Xin Yao is a principal investigator for SEBASE. He is Professor of Computer Science at The University of Birmingham, where he directs the Centre of Excellence for Research in Computational Intelligence and Applications (CERCIA) and leads the Natural Computation Group. Additionally, he is involved in the editorial board of several international journals, in the organisation of international conferences and is a regular keynote or plenary speaker in other conferences and overseas universities. His research interests include evolutionary computation, global optimisation, neural networks, data mining, metaheuristics and real world applications. He has contributed to the field with relevant works on the design of new algorithms and the theoretical study of evolutionary computation, resulting in diverse best paper awards.

Selected publications

• K. Praditwong, M. Harman and X. Yao, ``Software Module Clustering as a Multi-Objective Search Problem'', IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, accepted in August 2009.
• T. Chen, J. He, G. Sun, G. Chen and X. Yao, ``A New Approach to Analyzing Average Time Complexity of Population-based Evolutionary Algorithms on Unimodal Problems'', IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Part B, 39(5):1092-1106, 2009.
• P. K. Lehre and X. Yao, ``Runtime Analysis of Search Heuristics on Software Engineering Problems'', Frontiers of Computer Science in China, 3(1):64-72, 2009.

Leandro Minku is a research fellow at The University of Birmingham. He receives his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Birmingham. His research interests are in Concept Drift, Online Learning, Ensembles of Learning Machines, Software Effort Estimation, Evolutionary Algorithms (co-evolution, multi-objective techniques, hybridization with neural networks)

Selected publications

• MINKU, L. L.; YAO, X. . "DDD: A New Ensemble Approach For Dealing With Concept Drift.", IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE, 16p., 2010. (accepted)
• MINKU, L. L.; WHITE, A. P.; YAO, X. . "The Impact of Diversity on On-line Ensemble Learning in the Presence of Concept Drift.", IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE, v. 22, n. 5, p. 730-742, 2010, doi: 10.1109/TKDE.2009.156.

Dirk Sudholt is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Birmingham, working with Prof. Xin Yao in the SEBASE project. Before coming to Birmingham, I obtained my Diplom and my Ph.D. from the Technische Universität Dortmund under the supervision of Prof. Ingo Wegener. Then I spent 12 months at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) in Berkeley, California, in the group of Prof. Richard M. Karp. I am interested in randomized algorithms, algorithmic analysis, and combinatorial optimization. My main expertise is the analysis of randomized search heuristics such as evolutionary algorithms, hybridizations with local search, and ant colony optimization.

Selected publications

• Dirk Sudholt (2010),Hybridizing Evolutionary Algorithms with Variable-Depth Search to Overcome Local Optima. To appear in Algorithmica.
• Dirk Sudholt and Carsten Witt (2010), Runtime Analysis of a Binary Particle Swarm Optimizer. Theoretical Computer Science, 411(21), 2084-2100.
• Thomas Sauerwald and Dirk Sudholt (2010), A Self-stabilizing Algorithm for Cut Problems in Synchronous Networks. Theoretical Computer Science, 411(14-15), 1599-1612.

She works on the Software Engineering By Automated SEarch (SEBASE) project. It is an EPSRC funded project that aims to provide a new approach to the way in which software engineering is understood and practised. The purpose is moving software engineering problems from human-based search to machine-based search. Prior to this position, she completed the Ph.D. on Ensemble Diversity for Class Imbalance Learning under the supervision of Professor Xin Yao in 2011. Her Ph.D. was funded by the Overseas Research Students Award (ORSAS) from the British Government (2007).

Selected publications

• S. Wang and X. Yao, ``Multi-Class Imbalance Problems: Analysis and Potential Solutions," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, PartB: Cybernetics, accepted on 4 January 2012.
• S. Wang and X. Yao, ``Relationships Between Diversity of Classification Ensembles and Single-Class Performance Measures," IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, accepted on 7 September 2011.

Nanlin Jin was a research associate at the University of Birmingham for SEBASE. Her research interests include adaptive learning, co-evolutionary algorithms and multi-agent systems.

Selected publications

Sarah Al-Azzani is a PhD student at The University of Birmingham. Her supervisor is Dr. Rami Bahsoon. At the moment, Sarah's research interest is concerned with security in software engineering.

Selected publications

• S. Al-Azzani and R. Bahsoon, "Semi-automated Detection of Architectural Threats for Security Testing", Proceedings of the Doctoral Symposium for ESEC/FSE, pp. 25-26, ACM SIGSOFT, Amsterdam, 2009.

Guanzhou Lu is a full time PhD student for SEBASE at The University of Birmingham. His supervisor is Prof. Xin Yao. Among others, Guanzhou's research interests are the analysis of fitness landscapes arising from software engineering problems.

Selected publications

• Guanzhou Lu and Rami Bahsoon and Xin Yao. Applying Elementary Landscape Analysis to Search-Based Software Engineering. in Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Search Based Software Engineering, 2010.

Vivek Nallur is a PhD student at The University of Birmingham. His supervisor is Dr. Rami Bahsoon. Among others, Vivek's research interests include the automatic generation of software architectures.

Selected publications

• V. Nallur, R. Bahsoon and X. Yao, "Self-optimizing architecture for ensuring Quality Attributes in the cloud", Proceedings of the Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture & European Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA/ECSA), pp. 281-284, 2009.

Zai Wang is a PhD student at University of Science and Technology of China, under the supervision of Prof. Xin Yao. His main research interests involve multi-objective optimisation and data mining.

Selected publications

• Z. Wang, K. Tang and X. Yao, "Using multi-objective algorithms to allocate testing resource to modular software systems", Proceedings of 2008 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), pp. 1148-1153, 2008.
• K. Tang, Z. Wang, C. Xianbin and J. Zhang, "A Multi-objective Evolutionary Approach to Aircraft Landing Scheduling Problems", Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), pp. 3650-3656, 2008.

Benjamin Woolford-Lim is a PhD student at The University of Birmingham. His supervisor is Prof. Xin Yao. Benjamin's research interests are in evolutionary computation, particularly multi-objective problems and algorithms to solve them.

Selected publications

• J. Tate, B. Woolford-Lim, I. Bate and X. Yao, ``Comparing Design of Experiments and Evolutionary Approaches to Multi-Objective Optimisation of Sensornet Protocols'', Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), pp. 1137-1144, IEEE Press, Trondheim, Norway, 2009.

Per Kristian Lehre is a research fellow at The University of Birmingham. He holds PhD and MSc degrees from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His research interests are in theoretical aspects of evolutionary computation and in particular runtime analysis of evolutionary algorithms.

Selected publications

• P. K. Lehre and P. C. Haddow, "Phenotypic complexity and local variations in neutral degree", Biosystems Journal, 87(2-3): 233-242, 2007.
• O. Giel and P. K. Lehre, "On the Effect of Populations in Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization", in Proceedings of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2006 (GECCO), pp 651-658, Seattle, USA, 2006.
• P. K. Lehre and P. C. Haddow, "Accessibility and Runtime between Convex Neutral Networks", in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Simulated Evolution and Learning, LNCS 4247, pp 734-741, Springer, 2006.

Ramon Sagarna is a research fellow for SEBASE at The University of Birmingham. He obtained a PhD degree by the University of the Basque Country (Spain), where he has conducted research on the application of modern metaheuristics for software test data generation. His research interests involve search based optimisation techniques and, more precisely, estimation of distribution algorithms, as well as probabilistic graphical models and applications of such techniques.

Selected publications

• R. Sagarna and J.A. Lozano, "Scatter Search in Software Testing, comparison and collaboration with Estimation of Distribution Algorithms", European Journal of Operational Research, 169(2):392-412, 2006.
• R. Sagarna and J.A. Lozano, "On the Performance of Estimation of Distribution Algorithms Applied to Software Testing", Applied Artificial Intelligence, 19(5):457-489, 2005.
• J.A. Lozano, R. Sagarna and P. Larrañaga, "Parallel Estimation of Distribution Algorithms", in Estimation of Distribution Algorithms. A new tool for Evolutionary Computation, P. Larrañaga and J.A. Lozano (eds.), Kluwer, pp. 125-142, 2002.

Andrea Arcuri is a full time PhD student for SEBASE at The University of Birmingham. His supervisor is Prof. Xin Yao. Andrea's research interests are mainly in automated debugging, automatic programming, genetic programming, software testing, co-evolution and search based software engineering.

Selected publications

• A. Arcuri and X. Yao, "Search Based Software Testing of Object-Oriented Containers", Information Sciences, 178(15):3075-3095, 2008.
• A. Arcuri, "On the Automation of Fixing Software Bugs", Proceedings of the Doctoral Symposium of the IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), pp. 1003 - 1006, 2008.
• A. Arcuri and X. Yao, "A Memetic Algorithm for Test Data Generation of Object-Oriented Software", Proceedings of 2007 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), pp. 2048 - 2055, 2007.

Rami Bahsoon is a lecturer in software engineering at The University of Birmingham. He holds BSc, MSc and PhD degrees from the University College London. His research interests involve software architectures, software testing, maintenance and evolution, among others.

Selected publications

• N. Mansour and R. Bahsoon, "Reduction-based methods and metrics for selective regression testing", Information and Software Technology, 40(7):431-443, 2002.
• R. Bahsoon, "Defining Dependable Dynamic Data Driven Software Architectures" Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IRI), pp. 691 - 694, 2007.
• R. Bahsoon and W. Emmerich, "An Economics-Driven Approach for Valuing Scalability in Distributed Architectures", Proceedings of the 7th Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA), pp. 9 - 18, 2008.

Rob Hierons is a professor of Computing at Brunel University (UK). He is member of the Brunel Software Engineering Research Group and associate editor of The Journal of Software Testing, Verification and Reliability. His research interests include specification based testing and model based testing, adaptive testing, testability transformations and search based software engineering.

Selected publications

• R. M. Hierons and H. Ural, "The effect of the distributed test architecture on the power of testing", The Computer Journal, 51(4):497-510, 2008.
• S. Danicic, M. Harman, R. M. Hierons, J. Howroyd, and M. R. Laurence, "Equivalence of Linear, Free, Liberal, Structured Program Schemas is Decidable in Polynomial time", Theoretical Computer Science, 373:1-18, 2007.
• Z. Li, M. Harman and R. M. Hierons, "Search Algorithms for Regression Test Case Prioritization", IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 33(4):225-237, 2007.

Ricardo Landa is a research fellow at The University of Birmingham. He holds a PhD degree from the CINVESTAV (Mexico). Ricardo's current research interests are differential evolution, cultural algorithms, constrained and multiobjective optimisation.

Selected publications

• R. Landa, C. A. Coello, A. G. Hernández-Díaz, R. Caballero and J. Molina, "Alternative Techniques to Solve Hard Multi-Objective Optimization Problems", Proceedings of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), pp. 757 - 764, 2007.
• D. Cortés, R. Landa Becerra and C. A. Coello, "Cultural Algorithms, an Alternative Heuristic to Solve the Job Shop Scheduling Problem", Engineering Optimization, 39(1):69-85, 2007.
• R. Landa and C. A. Coello, "Cultured differential evolution for constrained optimization", Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 195(33--36):4303-4322, 2006.

Pietro Oliveto is a PhD student at The University of Birmingham. His supervisor is Prof. Xin Yao. Pietro's main research interests are concerned with the time complexity analysis of randomised algorithms for combinatorial optimisation problems.

Selected publications

• P. S. Oliveto and C.Witt, "Simplified Drift Analysis for Proving Lower Bounds in Evolutionary Computation", Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN), pp. 82 - 91, 2008.
• T. Friedrich, P. S. Oliveto, D. Sudholt and C. Witt, "Theoretical Analysis of Diversity Mechanisms for Global Exploration", Proceedings of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), pp. 945 - 952, 2008.
• P. S. Oliveto, J. He and X. Yao, "Time Complexity of Evolutionary Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization: A Decade of Results", International Journal of Automation and Computing, 4(3):281-293, 2007.

Ke Tang is an associate professor at University of Science and Technology of China and executive assistant director of the Nature Inspired Computation and Applications Laboratory (NICAL). His research interests comprise machine learning, data mining, evolutionary computation and real-world applications.

Selected publications

• Z. Yang, K. Tang and X. Yao, "Large Scale Evolutionary Optimization Using Cooperative Coevolution", Information Sciences, 178(15):2985-2999, 2008.
• G. Pugalenthi, K. Tang, P. N. Suganthan, G. Archunan and R. Sowdhamini, "A Machine Learning Approach for the Identification of Odorant binding Proteins from Sequence-derived Properties", BMC-Bioinformatics, 8:351, 2007.
• E. K. Tang, P. N. Suganthan and X. Yao, ``An Analysis of Diversity Measures'', Machine Learning, 65:247-271, 2006.