The home page of Michel Schellekens Prof. Michel P. Schellekens Home Page

Prof. Michel P. Schellekens

Associate Professor
Department Computer Science
National University of Ireland, Cork
Cork
Ireland
Email: mpcsATcs.ucc.ie
UCC Campus Office Phone: (+353) (21) 4903083 (UCC)
Main phone: (+353) (21) 4322104 (CEOL, Airport Business Park)
Directions to my office on UCC campus.
Directions to CEOL can be found on the Center for Efficiency-Oriented Languages webpage.
PhD Carnegie Mellon University. University College Cork (UCC).
Director of SFI-funded Center for Efficiency Oriented Languages (CEOL).
Project Leader, BCRI Project: Semantics/Quantitative Domain Theory.
SFI Industrial collaboration with Sun Labs, RTSJ group

2006-Present
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, University College Cork (UCC).

2000-2006
Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, University College Cork (UCC).

1998-2000
Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, University College Cork (UCC).

1997-1998
Post Doc, University of Siegen, TCS group.

1996-1997
Marie Curie Fellow, EUROFOCS Project, Imperial College London
Theory and Formal Methods Section of the Department of Computing

Follow this link for more information on UCC and the National University of Ireland.
Follow this link for the webopedia online dictionary for computer and Internet technology definitions.

Membership of editorial boards

Journal Annals of the Marie Curie Fellowship Association.
Editorial panel: Information Sciences.
Webpage of the association: MCFA.

Journal Applied General Topology.
See Topology Atlas for a list of related journals.
Editorial area: Topology and Computer Science.

Awards

Marie Curie Fellowship, EUROFOCS Award, Imperial College, 1996.

DAAD Scholarship for Faculty, German Academic Exchange Service, Schloss Dagstuhl, 2001. DAAD Alumni

Science Foundation Ireland Investigator Award, 2003.

Science Foundation Ireland Investigator Industrial Collaboration Award", 2004.
Collaboration with RTSJ group, Dr. Greg Bollella, Distinguished Engineer, Sun Labs Europe.

Funding (past and present)

Belgian National Science Foundation (NFWO), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy.

Organization of conferences

Domains IV Workshop in Bonn, October 2-4, 1998.
MFCSIT2000, First Irish Conference on the Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science and Information Technology, National University of Ireland, Cork, 20th and 21st July, 2000.
MFCSIT2000 drew 71 participants, including many Irish participants and a majority of attendants from other European countries and the US.
MFCSIT2002, Second Irish Conference on the Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science and Information Technology, National University of Ireland, Galway, 18-19 July, 2002.
MFCSIT2004, Third Irish Conference on the Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science and Information Technology, Trinity College Dublin, 22-23 July, 2004.

Program Committee

Second International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing and Applications (ISPA '2004), Hong-Kong, China, 13-15 Dec. 2004.

Research Projects

Boole Centre for Research in Informatics
Project: Semantics of Programming Languages: Quantitative Domain Theory.
Maria O'Keeffe (PhD) and one Post Doc

Science Foundation Ireland
SFI Investigator Award.
Director of Center for Efficiency Oriented Languages (CEOL).

Applications for EMBARC PhD and EMBARC Post Doc positions. Please refer to the CEOL webpage for further information.

Current Research interests

Improved Software Timing.
My interests in exploring this general area include Automated Average-Case Analysis (Analysis of Algorithms) and its intersections with

Formal approaches supporting this research: Theory of Random Bag Preservation and Modular/Compositional Timing. This includes exploring relationships with Bridging Semantics and Complexity, Analysis of Algorithms and Randomized Algorithms, Topology in Computer Science, Abstract Data Structures, Type Theory.

The CEOL centre, funded by Science Foundation Ireland, currently develops MOQA (MOdular Quantitative Analysis) a novel programming language conductive to improved average-case timing and the associated Timing Tool, Distri-Track, which goes considerably beyond the state of the art in Average-time analysis.

Former research directions:

Research contacts

CEOL Centre (members)

UCC Faculty connected to CEOL:

Dr. Marc van Dongen (affiliated member)
Dr. John Herbert
Dr. Joseph Manning
Prof. Michel Schellekens

Graduate Students:

Michaela Heyer (Graduated, MSc, 2005)
Maria O'Keeffe, PhD student
David Hickey, PhD student
Christophe Gosset, PhD student
Jacinta Townley, PhD student
James McEnry, PhD student

Post Docs:

Dr. Thierry Vallee
Dr. Menouer Boubekeur
Dr. Homeira Pajoohesh (2003-2005, Currently at CUNY)

Industrial Placement Students/UREKA students/Research Assistants/Summer Internships:

Anthony O'Mahoney (former Industrial Placement, 2003)
David Devlin (former UREKA, current Industrial Placement, 2005-2007)
Diarmuid Early (former UREKA, current Research Assistant,2005-2007)
Raja Banka (UREKA, 2006)
Chandra Sekhar (Summer Internship, 2006)

Edited volumes

Co-editor, Volume 40 of Electronic Notes of Theoretical Computer Science, Elsevier. Editors: T. Hurley , M. Mac an Airchinnigh , M. Schellekens and A. Seda (coordinating editor)

Coordinating editor, special volume of the journal Applied Categorical Structures, Kluwer related to the conference MFCSIT2000. Editors: M. Schellekens, A. K. Seda, D. Spreen.

Final year projects

I supervise final year projects on online teaching, games (with links to constraints, genetic algorithms, search techniques and group theory) and foundations of computing.

Memberships

The Association for Computing Machinery: ACM and SIGACT.
The Marie Curie Fellowship Association: MCFA.
Boole Centre for Research in Informatics (BCRI), UCC.
Currently leading project in Semantics of Programming Languages and Quantitative Domain Theory.

Research visits, presentations, conferences 2006

Invited Speaker ISDT06, Hunan China, June 2-6, 2006.
Invited Workshop Speaker, joint workshop SFI-NSFC (National Science Foundation China), Beijing, June 12-16, 2006.
MFCSIT06, Cork, Ireland.

Selection of publications

  • Invited papers
    ``A survey of topological work at CEOL'', joint with H. Pajoohesh.
    Topology Atlas Invited Contributions 9, 7 pp., 2004.

  • Journal publications:
    On the structure of the Dual Complexity Space: the general case, joint with S. Romaguera
    Extracta Mathematicae 13, 249 - 253, 1998.

    Complexity Spaces: Lifting and Directedness
    Topology Proceedings 22, 403 - 425, 1999.

    Quasi-metric properties of Complexity Spaces, joint with S. Romaguera
    Topology and its Applications 98, 311-322, 1999.

    Cauchy filters and strong completeness of quasi-uniform spaces, joint with S. Romaguera
    Rostock. Math. Kolloq. 54, 2000.

    The quasi-metric of complexity convergence, joint with S. Romaguera
    Questiones Mathematicae 23, 359-374, 2000.

    On the Yoneda completion of a quasi-metric space, joint with H. P. Kuenzi
    Theoretical Computer Science, Volume 276 (1-2) of April 2002.

    The correspondence between partial metrics and semivaluations
    Theoretical Computer Science 315, 135-149, 2004.

    Extendible spaces
    Applied General Topology, accepted for publication, to appear in vol 3, no. 2, November 2002.

    R. Bresin, B. Di Martino, S. Kroener and M. Schellekens. Editorial introduction of the Information Science Panel
    Annals of the Marie Curie Fellowship Association 1, 2000.

    Duality and quasi-normability for complexity spaces, joint with S. Romaguera
    Applied General Topology, vol 3, nr. 1, 2002.

    A characterization of partial metrizability. Domains are quantifiable
    Theoretical Computer Science 305, 409 - 432, 2003.

    Partial metric monoids and semivaluation spaces.
    Joint with S. Romaguera, Topology and its Applications, accepted for publication, to appear.

    The relationship between balance and the speed of algorithms,
    wiht M. O'Keeffe and H. Pajoohesh, Hadronic Journal, accepted for publication, to appear in Vol. 28, 2005.

  • Submitted:

    Binary trees equiped with semivaluations, with H. Pajoohesh.

    Decision trees of algorithms and a semivaluation to measure their distance, with M. O'Keeffe, H. Pajoohesh.

    Compositionality: a Real-Time Paradigm to facilitate WCET and ACET timing , with D. Hickey.

  • Proceedings
    The Smyth-completion: a common foundation for Denotational Semantics and Complexity Analysis
    Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Volume 1, Proc. 11th Conf. on the Mathematical Foundations of Programming Semantics, Elsevier, 1995, 211-232.

    On upper weightable spaces
    Papers on General Topology and Applications, 11th Summer Conf., University of Southern Maine, Annals of the New York Academy of Science 806, New York Academy of Science, New York, 1996, 348-363.

    Complexity Spaces Revisited
    Proceedings Prague Topology Symposium, Topology Atlas 1997, 337-348.

    Valuations Revisited
    Proceedings 3rd Irish Workshop on Formal Methods (IWFM'99), Electronic Workshops in Computing, British Computer Science Society, 1999, 1 - 8.

    A note on completeness of the complexity space, joint with S. Romaguera
    Seminarberichte Fach. Math. FernUniv. Hagen 66, 1999, 99-105.

    The ideal completion is not sequentially adequate, joint with H. P. Kuenzi
    Proceedings of the workshop Domains IV, Rolandseck, Electronic Notes of Theoretical Computer Science, Volume 35, Elsevier, 2000.

    Weightable quasi-metric semigroups and semilattices, joint with S. Romaguera
    Proceedings of MFCSIT2000, Volume 40 of Electronic Notes of Theoretical Computer Science, Elsevier, 2003.

    Weightable Directed Spaces: Partial Metrics = Generalized (E)valuations
    Dagstuhl Seminar Report 209, Editors: S. Brookes, M. Droste, M. Mislove, 1999. Seminar on Domain Theory and its Applications, Schloss Dagstuhl.

    Norm-weightable Riesz spaces and the dual complexity space
    Joint with M. O'Keeffe and S. Romaguera, ENTCS volume 74, Elsevier, Proceedings MFCSIT2002, 17 pages, 2003.

    The average merge time: an intuitive interpretation.
    Joint with M. O'Keeffe, ENTCS volume 74, Elsevier, Proceedings MFCSIT2002, 12 pages, 2003.

    Quantitative Domain Theory, ERCIM News No.50, July 2002

    ``Solving Recurrence Relations using Generating Functions'', joint with A. A. Uskova, M. Van Dongen, Proceedings of The Annual Scientific Meeting of Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, Thesis for Scientific Conference MEPhI - 2004, Volume 2, Software and Informational Technologies, MEPhI press, 2004, p. 95-96.

    Partial metric monoids and semivaluation spaces.
    Joint with S. Romaguera, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Elsevier, accepted for publication, to appear.

    SLIDES - Iberoamerican Conference, Murcia, 2003.

    Teaching

  • I am teaching the following class:
    CS3010 Algorithms and automata

    For information on postgraduate studies, visit our online handbook.

    Some usefull links: ContentsDirect from Elsevier Science (automatic mailing of contents of Elsevier journals).
    Access to the worldwide topology community can be had through the Topology Atlas.

    FINAL YEAR PROJECTS

    Contact Details

    Email: mpcsATcs.ucc.ie Phone: 4322104

    Here are the directions to my office on Western Road. You need to make a prior appointment by email, since I am heading a research centre at the Cork Airport Business Park (www.ceol.ucc.ie)

    My interests for the final year projects are the following:

    I) ONLINE TEACHING

    I like to improve teaching methods and come up with new ways to present material, especially visual ways to teach algorithms.

    II) BOARD GAMES (SOLITAIRE)

    I have a side interest in board games, so I included one of them in the final year projects: Solitaire. The game has been around for a long time (since the 18th century). Apparently it was invented by a French prisoner during his stay in the Bastille (though this probably is a myth). Leibniz was an avid player of the game.

    To get some feel for the game, try the frog jumping version which needs some time to load.

    The game can be purchased in some toy stores or airport shops. One shop in Cork which supplies the game is J. Joyce on Princes Street (a board version and a drawn version in the "Klutz" book on board games). You can also opt to build the game by drawing the grid and using flat pebbles or checkers pieces. It is useful to have a version to carry out the project, for instance in the case of a heuristics oriented project. A model is available in my office, so you'll know what to look for. I have a smaller version you can borrow (all pegs need to be returned!). This demo game will be passed on to various students taking the project, so it is best you obtain your own.

    I chose the game for its apparent simplicity. The game is extremely easy to understand. There is only "one" rule of play for the English version (which has a cross shaped board and allows for vertical or horizontal jumps of pegs over another peg) and "two" rules for the French version (which has four extra holes for the pegs and allows for vertical or horizontal jumps AND diagonal jumps of pegs over another peg).

    Despite this simplicity, a search for solutions can quickly become "GYNORMOUS" in scope (we can discuss some known search space results to give you an idea).

    But don't despair: there are several references of different computer science approaches which will put you well on your way to experiment with this. See the "TIPS" and references below for some approaches which you could follow.

    BOARD SHAPE OF SOLITAIRE:

    RULES FOR SOLITAIRE:

    For English solitaire:

    You can jump a peg, say peg 1, over another peg, say peg 2, which is adjacent to peg1, provided peg 2 lands in an empty hole on the other side of peg 2, adjacent to peg 2 again. The peg which has been jumped, i.e. peg 2, is then removed. Moves can be carried out horizontally (from left to right or the converse) or vertically (either downwards or upwards).

    For French solitaire:

    Diagonal moves of the above nature (peg-over-peg) are also allowed in addition to the vertical and horizontal moves. This is necessary since one can show that without diagonal moves, the French version has no solution starting with an empty hole in the middle and ending up with a single peg in the center.

    PROJECTS

    TIPS: If you have an interest in e.g. GENETIC ALGORITHMS or specialized SEARCH TECHNIQUES, there are some references to papers (see online references below) which provide various search techniques and approaches in these areas. More projects could be done, improving on these approaches.

    Each of these has the potential to lead to a very good project and a research report could be produced in case we/you push the boundaries of what is know a bit further. (Of course that is not a requirement, but one of the ways to reach an excellent result).

    If you have an interest in mathematics, that too can be catered for, since there are some simple approaches in GROUP THEORY as well. If you like puzzles, why not design your own version of the game? For instance by changing the board shape or the rules and study this in any of the above ways. I am open to new suggestions pending mutual agreement.

    Have a look at triangle solitaire and one dimensional solitaire for some alternative versions. Or also: unconstrained solitaire (cf. references).

    REFERENCES FOR SOLITAIRE PROJECTS:

    Some online references to get you started:

    Books available from our library:

    These are somewhat mathematical in nature, but useful to gather some ideas on possible versions of the game, heuristics and history.

    III) FOUNDATIONS OF COMPUTING.

    I presented one theory problem on merging some time ago, and two students took it, both very successfully (one actually led to a research paper later on). So if you are interested in theory, don't be shy.

    IV) YOUR OWN IDEA: If you have your own idea and think it would link up in some way with my own interests, feel free to sound me out.

    I prefer to be contacted by Email, so that will be your first move.