Research Assistant Post

Research Assistant Post

[John Stell]

Post-Doctoral Research Assistant: Digital Topology and Geometry

Applications are invited for a Post Doctoral Research Assistant
at The University of Leeds to work on an EPSRC funded project
"Digital Topology and Geometry: An Axiomatic Approach, with Applications 
to GIS and Spatial Reasoning". This is a joint project with Imperial
College,
London, where the Principal Investigator is Dr Mike Smyth.

The post will be based at the School of Computing, University of Leeds,
where there is a well-established research group in spatial reasoning.
There will be close collaboration with researchers at Imperial College,
and also with the Geographic Information Systems research group at
Keele University.

The post is available from 1st January 2001, but it may be possible to
agree
a slightly later starting date. The appointment is for a fixed term
of three years.

The principal aims of the project are

1. To develop an axiomatic theory of geometry that admits as models
discrete
   spaces as well as classical continuos spaces such as Euclidean
spaces.

2. To produce topological and geometric structures which can be used as
the
   basis of computational descriptions of natural phenomena.
Applications in
   the areas of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) spatial reasoning
in
   artificial inteligence (AI) will be investigated.

3. To extend digital topology as used in image analysis to a theory of
digital
   geometry.

4. To design and implement algorithms within the developed digital
geometry
   for tasks such as convex hull and Delauny triangulation.

The research assistant will work largely on the applications of the
geometric
theory including the development of algorithms and the evaluation of the
suitablility of the theory to problems in areas such as spatial
reasoning in AI,
GIS and image analysis. One phase of the project will focus on
applications to
multi-resolution spatial data: the description of geometric structure at
a variety
of levels of detail.

Candidates should have, or be about to complete a PhD in a relevant area
of
Computer Science, Mathematics, or Artificial Intelligence. Candidates
are not
expected to be familiar with all of the application areas mentioned
above, but
suitable research experience in one of the following areas would be
useful:
spatial reasoning, computational geometry, theory of image analysis,
computer
graphics, formal aspects of GIS. Applications are also welcome from
candidates whose main experience has been in a relevant area of topology
or geometry.

Details of the formal aplication procedure will be available
shortly, but anyone interested in this post should contact Dr John Stell
by email:
j.g.stell@cs.keele.ac.uk or by phone: 01782 584083.