[agents] PhD offer

[Juan Antonio Rodriguez]

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PhD Scholarship in Automated Supply Chain Management
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The Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA) offers a four-year 
PhD scholarship for a student pursuing a full-time PhD degree in 
Artificial Intelligence in the area of multi-agent systems (MAS). More 
concretely, the applicant work will focus on developing algorithms and 
techniques for automated supply chain formation and reconfiguration. The 
PhD objective is to design mechanisms that make possible the automatic 
formation of supply chains as a response to a company's needs, the 
availability of resources and the different ways in which a company can 
cooperate with suppliers and partners. The use of those mechanisms will 
allow a group of companies to better adapt to a changing environment. 
The thesis will focus on self-organization, self-configuration, 
self-diagnosis and self-repair techniques for these supply chains. The 
PhD will hence be an example of autonomic computing applied to automated 
supply chain formation. The PhD thesis will continue the work previously 
developed by the team and already published in several international 
conferences and journals.


Environment
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The student will be integrated in a Spanish large project on AGREEMENT 
TECHNOLOGIES involving more than 50 researchers in computer science at 
IIIA-CSIC (Prof. Carles Sierra), Universitat Politècnica de València 
(Prof. Vicent Botti) and University Rey Juan Carlos I (Prof. Sascha 
Ossowski).

The IIIA belongs to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), 
Spain’s largest public institution devoted to research and technological 
development. The IIIA is a leading research centre in Europe in the 
areas of multiagent systems (Prof. Carles Sierra), machine learning 
(Prof. Ramon López de Mántaras and Prof. Enric Plaza), and uncertainty 
reasoning (Prof. Francesc Esteva and Prof. Lluís Godo). It attracts 
funding from the European, Spanish, and Catalan governments and has 
substantial collaborative research projects with industry. The IIIA is 
located in the campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) 
and leads the university’s master and doctoral studies in artificial 
intelligence.


Requirements
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Candidates are required to hold (or be about to complete) a high-quality 
degree in Computer Science or Maths, be willing to work on 
formal/mathematical aspects, have good communication skills in English, 
and be able to demonstrate strong motivation to conduct research. The 
candidates must be EU Nationals or otherwise have a residence and/or 
working permit in Spain.

Experience on optimization (especially combinatorial), computational 
complexity, and software design and programming, although not mandatory, 
will be considered favourably.


Stipend
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The annual salary is 21000 EUR per year before taxes and includes health 
insurance. In addition, generous allowances are given to support 
presentation of work at international conferences and to attend seminars 
and tutorials. Scholarships are conditional on satisfactory progress, 
which is reviewed every year.


Deadline
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Closing date for application: June 30th, 2008.


For further information visit our website at www.iiia.csic.es, or 
contact Dr. Juan A. Rodríguez-Aguilar (jar at iiia.csic.es) or Dr. Jesús 
Cerquides (cerquide at maia.ub.es).