Department of Computing - University of Bradford

Professor Peter I Cowling

Location: N/A
Category: Professor
T: +44(0)1274 234005
F: +44(0)1274 234054
W: http://www.mosaic.brad.ac.uk
E: P.I.Cowling *at* Bradford.ac.uk
Publications
Research: MOSAIC
Research: BUGRD
Qualifications: MA Oxon. DPhil Oxon.
Leader of the MOSAIC research group, co-leader of the BUGRD research group
Associate Dean (Research)
Knowledge Transfer Champion

BIOGRAPHY

My main research interests lie in Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly heuristics, metaheuristics, hyperheuristics and exact/heuristic hybrids. These techniques are used for constrained optimisation and agent control, particularly in games and in complex real-world planning and scheduling problems. I have over 20 years experience in research into new modelling, optimisation and decision support technologies, which bridge the gap between the theory and practice of optimisation, using artificial intelligence and operational research techniques. These approaches have been used in a variety of real world problems involving the planning and scheduling of personnel and production. I work with several companies in order to pursue these research aims. I am also deeply interested in the use of games as a testbed for the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). I lead the Modelling Optimisation Scheduling And Intelligent Computing (MOSAIC) research group here at Bradford. Outside academia, I have worked as an investment banker, as a systems analyst for an insurance company and as a commercial software consultant, responsible for the development of a market-leading range of steel scheduling decision support systems. I have held positions at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, and the University of Nottingham in the UK, prior to joining the University of Bradford. I remain active in consultancy, having recently become a director of Cowling Scheduling Consultants Ltd. which make systems for automatically timetabling training courses for large service organisations.

GRANTS:

Applications submitted and currently under consideration
Several grant applications are currently under consideration for funding from EPSRC, DTI, EU and industrial sources.
Current, and significant recent, funded projects
P.I.Cowling, K.P. Dahal, Knowledge Tranfer Partnership to investigate scheduling and inventory handling decision support systems, funded by the Department for Trade and Industry and Universal AV Ltd.
Euro-ASia CollaboraTions and NetWorking in Information Engineering System Technology (EAST-WEST), funded by the European Union's Framework 6 programme
Development of a teaching/research platform for AI in Games, Funded by Microsoft Ltd.
Reactive Robust Scheduling of a large Mobile Workforce, Jointly funded by a Smith Faraday EPSRC CASE studentship and @Road, Ltd. (a Trimble Company)
Using real-time information for effective dynamic scheduling. Funded by EPSRC and Dash Associates Ltd. Djamila Sadaoui is employed on this project.
Representational design principles to humanise automated systems. Funded by the ESRC/EPSRC People At the Centre of Communication and Information Technologies (PACCIT) programme. Joint with the University of Nottingham and Queen's University, Belfast.
An investigation of hyperheuristic methods. Funded by EPSRC. Joint with Napier University and the University of Nottingham.
A case-based approach to heuristic selection for timetabling. Funded by EPSRC. Joint with the University of Nottingham.
Case-based reasoning in personnel rostering. Funded by EPSRC. Joint with the University of Nottingham.
Stock cutting approaches using advanced heuristic methods. Funded by the Teaching Company Directorate and Esprit Automation Ltd. Joint with the University of Nottingham.
Supply chain logistics management. Funded by the Teaching Company Directorate and Meads Ltd. Joint with the University of Nottingham.
An Interdisciplinary Scheduling network. Funded by EPSRC. Joint with several UK Universities.

Awards and Recognition:

2007 “Best Paper” nomination at EvoCOP 2007 (Springer LNCS vol. 4446) (3 papers nominated for prizes out of 81 submitted, with 21 accepted for publication).
2006 “Best Paper” nomination at EvoCOP 2006 (Springer LNCS vol. 3906) (3 papers nominated for prizes out of 77 submitted, with 24 accepted for publication).
2003 “Best Student Paper Award” finalist for my PhD student, Djamila Ouelhadj, at the IEEE ICRA2003 conference.
2001 “Best paper” award at the EvoCOP 2001 workshop, (Springer LNCS vol. 2037).

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES:

• Programme Co-Chair of the Ninth European Conference on Evolutionary Computation and Metaheuristics in Combinatorial Optimization (EvoCOP 2009), Tuebingen (Germany), 15-17 April 2009
• Member of the review board of Applied Intelligence 2006-

Member of the programme/refereeing committees for:
o European Conference on Evolutionary Computation and Metaheuristics in Combinatorial Optimization (EvoCOP): 2009 (Germany), 2008 (Italy), (2007 (Spain), 2006 (Hungary), 2005 (Switzerland), 2004 (Portugal), 2003 (UK), 2002 (Eire), 2001 (Italy)
o IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC): 2008 (Hong Kong), 2007 (Singapore), 2006 (Canada), 2005 (UK), 2002 (USA), 2001 (Korea), 2000 (USA), 1999 (USA)
o Parallel Problem Solving from Nature 2008 (Germany), 2000 (France)
o Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling (PATAT) 2008 (Canada),2006 (Czech Republic), 2004 (USA), 2002 (Belgium), 2000 (Germany)
o IEEE Symp. on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) 2008 (Australia), 2007 (USA)
o AAAI Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO): 2006 (USA), 2005 (USA), 2004 (USA), 2003 (USA), 2002 (USA), 2001 (USA)
o GAME-ON-NA 2006, USA
o DIgital Games Research Association conference (DIGRA 2005, Canada)
o Computer Games: AI and Mobile Systems (CGAIMS'2005, USA)
o Game Design and Technology Workshop (GDTW): 2005 (UK), 2006 (UK)
o Computer Games: Artificial Intelligence, Design and Education (CGAIDE 2004, UK)
o Multidisciplinary International Conference on Scheduling: Theory and Applications (MISTA2003, UK)
o International Conference on Software, Knowledge, Information Management and Applications(SKIMA) 2008 (Nepal), 2006 (Thailand)
o Parallel Computing Systems 1999 (PCS99, Mexico)

External examining:
I am external examiner for undergraduate degrees at the University of York and Manchester. I have acted as external PhD examiner for PhDs at the Universities of London (Imperial College IC-PARC), Sheffield (Engineering), Leeds (Computing), Sussex (COGS), Essex (Computer Science), Reading (Cybernetics) and Nottingham Trent University (Computing).

Consultancy:
Responsible for research, development and implementation of a system for scheduling the staff of Nationwide Building Society.
Responsible for research and development of a market-leading range of steel planning and scheduling systems.

Invited Talks:
• “Playing Chess like HAL”, Headingley Café Scientifique, Leeds, 7th July 2008.
• “Recent Research Developments in Artificial Intelligence for Games”, International Conference on Software, Knowledge, Information Management and Applications (SKIMA), 18th-21st March, 2008, Kathmandu, Nepal.
• “What can Universities and the Games Industry do for each other?”, Yorkshire Forward Game Republic meeting, Feb 2007.
• “Hyperheuristics”, 7th EU/MEeting on Adaptive, Self-Adaptive, and Multi-Level Metaheuristics, University of Málaga, Spain, November 2006.
• “How can we get more from optimisation?”, University of Akureyri, Iceland, December 2004.
• “Can computers really help us to optimise productivity?”, University of Exeter, June 2004.
• “Recent advances in AI, Scheduling and Optimisation”, @Road, Ltd., April 2004.
• “Hyperheuristics and other tools which make optimisation easier to use”, Yorkshire and Humberside Operational Research Group (YHORG) meeting, University of Leeds, November 2003
• “The Potential for Wider Use of Optimisation in Packaging” Faraday Packaging Centre Briefing, October 2003, Leeds

RESEARCH STAFF:

Ruohui Yang (Inventory Management of Operations Scheduling at Universal AV Services, Bradford - Funded by DTI and Universal AV Services)

RESEARCH STUDENTS:

Nic Colledge (Dynamic Work Team Scheduling - ESPRC/@ROAD (a Trimble Company) CASE PhD)
Stephen Remde (Hyperheuristics for work team scheduling - ESPRC/@ROAD (a Trimble Company) CASE PhD)
Baolei Bai (Artificial Intelligence for Games)
Wasim Siddiqui (Artificial Intelligence for RoboCup - external)
Rod Baker (Artificial Intelligence for Real-Time Strategy Games - EPSRC funded)
Tom Randall (Artificial Intelligence for Real-Time Strategy Games - EPSRC funded)
Sanat Kumar Bista (Artificial Intelligence for trust modelling)
Mohammad Azzeh (Artificial Intelligence for software engineering)
Yousef AlQasrawi (Artificial Intelligence for software engineering)

Recently Graduated:
Konstantin Chakhlevitch (PhD in Hyperheuristics for Personnel Scheduling)
Fadi Thabtah (PhD in Associative Data Mining for Hyperheuristics and Other Applications)
Munir Naveed Hussain (MPhil in Artificial Neural Network Learning for the Virus Game)
Allison Allain (MSc by Research AI for Games)
R. Tyler Stroud (MSc by Research AI


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