About this position
A call for applications is open for 1 Research Grant within the scope of the ARIES project, reference M2030-FEDER-03053400, funded by IDR – Instituto de Desenvolvimento Regional, under the following conditions:
I. Scientific Area: Biomedical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Signal Processing or “related areas”.
II. Admission Requirements:
a) General Requirements:
a. Enrollment in a doctoral program or a non-degree course. The non-degree course must be developed in association or cooperation between the higher education institution and one or more R&D units.
b. Holding a Master's degree in an area relevant to the project.
c. Good knowledge of the English language.
b) Preferred Requirements:
a. High motivation and proactivity;
b. Ease of interpersonal relationships and teamwork;
c. Initiative and problem-solving skills;
d. Good writing skills and creativity; e. Adaptability and resilience;
f. Responsibility, autonomy, and persistence.
III. Work Plan:
- Literature review on silent speech recognition, surface electromyography (sEMG), and biomedical signal processing.
- Collection, organization, and preprocessing of facial and articulatory sEMG signal databases during silent speech tasks.
- Development of a preprocessing pipeline for noise removal, signal segmentation, normalization, and feature extraction in the time, frequency, and time-frequency domains.
- Development and training of machine learning and deep learning models (such as SVM, Random Forests, CNN, RNN, or Transformer-based models) for word and phrase recognition.
- Implementation and exploration of language modeling methods to improve phrase prediction and reduce recognition errors.
- Experimental validation and evaluation of the proposed system based on metrics of accuracy, robustness, user comfort, and real-time performance.
- Study of the possibility of adapting the system to different users with minimal calibration.
- Writing scientific articles, disseminating results, and preparing the doctoral thesis.
Objectives
- To investigate how facial and articulatory muscle activity changes when a person silently produces words and phrases.
- To develop artificial intelligence models capable of translating facial muscle activity into comprehensible language, identifying isolated words and speech patterns at the sentence level.
- To implement intelligent and linguistically aware mechanisms to optimize and improve the recognition of meaningful statements.
- To establish the scientific and methodological basis for the future development of wearable and real-time assistive communication devices for voiceless individuals.
IV. Applicable legislation and regulations: Statute of the Scientific Research Fellow in its current wording; Research Grant Regulations of the Foundation for Science and Technology I.P.; Research Grant Regulations of the University of Madeira.
V. Workplace: The work will be carried out at the Faculty of Exact Sciences and Engineering of the University of Madeira, under the scientific guidance of Sheikh Shanawaz Mostafa and Morgado Dias.
VI. Duration of the grant(s): The grant will last for 6 months, and may be renewed for equal periods, until the end of the project in 2029.
VII. Amount of the monthly maintenance allowance: The grant amount corresponds to €1,359.64, according to the table of values for grants awarded directly by FCT, I.P. in Portugal ( http://alfa.fct.mctes.pt/apoios/bolsas/valores ).
VIII. Funding: The grant awarded under this competition will be funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through the Madeira Regional Program 2021-2027 (Madeira 2030), by Portugal 2030 and by the European Union. Operation Code: M2030-FEDER-03053400.
IX. Selection Methods: The selection methods to be used will be the following: curriculum evaluation and interview, with respective weightings of 50% and 50%.
X. Composition of the Selection Jury:
President of the Jury: Prof. Dr. Fernando Manuel Rosmaninho Morgado Ferrão Dias
Member: Prof. Dr. Fábio Rúben Silva Mendonça
Member: Prof. Dr. Sheikh Shanawaz Mostafa
Alternate Member: Prof. Dr. Diogo Nuno Teixeira Freitas
XI. Method of publication/notification of results:
The admission lists, as well as the results of each selection method and final ranking lists, will be published on the website of the Human Resources Unit – Scholarship Holder's Office of the University of Madeira, http://urh.uma.pt/ , with the candidate being notified by email.
XII. Application deadline and submission method:
a) Applications may be submitted within 15 working days following the publication of the Notice;
b) Applications must be formalized by sending an application letter accompanied by the following documents:
- Letter of motivation;
- Updated Curriculum Vitae;
- Copy of academic qualifications certificate;
- Proof of enrollment in a doctoral program or non-degree course.
c) Applications must be submitted in person between 9:00 am and 12:30 pm and between 2:00 pm and 5:30 pm at the Human Resources Unit – Scholarship Holder Center of the University of Madeira, located at Colégio dos Jesuítas, Rua dos Ferreiros, 9000-081 Funchal, or by mail to the same Service and address, or by email to nucleo.bolseiro@mail.uma.pt addressed to the Jury President, with the scholarship reference in the subject line.
Requirements
Research Field
Other
Education Level
Master Degree or equivalent
Internal Application form(s) needed
Edital_Bolsa_EMG_.pdf
English
(334.34 KB - PDF)
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How to apply
- Read the full advert on the source site — it carries the authoritative terms.
- Email the contact below with your CV and a short, specific message. See Emailing Professors.
- Prepare your SOP, CV, transcripts and referees before the deadline.
- Apply through the university's own portal. Never pay a fee to a third party.