INPhINIT Doctoral Fellowship Programme hosting offer: IMPROVING AUTOMATIC MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS BY DEEP LEARNING

IMIBIC HOSTING OFFER:

La Caixa INPhINIT INCOMING Doctoral Fellowship Programme

CENTRE DESCRIPTION

IMIBIC, located in Cordoba, southern Spain, is a partnership between the University of Cordoba (UCO) and the Reina Sofia University Hospital. IMIBIC offers a multidisciplinary environment focused on results-oriented research and based on precision medicine and excellence in science. IMIBIC is accredited with the Excellence distinction from the National Institute of Health Carlos III and the “HR Excellence in Research” by the EC.

The Institute is structured in 44 research groups that cooperate in the implementation of five scientific programmes. IMIBIC offers an active environment in which to conduct high-level scientific research. Regular seminars and research events offer the opportunity to meet with national and international experts covering a diverse range of topics in biomedicine. Advanced training of our PhD students is provided primarily through the Doctoral Program in Biomedicine (UCO), hosted at the IMIBIC and integrated by leading scientists from the University and the Hospital. Results from research activities are exposed yearly in the IMIBIC Young Investigator Meetings, providing an ideal environment to strengthen the skills and knowledge of young scientists and to foster translational research by bringing together experimental basic and medical sciences.

IMIBIC is young and fast growing research center. It operates in a brand new building located within the UCO Health Sciences Campus and next to the University Hospital. It hosts over 600 researchers, and offers the latest technology, equipment and laboratories to support the technical needs of the research community.

Cordoba is a medium sized city located in the hearth of Andalusia, with excellent transport connections to the main cities of Spain and both to the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts. Rich in history and culture, Cordoba is a friendly and welcoming city, with high standard of living, making it an ideal location for international students wishing to carry out their doctoral studies in Spain.

GROUP LEADER

Prof.Sebastián Ventura Soto (sventura@uco.es)

RESEARCH PROJECT/RESEARCH GROUP

KDIS research group: http://www.uco.es/kdis

POSITION DESCRIPTION

Knowledge discovery in databases is a crucial process with high relevance in many areas of the society; the massive volume of data generated by digital and information systems have made impossible that humans can analyze, in a traditional manner, the current plethora of data. One of the most important tasks into the data mining process is the construction of predictive models able to estimate the value of a variable(s) of interest, which commonly has a remarkable impact on the object of study.

In the last few years, deep learning methods have gained increasing attention in the research community, mainly due to their capacity to model high-level relationships existing in data by applying a sequence of non-linear transformations, thus enhancing the discovering and learning of more complex patterns. Another field of study that has recently gained in popularity is the development of methods for text mining, which can derive high-quality information from text, and the deep learning methods have been also proved very useful for this task. As for the possible real-world applications, biomedicine is one of the areas of study that has taken advantage of the benefits of these two learning paradigms; we can find applications that range from the detection of pathologies by analyzing biomedical images to the prediction of diseases through the automatic analysis of personal electronic health records.

The primary objective of this Ph.D. project is to develop deep learning models for text mining and their application to the automatic diagnostic of diseases from existing texts in the personal health records. During this project, the candidate will design and implement methods that correctly scale on big data problems, that is, where data are overabundant, available from multiple sources and, sometimes represented in a non conventional way

Job position description:

The PhD position will be developed in the research laboratory “Knowledge Discovery and Intelligent Systems in Biomedicine”, belonging to the Maimonides Institute of Biomedical Research (IMIBIC).

Advanced training of the PhD students belonging to our research laboratory is further provided through the Doctoral Program in Advanced Computing of the University of Cordoba. This program gives access to the Dual PhD program with the Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, USA). This represents a big advantage as our PhD students can graduate in both Universities.

The IMIBIC building is located within the University Health Sciences Campus, nearby the Reina Sofia University Hospital. It hosts a wide variety of core facilities for researchers, including the Biomedical Research Support Units that hosts brand new equipment and laboratories to support the technical needs of the IMIBIC community, as well as a Clinical Research Unit to support clinical trial research.

Eligibility Criteria

1) At the call deadline (6^th Feb 2019), applicants must be in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and not yet have been awarded a doctoral degree.

2) At the time of recruitment, candidates must comply with one of the following options:

• To have completed the studies that lead to an official university degree adapted to the European Higher Education Area awarding 300 ECTS credits, of which at least 60 ECTS credits must correspond to master level.
• To have completed a degree in university not adapted to the European Higher Education Area that gives access to doctoral studies. The verification of an equivalent level of studies to the ones mentioned above will be made by the university when the admission procedure starts.

3) Candidates must not have resided or have carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Spain for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the call deadline (6^th Feb 2019). Short stays, such as holidays, done in a country other than their country of usual residence (where they carried out their main activity), will be considered as time spent in their country of usual residence.

4) Candidates must have a demonstrable level of English (B2 or higher).

5) Only candidates whose applications meet all the requirements of the call may be accepted.

You can find this offer via the Offer Finder, available at: https://hosts.lacaixafellowships.org/finder

Select “IMIBIC – Maimonides Biomedical Research Institute to Cordoba” from the dropdown list under “RESEARCH CENTER”

You can also search the position by its title "IMPROVING AUTOMATIC MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS BY DEEP LEARNING" under "SEARCH BY PROJECT TITLE / JOB POSITION TITLE".

How to Apply:

If you want to apply for an INPhINIT fellowship, click on the link below to create your personal account and fill in the on-line application form: https://www.lacaixafellowships.org/index.aspx

Schedule:

6 February 2019: Application deadline.

20 February 2019: Deadline for submitting the language certificate.

23 April 2019: Notification of the shortlist results.

28 and 29 May 2019: Face-to-face interviews in Barcelona.

4 June 2019: Publication of the final list of selected candidates.

4 June 2019 to 5 July 2019: Matching between the research centres – fellows.

More Information:

Call for applications:

https://obrasociallacaixa.org/en/investigacion-y-becas/programa-de-becas-de-posgrado/inphinit/incoming

Programme Rules: https://obrasociallacaixa.org/documents/10280/590054/inphinit_incoming_2019_en.pdf/2fa7e823-a7c7-22d8-98a7-dd14a0d0171f

Email:

international@imibic.org