All Outputs (50)

Evolving Staff Training Schedules using an Extensible Fitness Function and a Domain Specific Language (2024)
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 did not exist during the development phase of the software. We propose a me... Read More about Evolving Staff Training Schedules using an Extensible Fitness Function and a Domain Specific Language.

Extending AGADE Traffic To Simulate Auctions In Shared Mobility Services (2023)
Conference Proceeding
Nguyen, J., Powers, S., Urquhart, N., Eckerle, D., Farrenkopf, T., & Guckert, M. (2023). Extending AGADE Traffic To Simulate Auctions In Shared Mobility Services. In ECMS2023 Proceedings

With the number of individual vehicles meeting the capacity limit of urban road infrastructure, the deployment of new mobility services may help to achieve more efficient use of available resources and prevent critical overload. It may be observed th... Read More about Extending AGADE Traffic To Simulate Auctions In Shared Mobility Services.

Improving the size and quality of MAP-Elites containers via multiple emitters and decoders for urban logistics (2023)
Conference Proceeding
Urquhart, N., & Hart, E. (2023). Improving the size and quality of MAP-Elites containers via multiple emitters and decoders for urban logistics. In Applications of Evolutionary Computation – 26th International Conference, EvoApplications 2023 (35-52). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30229-9

Quality-diversity (QD) methods such as MAP-Elites have been demonstrated to be useful in the domain of combinatorial optimisation due to their ability to generate a large set of solutions to a single-objective problem that are diverse with respect to... Read More about Improving the size and quality of MAP-Elites containers via multiple emitters and decoders for urban logistics.

Multi-Agent Modelling Notation (MAMN): A multi-layered graphical modelling notation for agent-based simulations (2022)
Conference Proceeding
Nguyen, J., Powers, S., Urquhart, N., Farrenkopf, T., & Guckert, M. (2022). Multi-Agent Modelling Notation (MAMN): A multi-layered graphical modelling notation for agent-based simulations. In PRIMA 2022: Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems - 24th International Conference, Valencia, Spain, November 16–18, 2022, Proceedings (640-649). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21203-1_42

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 measured by appropriate indicators. This can be useful for the analysis and inte... Read More about Multi-Agent Modelling Notation (MAMN): A multi-layered graphical modelling notation for agent-based simulations.

Using Semantic Technology to Model Persona for Adaptable Agents (2021)
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 suitable for the representation of travellers and their goal-oriented behaviour. A... Read More about Using Semantic Technology to Model Persona for Adaptable Agents.

Using AGADE Traffic to Analyse Purpose-driven Travel Behaviour (2021)
Conference Proceeding
Nguyen, J., Powers, S. T., Urquhart, N., Farrenkopf, T., & Guckert, M. (2021). Using AGADE Traffic to Analyse Purpose-driven Travel Behaviour. 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 (363-366). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85739-4_33

AGADE Traffic is an agent-based traffic simulator that can be used to analyse purpose-driven travel behaviour of individuals that leads to the emergence of systemic patterns in mobility. The simulator uses semantic technology to model knowledge of in... Read More about Using AGADE Traffic to Analyse Purpose-driven Travel Behaviour.

Modelling Individual Preferences to Study and Predict Effects of Traffic Policies (2021)
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 of individual travellers. However, available traffic simulation models lack... Read More about Modelling Individual Preferences to Study and Predict Effects of Traffic Policies.

Optimisation Algorithms for Parallel Machine Scheduling Problems with Setup Times (2021)
Conference Proceeding
Kittel, F., Enekel, J., Guckert, M., Holznigenkemper, J., & Urquhart, N. (2021). Optimisation Algorithms for Parallel Machine Scheduling Problems with Setup Times. In GECCO '21: Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion (131-132). https://doi.org/10.1145/3449726.3459487

Parallel machine scheduling is a problem of high practical relevance for the manufacturing industry. In this paper, we address a variant in which an unweighted combination of earliness, tardiness and setup times aggregated in a single objective funct... Read More about Optimisation Algorithms for Parallel Machine Scheduling Problems with Setup Times.

Real Time Optimisation of Traffic Signals to Prioritise Public Transport (2021)
Conference Proceeding
Plötz, P., Wittpohl, M., & Urquhart, N. (2021). Real Time Optimisation of Traffic Signals to Prioritise Public Transport. In Applications of Evolutionary Computation: 24th International Conference, EvoApplications 2021 (162-177). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72699-7_11

This paper examines the optimisation of traffic signals to prioritise public transportation (busses) in real time. A novel representation for the traffic signal prioritisation problem is introduced. Through the novel representation a creative evoluti... Read More about Real Time Optimisation of Traffic Signals to Prioritise Public Transport.

Automated, Explainable Rule Extraction from MAP-Elites archives (2021)
Conference Proceeding
Urquhart, N., Höhl, S., & Hart, E. (2021). Automated, Explainable Rule Extraction from MAP-Elites archives. In Applications of Evolutionary Computation: 24th International Conference, EvoApplications 2021 (258-272). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72699-7_17

Quality-diversity(QD) algorithms that return a large archive of elite solutions to a problem provide insights into how high-performing solutions are distributed throughout a feature-space defined by a user — they are often described as illuminating t... Read More about Automated, Explainable Rule Extraction from MAP-Elites archives.

Athos: An Extensible DSL for Model Driven Traffic and Transport Simulation (2020)
Conference Proceeding
Hoffmann, B., Urquhart, N., Chalmers, K., & Guckert, M. (2020). Athos: An Extensible DSL for Model Driven Traffic and Transport Simulation.

Multi-agent systems may be considered appropriate tools for simulating complex systems such as those based around traffic and transportation networks. Modelling traffic participants as agents can reveal relevant patterns of traffic flow. Upsurging tr... Read More about Athos: An Extensible DSL for Model Driven Traffic and Transport Simulation.

An Illumination Algorithm Approach to Solving the Micro-Depot Routing Problem (2019)
Conference Proceeding
Urquhart, N., Hoehl, S., & Hart, E. (2019). An Illumination Algorithm Approach to Solving the Micro-Depot Routing Problem. In GECCO '19: Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion (1347-1355). https://doi.org/10.1145/3321707.3321767

An increasing emphasis on reducing pollution and congestion in city centres combined with an increase in online shopping is changing the ways in which logistics companies address vehicle routing problems (VRP). We introduce the {\em micro-depot}-VRP,... Read More about An Illumination Algorithm Approach to Solving the Micro-Depot Routing Problem.

Increasing Trust in Meta-Heuristics by Using MAP-Elites (2019)
Conference Proceeding
Urquhart, N., Guckert, M., & Powers, S. (2019). Increasing Trust in Meta-Heuristics by Using MAP-Elites. In GECCO '19 Companion (1345-1348). https://doi.org/10.1145/3319619.3326816

Intelligent AI systems using approaches containing emergent elements often encounter acceptance problems. Results do not get sufficiently explained and the procedure itself can not be fully retraced because the flow of control is dependent on stochas... Read More about Increasing Trust in Meta-Heuristics by Using MAP-Elites.

Simulating Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problems with Athos (2019)
Conference Proceeding
Hoffman, B., Guckert, M., Chalmers, K., & Urquhart, N. (2019). Simulating Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problems with Athos. In Proceedings of the 33rd International ECMS Conference on Modelling and Simulation ECMS 2019 (296-302). https://doi.org/10.7148/2019-0296

Complex routing problems, such as vehicle routing problems with additional constraints, are both hard to solve and hard to express in a form that is accessible to the human expert and at the same time processible by a computer system that is supposed... Read More about Simulating Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problems with Athos.

An Agent Based Technique for Improving Multi-Stakeholder Optimisation Problems (2019)
Conference Proceeding
Urquhart, N., & Powers, S. T. (2019). An Agent Based Technique for Improving Multi-Stakeholder Optimisation Problems. In PAAMS 2019: Advances in Practical Applications of Survivable Agents and Multi-Agent Systems: The PAAMS Collection: vol 1 – Main track and Demos proceedings (285-289). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24209-1_32

We present an agent based framework for improving multi-stakeholder optimisation problems, which we define as optimisation problems where the solution is utilised by a number of stakeholders who have their own local preferences. We explore our ideas... Read More about An Agent Based Technique for Improving Multi-Stakeholder Optimisation Problems.

Quantifying the effects of increasing user choice in MAP-Elites applied to a Workforce Scheduling and Routing Problem. (2019)
Conference Proceeding
Urquhart, N., Hart, E., & Hutcheson, W. (2019). Quantifying the effects of increasing user choice in MAP-Elites applied to a Workforce Scheduling and Routing Problem. In EvoApplications 2019: Applications of Evolutionary Computation (49-63). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16692-2_4

Quality-diversity algorithms such as MAP-Elites provide a means of supporting the users when finding and choosing solutions to a problem by returning a set of solutions which are diverse according to set of user-defined features. The number of soluti... Read More about Quantifying the effects of increasing user choice in MAP-Elites applied to a Workforce Scheduling and Routing Problem..

Athos - A Model Driven Approach to Describe and Solve Optimisation Problems (2019)
Conference Proceeding
Hoffman, B., Chalmers, K., Urquhart, N., & Guckert, M. (2019). Athos - A Model Driven Approach to Describe and Solve Optimisation Problems. . https://doi.org/10.1145/3300111.3300114

Implementing solutions for optimisation problems with general purpose high-level programming languages is a time consuming task that can only be carried out by professional software developers who typically are not domain experts. We address this pro... Read More about Athos - A Model Driven Approach to Describe and Solve Optimisation Problems.

Optimisation and Illumination of a Real-world Workforce Scheduling and Routing Application via Map-Elites (2018)
Conference Proceeding
Urquhart, N., & Hart, E. (2018). Optimisation and Illumination of a Real-world Workforce Scheduling and Routing Application via Map-Elites. In Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XV 15th International Conference, Coimbra, Portugal, September 8–12, 2018, Proceedings, Part I. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99253-2_39

Workforce Scheduling and Routing Problems (WSRP) are very common in many practical domains, and usually have a number of objectives. Illumination algorithms such as Map-Elites (ME) have recently gained traction in application to design problems, in p... Read More about Optimisation and Illumination of a Real-world Workforce Scheduling and Routing Application via Map-Elites.

A new rich vehicle routing problem model and benchmark resource (2018)
Conference Proceeding
Sim, K., Hart, E., Urquhart, N. B., & Pigden, T. (2018). A new rich vehicle routing problem model and benchmark resource. In Advances in Evolutionary and Deterministic Methods for Design, Optimization and Control in Engineering and Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89988-6_30

We describe a new rich VRP model that captures many real-world constraints, following a recently proposed taxonomy that addresses both scenario and problem physical characteristics. The model is used to generate 4800 new instances of rich VRPs which... Read More about A new rich vehicle routing problem model and benchmark resource.

Creating optimised employee travel plans (2018)
Conference Proceeding
Urquhart, N., & Hart, E. (2019). Creating optimised employee travel plans. In Advances in Evolutionary and Deterministic Methods for Design, Optimization and Control in Engineering and Sciences (489-502). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89988-6_29

The routing of employees who provide services such as home health or social care is a complex problem. When sending an employee between two addresses , there may exist more than one travel option, e.g. public transport or car. In this paper we examin... Read More about Creating optimised employee travel plans.