was made possible in part by support from Pascal 2.

Enjoy watching: http://videolectures.net/cyberstat2012_granada/

Apologies for multiple posting.

Bert Kappen
Riccardo Zecchina
Misha Chertkov
Frank Redig

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Positions in machine learning and data mining at KAUST

Appointments Available Immediately

Job Description

Two Postdoctoral Research Fellow positions are available in Machine Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering (MINE) Laboratory directed by Dr. Xiangliang Zhang in the Division of Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences & Engineering (CEMSE) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) located on Red Sea shore. Candidates with experience in one or more of the following research areas are invited to apply: machine learning, data mining, databases, information retrieval and recommender systems. More information about MINE Lab can be found at http://mine.kaust.edu.sa.

Candidates need to hold an earned Ph.D. (or be near completion) in computer science or in a related field with good programming skills in C/C++/Java/Matlab. Successful candidates are expected to be self-motivated and have a good publication record (at least have one paper accepted by premier conferences or journals like KDD, NIPS, ICML, IJCAI, AAAI, SIGMOD, VLDB, ICDE, WWW, SIGIR, TKDE, TKDD, etc.) and good command of English. The position holders will perform interdisciplinary research, shape research directions, produce and disseminate results through publications, coordinate research projects and help to supervise Ph.D. and M.S students.

The PostDoc positions are for 1 to 3 years.

KAUST offers

-Very competitive tax exemption salary and benefit package (e.g., free high-standards fully furnished houses, health insurance, education at KAUST international schools for children, 20 days of paid vacation per year, relocation allowance, repatriation allowance).
– Sufficient funding support (e.g., conference attendance and international trip support).
– State-of-the-art research facilities, including one of the fastest supercomputers in the world (IBM BlueGene, 64000 cores, 64TB RAM), and a word-class visualization center.
– Solid collaboration (including exchange visits) with our partners such as IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Texas A&M University, INRIA, Microsoft Research Asia and others.
-Vibrant campus life and impressive recreational facilities that include a private beach, marina and golf course.

Application

Eligible and interested applicants are invited to submit their application electronically to Dr. Xiangliang Zhang (xiangliang.zhang@kaust.edu.sa) with a detailed professional Curriculum Vita (including educational background, professional experience, and a list of publications). Successful candidates will be further contacted to provide more documents (e.g., two or three recommendation letters and a brief statement of research interests/plans).

Applications will be handled in strict confidentiality. KAUST is an equal opportunity employer.

Deadline: Review of applications will begin immediately and the positions will remain open until filled.

About KAUST

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is a brand new, international, graduate-level research university supported by a multi-billion dollar endowment. With sufficient research funding, highly competitive and merit-based compensation scheme, state-of-art core facilities, supercomputing machines (for KAUST’s Shaheen Supercomputer see http://www.hpc.kaust.edu.sa/) and university leadership’s vision and commitment to make KAUST one of the world’s greatest academic institutions, KAUST has attracted a large group of internationally recognized talents. Joint (PhD) Degree Program will shortly be released between KAUST and Technische Universität München (TUM), and TA&M, and Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Furthermore, through a Global Research Partnership, KAUST has built up deep and meaningful partnerships with the world’s most premier institutions (e.g., Stanford University, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC), The University of Oxford, UC Berkeley, Cornell University, University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University) and big companies (e.g., IBM, Boeing, Dow Chemical Company), which provide KAUST researchers ample opportunities to work with the world’s most leading scientists and to commercialize their research projects. The aforementioned unrivaled resources available to KAUST researchers offer unprecedented opportunities for scientists from around the globe and across all cultures to build up their career at KAUST. Further information about KAUST can be found at: http://www.kaust.edu.sa.

Postdoc positions in ML & Robotics at University Stuttgart

*Postdoc Positions at the new*
*Machine Learning & Robotics Lab, Stuttgart*

Two Postdoc positions are available at the new Machine Learning & Robotics which will be launched at University Stuttgart in January 2013. The lab focuses on the intersections between Machine Learning (Reinforcement Learning) and Robotics, covering topics such as the combination of logic, probabilities and geometry; representation and symbol learning for acting; probabilistic inference for control and planning; and autonomous exploration. Post docs with either more affinity to Robotics (e.g., building autonomous systems that learn via exploration, imitation or instruction) or Machine Learning (e.g., addressing core challenges as mentioned above in the context of RL or
perception) are equally invited to apply.

The available positions range from senior group leader level (A14, potentially unlimited contract) to short term Postdoc, depending on your profile and plans. The lab offers rich infrastructure (e.g., we plan to get a PR2) and close proximity and cooperation possibilities with the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Schölkopf, Schaal, Black). Senior Postdocs have one or more PhD positions, depending on additional funding.

The application process is informal. Applicants should have an excellent publication record on the relevant conferences (e.g., RSS, ICRA, IROS or ICML, UAI, NIPS, AISTATS) and in these publications demonstrate genuine and methodologically solid research ideas and superior knowledge of their field. In you have any questions concerning the position, please contact me any time informally.

Applications should be send by email to marc.toussaint@fu-berlin.de, including a pointer to your webpage where publications can be downloaded, and an ordinary CV. There is no fixed deadline: positions will be open until appropriate candidates are found (at least until Oct 22nd). Please contact me on your earliest convenience.

Best,
Marc

—
Marc Toussaint, Prof. Dr.
FU Berlin
Arnimallee 7
14195 Berlin, Germany
+49 (0)30 838 52485
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~mtoussai/

PhD Studentship ­in computer vision/machine learning at CVSSP

Learning Deep Hierarchical Visual Representations PhD Studentship ­ CVSSP, University of Surrey (http://www.surrey.ac.uk/cvssp/), UK.

We are looking for a PhD student to study the development of novel, multi-purpose representations of visual information making use of hierarchical and distributed encoding and weakly supervised learning approaches. The candidates are expected to have solid programming experience and mathematical background, and a broad interest in vision and cognition problems is desirable.

Successful applicants will join an expanding research group within the Centre for Vision Speech and Signal Processing which has over 120 people working in vision, machine learning and related disciplines. It has an international reputation for the excellence of its research and, in the last Research Assessment Exercise; the Department (of Electronic
Engineering) was rated as second in the country with the highest return of staff for any institution.

Candidates should hold a 1st or strong 2.1 honours degree or Masters degree or equivalent in a scientific discipline (e.g., Engineering, Physics, Mathematics or Computing), and should have good written/spoken English and demonstrate an aptitude for the research area. Prior experience in computer vision, image processing or machine learning would be advantageous.

The position would be starting in January 2013 or as soon as possible after that date. Applicants should send a CV and covering letter to Dr.
Pugeault (n.pugeault@surrey.ac.uk) before the 15th of November. For further information please contact Dr. Nicolas Pugeault (http://info.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/N.Pugeault/)

Job opening at Paris-Sud Orsay

The Department of Computer Science at the University of Paris-Sud has an opening at the assistant professor (maître de conferences) level in the area of machine learning, with a starting date of October 2013. We seek excellent candidates with skills in statistical machine learning, with an interest in applications related to complex systems, e-science, robotics, and/or large-scale ML. The successful candidate will join the Machine Learning and Optimization (TAO) group.

TAO (http://tao.lri.fr), headed by Michèle Sebag and Marc Schoenauer, is a CNRS/INRIA research group at at the University of Paris-Sud, on the beautiful campus of Orsay. The position involves teaching computer science courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels, so a working knowledge of the French language is mandatory. The deadline for the full application is in December, but the hiring procedure includes an administrative phase called “qualification”. Candidates potentially interested in applying should fill out the electronic application before October 25.

More information: posteml@lri.fr

CALL FOR PAPERS: SIMBAD 2013

2nd International Workshop on Similarity-Based Pattern Analysis and Recognition

July 3-5, 2013
York, UK

http://www.dais.unive.it/~simbad

>>> Submission deadline: February 1, 2013 <<< MOTIVATIONS AND OBJECTIVES Traditional pattern recognition techniques are intimately linked to the notion of "feature space." Adopting this view, each object is described in terms of a vector of numerical attributes and is therefore mapped to a point in a Euclidean (geometric) vector space so that the distances between the points reflect the observed (dis)similarities between the respective objects. This kind of representation is attractive because geometric spaces offer powerful analytical as well as computational tools that are simply not available in other representations. However, the geometric approach suffers from a major intrinsic limitation, which concerns the representational power of vectorial, feature-based descriptions. In fact, there are numerous application domains where either it is not possible to find satisfactory features or they are inefficient for learning purposes. In the last few years, interest around purely similarity-based techniques has grown considerably. For example, within the supervised learning paradigm the well-established kernel-based methods shift the focus from the choice of an appropriate set of features to the choice of a suitable kernel, which is related to object similarities. However, this shift of focus is only partial, as the classical interpretation of the notion of a kernel is that it provides an implicit transformation of the feature space rather than a purely similarity-based representation. Similarly, in the unsupervised domain, there has been an increasing interest around pairwise or even multiway algorithms, such as spectral and graph-theoretic clustering methods, which avoid the use of features altogether. By departing from vector-space representations one is confronted with the challenging problem of dealing with (dis)similarities that do not necessarily possess the Euclidean behavior or not even obey the requirements of a metric. The lack of such properties undermines the very foundations of traditional pattern recognition theories and algorithms, and poses totally new theoretical/computational questions and challenges. The aim of this workshop, which follows the one held in Venice in 2011 (http://www.dais.unive.it/~simbad/2011/), is to consolidate research efforts in this area, and to provide an informal discussion forum for researchers and practitioners interested in this important yet diverse subject. We aim at covering a wide range of problems and perspectives, from supervised to unsupervised learning, from generative to discriminative models, and from theoretical issues to real-world applications. Original, unpublished papers dealing with these issues are solicited. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): - Embedding and embeddability - Graph spectra and spectral geometry - Indefinite and structural kernels - Game-theoretic models of pattern recognition - Characterization of non-(geo)metric behavior - Foundational issues - Measures of (geo)metric violations - Learning and combining similarities - Multiple-instance learning - Applications PAPER SUBMISSION All papers (not exceeding 16 pages) must be submitted electronically at the conference website (http://www.dais.unive.it/~simbad/2013/). All submissions will be subject to a rigorous peer-review process. Accepted papers will appear in the workshop proceedings, which will be published in Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series. In addition to regular, original contributions, we also solicit papers (in any LaTeX format, no page restriction) that have been recently published elsewhere. These papers will undergo the same review process as regular ones: if accepted, they will be presented at the workshop but will not be published in the workshop proceedings. Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper, if accepted. IMPORTANT DATES Paper submission: February 1, 2013 Notifications: March 15, 2013 Camera-ready due: April 25, 2013 Workshop: July 3-5, 2013 ORGANIZATION Program Chairs Edwin Hancock, University of York, UK Marcello Pelillo, University of Venice, Italy Steering Committee Joachim Buhmann, ETH Zurich, Switzerland Robert Duin, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Mario Figueiredo, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal Edwin Hancock, University of York, UK Vittorio Murino, Italian Institute of Technology, Italy Marcello Pelillo (chair), University of Venice, Italy Program Committee Maria-Florina Balcan, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Joachim Buhmann, ETH Zurich, Switzerland Terry Caelli, NICTA, Australia Tiberio Caetano, NICTA, Australia Umberto Castellani, University of Verona, Italy Luca Cazzanti, University of Washington, Seattle, USA Robert Duin, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Aykut Erdem, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey Francisco Escolano, University of Alicante, Spain Mario Figueiredo, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal Ana Fred, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal Mehmet Gonen, Aalto University School of Science, Finland Marco Gori, University of Siena, Italy Edwin Hancock, University of York, UK Robert Krauthgamer, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel Marco Loog, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Marina Meila, University of Washington, Seattle, USA Vittorio Murino, Italian Institute of Technology, Italy Marcello Pelillo, University of Venice, Italy Massimiliano Pontil, University College London, UK Antonio Robles-Kelly, NICTA, Australia Fabio Roli, University of Cagliari, Italy Samuel Rota Bulo', University of Venice, Italy Volker Roth, University of Basel, Switzerland John Shawe-Taylor, University College London, UK Andrea Torsello, University of Venice, Italy Richard Wilson, University of York, UK Lior Wolf, Tel Aviv University, Israel