Advanced Speech Technology Lab. at NICT, Japan has two open positions for *Postdoctoral Researchers*.

## ABOUT NICT-UCRI (NICT Universal Communication Research Institute) NICT is a Japanese national research institute that focuses on information and communications technology. NICT employs 900 researchers/engineers/staffs, and has ten research centers. NICT-UCRI is one of them, and is situated 30km south of Kyoto, a historical city of Japan.

## ABOUT THE POSITIONS - The positions are offered at a one-year basis, and are renewable until March 2021. - The salary will depend on qualifications and experience. - The successful candidates will have access to our software engines and large-scale corpora for spoken dialogue studies.

## HOW TO APPLY http://www.nict.go.jp/en/general_affairs/employment/index-e-top2016-10.html

Closing date: Jan 12, 2017.

## POSITIONS (1) Reference: 2017R-30 * Research Topic: "Spoken Language Understanding and Motion Generation Using Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Information for Domestic Service Robots"

* Abstract: The objective of this project is to investigate spoken language understanding methods using linguistic and non-linguistic information for domestic service robots. As a successful candidate, you will focus on applying machine learning methods to train probabilistic models with large-scale linguistic and non-linguistic data obtained from physical/cyber spaces, as well as on language understanding, dialogue, and motion generation that are dependent on the situations and users.

* Minimum Qualifications - Ph.D. in computer science, informatics, robotics, or a related field - Strong publication record in the fields related to robot learning, machine learning, spoken language processing, computer vision, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence - Good communication skills in spoken and written English * Preferred Qualifications - Extensive programming skills in Python/JavaScript/MATLAB/C++ - Independent and persistent personality, as well as a team player

* Details http://www2.nict.go.jp/employment/tempstaffinfo/exr-e/H29/2017R-30.pdf

(2) Reference: 2017R-29 * Research topic: "Scene understanding and situated dialogues with robots"

* Abstract: The objective of this project is to investigate scene understanding and situated dialogues as the fundamental spoken dialogue technologies for receptionist agents or service robots that can communicate in multiple languages. As a successful candidate, you will focus on scene understanding in multiparty conversations such as the estimation of speakers' positions and roles, as well as spoken dialogue systems with situated spoken language understanding and recommendation capabilities.

* Minimum Qualifications - Ph.D. in computer science, signal processing, robotics, or a related field - Strong publication record in the fields related to robot audition, multimodal interaction, spoken language processing, dialogue systems, machine learning, computer vision, human-computer interaction, or artificial intelligence - Good communication skills in spoken and written English * Preferred Qualifications - Extensive programming skills in Python, C++, or others - Independent and persistent personality, as well as a team player

* Details http://www2.nict.go.jp/employment/tempstaffinfo/exr-e/H29/2017R-29.pdf

***************************************************************** Komei Sugiura, Ph.D. Senior Researcher, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology

3-5 Hikaridai, Seika, Soraku, Kyoto 619-0289, Japan Email: k***********a@nict.go.jp URL: http://komeisugiura.jp/index_en.html *****************************************************************