Improving computer-based software to support climate change related crisis management

This internship is offered by the IMT Mines Albi’s Industrial Engineering Center.

IMT Mines Albi, a French Grande Ecole

IMT Mines Albi is a school of the French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Industry, and is part of Institut Mines-Télécom, a French federal institute of technological universities of science and management.

Institut Mines-Télécom (IMT) comprises 8 public graduate schools, 2 subsidiary schools and 13 associated or affiliated schools, with a total of over 13,600 students. Each year, Institut Mines-Télécom awards more than 4,500 degrees, with a net employment rate for engineering/management graduates (at 6 months) of almost 95%.

29% of students on IMT Master’s and PhD courses are international students. Institut Mines-Télécom has global influence thanks to its diverse network of academic partners. IMT maintains close relations with leading international universities (Technische Universität München (TUM) in Germany, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Indore), Hankuk University of Foreign Studies...).

Institut Mines-Télécom is a member of the EULiST consortium, European Universities Linking Society and Technology. EULiST brings together ten partners with complementary strengths in the engineering sciences, social sciences and humanities. EULiST aims to develop new solutions adapted to the ecological transition, to respond to the main socioeconomic challenges and build a sustainable future together, with a strong emphasis on technology at the service of society and the transitions it is making.

Industrial Engineering Center, the lab

At a time when businesses are subject to major instability, the emergence of more robust, agile and resilient organizations is essential. IMT Mines Albi’s Industrial Engineering Center develops decision support methods and tools adapted to these uncertain, heterogeneous and collaborative contexts.

The Industrial Engineering Center has a team of faculty members specializing in computer science and industrial engineering, enabling it to develop original and innovative approaches to decision support. Its expertise lies essentially in mobilizing, combining and enriching symbolic and connectionist artificial intelligence techniques and technologies to address concrete industrial decision-making problems in uncertain environments which are subject to variability, disruption and even crisis. A wide range of applications are studied, including production and logistics systems, hospital systems and crisis management systems

Foreword: Following a number of unsuitable applications, we would like to stress that:

• This is not an Artificial Intelligence or Data Analysis internship. This is a Model-Driven Engineering focused internship.
• Failing to develop your answer to each of the 3 questions will automatically lead to a rejection.

Topic:

This internship represents the first step towards coupling two research-based software systems: R-IO Suite (a software suite supporting inter-organizational collaboration) and GAMA (a multi-agent simulation software suite). This coupling aims to feed GAMA simulations with crisis situation models created by R-IO Suite while providing R-IO Suite with data from simulations built and run by GAMA.

This proposal will focus on the modelling part applied to a case study (flooding) in Oslo (Norway).
The purpose of the model is to explore the potential impacts of a mitigation plan on the simulations that can be built and run by GAMA. To fit this goal, the model will be co-designed with the IMT partner of the MEDiate project, the R-IO Suite software research & development engineers, and the IRD partner of the ATEsT project (expert on the GAMA platform). The model will be implemented using the R-IO Suite software.

Context:

This internship is part of the European Horizon project MEDiate (DOI: 10.3030/101074075) and the French ANR project ATEsT (ANR-24-CE39-5449). It will be one of a three-internship program to promote innovative tools to support crisis management handle emergent risks due to climate change.

As part of the ATEsT project's future development, candidates to this proposal may apply afterwards to a PhD thesis or an IR short-term position to follow up on research started during this internship. The ATEsT project is dedicated to improving computer-based software to support crisis management and better prepare emergency plans for stakeholders and citizens facing unforeseen and novel risks in France and Vietnam.

Internship’s objectives:
1. Design and implement a case study model based on the first version of the MEDiate Case study in R-IO Suite to ease the coupling between R-IO Suite and GAMA;
2. Build a conceptual bridge between R-IO Suite metamodel and the test case agent-based model.

Deliverables:
Updated R-IO Suite case study and a paper submitted to a computer science conference, including a brief literature review on existing couplings between emergency decision support systems and simulation tools.

Required Skills:

• Complex systems modelling;
• UML modelling;
• Systems analysis;

• English proficiency. 

A strong interest in applied computer science, risk management, programming, and software architecture is expected.

French proficiency is a plus!