PhD in argumentation and decision making at Montpellier

PhD in argumentation and decision making at Montpellier

The position is within the INRIA GraphIK research group. GraphIK (Graphs for Inferences on Knowledge) is a joint team between INRIA (Sophia Antipolis Méditerranée center), the University of Montpellier, CNRS and INRA: https://team.inria.fr/graphik/. More information about Montpellier here: http://www.montpellier-france.com/. 

Project description:

The topic is within the general area of knowledge representation and reasoning with inconsistent knowledge and argumentation.The research focus of the thesis will be centered around the further exploration of argumentation semantics for decision making. 
For example, as opposed to classical semantics in argumentation where an argument is killed by an attack, ranking semantics simply weaken the position of the argument. However many open questions still remain: how this impacts decision making when using argumentation? How to explain ranking semantics outputs to the user? etc. 
The candidate will explore formal properties of such semantics and their suitability in real world applications involving decision making and reasoning under inconsistency with existential rules. An important theoretical knowledge representation background is required. Implementation skills are a plus. The argumentation ranking semantics developped in the thesis will be evaluated in a real world application in the framework of the H2020 European project NoAW (No Agro-Waste: Innovative approaches to turn agricultural waste into ecological and economic assets, 2016-2019).
The PhD student candidate has to proficient in written and oral English.
Contact:To apply, please send a complete CV together with the names and contact information of two referees by e-mail to croitoru@lirmm.fr and Patrice.Buche@supagro.inra.fr.  Please write subject title: PhD Position NoAW application
Deadline of Application:  15th April 2016. Start date: October 2016. Duration: 3 years.