Grenoble University recruits motivated candidates for a Ph.D. fellowship. The position is for 3 year starting in September or October 2013. The (net) salary is approximately 1600 Euros per month, medical insurance included.
– = = – Context – = = –
The purpose of the Ph.D. is to develop new monitoring techniques for component-based systems in the context of the European CERTAINTY project.
A component-based approach consists in building complex systems by clustering components (building blocks). This confers numerous advantages (e.g., productivity, incremental construction, compositionality) that allow to deal with complexity in the construction phase. Component-based systems (CBS) are desirable because they allow reuse of sub-systems as well as their incremental modification without requiring global changes. Their development requires methods and tools supporting a concept of architecture which characterizes the coordination between components.
Runtime-verification (RV) is an effective technique to ensure, at runtime, that a system meets a desirable behavior. It can be used in numerous application domains, and more particularly when integrating together unreliable software components. In RV, a run of the system under scrutiny is analyzed incrementally using a decision procedure: a monitor. This monitor may be generated from a user-provided high level specification (e.g., a temporal formula, an automaton). This monitor aims to detect violation or satisfaction w.r.t. the given specification. The main challenge in augmenting a system with runtime verification is dealing with its runtime overhead.
Monitoring component-based systems is quite different from monitoring traditional monolithic systems. The challenges of the thesis are to propose methods and tools to:
– minimize the monitoring overhead in component-based systems;
– tackle the possible distribution of components,
– study and assess the modularity of monitors for component-based systems.
– = = – (Research) Environment – = = –
The selected application will conduct his research at Verimag. Research at Verimag provides theoretical and technical means for developing embedded systems, contributing to scientific advancement and industrial progress. Over the last fifteen years, Verimag has actively contributed to the development of the state-of-the-art, in particular for synchronous languages, verification, testing and modeling. The tools produced at Verimag are regularly transferred to commercial CASE tools and are used in a number of industrial applications.
Located in the southeastern part of France, Grenoble is considered as the capital of the Alps. Grenoble is surrounded by nature and high mountains: down the Alps, Grenoble has important historical and gastronomic heritages. Leisure activities in breathtaking nature are easily organizable and within short-distance. Grenoble is also a major scientific center in Europe dedicated to high-tech technologies, e.g., nano, micro, bio, and information technologies.
– = = – Application – = = –
The successful candidate should have a background in at least one of the following topics:
– formal methods and software engineering
– component-based systems
– testing and runtime verification
Applications should include:
– Master grades, ranking, MSc document,
– a motivation letter from the candidate,
– recommendation letters.