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Dr Keshav Dahal
MOSAIC Research Centre
School of Informatics
University of Bradford
Bradford, West Yorkshire
BD7 1DP,  UK
Room: Horton A3.08
www.mosaic.ac
Tel: +44 (0) 1274 234019
Fax: +44 (0) 1274 233920

k.p.dahal@bradford.ac.uk

 

University of Bradford - MOSAIC

The MOSAIC research centre at the University of Bradford was formed last year with the arrival of Professor Peter Cowling, Dr. Uwe Aickelin, Dr. Keshav Dahal and Dr. Hongnian Yu as permanent members of staff. The research centre is committed to the investigation and development of new modelling, optimisation and decision support technologies, which bridge the gap between the theory and practice of optimisation. Specific research areas are:

·      Investigation, modelling and solution of real-world scheduling and optimisation problem in partnership with commercial, scientific and governmental collaborators

·      The investigation of tailored and general purpose algorithms, heuristics, meta-heuristics, evolutionary algorithms and hyper-heuristics

·      The investigations and applications of optimisation and simulation models for real-world problems, using techniques including mathematical programming, graphs, Petri nets and object-oriented software methodologies

·      The development of flexible and easy to use decision support technologies (e.g., modelling languages, object libraries, graphical user interfaces)

Members of the MOSAIC research centre have been at the forefront of research in the area with internationally recognised expertise on a wide range of optimisation techniques and their applications to real-world problems. In addition to this, the MOSAIC centre has extensive project management expertise, a wide range of industrial & research contacts and dissemination expertise. Members of the research centre have been investigators on grants worth over £1.6 million in the last three years, with funding from EPSRC, ESRC, BBSRC, DTI and industrial sources. The MOSAIC centre is working with a number of industrial collaborators, including Innogy, Econnect, a.p.solve (British Telecom), Rolls-Royce, Nationwide Building Society, Lanner Group and Dash optimisation, and a range of Universities including Exeter University, Huddersfield University, Leeds University, Napier University, Nottingham University, Sheffield University and Strathclyde University. The members of the MOSAIC centre also have a breadth of experience in consultancy services and commercial software development.

The centre has recently recruited a post-doctoral researcher to start work on an EPSRC-funded project (GR/R92899/01). Currently it has one internal and five external RAs, and four internal and five externally supervised PhD students. The centre has ambitious expansion plans. The research centre is involved in five proposed EU Framework Programme VI consortia. The MOSAIC research centre is a member of the EPSRC funded Inter-Displinary Scheduling Network (ISN) and the European Network of Excellence in Evolutionary Computing (EvoNet).

Contribution to CARiMan

En: Environmental CARiMan

RIMROCK – RIsk Modelling of Renewable generatOrs in Competitive marKet

 

B.4.3 Activities to spread excellence

D2: Conferences, meetings and workshops

D4: Publications

 

Short description of the organisation

The Modelling Optimisation Scheduling And Intelligent Computing (MOSAIC) research centre at the University of Bradford was formed in March 2002 and currently has Professor Peter Cowling, Dr. Uwe Aickelin, Dr. Keshav Dahal and Dr. Hongnian Yu as permanent members of staff. The centre currently has one Research Assistant and eight PhD students. MOSAIC (see http://mosaic.ac for publications etc) is committed to the investigation and development of new modelling, optimisation and decision support technologies, which bridge the gap between the theory and practice of optimisation. Specific areas of expertise are the investigation of tailored and general-purpose models, algorithms, heuristics, metaheuristics and hyperheuristics. Members of the MOSAIC centre have been investigators on grants worth over £1.6 million  collaborating  with a number of industrial partners and universities.

CV of the partners

Professor Peter Cowling joined the University of Bradford in March 2002 as a Professor of Computer Science, to found the new MOSAIC research centre. His research interests include the investigation of state of the art heuristic and modelling techniques for solving complex real world scheduling problems. He has been principal investigator or co-investigator on 12 recent externally funded grants, investigating novel methods of decision support for scheduling of people and production. He sits on the EPSRC college. He has been on the programme/refereeing committee of 13 international computer science conferences over the past three years. He has published over 50 refereed journal and conference papers, and has been an investigator on grants worth over £1.1 million in the past three years. While at A. I. Systems, he was responsible for managing project teams which developed the market leading SteelPlanner range of steel scheduling decision support systems. He has project managed the development and implementation of personnel scheduling systems currently in use by Nationwide Building Society.

Dr Keshav Dahal joined the University of Bradford as a lecturer in computing in August 2002. He is a founding member of the MOSAIC research centre. Prior to this he was a research fellow within the Institute for Energy and Environment at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He obtained his PhD for research in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Strathclyde. He holds an MSc degree in Electrical Power Engineering from the University of Strathclyde, and a masters degree in Electric Power Systems from Byelorussian Polytechnic Institute in Minsk. His research interests lie in the areas of evolutionary computation, scheduling and optimisation, power systems modelling, electricity market modelling, discrete event simulation, and technical software design and development. He has been involved in a number of R&D projects funded by Scottish Power plc., Rolls-Royce plc., the European Union, the National Grid Company, Industrial  Systems and Control Ltd. and EPSRC. He has published 15 recent research papers. He has presented his research work in national and international conferences, seminars and workshops. He is also a reviewer for international journals, such as IEE Proceedings, IEEE Power Engineering Society journals, and Operations Research journal. He is a member of the Programme Committees of the Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC2001, CEC2003), Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO2002, GECCO2003). He is a Member of Institute of Electrical Engineers (MIEE).

Publications

1.      P. Cowling, G. Kendall, and E. Soubeiga (2002) Hyper-heuristics: A Tool for Rapid Prototyping in Scheduling and Optimisation, Proceedings of European Workshop on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization (EvoCOP2002), Springer.

2.      S. Cayzer and U. Aickelin (2002) On the Effects of Idiotypic Interactions for Recommendation Communities in Artificial Immune Systems, Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on ARtificial Immune Systems (ICARIS-2002), Canterbury, UK, 154-160.

3.      A. Reyes Moro, H. Yu and G. Kelleher (2002) Hybrid Heuristic Search for the Scheduling of Flexible Manufacturing Systems Using Petri Nets, IEEE Trans on Robotics and Automation, 18 (2), 240-245.

4.      Galloway S.J., Dahal K.P., Burt G.M. and McDonald J.R. (2002): "Minimizing Price-risk Exposure for Deregulated Electricity Market Participants", in Probabilistic Methods in Power Systems (PMAPS), Naples, Sept 2002, pp.831- 837 , Italy.

5.      Aldridge C.J., McKee S., McDonald J.R., Galloway S.J. and Dahal K.P. (2001): "A knowledge-based genetic algorithm for unit commitment" IEE proceedings Generation, Transmission and Distribution, 148 146-152.

6.      Dahal K.P., Burt G.M., McDonald J.R. and Moyes A. (2001): "A case study of scheduling storage tanks using a hybrid genetic algorithm" IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary computation, 5 283-294.

7.      Dahal K.P., Aldridge C.J. and McDonald J.R. (1999): "Generator maintenance scheduling using a genetic algorithm with a fuzzy evaluation function" Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 102 21-29.

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