Fatronik Foundation: Researcher

I moved to Fundación Fatronik-Tecnalia (Spain) in order to develop my interests in Artificial Intelligence. These interests can be stated generally as "Probabilistic methods for uncertain reasoning". I am interested in using probability under uncertainty for reasoning, planning, learning, perception, prediction, and decision making.

At Fatronik, I worked in the Neurengineering department. The department of neuroengineering was active in the field of applied neuroscience; our research primarily involved projects in the domains of Bio-inspired Devices and Algorithms through A.I. & Computational Neuroscience. As part of my work here, I travelled to Zürich (Switzerland) for a 4.5 month internship.

Also as part of my work in the Neuroengineering department, and after my internship in Zürich, I discovered Jeff Hawkins' "On intelligence" and Dileep George's "How the brain might work: a hierarchical and temporal model for learning and recognition". I worked with HTM models for about a year and a half.

Freelance Mathematician specialised in Gambling Consultancy (NOF Consulting)

For the last three and a half years I have been working as an operational researcher developing probability models of slot machine games for the gambling industry. These models are necessary to calculate the probability distribution of the prizes and adjust the long-term percentage return and also, albeit less importantly, to control the hit rate and the volatility of the game. The "percentage return" is the percentage of the collected money the game will return to the players in the long term.

The models of the games are also necessary to perform risk analysis. Although the law of large numbers assures that the percentage return will approach the theoretical percentage return in the long term, the casino operators must know and understand that in the short term there is a risk that the amount of money awarded in prizes by the games exceeds the amount of money paid by the players. Understanding and managing the risk is especially important when large jackpots are involved.

Modelling these games requires the use of Operational Research techniques, Probability and Stochastic Processes. For those games in which the player must make choices, the win distribution must be calculated according to the optimal strategy. These models are developed with a spreadsheet, when possible, but more often programming languages such as C++, Java or Visual Basic must be used. In every case, it is convenient to develop a Monte Carlo simulation model along the mathematical model to double-check the results.

Barcrest Games: Mathematician:

For a year and a half I worked as a Mathematician for Barcrest Games. My job consisted mainly in calculating the return percentage of the games. Typical different parts of the games nowadays include the following features: traditional spins, scatters, free spins, gambles, bonus games etc. The calculations for most of the features are quite straightforward. However, Bonus Games are the feature that allows the most variety; they can be anything from a trail to a Battleships game and even a gamble. Therefore, their analysis and calculations have to be done on a case-by-case basis. Often, these games can be modelled as Markov Chains. To model these processes I used either Excel spreadsheets or C++, depending on which was more appropriate in each case. I also used Stochastic Dynamic Programming and Decision Theory to calculate the best strategy for some games.

NATS (National Air Traffic Services LTD.): Analyst:

I used to work for the Safety Analysis group of the Analysis & Research department of NATS. My role involved very different tasks from analysing data and producing documents to reporting the results of the analysis to doing the parameter review for the Short Term Conflict Alert (STCA) system. STCA alerts air traffic controllers to potential conflicts (mid-air collisions).

Express Gifts Ltd. - Optimisation project:

EGL sell products by mail order. The standard box dimensions needed to be optimised to reduce the amount of wasted space and, therefore, the cost.

Web design:

Lancaster University, Management Science Department - Website design for the Combinatorial Optimisation 2004 Conference

Feb. - May 2003:

Lancaster City Council - Data analysis:

An analysis of Lancaster City Council’s HMO database has been carried out to help evaluate the impact of the ‘Turning the Tide’ Single Regeneration Budget funded regeneration program. The first stage of the analysis involves:

· Building profiles of the HMOs in the Morecambe area to determine their characteristics.
· Analysing the levels of shared amenities in HMOs.
· Calculating the number of units of accommodation and analysing the levels of occupation of HMOs.
· Analysing the standard of means of escape from fire of HMOs.

The second stage of the analysis involves analysing the trends in number, condition and quality of HMOs in the Morecambe area by comparing the results of the analysis outlined above with the results of the same analysis carried out in the 1994 HMO database.

Laboratory Assistant