Le 03/05/2018 par Webmaster ROADEF :

OPERATIONS RESEARCH POST-DOCTORAL POSITION
Laboratoire d’Informatique Fondamentale et Appliquée de Tours (EA 6300)
Operations research, scheduling, and transportation research group (ERL 7002
CNRS)
64 Avenue Jean Portalis, 37200 Tours (France)

Keywords: tourist trip design problems, optimal paths problems, vehicle
routing, mathematical programming, metaheuristics, databases, geographical
information systems.


DESCRIPTION
Centre-Val de Loire is one of the main touristic hubs in France. Its
magnificent chateaux, beautiful natural parks, reputed appellations, charming
towns, and world-renowned cycling paths attract millions of visitors to the
region every year. Planning a trip to the region taking into account the
number and variety of points of interest can quickly become an overwhelming
task for these tourists. The Smart Loire project aims to provide tourists with
an integrated platform to facilitate this task.

One of the key components of the Smart Loire platform is a decision support
tool that helps tourists design trips according to their profile (e.g.,
preferences, history of visits), budget and time constraints, the
characteristics of their party (e.g., number of kids and their ages), and
external elements such as the weather and the expected crowd at the touristic
sites. This tool is to be supported by optimization algorithms solving a rich
variant of a tourist trip design problem. The post-doctoral fellow is expected
to contribute to the design, implementation, and testing of these algorithms.

CONTEXT
This is a 12-month (non-renewable) position funded by the Centre Val de Loire
region through project Smart Loire. The fellow will be based at Polytech Tours
(http://polytech.univ-tours.fr) and be part of the ROOT research group
(https://li.univ-tours.fr/teams/root/). The salary is around 2k€/month (net).
It includes social security (health, retirement, etc.) and paid vacations. The
start date can be set at any time between Jul. 2018 and Dec. 2018, according
to the selected candidate’s preference.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS
The ideal applicant holds a Ph.D. in computer science, applied mathematics,
operations research, or related areas; has a publication record including
talks in top level conferences and ISI-indexed journals; and is able to
communicate comfortably in English. Knowledge of French is only necessary for
making life more pleasant in France but not professionally required. The
candidate should have advanced programming skills in C++ or Java. Basic
knowledge of databases, SQL, XML, and geographical information systems is a
plus. Previous experience on tourist trip design problems, routing problems in
general, or optimal path problems is desired but not mandatory.

CONTACT
Interested applicants should contact Dr. Jorge E. Mendoza (jorge.mendoza@univ-
tours.fr) and Dr. Yannick Kergosien (yannick.kergosien@univ-tours.fr),
attaching to the email: a cover letter, an up-to-date CV, a PDF copy of their
Ph.D. dissertation and/or articles published in academic journals (up to 3),
and the name and contact information of 2 professional references. Please use
the tag “[Smart Loire] application” as the subject of the email. The deadline
for applications is May 1, 2018.