[agents] 3-Year Postdoctoral Researcher in Multi-Agent Negotiation at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam (extended deadline: November 5th)

Fri Oct 12 04:59:27 EDT 2018

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Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) has a vacancy in the Intelligent 
and Autonomous Systems research group for a talented Postdoctoral 
Researcher in: Autonomous negotiation agents for online peer to peer trading

See: 
https://www.cwi.nl/jobs/vacancies/researcher-autonomous-negotiation-agents-for-online-peer-to-peer-trading
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Job description
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The world of peer to peer trading is changing rapidly. Whereas in the 
past, people would contact their vendors personally over phone or 
e-mail, online trading platforms now make it possible for vendors to 
match and discover supply and demand in a more effective and scalable 
way. This creates a new opportunity to use negotiation agents that can 
support vendors in their negotiations and eventually make deals 
autonomously on their behalf. This requires a combination of a 
state-of-the-art multi-agent and machine learning techniques that can 
support the user in making efficient offers and learn the preferences of 
the user as well as of the trading partners.

The aim of the vacant position is to develop fundamental and applicable 
solutions for agent negotiations within a new online trading platform. 
Depending on the interests and expertise of the candidate, the project 
draws on tools and techniques from multi-agent learning, preference 
modeling and elicitation, machine learning, automated negotiation, 
decision support systems, and sequential multi-agent decision-making 
under uncertainty. One of the scientific challenges in this project will 
be to formulate long-term negotiation strategies that can strike partial 
deals with multiple partners under preference uncertainty, motivated by 
the challenge of autonomously representing a user in repeated 
many-to-many negotiations.

The research will focus on the following aspects:

1.	Developing agent models for many-to-many automated negotiation to 
help negotiate complex trading deals with multiple partners;
2.	Establishing new machine learning techniques that are able to 
estimate the opponent’s preference from multiple, short interactions;
3.	Developing active preference elicitation models in order to 
accurately represent and support users by a negotiating agent;
4.	Designing new negotiation strategies and planning algorithms for 
multi-issue negotiations in an environment with multiple trading parties 
and large product portfolios. The purpose is to develop optimal 
solutions for trading scenarios with high degrees of complexity.

The project is a collaboration between CWI and an ambitious start-up 
company Acumex, which has built the first online negotiation platform 
for complex trading goods. This platform replaces the old trading 
paradigm with a more streamlined cloud-based approach that allows a 
structured approach to peer to peer trading processes and real-time 
online negotiations. The vacant position will primarily devise 
algorithms and experiments for online preference and strategy 
elicitation and distributed negotiations in face of uncertainty, and 
will closely collaborate with other project team members for the 
implementation of experimental tests.

The successful applicant will contribute to the research group's 
ambition to  develop and mature fundamental principles that find 
applications in practical intelligent and autonomous systems. The 
position is embedded in a diverse team of motivated junior and senior 
researchers with experience and ongoing complementary projects on topics 
such as multi-agent learning, autonomous representation, negotiation, 
smart energy systems, and more. Group alumni have moved on to excellent 
positions in academia and industry, making it a cornerstone in their 
career path.

Requirements
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The candidate is required to have a Ph.D. in computer science, 
artificial intelligence, mathematics, or in comparable areas. Candidates 
should have a clear interest in fundamental research, should be creative 
and solid in their research, should have interest in multi-agent systems 
and in the application area of negotiation and trading, and should be 
able to cooperate with experts from different disciplines. Candidates 
are expected to have an excellent command of English, experience in 
programming (preferably object-oriented, e.g. Java, C#), academic 
writing and presenting.

Terms and conditions
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The terms of employment are in accordance with the Dutch Collective 
Labour Agreement for Research Centres ("CAO-onderzoeksinstellingen"). 
The gross monthly salary for an employee on a full time basis, depending 
on relevant work experience, ranges from € 3477 to € 4945. The 
appointment will be for 3 years, with a preferred starting date of 
December 1, 2018.
Employees are also entitled to a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross 
annual salary and a year-end bonus of 8.33%. CWI offers attractive 
working conditions, including flexible scheduling.

Please visit our website for more information about our terms of 
employment: www.cwi.nl/terms-of-employment

Application
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Applications can be sent to apply at cwi.nl. Please submit your application 
no later than 5 November 2018. All applications should include:
- a motivation letter, explaining the interest in the proposed research 
fields,
- a detailed CV,
- names and contact details of at least two referees, and
- a list of publications, and a link to the PhD thesis, if available.
For residents outside the EER-area, a Toefl English language test might 
be required.

Informal inquiries are welcome and can be directed to:
dr. Tim Baarslag
Tel. +31(0)20 592 4019
Email: T.Baarslag at cwi.nl
Homepage: https://homepages.cwi.nl/~baarslag/

Website of research group Intelligent and Autonomous Systems (IAS): 
https://www.cwi.nl/research/groups/intelligent-autonomous-systems

A Video introduction of the group’s focus is available as well: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjmPrN5iWw0

For more information about CWI, please visit www.cwi.nl or watch our 
video about working at CWI.

About Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica
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Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) is the Dutch national research 
institute for mathematics and computer science and is part of the 
Institutes Organisation of NWO. The mission of CWI is to conduct 
pioneering research in mathematics and computer science, generating new 
knowledge in these fields and conveying it to trade, industry, and 
society at large.

CWI is an internationally oriented institute, with 160 scientists from 
approximately 27 countries. The facilities are first-rate and include 
excellent IT support, career planning, training, and courses.
CWI is located at Science Park Amsterdam that is presently developing 
into a major location of research in the natural sciences in The 
Netherlands, housing the sciences of the University of Amsterdam and of 
the Vrije Universiteit as well as several other national research 
institutes next to CWI.

Please share this information with potential candidates.