Non-Zero Sum Game Graphs: Applications to Reactive Synthesis and Beyond
(FWB ARC research project)

A PDF version of this offer can be found at: 
http://www.ulb.ac.be/di/verif/ggeeraer/ARC/Openings.pdf 
<http://www.ulb.ac.be/di/verif/ggeeraer/ARC/Openings.pdf>

* Positions. Post-Doc positions are open at the Université libre de Bruxelles 
(ULB). These positions are funded by and ARC collaborative research project of 
the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, under the lead of Prof. Jean-François Raskin 
and Gilles Geeraerts.

* Summary of the research project. Reactive systems are computer systems that 
maintain a continuous interaction with the environment in which they operate. 
Such systems are nowadays part of our daily life: think about common yet 
critical applications like engine control units in automotive, plane 
autopilots, medical devices, etc. Clearly, any flaw in such critical systems 
can have catastrophic consequences. Yet, they exhibit several characteristics, 
like real-time constraints, concurrency, parallelism, etc., that make them 
difficult to design correctly.
To ensure the design of reactive computer systems that are dependable, safe and 
efficient, researchers and industrials have advocated the use of so-called 
formal methods, that rely on mathematical models to express precisely and 
analyse the behaviours of those systems. A very popular formal method is model 
checking: it amounts to comparing a model of a system to its specification in 
order to find design errors early in the development cycle. Hence, model 
checking can be regarded as a sophisticated debugging method. In this project, 
we will attack a more scientifically challenging goal, called synthesis. We 
want to propose techniques (models, algorithms and tools) that, given a 
specification for a reactive system and a model of its environment, compute 
(synthesise) a correct system, i.e., one that enforces the specification no 
matter how the environment behaves. The main model that will be considered in 
the project is that of games played on graphs, we will seek to extend classical 
results to the setting of non-zero sum games. More precisely, the three main 
research directions of the project are:
- To define and study new models and solution concepts based on multi-player 
non-zero-sum games.
- To define and study new solutions concepts that avoid the fully adversarial 
assumption, because this assumption can be shown to be often too bold an 
abstraction of real systems.
- To exploit the multi-player, non zero-sum, games on graph model beyond the 
setting of reactive synthesis. Other potential domains of application include: 
biological systems, multi-agent systems, network routing, (real-time) 
scheduling, automata theory, etc

* Starting dates. As soon as possible.

* Salary. Annual net salary (after all taxes) starts at €2,296.82/months for a 
Post-Doc student, in addition, advantages include complete health insurance.

* The research environment. ULB (http://www.ulb.ac.be <http://www.ulb.ac.be/>) 
is a complete university located in the city of Brussels at the center of 
Europe (25.000+ students with 30% coming from abroad). The Formal Methods and 
Verification group is part of the Computer Science Department of the Faculty of 
Sciences. The group maintains a large number of active collaborations with 
other research groups in computer-aided verification across Europe and the USA. 
The group is also part of the Belgian Federated Center for Verification 
(http://cfv.ulb.ac.be <http://cfv.ulb.ac.be/>) that gathers all the Belgian 
research groups active in computer aided verification and hosts a monthly 
seminar with renowned guest speakers. The working language is English.

* Further information and application. Potential candidates can contact Prof. 
Raskin (jraskin [at] ulb [dot] ac [dot] be) and Prof. Geeraerts (gigeerae [at] 
ulb [dot] ac [dot] be).

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