Calculated based on number of publications stored in Pure and citations from Scopus
20052024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Personal profile

Ruibin Bai is a professor and Head of the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. He is the founding director of Ningbo Digital Port Technologies Key Lab. In 2016, he founded Artificial Intelligence and Optimisation (AIOP) Group to promote deeper collaborations between Computational Intelligence (CI), Machine Learning (ML) and Operations Research (OR) communities. He has published over 100 academic papers. His main contributions to Operations Research include novel MIP modelling and math-heuristics for mixed integer service network design (through publications in Information Sciences, EJOR), improved uncertainty handling in stochastic programming via re-coursing
(Transportation Research Part B, Computer & OR), and evolutionary based branch and pricing for real-life full truckload transportation (Transportation Part B, EJOR). His main contributions to CI and ML community include deep reinforcement learning and evolutionary learning based hyper-heuristic methods for online combinatorial optimisation (through publications in IEEE TEVC, EJOR, ESWA, AAAI, IJCAI), advancing the performance, generalisation and scalability of search based hyper-heuristic methods and their capability in addressing complex real-life opitmisation problems. Over the past 10-15 years, he has been promoting real-world CI and OR applications and has made some noticeable achievements. The learning based hyper-heuristics and related software systems have been commercialised in Ningbo Port and PingAn Good Doctor, significantly improved the efficiency and productivity of the concerned systems and helped both companies make millions of saving in costs. His work also received high profile recognition from industry, including ``Huawei Spark Award'' in 2022 and the ``Best Technology Innovation Award'' from the 4th China Industrial Internet Contest in 2022. He is an IEEE senior member and has extensive experience in journal and conference reviews and editorship in both CI, ML and OR domains. 

Research Interests

  • Evolutionary Algorithm, Hyper-heuristics
  • Deep Reinforcement Learning, Representation Learning
  • Combinatorial Optimisation, Integer Programming, Modelling
  • Scheduling, Routing, Service Network Design
  • Smart Transportation and Logistics, Digital Port, Digital Twin

Professional Information

  • Founding Head (2016-present), Artificial Intelligence and Optimisation (ASAP) Group, UNNC.
  • Founding Director (2019-present), Ningbo Digital Port Technologies Key Lab, Ningbo Science & Technology Bureau, Ningbo, China.
  • AE (2021-present), European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, Main areas: transportation, integer programming, learning based optimisation.
  • AE (2017-present), Networks, Wiley. Main areas: graph based algorithm, transportation network optimisation.
  • Panel Reviewer (2020-2024), MOST Key Projects for Smart Transportation. 
  • Committee Chair (2018-2024), Software and AI, Ningbo Municipal Key Technology Innovation. 
  • Guest Editor (2020-2022), International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis, Theme: Analytics and Machine Learning in Scheduling and Routing Research.
  • Symposium Chair (2016-2018), IEEE SSCI in Scheduling and Network Design.
  • Conference Chair (2019), 8th Multidisciplinary International Symposium: Theory and Applications, MISTA2019, 12-15 December 2019, Ningbo China.
  • CI related reviews: TEVC, TETCI, TAI, ESWA, INS, ASOC, TII,WCCI/CEC/SSCI/GECCO
  • ML related reviews: TNNLS, TKDE, AAAI, IJCAI, NEUCOM
  • OR related reviews: EJOR, C&OR, CIE, TR Part B/C/E, TS

Teaching

I have taught a great number of UG courses (mostly core CS courses) with very good feedback, including

  • AE2AIM: Artificial Intelligence Methods. (2017-present)
  • AE2OSC: Operating System and Concurrency (2015-2017)
  • AE3IDS/J: Individual Dissertation Single/Joint Honours (2014-2017)
  • AE1PRG: Programming (2014-2015)
  • AE1IMO: Introduction to Modelling and Optimisation (2014-2015)
  • AE1DBS: Database Systems (2007-2015)
  • AE1CSA: Computer System Architectures (2007-2013)
  • AE1UST: Unix Software and Tools (2007-2008)

I am currently supevising a team of over 10 PhD students with exciting projects in my core areas of research expertise. In the past, I have supervised 12 PhD students to full completion.

Person Types

  • Staff

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