Goldsmiths - University of London

Mr Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie

Role

• Visiting Tutor and PhD Research Student

Other roles

• AISB Committee Member (elected) and Webmaster, membership number: 3233 
• Member of the Editorial Review Board at IJATS (International Journal of Agent Technologies and Systems)
• euCognition Member, membership number: 1553

Academic qualifications

• BSc Computing and Information Systems, University of London, First Class Honours (2005)
• Masters of Philosophy in Artificial Intelligence / Swarm Intelligence and Robotics, Goldsmiths, University of London (2010)
• PhD in Artificial Intelligence / Swarm Intelligence and Robotics, Goldsmiths, University of London (ongoing)

 

Teaching

• Programming
• Database Systems
• Mathematics Foundation
• Mathematics for Computing
• Supervising 3rd Year Final Year Projects on robotics (swarm robotics)
• Supervising MSci Projects on Swarm Intelligence

Presentations and exhibitions

 Prize winning presentations:

• “iCub robot is learning”, September, Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology (BCBT), Barcelona, (2009) [Best Project Prize]
• “The integration of Stochastic Diffusion Search (SDS) into Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO)”, Doctoral Consortium, May, British Computer Society (BCS), London, (2009)

• “Integration of two Swarm Intelligence algorithms, iCub Robot and the significance of presentations”, Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre, Goldsmiths College, University of London, November, London (2009)
• "PhD at stake? Is that the question?", University of Cambridge, Forum for AI Research Students (FAIRS’09), December, Cambridge, (2009).
• "Shaking Particle Swarms in Active Particle Swarm Optimisation (a-PSO)", Spring Review week, April, Goldsmiths College, University of London, (2008)
• "Final Year Project", Project supervisor presentation, February, Goldsmiths College, University of London, (2010)
• “No Free Lunch Theorem vs. “Affordable Lunch” in Robotics”, Nov 2010, The Technische Universität München, CoTeSys-ROS Fall School on Cognition-enabled Mobile Manipulation, Munich, (2010)
• “On the ‘creativity’ of the swarms in making a drawing”, April 2011, The University of York, York, AISB 2011 Symposium: Computing & Philosophy, (2011)
• “An Investigation Into the Merger of Stochastic Diffusion Search and Particle Swarm Optimisation”, 14 July 2011, Berlington Hotel, Dublin, Ireland, GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, (2011)

Workshops (sponsored by organising bodies):

• “Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology (BCBT)”, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain, September (2009)
• “Life & Cognition”, the First European Summer School on Life & Cognition, organised by the University of Basque Country, Miramar Palace, San Sebastian, Spain June (2010)
• “Cognition-enabled Mobile Manipulation (CoTeSys-ROS)”, IAS, Technische Universität München, Munich, November (2010)

 

Workshops Organised:

• “Swarms Go Dutch: Artificial Intelligence, Physiology & Art”, American University of Paris (AUP), Paris, France, 12-14 May (2011)

 

Grants & awards

• Mr Confused Project, sponsored by Goldsmiths Annual Fund (2010-11)
• Luz Project sponsored by VIDA 13.0 grant by Telefonica (2011-2012)

 

Conferences

• Real Artificial Intelligence, Peterhouse College University of Cambridge,, AI-2009 twenty-ninth Annual International Conference of the British Computer Society's Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (SGAI) December, Cambridge, (2009).
• "Multi-sensory integration", Third EUCogII Members Conference, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, October (2010).
• “GECCO 2011:Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference”, Recombination of the 20th International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (ICGA) and the 16th Annual Genetic Programming Conference (GP), Berlington Hotel, Dublin, Ireland, July 2011

 

Television and video output

"Artificial Intelligence, Physiology & Art", Qwartz TV, Paris, France, May (2011)

 

Professional development

• Mr Confused Robotic Project: Putting swarm intelligence to practice using robots (2009-11)
• Developing materials for Mathematics for Computing (Mathematics for 2D and 3D Transformations), (2009-10)
• Music Similarity Project with Swarm Intelligence (initial stages), (2010-12)

Research interests

• Face detection and facial expression recognition
• Cognitive Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Swarm Intelligence
• robotics.

 

Current research

• Stochastic diffusion search (SDS)
• Particle swarm optimisation (PSO)
• Differential Evolution algorithm (DE)
• Robotics
• Distributed resource allocation
• Global optimisation
• Decentralised P2P networks

 

Selected publications

• "An Investigation Into the use of Swarm Intelligence for an Evolutionary Algorithm Optimisation; The Optimisation Performance of Differential Evolution Algorithm Coupled with Stochastic Diffusion Search", Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie, Mark Bishop, and Tim Blackwell, International Conference on Evolutionary Computation Theory and Application (ECTA2011), Paris, France (2011)

• “Cooperation of Nature and Physiologically Inspired Mechanism in Visualisation”, Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie, Ahmed Aber and Mark Bishop, Book Chapter, IGI Global, USA, (2011)

• "Resource Allocation and Dispensation Impact of Stochastic Diffusion Search on Differential Evolution Algorithm", Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie, Mark Bishop, and Tim Blackwell, Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimisation (NICSO2011) proceedings, Computational Intelligence, Springer, (2011). 

• "An Investigation Into the Merger of Stochastic Diffusion Search and Particle Swarm Optimisation", Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie, Mark Bishop, and Tim Blackwell, GECCO2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, Dublin, Ireland, (2011). [Also session chair for GECCO ACO-SI track]

• “Creative or Not? Birds and Ants Draw with Muscle”, Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie and Mark Bishop and Ahmed Aber, Proceedings of AISB 2011: Computing &  Philosophy, ISBN: 978-1-908187-03-1, (2011).

• "Swarming Robots and Possible Medical Applications", Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie and Remigijus Raisys and Ahmed Aber, ISEA2011: International Society for the Electronic Arts, Istanbul, Turkey, (2011).

• "The mining game: a brief introduction to the Stochastic Diffusion Search metaheuristic", al-Rifaie, Mohammad Majid and Bishop, Mark, AISBQ, (2010)