PhD Projects

Rahul SanthanamUniversity of Edinburgh

My Research Area

•Computational complexity: Possibilities and limits of efficient computation•Design efficient algorithms for computational problems•Understand why some problems do not have efficient solutions

PhD Project 1: SAT Algorithms

•Boolean Satisfiability (SAT): Given a formula with Boolean variables, is there an assignment of Boolean values to variables satisfying it?•Canonical NP-complete problem; no polynomial-time algorithms if NP ≠ P•Very important in practical contexts, eg., verification, planning, automated reasoning

PhD Project 1: SAT Algorithms

•Boolean Satisfiability (SAT): Given a formula with Boolean variables, is there an assignment of Boolean values to variables satisfying it?•If the formula has N variables and size M, there is trivial brute-force search algorithm running in time O(2N poly(M))•Question: How much better than brute-force search can we do?

PhD Project 2: Bounded Rationality

•Context: Decision theory, game theory•A common assumption is that players are perfectly rational, i.e., play optimally•For various reasons, eg., computational constraints, limited information, cognitive biases etc., players have bounded rationality•Q: Come up with new models of bounded rationality and apply them to situations such as chess, cryptography, financial markets

Contact Info and Funding

•E-mail me at rsanthan@inf.ed.ac.uk if you would like to find out more about these projects•Funding available for Project 1•Also possibility of funding for Project 2, via sources listed at http://wcms.inf.ed.ac.uk/lfcs/graduate%20study