Dear Colleagues, Please find below a Ph.D. position offer in Canada. (Apologies for cross-posting)
The Semantic Technologies Lab at the Royal Military College of Canada and the WeST Lab at Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal are recruiting a PhD student for the OntoCmaps project. The position includes a Ph.D. research assistantship (19K/year pending to budget approval) and support for conference travels and equipment. Qualifications The ideal candidate would: • have a background in knowledge extraction, data mining, NLP and/or machine learning • have some knowledge on the Semantic Web and ontologies • have (or soon receive) a Masters degree in computer science/engineering, informatics, or related fields • be interested in investing 3+ years as a "research assistant" (aka PhD student) The OntoCmaps Project In the context of the Semantic Web, the extraction, update and evaluation of formal conceptual models (domain ontologies and rules) from unstructured and structured knowledge sources is an important challenge. This task is particularly difficult when the adopted approach is an open (domain independent) and unsupervised (without any guidance) knowledge extraction. However, such a domain independent approach is crucial to the interoperability and reuse of ontology learning methodologies across various applications and domains. The interest of the availability of a complete ontology (with all its layers) is that it is essential for agents to reason over semantic data and this will provide effective knowledge retrieval capabilities. The OntoCmaps project aims at developing a domain independent methodology and a set of tools for learning the ontology layers (terms, taxonomy, conceptual relations, relation hierarchies, axioms and axiom schemata) from unstructured knowledge sources. In particular, we aim at automatically learning the three last layers, which has been done very rarely in the state of the art. The research also explores filtering techniques that identify important information and integration techniques that adequately combine knowledge coming from various sources. The long-term objective of this research is to build learning-by-reading systems by exploring the integration of deep semantic analysis, filtering and knowledge integration techniques. Our current application domains are the biomedical domain and the eLearning domain. The Semantic Technologies Lab@RMC The Semantic Technologies Lab@RMC is specialized in knowledge extraction in the context of the Semantic Web. By joining the Lab, you will develop your skills in edge technologies needed in both academia and industry. You will also have the opportunity to have close collaborations (including internships, visits, joint conferences) with other institutions including Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Simon Fraser University and Athabasca University, thus allowing multiple research experiences. The WeST Lab@Ecole Polytechnique The WeST Lab is specialized in natural language processing, knowlege-based systems, and semantic web. It is still growing and is involved in many projects with industrial partners. With many graduate students working on mutlidisciplinary projects, the WeST Lab is a stimulating environment for any person interested in making interesting researches on the interaction of language with knowledge. The Royal Military College of Canada The Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), established in 1876, is Canada's only military university providing academic and leadership training to officer cadets, other members of Canada's armed forces and civilians. RMC is also the only federal institution in Canada with degree granting powers. Programmes are available at the undergraduate and graduate levels on site through traditional studies and by distance learning through the Division of Continuing Studies. There are possibilities to take courses at Queen's University as well. Web site: http://www.rmc.ca/ Tuition Fees: http://www.rmc.ca/aca/reg-sc/fees-fs-eng.asp Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal Founded in 1873, Polytechnique Montréal is one of Canada's leading engineering teaching and research institutions. It is the largest engineering university in Québec for the size of its student body and the scope of its research activities. With over 37,000 graduates, Polytechnique Montréal has graduated 25% of the current members of the l’Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec. Polytechnique provides training in 16 engineering specialties, has 241 professors and more than 6,900 students. It has an annual operating budget of over $200 million, including a $72-million research budget. Important Information : 1. The Ph.D. can be located at either one of the labs/universities. 2. Please note: If the accepted candidate is not a permanent resident or a Canadian citizen, (s)he will have to obtain a work permit if (s)he chooses Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal for the Ph.D. 3. Please note that Ecole Polytechnique offers the Ph.D. program in French, and the RMC offers the program in French and English. Application Process The application deadline is November 1st, 2011, but we will consider applications until the positions are filled. The start date is January 2012 or earlier. Candidates interested in a position are asked to contact [email protected] and [email protected] with the following documents: 1. A statement of interest 2. A list of publications (if any) and a CV 3. A list of contributions to software projects (if any) 4. Masters thesis (if any; applicants who are not finished yet should include a draft) The accepted candidate will then have to submit an official application either at the RMC http://www.rmc.ca/ or at Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal http://www.polymtl.ca/ Amal Zouaq Professeure adjointe | Assistant Professor Département de mathématiques et d'informatique| Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Collège militaire royal du Canada | Royal Military College of Canada CP 17000, Succursale Forces, Kingston ON CANADA K7K 7B4 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Office | Bureau Girouard 320 Telephone | Téléphone 613-541-6000 # 6478<tel:613-541-6000%20%23%206478> Fax | Télécopieur 613-541-6584<tel:613-541-6584> http://azouaq.athabascau.ca/ _______________________________________________ IEEE Communications Society Tech. Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC) - for discussions on computer networking and communication. 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