A propos du centre ou de la direction fonctionnelle

Created in 2008, the Inria center at the University of Lille employs 360 people, including 305 scientists in 15 research teams. Recognized for its strong involvement in the socio-economic development of the Hauts-De-France region, the Inria center at the University of Lille maintains a close relationship with large companies and SMEs. By fostering synergies between researchers and industry, Inria contributes to the transfer of skills and expertise in the field of digital technologies, and provides access to the best of European and international research for the benefit of innovation and businesses, particularly in the region.

For over 10 years, the Inria center at the University of Lille has been at the heart of Lille's university and scientific ecosystem, as well as at the heart of Frenchtech, with a technology showroom based on avenue de Bretagne in Lille, on the EuraTechnologies site of economic excellence dedicated to information and communication technologies (ICT).

Contexte et atouts du poste

Inria is a French institute dedicated to research in computer science and mathematics. 400 R&D engineers support research scientists by developing software tools and platforms that help the research process and the experimentation.

Spirals is an Inria research team is the domain of distributed systems and software engineering. Spirals aims at introducing more automation in the adaptation mechanisms of software systems, in particular, transitioning from adaptive systems to self-adaptive systems . Spirals creates the future techniques for building self-healing and self-optimizing software systems.

Mission confiée

The deployment and the execution of Cloud applications have been organized in different steps that interact with each other. The classical first step is to describe the application through a model. Through this model, a first process is operated to obtain a description of the deployment of the application. To describe the model, there are different approaches and formalisms based on diagrams such UML, on logic and data or Feature Models. In this thesis, we will focus on the models expressed by logics and data. These models are used in order to check different properties about these models in order to check that the models are correct and coherent and check that the deployment and the execution will be correct. Unfortunately, most of properties are undecidable in the logical languages that are used for describing the models. The state-of-the-art approach is to use a system called Alloy using an extension of First-Order-Logic to describe the model and its properties. The approach of the system is to study the satisfiability of the formula for models that have a size bounded by a fixed number. For this, it grounds the variables of the formula by a fixed set of values transforming the problem into a satisfiability problem of propositional logic which is decidable and solvable via a SAT-Solver. This approach has a major flow as it is not possible to be sure that the formula is satisfiable for larger models.

Interestingly, communities in Knowledge Representation, Database Theory and Logics have made impressive progress to design fragments of logic for which satisfiability is decidable such as Guarded Fragments, Description Logics and proposed different tools for solving these problems.

The goal of this PhD is to understand how these results could be integrated or inspire the designing process of the models for the deployment and the execution of Cloud applications in order to improve the trust in these applications.

Principales activités

Main activities (5 maximum) :

The PhD Candidate will provide a related work for the project

The PhD Candidate will provide research on the subject of the PhD

The PhD Candidate will write reports article and a PhD Manuscript

The PhD Candidate will present her/his works inside the projects and in the conferences where the results were accepted

Compétences

• Theory Background in Database/Logic
• Know how to write a proof
• Computer training and knowledge of software development and related tools (version control, compilation, documentation, testing, debugging...);
• Taste for technological innovation
• Fluency in English technical
• Good writing skills

Avantages

• Subsidized meals
• Partial reimbursement of public transport costs
• Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 extra days off due to RTT (statutory reduction in working hours) + possibility of exceptional leave (sick children, moving home, etc.)
• Possibility of teleworking and flexible organization of working hours
• Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)
• Social, cultural and sports events and activities
• Access to vocational training
• Social security coverage

Rémunération

Grossly salary by month : 2200 €