The University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands is offering various “Ubbo Emmius” PhD-scholarships. Candidates are hereby invited to apply for the position with vacancy number “UE-vac-10″ with the following description.

Various prevalent hearing disorders in elderly people crucially involve neural mechanisms in the brain. For instance, in tinnitus (ringing in the ears), abnormal interactions between auditory and non-auditory brain areas are believed to cause the perception of phantom sounds. In presbyacusis (hearing loss) or deafness, deprivation of acoustic input may result in abnormal cross-modal plastic reorganization. Novel fMRIneuroimaging and neurovisualization methods can identify anatomical and functional connectivity patterns throughout the brain, even during rest.

The candidate will investigate these methods and apply them to study ageing-related hearing complaints, like tinnitus and severe hearing loss, and their underlying neural mechanisms.

The applicant may express his/her interest in this position before 01 May 2009, and will subsequently have the opportunity to submit a research proposal, together with the principal investigators.

More information about the application procedure is available from the website or from the principal investigators prof. dr. Pim van Dijk (p.van.dijk[ at ]med.umcg.nl) and dr. Dave Langers (d.r.m.langers[ at ]med.umcg.nl).

The Software Engineering & Architecture (SEARCH) group at the University of Groningen is committed to advancing the state of the art in the field of software architecture. The group aims to achieve that by carrying out joint research projects with universities, research institutes, and industrial partners, thus combining academic know-how with industrial practice. The research topics of the SEARCH group include software architecture design and evaluation, architectural knowledge, software product lines, architectural patterns and pattern languages, architecture-centric evolution, and service-oriented architectures. For more information please check our website (http://search.cs.rug.nl/ and http://www.cs.rug.nl/~paris/) or email us (paris[ AT ]cs.rug.nl).

The SEARCH group is looking for excellent candidates that wish to apply for scholarships from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. Prospective PhD students have substantial freedom in deciding upon their research. They may work on one of the group’s existing research projects or submit their own research proposal, in coordination with the group head.

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