Ciência sem Fronteiras (Science Without Borders)

DCU PhDProject Template:

**Please use one form per project**

Please complete & submit to by Friday 13th July

PI name & contact details: / Dr Cathal Gurrin
School: / Computing
Has project been agreed with head (or nominee) of proposed registration school? / Yes
Research Centre / group affiliation: / CLARITY: Centre for Sensor Web Technologies
Research group / centre website: /
PI website / link to CV: /
Brief summary of PI research / research group / centre activity (2 or 3 lines max):
CLARITY is an SFI-funded CSET which has been in operation for 4 years, since July 2008. It is a partnership between UCD, DCU and the Tyndall National Institute in Cork and addresses the emerging world of what is called the sensor web. CLARITY develops its own sensor technologies as well as using off-the-shelf sensors for applications in areas such as sports, health and wellness, environment, energy monitoring, ambient assisted living and the online world of social media and search.
Title & brief description of PhD project (suitable for publication on web):
Forgetting in Digital Memories
We in CLARITY have been doing a lot of work in recent years on sensing the person, using wearable sensors to understand the person’s activities and build a digital memory for the person. We achieve this by using software for android phones (or Microsoft Sensecams) that read continually from the on-board sensors and attempt to understand the activities the person is involved in (e.g. where they are, what they are doing, who is there) using machine learning tools and ontologies. CLARITY are recognised leaders in this field. This project aims to build ontop of many years of research into developing semantically rich human digital memories by integratingour state-of-the-art research into sensing the person with cognitive models of forgetting, which attempt to replicate the human forgetting in the digital memory. Such cognitive models need to incorporate factors that impact on human forgetting, including natural temporal decay, how often we access the particular memory, the novelty of the experience and memory-merging based on interference from similar experiences. The output of this PhD would be a new model of interaction with a human digital memory that is more akin to a conversation with a knowledgable friend than an interaction with a life-archive search engine.
Unique selling points of PhD project in DCU:
DCU projects should offer something that’s not available in Brazil – specific equipment, multi-disciplinarity, aspects of structured programme, links with industry, placements, links with other research groups etc.
CLARITY is a truly inter-disciplinary research centre and within DCU, CLARITY research is carried out in the schools of Computing, Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Sciences, Health and Human Performance, Nursing and Human Science, and the Institute of Ethics but all in the one location on campus. As well as carrying out basic and fundamental research, CLARITY has funded projects with 57 different industry partners, from large multi-national companies in Ireland like Intel and Alcatel-Lucent, to international companies like Disney Research, Under Armour and Adidas, to Irish SMEs like Netwatch, Episensor and Beta Electronics. In a recent independent review of CLARITY conducted by Science Foundation Ireland, CLARITY was deemed to be "operating as a world class research centre".
Name & contact details for project queries, if different from PI named above:
Please indicate the graduates of which disciplines that should apply:
Computer Science, Computer Engineering
Ciência sem Fronteiras /Science Without Borders Priority Area:
Please indicate the specific programme priority area under which the proposed PhD project fits- choose only one (tick box):
Engineering and other technological areas
Pure and Natural Sciences (e.g. mathematics, physics, chemistry)
Health and Biomedical Sciences
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) / X
Aerospace
Pharmaceuticals
Oil, Gas and Coal
Renewable Energy
Minerals
Biotechnology
Nanotechnology and New Materials
Technology of prevention and remediation of natural disasters
Biodiversity and Bioprospection
Marine Sciences
Creative Industry
New technologies in constructive engineering

Please complete