Neil Urquhart
Neil Urquhart

Dr Neil Urquhart

Lecturer

Biography

Dr Neil Urquhart is a lecturer within the School of Computing. After studying computing as an undergraduate he worked as a software developer and systems administrator in the printing and packaging sector.

He returned to academia and completed a PhD in 2002 which examined the use of nature inspired techniques and software agents to construct and optimise delivery networks.

Since 2002 he has worked as a lecturer within the School Of Computing at Edinburgh Napier where he is currently the programme leader for Computing Science.

Research Areas

News

Events

Esteem

Conference Organising Activity

  • Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) 2010
  • Meta-heuristics stream chair for YOR17.
  • Two CAVES members have papers accepted at EvoSTAR Conference to be held in Copenhagen in April
  • Dr Neil Urquhart and Kevin Sim are to chair the second edition of EvoINDUSTRY at EvoStar 2014 in Baeza Spain.
  • Neil Urquhart to chair Meta-Heuristics stream at YOR19
  • Co-Chair EvoStim 2011
  • Edinburgh Napier Staff Conference 2013 (member of conference planning group)

 

Editorial Activity

  • New book on automated scheduling and planning, being published by Springer due for release late 2013.

 

Media Activity

  • Optimisation@IIDI featured on LogisticsManager.Com

 

Date


79 results

The British Rail Total Operations Processing System And the Birth of Telematics

Journal Article
Urquhart, N. (in press)
The British Rail Total Operations Processing System And the Birth of Telematics. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, https://doi.org/10.1109/mahc.2024.3393611
Contemporary mobility is almost universally supported by telecommunications networks and computing facilities known collectively as telematics. This has allowed closer integ...

Evolving Staff Training Schedules using an Extensible Fitness Function and a Domain Specific Language

Conference Proceeding
Urquhart, N., & Hunter, K. (2024)
Evolving Staff Training Schedules using an Extensible Fitness Function and a Domain Specific Language. In S. Smith, J. Correia, & C. Cintrano (Eds.), Applications of Evolutionary Computation (83–97). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56852-7_6
When using a meta-heuristic based optimiser in some industrial scenarios, there may be a need to amend the objective function as time progresses to encompass constraints that ...

The stuff we swim in: Regulation alone will not lead to justifiable trust in AI

Journal Article
Powers, S. T., Linnyk, O., Guckert, M., Hannig, J., Pitt, J., Urquhart, N., …Weber, T. (2023)
The stuff we swim in: Regulation alone will not lead to justifiable trust in AI. IEEE technology & society magazine, 42(4), 95-106. https://doi.org/10.1109/MTS.2023.3341463
Information technology is used ubiquitously and has become an integral part of everyday life. With the ever increasing pervasiveness and persuasiveness of Artificial Intellige...

Nature Inspired Optimisation for Delivery Problems: From Theory to the Real World

Book
Urquhart, N. (2022)
Nature Inspired Optimisation for Delivery Problems: From Theory to the Real World. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98108-2
This book explains classic routing and transportation problems and solutions, before offering insights based on successful real-world solutions. The chapters in Part I introdu...

An Empirical Evaluation of a Novel Domain-Specific Language -- Modelling Vehicle Routing Problems with Athos

Journal Article
Hoffmann, B., Urquhart, N., Chalmers, K., & Guckert, M. (2022)
An Empirical Evaluation of a Novel Domain-Specific Language -- Modelling Vehicle Routing Problems with Athos. Empirical Software Engineering, 27, Article 180. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-022-10210-w
Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are a popular approach among software engineers who demand for a tailored development interface. A DSL-based approach allows to encapsulate th...

Multi-Agent Modelling Notation (MAMN): A multi-layered graphical modelling notation for agent-based simulations

Conference Proceeding
Nguyen, J., Powers, S., Urquhart, N., Farrenkopf, T., & Guckert, M. (in press)
Multi-Agent Modelling Notation (MAMN): A multi-layered graphical modelling notation for agent-based simulations.
Cause-effect graphs have been applied in non agent-based simulations, where they are used to model chained causal relations between input parameters and system behaviour measu...

Modelling the Impact of Individual Preferences on Traffic Policies

Journal Article
Nguyen, J., Powers, S., Urquhart, N., Farrenkopf, T., & Guckert, M. (2022)
Modelling the Impact of Individual Preferences on Traffic Policies. SN Computer Science, 3(5), Article 365. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-022-01253-3
Urban traffic is a system always prone to overload, often approaching breakdown during rush hour times. Well adjusted modifications of traffic policies, with appropriate inter...

Using Semantic Technology to Model Persona for Adaptable Agents

Conference Proceeding
Nguyen, J., Farrenkopf, T., Guckert, M., Powers, S., & Urquhart, N. (2021)
Using Semantic Technology to Model Persona for Adaptable Agents. In ECMS 2021, 35th Proceedings (172-178). https://doi.org/10.7148/2021
In state of the art research a growing interest in the application of agent models for the simulation of road traffic can be observed. Software agents are particularly suitabl...

An overview of agent-based traffic simulators

Journal Article
Nguyen, J., Powers, S. T., Urquhart, N., Farrenkopf, T., & Guckert, M. (2021)
An overview of agent-based traffic simulators. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 12, Article 100486. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2021.100486
Individual traffic significantly contributes to climate change and environmental degradation. Therefore, innovation in sustainable mobility is gaining importance as it helps t...

Modelling Individual Preferences to Study and Predict Effects of Traffic Policies

Conference Proceeding
Nguyen, J., Powers, S., Urquhart, N., Farrenkopf, T., & Guckert, M. (2021)
Modelling Individual Preferences to Study and Predict Effects of Traffic Policies. In Advances in Practical Applications of Agents, Multi-Agent Systems, and Social Good. The PAAMS Collection 19th International Conference, PAAMS 2021, Salamanca, Spain, October 6–8, 2021, Proceedings (163-175). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85739-4_14
Traffic can be viewed as a complex adaptive system in which systemic patterns arise as emergent phenomena. Global behaviour is a result of behavioural patterns of a large set ...

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