[agents] Three scientific programmers for Golden Agents Project at Utrecht University

[Dastani, M.M. (Mehdi)]

*Three scientific programmers for Golden Agents project at Utrecht 
University*

*Job description*

The Utrecht University is looking for three scientific programmers to 
develop a multi-agent system platform for the Golden Agents project. The 
Golden Agents project is funded by the Netherlands Organization for 
Scientific Research (NWO). The project consortium consists of a large 
number of universities, research institutes and national cultural 
heritage institutions such as the Rijksmuseum, the National Library of 
the Netherlands (KB) and the Netherlands Institute for History of Art. 
The overall aim of the Golden Agents project is to build a large digital 
humanities research infrastructure that enables researchers to explore 
various existing data sets – such as data set of the Rijksmuseum and the 
Amsterdam archives – to analyze and understand the working of the 
creative industry during the Dutch Golden Age, in and around Amsterdam. 
Researchers would like to explore various data sets to understand, for 
example, how hypes influenced consumers' preferences, how producers 
working in various creative industries influenced each other in style 
and subject matter. What caused the creative outburst of that period, 
which is well-known because of painters such as Rembrandt and Vermeer, 
but was in fact a much wider phenomenon?

The Golden Agents project will combine semantic web and multi-agent 
technologies to build this digital humanities research infrastructure. 
The approach taken in this project is to use the semantic web technology 
to annotate and structure the existing data sets related to the creative 
industries. The multi-agent technology is used to agentify the existing 
data sets such that each data set is processed and maintained locally by 
a software agent. Various software agents interact and collaborate to 
answer queries of the researchers that want to explore the data sets.

We are looking for three scientific programmers that will be stationed 
in the Intelligent Systems group at the Department of Information and 
Computing Sciences at the Utrecht University. The scientific programmers 
we are looking for will mainly focus on the development of the 
multi-agent infrastructure, but adopt the semantic web tools and 
technology that are developed from other partners in the consortium. The 
scientific programmers will work together, under the supervision of Dr. 
Mehdi Dastani, to develop 1) various parts of the multi-agent system 
infrastructure such as tools and technology that support the development 
and execution of software agents, 2) middleware that supports various 
software agents to communicate and manage data, and 3) various 
communication protocols to support software agents to collaborate in 
order to process and answer queries using information from all data sets.

The project will be conducted under the supervision of Dr. Mehdi Dastani 
(Intelligent Systems).


*Requirements*

The candidate is expected to:
- have good skills in Java programming;
- have a bachelor/master degree in computer science or artificial 
intelligence;
- collaborate with other scientific programmers, both locally and with 
others in the consortium;
- collaborate with researchers from the Humanities (art historians, 
historians, literary scholars, musicologists etc.) to get insight in the 
type of analysis of the existing data sets they want to conduct;
- collaborate with the Utrecht Digital Humanity Lab to explore the 
possibility of using and integrating tools and technologies already in 
use and in place in the Humanities.


*Conditions of employment*

The candidate is offered a full-time position (0,8 – 1,0 fte) for one 
year with an extension for three years after a positive evaluation.The 
gross salary varies, depending on education and experience, between 
€2,552 and €3,899 (scale 10/11 according to the Collective Labour 
Agreement Dutch Universities). Salaries are supplemented with a holiday 
bonus of 8 % and a year-end bonus of 8.3 % per year. We offer a pension 
scheme, collective insurance schemes and flexible employment conditions. 
The research group will provide the candidate with necessary support on 
all aspects of the project.


*Employer*
A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in 
executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht 
University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards 
major societal themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions 
for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Sustainability.

The city of Utrecht is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands, with 
a charming old center and an internationally oriented culture that is 
strongly influenced by its century-old university. Utrecht city has been 
consistently ranked as one of the most livable cities in the Netherlands.

The faculty of Science consists of six 
departments: Biology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Information and Computing 
Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry, and Mathematics

The faculty is home to 4800 students and nearly 1500 staff and is 
internationally renowned for the quality of its research. The faculty's 
academic programmes reflect developments in today's society.

The department of Information and Computing Sciences is nationally and 
internationally renowned for its research in computer science and 
information science. The research of the department is grouped into four 
divisions: Software Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual 
Worlds, Interaction Technology

The department offers bachelor programs in computer science and 
information science, and four English-language research master-programs 
in Artificial Intelligence, Business Informatics, Computing Science, and 
Game and Media Technology. High enrolment figures and good student 
ratings make the education very successful. This PhD opening is a joint 
project between the department’s research groups in Artificial 
Intelligence and Software Engineering.

*Additional information*
Additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from: Dr Mehdi 
Dastani, M.M.Dastani at uu.nl, phone: +31 30 253 35 99, or Prof. Dr. Els 
Stronks, E.Stronks at uu.nl, phone: +31 30 253 61 51.

*How to apply?*
Application should be made via the online application system of Utrecht 
University (find a link here: 
http://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs). 
Applications should include a letter of motivation, curriculum vitae and 
contact information (name, affiliation, email) of two referees.

The application deadline is *December 31, 2016*