Computational Mechanisms of Online Attention Markets. The internet has operated as an major exchange of information and attention for the past few decades, yet surprisingly little is known about how individual choices and collective attention interact, let alone about how different parties can influence or control it. This project aims to uncover the mathematical underpinnings between individual actions and collective trends in online attention market, design computational methods for estimating ....Computational Mechanisms of Online Attention Markets. The internet has operated as an major exchange of information and attention for the past few decades, yet surprisingly little is known about how individual choices and collective attention interact, let alone about how different parties can influence or control it. This project aims to uncover the mathematical underpinnings between individual actions and collective trends in online attention market, design computational methods for estimating and influencing attention allocation, and enable applications where content consumers, producers, hosting platforms and regulatory bodies are each empowered with their share of influence in the attention market.Read moreRead less
Development of methods and algorithms to support multidisciplinary optimisation. This project will aim to develop a number of novel and computationally efficient schemes to deal with the key challenges facing multidisciplinary optimisation. These advancements will allow us to solve a number of challenging and intractable problems in science and engineering.
From plume source to hotspot: quantifying mixing in mantle plumes and its implications for the nature of deep-mantle heterogeneity. Mantle plumes are buoyant upwellings that bring hot material from Earth's deep-mantle to the surface, forming volcanic hotspots, like Hawaii. Although extensively studied, the geochemical variations recorded in hotspot lavas have, so far, proved difficult to understand, particularly how they relate to their heterogeneous deep-mantle source. This project aims to use ....From plume source to hotspot: quantifying mixing in mantle plumes and its implications for the nature of deep-mantle heterogeneity. Mantle plumes are buoyant upwellings that bring hot material from Earth's deep-mantle to the surface, forming volcanic hotspots, like Hawaii. Although extensively studied, the geochemical variations recorded in hotspot lavas have, so far, proved difficult to understand, particularly how they relate to their heterogeneous deep-mantle source. This project aims to use state-of-the-art geodynamical models to determine how deep-mantle heterogeneities are transported into a plume and how such heterogeneities are mixed during plume ascent. This will facilitate the linking, for the first time, of geochemical variations at volcanic hotspots to the deep-mantle's thermo-chemical structure, under an Earth-like, fluid-dynamical framework.Read moreRead less
Declarative Networks: Towards Robust and Explainable Deep Learning. The aim of this project is to develop declarative machine learning techniques that exploit inherent structure and models of the world. Deep learning has become the dominant approach for machine learning with many products and promises built on this technology. But deep learning is expensive, opaque, brittle and relies solely on human labelled data. This project intends to make deep learning more reliable by establishing theory a ....Declarative Networks: Towards Robust and Explainable Deep Learning. The aim of this project is to develop declarative machine learning techniques that exploit inherent structure and models of the world. Deep learning has become the dominant approach for machine learning with many products and promises built on this technology. But deep learning is expensive, opaque, brittle and relies solely on human labelled data. This project intends to make deep learning more reliable by establishing theory and algorithms that allow physical and mathematical models to be embedded within a deep learning framework, providing performance guarantees and interpretability. This would likely benefit machine learning based products that can understand the world and interact with humans naturally through vision and language.Read moreRead less
Towards the prime power conjecture. This project attacks a famous and long standing conjecture in pure mathematics that has important ramifications in many applied areas. The project aims to determine when it is possible to produce more efficient codes for electronic communication and statistically balanced designs for experiments in areas as diverse as agriculture and psychology.
Comprehending and modelling the workings of the animal brain. Truly understanding how the brain operates is a grand challenge of 21st century neuroscience. Progress toward this goal can be made through studying small-brained animals, like the honey bee. This project aims to use microscopy and pharmacology to analyse the neural mechanisms by which bees learn and classify complex things. This will enable the construction of a computational model of decision making in the bee brain. Analysing this ....Comprehending and modelling the workings of the animal brain. Truly understanding how the brain operates is a grand challenge of 21st century neuroscience. Progress toward this goal can be made through studying small-brained animals, like the honey bee. This project aims to use microscopy and pharmacology to analyse the neural mechanisms by which bees learn and classify complex things. This will enable the construction of a computational model of decision making in the bee brain. Analysing this model will test what is understood about the operation of the animal brain, and what simulates it. This project aims to reveal how neural circuits make complex decisions; establish key principles and foundational studies for comprehending larger more complex brains, and yield new approaches to machine learning.Read moreRead less
The convective boundaries in stars. This project aims to locate the boundaries of convection, a problem in models of stars. It will calculate high-resolution three-dimensional simulations of stars and observe star clusters. The effect of this advance on stellar modelling could be profound since almost all stars contain convective regions. Many branches of astronomy rely on stellar models so the effect could extend far beyond the immediate field, ultimately expanding understanding of the Universe ....The convective boundaries in stars. This project aims to locate the boundaries of convection, a problem in models of stars. It will calculate high-resolution three-dimensional simulations of stars and observe star clusters. The effect of this advance on stellar modelling could be profound since almost all stars contain convective regions. Many branches of astronomy rely on stellar models so the effect could extend far beyond the immediate field, ultimately expanding understanding of the Universe. It could also be crucial in realising the scientific advances of the surveys which are gathering data for up to a billion stars.Read moreRead less
Evolution and functional impact of gene silencing by hairpin derived RNAs. This project aims to study RNA-mediated gene silencing in genome evolution. RNA interference (RNAi) has been widely used as an experimental tool since its Nobel Prize-winning discovery in 1998, but little is known about endogenous RNAi or its evolution. This project uses bioinformatics, high-throughput sequencing and molecular approaches to study hpRNAs, a class of small interfering RNAs, their adaptive evolution across f ....Evolution and functional impact of gene silencing by hairpin derived RNAs. This project aims to study RNA-mediated gene silencing in genome evolution. RNA interference (RNAi) has been widely used as an experimental tool since its Nobel Prize-winning discovery in 1998, but little is known about endogenous RNAi or its evolution. This project uses bioinformatics, high-throughput sequencing and molecular approaches to study hpRNAs, a class of small interfering RNAs, their adaptive evolution across fly species and vertebrates, and their functional effect on testis morphogenesis and distortion of female/male sex-ratio. The project also studies splicing-dependent small RNAs and miRNA-target interaction. This research could have applications from animal development to human pathology.Read moreRead less
Optimisation for next generation machine learning. As more and more data are being collected, it is important to build intelligent systems which will can analyse these data efficiently. This project will take design and analyse new algorithms which take advantage of emerging paradigms in hardware such as multicore processors, graphic processing units (GPU), and cluster computers to achieve this goal.
Solid-state quantum communication technology. This project will develop the quantum information devices required to create a quantum communication network for the ultra-secure transmission of data. The key technological challenge is to entangle the quantum state of two crystals separated by kilometres, and maintain this entanglement for many seconds.