From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by c5ff346549e7 (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40B405D5 for ; Tue, 15 Jan 2019 10:22:08 +0000 (UTC) X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="5.56,481,1539640800"; d="scan'208,217";a="364127735" Received: from sympa.inria.fr ([193.51.193.213]) by mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 15 Jan 2019 11:21:58 +0100 Received: by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix, from userid 20132) id 6A9797FFD1; Tue, 15 Jan 2019 11:21:58 +0100 (CET) Received: from mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.104]) by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPS id A25C67FEFC; Tue, 15 Jan 2019 11:21:14 +0100 (CET) X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="5.56,481,1539640800"; d="scan'208,217";a="291974091" Received: from omicron.inria.fr ([138.96.204.29]) by mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384; 15 Jan 2019 11:20:54 +0100 From: "LIQUORI@INRIA" Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="Apple-Mail=_CAB72DA2-46F0-4FF2-9553-610A6D731E99" Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 12.2 \(3445.102.3\)) Message-Id: Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2019 11:20:53 +0100 Cc: "LIQUORI@INRIA" To: caml-list@inria.fr, coq-club@inria.fr X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.3445.102.3) X-Validation-by: luigi.liquori@inria.fr Subject: [Caml-list] =?UTF-8?Q?OFFER_CIFRE_Ph=2ED=2E_thesis_Accenture_Labs?= =?UTF-8?Q?_Sophia_Antipolis_and_Inria_Sophia-Antipolis_Me=CC=81diterrane?= =?UTF-8?Q?=CC=81e=2C_Kairos_Team?= Reply-To: "LIQUORI@INRIA" X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Sequence: 17301 Errors-to: caml-list-owner@inria.fr Precedence: list Precedence: bulk Sender: caml-list-request@inria.fr X-no-archive: yes List-Id: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: --Apple-Mail=_CAB72DA2-46F0-4FF2-9553-610A6D731E99 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 [Apologies for cross-posting; please circulate] =3D=3D=3D OFFER CIFRE Ph.D. thesis Accenture Labs Sophia Antipolis and Inria Sophia-Antipolis Me=CC=81diterran= e=CC=81e, Kairos Team Title: Smart Contract Languages for permissioned Blockchains & Distributed = Ledgers Enterprise: Accenture Labs Sophia Antipolis Research Laboratory: UCA-Inria Sophia Antipolis-Me=CC=81diterrane=CC=81e, K= airos Team, Where: Sophia Antipolis 06903, France Location: Accenture Labs Sophia and Inria Sophia Antipolis Me=CC=81diterran= e=CC=81e, Kairos Team. Duration: 3 years Recruitment date: As soon as possible Application deadline: As soon as possible Function: 3 years PhD candidate position in Accenture Labs Sophia (CDD). Th= e position will be part time between Accenture Labs Sophia and at Inria Sop= hia Antipolis Me=CC=81diterrane=CC=81e, Kairos Team. Research topic (no confidential): Semantics of programming languages, permi= ssioned blockchain, smart contract, formal verification, distributed ledger Context: Bitcoin [1], Ethereum [2] and the increase popularity of blockchains and de= centralized distributed ledgers brought two main innovations: 1) the capabi= lity of building decentralized peer-to-peer ledgers that record and store o= rdered transactions without the need of trusted and centralized third parti= es and 2) the introduction of complex applications involving having digital= assets being directly controlled by a piece of code implementing arbitrary= rules, known as Smart Contracts [2]. Also, if the Bitcoin protocol implements a first concept of =E2=80=9CSmart = Contract=E2=80=9D [3], the terms got popular with Ethereum and with its imp= lementation of Smart Contract. The Ethereum Virtual Machine, that processes= and executes Smart Contracts, made possible the creation of Decentralized = Applications and extended the blockchain capabilities that were considered = only as digital cash system. Distributed Applications, that doesn=E2=80=99t= require a middleman to function, opens numerous opportunities: automatic s= ettlement, treasury applications, voting systems and many others. While public blockchains were getting more and more popular (and numerous) = and new platforms were proposing their implementation of Smart Contracts, m= uch of the interest in the blockchain space was going towards the use of th= e blockchain technology for the enterprise world. We saw in the recent year= s the development of different platforms that focuses on the so-called priv= ate (or permissioned) blockchain(s) and digital ledgers. Some of the permis= sioned blockchains platforms are fork of public blockchain adapted to the e= nterprise needs (e.g. Quorum) while others have been designed and built fro= m scratch (e.g. Corda, Digital Asset, Hyperledger Fabric, etc.). Almost the= totality of private blockchain(s) present their own implementation of Smar= t Contact: for example DAML [4] supported by Digital Asset, Chaincode [5] i= n Fabric, Kotlin/Java [6] supported by Corda and many others. Between public and private blockchains we are observing a wide variety of d= ifferent languages with different capabilities and limitations. Both public= and private blockchain often lack maturity and a formal semantic as they h= ave been under pressure of the sudden and rapid explosion of Blockchain pop= ularity. Research Objectives: The Ph.D. student will first focus his research on studying, understanding = and assessing the state of the art of Smart Contract Languages (SCL). The c= andidate will focus on building a multi-dimensional framework to understand= and classify SCLs landscape considering public and private blockchains. Sm= art Contracts should be evaluated considering their context and their effic= acy by taking in account a wide range of parameters (e.g. terminology, auto= mation, enforceability, semantics, security, scalability, formal verifiabil= ity, extendability, turing completeness, etc. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] ). In the second phase the candidate will focus on proposing and building exte= nsions of existing SCLs and/or proposing new SCLs and their respective exec= ution environments to overcome limitations and rigidity of existing languag= es and extend the current capabilities. As well the focus could also be ori= ented to experiment programming languages paradigms that has not been appli= ed before to Smart Contracts (e.g. typed/untyped, compiled/interpreted, obj= ect-oriented/functional, etc.). The focus should be on permissioned and pri= vate blockchains. Contacts: =EF=82=B7 Luigi Liquori, Ph.D., Research Director, Kairos Team, UCA-Inria,= luigi.liquori@inria.fr ;=20 =EF=82=B7 Giuseppe Giordano, R&D Senior Manager, Accenture Labs, giuseppe.= giordano@accenture.com ; =EF=82=B7 Luca Schiatti, R&D Associate Manager, Accenture Labs, luca.schia= tti@accenture.com ; Candidate=E2=80=99s skills and profiles: The PhD candidate should preferably have a previous training or a first res= earch experience in 2 of the following 3 areas: =E2=97=8F Semantics of programming languages and formal methods. =E2=97=8F Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers. =E2=97=8F Distributed programming and Networking. The required documents for applying are the following: =E2=97=8F CV. =E2=97=8F A motivation letter. =E2=97=8F Your degree certificates and transcripts for Bachelor and Master= (or the last 5 years if not applicable) =E2=97=8F master thesis (or equivalent) if it is already completed, or a d= escription of the work in progress, otherwise =E2=97=8F All your publications, if any (it is not expected that you have = any) =E2=97=8F Recommendation letters from the persons who supervised your Mast= er thesis (or research project or internship) About Accenture: Accenture is a leading global professional services compan= y, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consultin= g, digital, technology and operations. With 459,000 people serving clients = in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way = the world works and lives. Accenture is an influent actors in the Blockchai= n space (https://www.accenture.com/us- en/i= nsights/blockchain-index) and has been named as a leader in the newly publi= shed Blockchain Services PEAK MatrixTM Assessment 2019: Race to Make Enterp= rise Blockchain Real conducted by Everest. About Accenture Labs: Accenture Labs incubates and prototypes new concepts = through applied R&D projects that are expected to have a significant strate= gic impact on clients=E2=80=99 businesses. Our dedicated team of technologi= sts and researchers work with leaders across the company to invest in, incu= bate and deliver breakthrough ideas and solutions that help our clients cre= ate new sources of business advantage. Accenture Labs is located in seven k= ey research hubs around the world: Silicon Valley, CA; Sophia Antipolis, Fr= ance; Arlington, Virginia; Beijing, China; Bangalore, India; Herzliya, Isra= el and Dublin, Ireland. The Sophia Antipolis Accenture Labs is the Accenture Blockchain Center of E= xcellence and is leading the Blockchain R&D activities in the firm. The Sop= hia Labs is leading the way in distributed ledger technologies and blockcha= in solutions across industries and domain specialization, underpinned by th= e best underlying technologies from startups, our key alliances and from th= e open community. Current area of focus are: Distributed Identity, Decentra= lized Storage Systems and Blockchain Integration (https://www.accenture.com= /us-en/insights/blockchain/integration-ecosystems ). About Inria: Inria ( www.inria.fr ), the French nati= onal research institute for the digital sciences, promotes scientific excel= lence and technology transfer to maximize its impact. It employs 2,400 peop= le. Its 200 agile project teams, generally with academic partners, involve = more than 3,000 scientists in meeting the challenges of computer science an= d mathematics, often at the interface of other disciplines. Inria works wit= h many companies and has assisted in the creation of over 160 startups. It = strives to meet the challenges of the digital transformation of science, so= ciety and the economy. Bibliography: [1] S. Nakamoto, "Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system," [Online= ]. Available: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf . [Accessed 6 December 2018]. [2] V. Buterin, "Ethereum Whitepaper: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and= Decentralized Application Platform," [Online]. Available: https://github.c= om/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White- = Paper/f18902f4e7fb21dc92b37e8a0963eec4b3f4793a. [Accessed 6 December 2018]. [3] "Bitcoin Contract," [Online]. Available: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Co= ntract . [Accessed 6 December 2018]. [4] "The Digital Asset Platform: Non-Technical White Paper," Digital Asset= , [Online]. Available: https://hub.digitalasset.com/hubfs/Documents/Digital= %20Asset%20Platform%20-%20Non- technical%20White%20Paper.pdf. [5] "Chaincode Tutorials," Hyperledger Fabric, [Online]. Available: https:= //hyperledger- fabric.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.3= /chaincode.html . [Accessed 6 December 2018]. [6] M. Hearn, "Corda: A distributed ledger," R3 Corda, 29 November 2016. [= Online]. Available: https://www.corda.net/content/corda-technical-whitepape= r.pdf . [Acce= ssed 6 December 2018]. [7] C. D. Clark, V. A. Bakshi and L. Braine, "Smart contract templates: fo= undations, design landscape and research directions," arXiv preprint arXiv:= 1608.00771 , 2016. [8] L. Luu, D.-H. Chu, H. Olicke, P. Saxena and A. Hobor, "Making Smart Co= ntracts Smarter," Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2016/633, 2016. [9] K. Bhargavan, A. Delignat-Lavaud, C. Fournet, A. Gollamudi, G. Gonthie= r, N. Kobeissi, N. Kulatova, A. Rastogi, T. Sibut-Pinote, N. Swamy and S. Z= anella-Be=CC=81guelin, "Formal Verification of Smart Contracts: Short Paper= ," PLAS '16 Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Workshop on Programming Languages a= nd Analysis for Security, pp. 91-96 , 24 October 2016. [10] K. Delmolino, M. Arnett, A. Kosba, A. Miller and E. Shi, "Step by ste= p towards creating a safe smart contract: Lessons and insights from a crypt= ocurrency lab".Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2015/460, 2015. [11] P. Di Gianantonio, F. Honsell and L. Liquori, "Extension, A Lambda Ca= lculus of Objects with Self- Inflicted," Proceedings of OOPSLA=E2=80=9998. = ACM Press, New York, p. 166=E2=80=93178, 1998.=20 --=20 Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management and archives: https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list https://inbox.ocaml.org/caml-list Forum: https://discuss.ocaml.org/ Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs= --Apple-Mail=_CAB72DA2-46F0-4FF2-9553-610A6D731E99 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
[Apologies for cross-posting; please circu= late]

=3D=3D=3D

= OFFER CIFRE Ph.D= . thesis
Accenture Labs Sophia Antipolis and Inria Sophia-Ant= ipolis Me=CC=81diterrane=CC=81e, Kairos Team

Title: Smart Contract = Languages for permissioned Blockchains & Distributed Ledgers

=

En= terprise: Accenture Labs Sophia Antipolis
Research Laboratory= : UCA-Inria Sophia Antipolis-Me=CC=81diterrane=CC=81e, Kairos Team,
Where: Sophia Antipolis 06903, France
Location: Accent= ure Labs Sophia and Inria Sophia Antipolis Me=CC=81diterrane=CC=81e, Kairos= Team.
Duration: 3 years
Recruitment date: As s= oon as possible
Application deadline: As soon as possible
Function: 3 years PhD candidate position in Accenture Labs Sophi= a (CDD). The position will be part time between Accenture Labs Sophia and a= t Inria Sophia Antipolis Me=CC=81diterrane=CC=81e, Kairos Team.
Research topic (no confidential): Semantics of programming languages, pe= rmissioned blockchain, smart contract, formal verification, distributed led= ger
Context:

Bitcoin [1], Ethereum [2] and the increa= se popularity of blockchains and decentralized distributed ledgers brought = two main innovations: 1) the capability of building decentralized peer-to-p= eer ledgers that record and store ordered transactions without the need of = trusted and centralized third parties and 2) the introduction of complex ap= plications involving having digital assets being directly controlled by a p= iece of code implementing arbitrary rules, known as Smart Contracts [2].

Also, if the Bitcoin protocol implements a first concept of =E2=80=9C= Smart Contract=E2=80=9D [3], the terms got popular with Ethereum and with i= ts implementation of Smart Contract. The Ethereum Virtual Machine, that pro= cesses and executes Smart Contracts, made possible the creation of Decentra= lized Applications and extended the blockchain capabilities that were consi= dered only as digital cash system. Distributed Applications, that doesn=E2= =80=99t require a middleman to function, opens numerous opportunities: auto= matic settlement, treasury applications, voting systems and many others.

While public blockchains were getting more and more popular (and nume= rous) and new platforms were proposing their implementation of Smart Contra= cts, much of the interest in the blockchain space was going towards the use= of the blockchain technology for the enterprise world. We saw in the recen= t years the development of different platforms that focuses on the so-calle= d private (or permissioned) blockchain(s) and digital ledgers. Some of the = permissioned blockchains platforms are fork of public blockchain adapted to= the enterprise needs (e.g. Quorum) while others have been designed and bui= lt from scratch (e.g. Corda, Digital Asset, Hyperledger Fabric, etc.). Almo= st the totality of private blockchain(s) present their own implementation o= f Smart Contact: for example DAML [4] supported by Digital Asset, Chaincode= [5] in Fabric, Kotlin/Java [6] supported by Corda and many others.<= /p>

Between public and private blockchains we are observing a wide variety of = different languages with different capabilities and limitations. Both publi= c and private blockchain often lack maturity and a formal semantic as they = have been under pressure of the sudden and rapid explosion of Blockchain po= pularity.

=

Research Objectives:

= The Ph.D. student will first focus his research on studying, understanding = and assessing the state of the art of Smart Contract Languages (SCL). The c= andidate will focus on building a multi-dimensional framework to understand= and classify SCLs landscape considering public and private blockchains. Sm= art Contracts should be evaluated considering their context and their effic= acy by taking in account a wide range of parameters (e.g. terminology, auto= mation, enforceability, semantics, security, scalability, formal verifiabil= ity, extendability, turing completeness, etc. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] ).

In the second phase the candidate will focus on proposing and building = extensions of existing SCLs and/or proposing new SCLs and their respective = execution environments to overcome limitations and rigidity of existing lan= guages and extend the current capabilities. As well the focus could also be= oriented to experiment programming languages paradigms that has not been a= pplied before to Smart Contracts (e.g. typed/untyped, compiled/interpreted,= object-oriented/functional, etc.). The focus should be on permissioned and= private blockchains.

Contacts:

  • =EF=82=B7  Luigi Liquori, Ph.D., R= esearch Director, Kairos Team, UCA-Inria, = luigi.liquori@inria.fr; 

  • =EF=82= =B7  Giuseppe Giordano, R&D Senior Manager, Accenture Labs, <= span class=3D"" style=3D"color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">giuseppe.giordano@accenture.com;

  • =EF=82=B7  Luca Schiatti, R&D Ass= ociate Manager, Accenture Labs, luca.= schiatti@accenture.com;

    Candidate=E2=80=99s skills and p= rofiles:

    The PhD candidate should preferably have a previous traini= ng or a first research experience in 2 of the following 3 areas:

    =

    • =E2=97=8F &nbs= p;Semantics of programming languages and formal methods.

      • =E2=97=8F  Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers.

    • =E2=97=8F  Distributed programming and Networking.

      The required documents for applying are the following:

      • <= /ul>

      • =E2=97=8F =  CV.

      • =E2=97=8F  A motivation letter.<= /font>

      • =E2=97=8F  Your degree certificates and tr= anscripts for Bachelor and Master (or the last 5 years if not

        appli= cable)

      • =E2=97=8F  master thesis (or equiva= lent) if it is already completed, or a description of the work in progress,=

        otherwise

      • =E2=97=8F  All your p= ublications, if any (it is not expected that you have any)

        • <= li class=3D"">

        =E2=97=8F  Recommendation letters from the persons who sup= ervised your Master thesis (or research project

        or internship)

About Accenture: Accent= ure is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad ra= nge of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology = and operations. With 459,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countr= ies, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and liv= es. Accenture is an influent actors in the Blockchain space (https://www.accenture.com/us- en/insights/blockchain= -index) and has been named as a leader in the newly published Blockc= hain Services PEAK MatrixTM Assessment 2019: Race to Make Enterprise Blockc= hain Real conducted by Everest.

About Accenture Labs: Accenture Lab= s incubates and prototypes new concepts through applied R&D projects th= at are expected to have a significant strategic impact on clients=E2=80=99 = businesses. Our dedicated team of technologists and researchers work with l= eaders across the company to invest in, incubate and deliver breakthrough i= deas and solutions that help our clients create new sources of business adv= antage. Accenture Labs is located in seven key research hubs around the wor= ld: Silicon Valley, CA; Sophia Antipolis, France; Arlington, Virginia; Beij= ing, China; Bangalore, India; Herzliya, Israel and Dublin, Ireland.<= /p>

The Sophia Antipolis Accenture Labs is the Accenture Blockchain Center of = Excellence and is leading the Blockchain R&D activities in the firm. Th= e Sophia Labs is leading the way in distributed ledger technologies and blo= ckchain solutions across industries and domain specialization, underpinned = by the best underlying technologies from startups, our key alliances and fr= om the open community. Current area of focus are: Distributed Identity, Dec= entralized Storage Systems and Blockchain Integration (https://www.accenture.= com/us-en/insights/blockchain/integration-ecosystems).

A= bout Inria: Inria ( = www.inria.fr ), = the French national research institute for the digital sciences, promotes s= cientific excellence and technology transfer to maximize its impact. It emp= loys 2,400 people. Its 200 agile project teams, generally with academic par= tners, involve more than 3,000 scientists in meeting the challenges of comp= uter science and mathematics, often at the interface of other disciplines. = Inria works with many companies and has assisted in the creation of over 16= 0 startups. It strives to meet the challenges of the digital transformation= of science, society and the economy.

B= ibliography:

  1. [1]  S. Nakamoto, "Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash sy= stem," [Online]. Available: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf. [Accessed 6 December 2018= ].

  2. [2]  V. Buterin, "Ethereum Whitepaper= : A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform,"= [Online]. Available: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White- P= aper/f18902f4e7fb21dc92b37e8a0963eec4b3f4793a. [Accessed 6 December 2018].<= /font>

  3. [3]  "Bitcoin Contract," [Online]. Availab= le: https:/= /en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contract. [Accessed 6 December 2018].

  4. [4]  "The Digital Asset Platform: Non-Technical White P= aper," Digital Asset, [Online]. Available: https://hub.digitalasset.com/hubfs/Documents/Digital%20Asset%20Platfo= rm%20-%20Non- technical%20White%20Paper.pdf.

  5. [5]  "Chaincode Tutorials," Hyperledger Fabric, [Online]. Avail= able: https://hyperledger-=  fabric.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.3/chaincode.html. [= Accessed 6 December 2018].

  6. [6]  M. Hearn, = "Corda: A distributed ledger," R3 Corda, 29 November 2016. [Online]. Availa= ble: https://www.corda.net/content/corda-technical-whitepaper= .pdf. [Accessed 6 December 2018].

  7. [7]  = ;C. D. Clark, V. A. Bakshi and L. Braine, "Smart contract templates: founda= tions, design landscape and research directions," arXiv preprint arXiv:1608= .00771 , 2016.

  8. [8]  L. Luu, D.-H. Chu, H. = Olicke, P. Saxena and A. Hobor, "Making Smart Contracts Smarter," Cryptolog= y ePrint Archive, Report 2016/633, 2016.

  9. [9] &n= bsp;K. Bhargavan, A. Delignat-Lavaud, C. Fournet, A. Gollamudi, G. Gonthier= , N. Kobeissi, N. Kulatova, A. Rastogi, T. Sibut-Pinote, N. Swamy and S. Za= nella-Be=CC=81guelin, "Formal Verification of Smart Contracts: Short Paper,= " PLAS '16 Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Workshop on Programming Languages an= d Analysis for Security, pp. 91-96 , 24 October 2016.

  10. [10]  K. Delmolino, M. Arnett, A. Kosba, A. Miller and E. Shi, = "Step by step towards creating a safe smart contract: Lessons and insights = from a cryptocurrency lab".Cryptology ePrint Archive, Report 2015/460, 2015= .

  11. [11]  P. Di Gianantonio, F. Honsell and = L. Liquori, "Extension, A Lambda Calculus of Objects with Self- Inflicted,"= Proceedings of OOPSLA=E2=80=9998. ACM Press, New York, p. 166=E2=80=93178,= 1998. 


<= /font>
= --Apple-Mail=_CAB72DA2-46F0-4FF2-9553-610A6D731E99--