PhD Studentship: Software Architecture for Dynamic Product Lines
The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Dr. Jaejoon Lee and Dr. Pete Sawyer jointly in the area of software product line engineering (SPL), although other areas of software engineering will also be considered. In particular, candidates who want to pursue their PhD research under the theme of ‘Software Architecture for Dynamic Product Lines’ will be highly considered.
As the size and complexity of software grows, development of high quality software in a productive way becomes one of the most difficult challenges for software engineers. One of the research areas to address the problem is SPL which aims at developing adaptable and reusable software for a family of products. The core idea of SPL is to analyze commonality and variability of a product line, and use the analysis results to develop architectures and components with variation points, which can be selected and/or parameterized for various products of the product line.
Recently, there have been increasing demands for product configuration changes at runtime (i.e., dynamic reconfiguration), resulting in research areas such as self-healing systems, context aware computing, and ubiquitous computing. The dynamic reconfiguration approaches that are proposed in these research areas, however, focus on the reconfiguration of a single product, not a family of products. Also, little attention has been given to the systematic development of reusable and dynamically reconfigurable core assets. Dynamic SPLs with the characteristics of dynamic reconfiguration offer a way to tackle both of these problems.
This project will focus on the quantitative evaluation of software architectures in terms of various quality attributes (e.g., performance, dependability, etc.) of a product line and the management of the quality attributes before/during/after dynamic product reconfiguration. This is especially important for dependable systems such as process control systems and home service robots. We expect the project to develop a systematic approach to analyzing quality attributes of a product line, designing and evaluating product line architectures, and maintaining the quality attributes in a dynamically reconfiguring product.
The studentship award covers fees and an annual stipend (starting £13,500). Due to funding criteria, the studentships are available only to candidates who hold a UK passport or have been ordinarily resident for a period of 3 years immediately prior to the date of application. EU nationals can be offered tuition fees only. International students can receive the full award if they have been granted Indefinite Leave to Remain.
Prospective applicants, who should have an excellent first degree in a relevant discipline, are encouraged to initiate informal contact by providing a detailed statement of their research interest and a brief summary of their qualifications to Dr. Jaejoon Lee (j.lee@comp.lancs.ac.uk). The application itself will comprise Application and Reference Forms, curriculum vitae, a degree transcript, and a covering letter detailing your specific research interest, which can be submitted electronically to the Postgraduate Admissions Office (https://www.pgapps.lancs.ac.uk/).
Closing date: 15 May 2008.