[PlanetKR] Two PhD positions at ISTC-CNR Laboratory for Applied Ontology

[Nicola Guarino]

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Call for two PhD positions on Ontology-Driven Conceptual Modelling at the 
ISTC-CNR Laboratory for Applied Ontology, Trento, 
in co-operation with University of Trento and Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK).

Submission Deadline: March 16th, 2011
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The ISTC-CNR Laboratory for Applied Ontology (LOA), Trento, in co-operation with the University of 
Trento and the Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), is seeking candidates for two 3-year PhD projects
related to the general theme of Ontology-Driven Conceptual Modelling.

Position A (jointly supervised by UNITN and ISTC-CNR): 
"Ontologies for business organization governance and business requirements evolution"

The research will be performed in the framework of the ERC Advanced Grant project "Lucretius:
Foundations for Software Evolution" led by John Mylopoulos, whose main objective is to develop
novel techniques for designing software that can evolve, either automatically of through human
intervention, in response to changes to its requirements and/or operational environment. Among
the aspects to investigate under a formal ontological approach, special relevance will have the
notion of threat for business organizations, and the ways of modelling change rationale in
requirements evolution. Please note that this position is included in the official call under the
generic title "Ontologies and algorithms for Requirements Engineering" (see instructions below).

Position B (jointly supervised by FBK and ISTC-CNR): 
"Ontology-driven modelling of service systems"

The research will be performed in cooperation with the Data and Knowledge Management
(DKM) unit of FBK, led by Luciano Serafini. The notion of service system has been proposed recently
to account for the broader environment a business service interacts with, in other words the 
socio-technical system the service is part of. A well-founded ontological approach is needed to address
the well-known gap between the business view of a service, expressed in terms of service offer,
service-level agreement and value chain model, and the technical view, expressed in terms of the
underlying business process. In turn this requires a deep understanding of the way ontological
representation and reasoning can be integrated with business process representation and reasoning.  

The PhD studentship amounts roughly to 51,000 Euro over the three years.
Substantial extra funding is available for participation in international conferences, schools, 
and workshops.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Master’s degree (Laurea Specialistica), or Italian undergraduate degree
from the old system, or a foreign degree equivalent to one of these degrees.

The ideal candidates should have a good background in logic, and in knowledge engineering or
conceptual modelling.

INFORMAL ENQUIRIES ARE ENCOURAGED. Please get in touch with the contact persons below as soon
as possible, in order to have a better understanding of possible research activities and the formal
application details.

HOW TO APPLY: The positions are included in the UNITN and FBK Project-related Grants of the ICT 
International  Doctoral School, University of Trento, as reported in the official call, to be published
shortly at http://ict.unitn.it/application. All the positions are covered by a scholarship. The titles of such
project-related grants are more generic than the specific topics described in this informal call, so make
sure to quote the project-related grant you are interested in when applying, according to the instructions
below, as failure to do so may result in ineligibility for these positions:

Position A: Ontologies and algorithms for requirements engineering
Position B: Combining ontological and process-based reasoning

Closing date for applications is March 16th, 2011, 1 pm, local time.

CONTACT PERSONS

Position A:
Nicola Guarino (guarino at loa-cnr.it)
John Mylopoulos (john.mylopoulos at unitn.it)

Position B:
Nicola Guarino (guarino at loa-cnr.it)
Chiara Ghidini (ghidini at fbk.eu)

LINKS

Application for PhD Positions: http://ict.unitn.it/application
LOA web site: http://www.loa-cnr.it
Mylopoulos web site: http://disi.unitn.it/users/john.mylopoulos
DKM web site: http://dkm.fbk.eu/