<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>Call for Ph.D. position<br>Project title: World ontologies versus classification systems<br>Location: CRIM (Centre de recherche informatique de Montréal), in cooperation with Polytechnique Montréal<br><br>Submission Deadline: February 5th, 2012<br>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>The DETI research group, at CRIM (Centre de recherche informatique de Montréal),and WeST Laboratory, at Polytechnique Montréal, are seeking candidates for a 3-year PhD project related to the general theme of Ontology Modelling and Ontology-driven Classification. This research is part of a project supported by NSERC Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) Grants program.<br><br><br>FINANCIAL CONDITIONS:<br>The PhD studentship amounts roughly to 19000$CAD per year. The project activities will take place mainly at CRIM, but the student academic affiliation will be at Polytechnique Montréal. Tuition fees are not included in the studentship (for more information on admission consult Polytechnique web site:<a href="http://www.polymtl.ca/futur/esen/)">http://www.polymtl.ca/futur/esen/)</a>. Polytechnique is a French-speaking institution, but non French-speaking students are allowed to write comprehensive exam and thesis in English.<br><br><br>ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA:<br>Master’s degree or equivalent.<br>The ideal candidate should have a good background in knowledge engineering or conceptual modelling. Experience in natural language processing is an asset.<br><br><br>APPLICATION:<br>Please send the following documents to the contact persons given at the end of this announcement:<br><br> - Statement of interest<br> - Full CV<br> - University transcripts<br> - Master dissertation (final copy or draft)<br> - Name of two references<br><br><br>PROJECT DESCRIPTION:<br>The project is realized in collaboration with a company that has been developing automated commodity classification software for many years. At this time, they specialize in classification toward HS codes (Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System). The Harmonized System (HS) is a comprehensive product classification system, which covers all merchandise imported by World Trade Organization member countries.<br><br>The company has built a large ontology containing concepts associated to a multitude of products in all domains, and for each concept they have encoded various terms for expressing it. But still, language is so rich that they cannot anticipate and encode all possible variations used by exporters, such as "frame wood photo pc bamboo", "candy gummi choice l'il bears", “gloves faux leather brown” or "sharpener pencil sport ball". The main problem is to match the various product descriptions to the terms present in their ontology.<br><br>A major problem the company faces is to link the two different views of the commodity world as given on one side by the exporters describing their products and on the other side by classification systems, such as the HS, imposing their arbitrary division of the commodity world often for customs and tariff purposes.<br><br>This Ph.D. will address this question: Is it possible to provide a single “world ontology” for product description and a mapping approach toward different “classification ontologies” for different classification systems?<br><br>The research will be divided into 3 steps:<br><br>1. Investigate expressiveness of ontologies and triple stores for product descriptions<br>2. Investigate independence between a “world” ontology and HS ontology<br>3. Choose a domain proof of concept<br><br><br>IMPORTANT DATES:<br>Closing date for applications is February 5th, 2012.<br>Deadline for registration at Polytechnique Montréal is March 1st 2012.<br><br><br>CONTACT PERSONS:<br><br>Caroline Barrière (<a href="mailto:caroline.barriere@crim.ca">caroline.barriere@crim.ca</a>)<br>Researcher<br>Développement et technologies internet (DETI)<br>Centre de recherche informatique de Montréal<br>405, avenue Ogilvy, bureau 101<br>Montréal (Québec)<br>H3N 1M3<br>Tel: 514 840-1235, poste 7673<br><a href="http://www.crim.ca/en/r-d/technologie_internet/equipe/fiche22.html">http://www.crim.ca/en/r-d/technologie_internet/equipe/fiche22.html</a><br><br>Michel Gagnon (<a href="mailto:michel.gagnon@polymtl.ca">michel.gagnon@polymtl.ca</a>)<br>Professor<br>Département de génie informatique et génie logiciel<br>École Polytechnique de Montréal<br><a href="http://www.professeurs.polymtl.ca/michel.gagnon">http://www.professeurs.polymtl.ca/michel.gagnon</a><br></body></html>