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PostDoctoral position proposal in Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
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The Knowledge Representation and Reasoning research group (RCR),
in the Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics and Microelectronics (LIRMM),
at Montpellier (France), is offering a postDoctoral position.

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LIRMM website: http://www.lirmm.fr
RCR website (in French): http://www.lirmm.fr/~mugnier/RCR
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Requirements for a candidate:
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* A PhD in Computer Science or equivalent diploma;
* Expertise in knowledge representation, algorithms and complexity;
knowledge in the theoretical aspects of one or more of the following
formalisms: databases, conceptual graphs, description logics, semantic web languages; 
* Well-developed social skills directed to work in a team;
* Fluency in spoken and written English or French.

Offered:
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* A full time, temporary appointment for a period from 6 months to 1 year;
* Starting date: from September 2007 but possibly later (the postdoc has to
take place between September 2007 and December 2008);
* Monthly salary: minimum 2100 euros net and negotiable based on
qualification profile; 
* Attractive secondary labor conditions (good technical infrastructure,
close to the mediterranean sea, lively city!). 

Themes:
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We are interested in logic-based knowledge representation formalisms, with
special emphasis on algorithmic aspects. Inside these formalisms, we have 
historically focused our approach on graph-based formalisms or
graph-theoretic mechanisms. We are currently studying the interactions
between these graph-based formalisms (conceptual graphs, RDF, ...) and other KR
languages, s.t. description logics, as well as databases. Our two main goals are
- the development of mixed KR languages, while keeping reasonable complexity; 
- the study of efficient heuristics or tractable subclasses of the basic problems
(deduction, consistency, query answering).

More specifically, some current issues we are interested in are:
- Combination of description logics, conceptual graphs and database components;
- algorithms for deduction and query answering in knowledge bases and databases; 
- use of graph techniques, in particular graph homomorphism.


Application details:
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* Dates: please apply as soon as possible. A first selection will be done during the
second week of July. Later candidatures will be considered if no candidate has been selected at this date. 

* Please send: 
- a CV (including publication list)
- links to PhD thesis and/or selected papers
- a brief research plan presenting topics of interest (1-2 page(s))

to:
- M.-L. Mugnier (mugnier@lirmm.fr) and J.-F. Baget (baget@lirmm.fr) 
with cc: to M. Chein (chein@lirmm.fr) and M. Leclere (leclere@lirmm.fr)