Dear colleagues, I would appreciate it if you could pass the following on to potential candidates. Thank you very much Andrea -- Dr A. Schalk, Dept of Computer Science, email: A.Schalk@cs.man.ac.uk University of Manchester, Oxford Rd, phone: +44 (0)161 275 6174 Manchester, M13 9PL, UK fax: +44 (0)161 275 6204 http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~schalk/ PhD Studentship =============== A studentship is available as part of the three year EPSRC project `Developing a categorical semantics for the mu-calculus' at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester for the entire period. The general area of the project might be described as `logic in computer science'. This is one of the fields where mathematics and computer science overlap. Prospective candidates should have a good degree (2.(i) and up or equivalent) in mathematics or computer science. Some background in logic and/or category theory would be useful but is not essential, whereas familiarity with mathematical notions and methods is expected. Training in areas underlying the project will be provided as appropriate. The project has been designed such that genuine research can begin almost immediately, without too much initial acquisition of background knowledge. The studentship will cover all fees for a three year period as well as paying a yearly maintenance grant at the standard rate (currently GBP 6800). It comes with sufficient funds to cover travel to summer schools and conferences, and possibly brief visits to other institutions. The department offers the opportunity to take postgraduate courses free of charge. It also offers a number of teaching assistantships which can supplement maintenance grants. A machine will be provided. PhD students in the department typically share an office with three or four people. Possible starting dates are 1st October 2001 or 1st January 2002. The project student will be a member of the `computational models' subgroup of the Foundations group. Also known as the `theory group' it currently consists of five members of staff, one post-doctoral RA and five PhD students. There are members from both the mathematics and the computer science departments. Research interests include type theory, semantics, graph rewriting, mathematical models of computation and all aspects of logic in computer science. There are weekly group meetings where all members, including research students, regularly talk about their work. There also are frequent mini-courses in relevant areas which are designed to help postgraduate students to develop solid foundations in semantics and logic. The project itself is concerned with the mu-calculus, a system that has both greatest and least fixed point constructs. The modal mu-calculus is typically used as a logic to describe processes. It is the aim of the project to develop categorical semantics for this system based on games. The principal investigator is Andrea Schalk; her webpage can be found at http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~schalk/ For enquiries and further details please contact her at A.Schalk@cs.man.ac.uk 26-Jul-2001 10:29:33 -0300,1773;000000000000-0000001e