News

Congratulations to Dr Mark Connor and Dr Nam Le Hai who graduated with PhD’s from University College Dublin and the UCD Natural Computing Research & Applications Group on 5 September 2023. Dr Mark Connor’s PhD thesis title is Optimisation and Adaptation of Athlete Training Load with Evolutionary Computation. Dr Nam Le Hai’s thesis is The Interplay between Evolution and Learning in Dynamic Environments: Computational Metaphor of Adaptive Algorithms

Following a recent podcast interview and conversations with colleagues outside of the field of Artificial Intelligence, Michael and Mark decided to collate a list of limitations of large language model technology, which some might find useful. These are captured in their new article Amplifying Limitations, Harms and Risks of Large Language Models published on arXiv

Congratulations to Dr Miguel Nicolau who is a Secondary Proposer for a newly awarded  COST Action (CA22137) “ROAR-NET – Randomised Optimisation Algorithms Research Network“

Congratulations to Bing Chen and supervisor Dr Miguel Nicolau on winning a UCD China Scholarship Council award to undertake a PhD on Explainable Artificial Intelligence.

Prof Michael O’Neill was interviewed by Emmet Oliver as part of the UCD Business Impact Podcast (Season 3, Episode 15), where some of the limitations of recent developments in AI, in particular large language models, are discussed.

As part of the Science Foundation Ireland funded Reg-Fr-AIMs project we are seeking applications for a Postdoctoral Researcher Fellowship to be based at University College Dublin’s Natural Computing Research & Applications Group in Artificial Intelligence.

The Reg-Fr-AIMs project is a collaboration between the teams of Prof Fergal McCaffery (Regulated Software Research Centre in Dundalk Institute of Technology) and Prof Michael O’Neill (University College Dublin). At UCD the collaborating faculty and doctoral supervisory team includes Dr Annunziata Esposito Amideo, Dr Miguel Nicolau and Dr Mark Connor.

Reg-Fr-AIMs sets out to develop a Regulatory Compliance Framework for Trustworthy AI Medical Device Software. This includes research into adaptive, trustworthy and compliant AI technology. To this end, the research to be undertaken at UCD has a strong focus on adaptive representations for machine learning, optimisation and reasoning.

The Post-doctoral Research Fellow will work with a team of PhD students and collaborating faculty in both UCD and DKiT, to assist in the adaptive representations research, and to investigate how we incorporate Ethical-by-design AI technology into medical device software systems.

Applications open until 27 April 2023, and further details for Job Ref :015809 at https://www.ucd.ie/workatucd/jobs/

Dr Shree Krishna Acharya joins the UCD Natural Computing Research & Applications Group as a Research Scientist on the DTIF GUARD project. Dr Acharya joins us from Mokpo National University, South Korea.

As part of the Science Foundation Ireland funded Reg-Fr-AIMs project we are seeking applications for a number of PhD scholarships to be based at University College Dublin’s Natural Computing Research & Applications Group in Artificial Intelligence.

The Reg-Fr-AIMs project is a collaboration between the teams of Prof Fergal McCaffery (Regulated Software Research Centre in Dundalk Institute of Technology) and Prof Michael O’Neill (University College Dublin). At UCD the collaborating faculty and doctoral supervisory team includes Dr Annunziata Esposito Amideo and Dr Miguel Nicolau.

Reg-Fr-AIMs sets out to develop a Regulatory Compliance Framework for Trustworthy AI Medical Device Software. This includes research into adaptive, trustworthy and compliant AI technology. To this end, the research to be undertaken at UCD has a strong focus on adaptive representations for machine learning, optimisation and reasoning.

These full-time PhD studentship comprise an annual stipend of €18,500 for 4 years, postgraduate fees and a contribution towards direct research costs. Successful candidates will typically hold a minimum 2:1 Honours Degree in a Software, Computer Science, Analytics or closely related cognate discipline. All applicants are required to demonstrate a high level of competence in the English language.
 
Applicants should forward a copy of your CV and a one-page cover letter in PDF format outlining (i) your suitability for this position and (ii) your motivation for applying to Prof Michael O’Neill. The initial deadline for submission of application is 24th March 2023, however, applications will be reviewed on a continuous basis until the scholarships are filled.

The Irish Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris has today announced funding from Science Foundation Ireland for UCD’s Natural Computing Research & Applications Group led by Prof Michael O’Neill and Prof Fergal McCaffery (Director Regulated Software Research Centre (RSRC) in Dundalk Institute of Technology) for the Reg-Fr-AIMs project, which sets out to develop a Regulatory Compliance Framework for Trustworthy AI Medical Device Software. Alongside Prof O’Neill, the UCD team of researchers include Dr Miguel Nicolau and Dr Annunziata Esposito Amideo. The funding, awarded under SFI’s Frontiers for Partnerships Awards, is worth €1.29 Million, and will see the recruitment of a team of 2 postdoctoral researchers and 6 PhD students.

As part of the collaborative research with Bell Labs that led to our HUMIES Gold Medal award , we have been granted a patent for Methods and systems for network self-optimization using deep learning.