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PhD POSITION AVAILABLE
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WHERE: IDSIA, Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale,
Lugano, Switzerland
SUBJECT: Ant Colony Metaheuristic applied to On-line Optimization problems
WHEN: for a period of 2 years, starting beginning 2000 with possible
extension.
DEADLINE: January 15th, 2000
http://www.idsia.ch/luca/AntPHD99.html
We intend to apply the Ant Colony Optimization Metaheuristic (ACO) to
on-line optimization problems. We will investigate routing and dispatching
of a non-homogeneous fleet of vehicles in realistic environments and
on-line scheduling in flexible manufacturing systems. The problems include
dynamic arrival of new activities, stochastic demands, treatment of
urgencies, multiple day scheduling and multiple time windows. The project
extends our ACO based approaches to solve the vehicle routing problems with
time windows (MACS-VRPTW http://www.idsia.ch/luca/macs-vrptw) and the
sequential ordering problems (HAS-SOP
http://www.idsia.ch/luca/has-sop.html). MACS-VRPTW, "A Multiple Ant Colony
System for Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows" is organized with a
hierarchy of artificial ant colonies designed to successively optimize a
multiple objective function: the first colony minimizes the number of
vehicles while the second colony minimizes the traveled distances.
Cooperation between colonies is performed by exchanging information through
pheromone updating. HAS-SOP, "Hybrid Ant System for the Sequential Ordering
Problem", is the first presented in literature that combines a constructive
phase based on ACO algorithm with a new TSP based lexicographic search to
directly handle multiple precedence constraints without increasing the
computational time.
The position is funded by a Swiss National Science Foundation research
grant. A highly qualified candidate is sought with a background in
computational sciences, engineering, mathematics, physics or other relevant
areas. Applicants should submit : (i) Detailed curriculum vitae, (ii) List
of three references (and their email addresses), (ii) Transcripts of
undergraduate and graduate (if applicable) studies and (iii) Concise
statement of their research interests (two pages max). Candidates are also
encouraged to submit their scores in the Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
general test (if available).
Please send all documents to:
Luca Maria Gambardella
IDSIA
C.so Elvezia 36
6900 Lugano
Switzerland
Phone : +41 91-911 98 38
Fax : +41 91-911 98 39
http://www.idsia.ch/luca
mailto:[log in to unmask]
Applications can also be submitted electronically (in plain ASCII or
postscript format) to mailto:[log in to unmask] Please connect "AntPHD99." with
your first and last name in the message subject, and add a meaningful
extension. For instance, if your name is John Smith, then your messages
could have subjects such as: AntPHD99.John.Smith.cv.ps,
AntPHD99.John.Smith.statement.txt, AntPHD99.John.Smith.correspondence.txt.
IDSIA, http://www.idsia.ch, Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza
Artificiale, is a non-profit oriented research institute. Thanks to the
Fondazione Dalle Molle per la Qualità della Vita it was founded in 1988 to
conduct basic research in artificial intelligence and to contribute to the
advancement of the scientific and technological culture of the
Italian-speaking Switzerland. IDSIA is affiliated with the Swiss Italian
University for Applied Science (SUPSI) and Swiss Italian University (USI).
IDSIA has been ranked in the X-Lab Survey by Business Week Magazine in 1997
among the world's top ten labs in Artificial Intelligence. The main
research activities of the institute are: (i) the study of different
metaheuristic approaches to solve combinatorial optimization problems. (ii)
basic and applied research on the modeling, simulation and optimization of
transport systems. (iii) the development of learning algorithms that focus
on collective behavior and lifelong learning. (iv) the development of
neural network algorithms for generalization starting from small training
sets, based on information theory, statistics and. (v) complexity theory,
applied to forecasting and image recognition. IDSIA develops and
participates in projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation
(FNR), by the European Commission (EU) and by the Swiss Commission for
Technology and Innovation (CTI). IDSIA also provides consultancies to
private firms and enterprises.
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