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Railways
I have a life-long interest in Railways, both models and prototypes (the real thing).
My photo gallery shows British OO gauge, North American HO & O gauge, and European HO/HOm gauge models, plus other photos of various railway exhibition layouts.
I also have images of protoype British and European railways - including heritage operations.
My first model railway was an American HO (1:87) scale layout (29th Street Wharf"), which I acquired and then re-developed, by extension and replacement of trackwork and point controls, re-modelling of industrial and harbour-side themes, and converted to digital command control (DCC) sound-enabled systems.
I have also created three new layouts. The first, a US O-scale (1:48) layout (Arcadia Pennsylvania Terminal), based on the era 1960s to 1980s and also featuring sound-enabled locomotives; the second, a British, OO (1:76) scale layout "Clayton End Signalman" that displays themes of locomotives and rolling stock, that represent the periods circa 1950s/70s and 1980s onwards.
My most recent layout, Auswiss, is HO/HOm (1:87) scale, based on European railways; focussed on Austria and Switzerland. It has both standard gauge and metre gauge track, rollling stock, and motive power. All four layouts are regularly booked to be exhibited at UK Model Railway shows, ranging from Perth in Scotland, the North West of England, through to the Midlands, South West, and the South East.
My "real-world" interests are Swiss and UK railways, including the Swiss Rhätische Bahn in the Graubünden region. I have two railway related blogs - WebTrain Savvy and @TheWebTrain.
I am a member of the RMweb community and have been a member the Swiss Railways Society and Austrian Railway Group.
My ambitions are to travel on the Venice Simplon Orient Express (VSOE) and journey through the Canadian Rockies!
Summary
I have almost 25 years experience in Banking/Financial Services management. Afterwards, I obtained an Information Systems Design BSc degree and then completed post-graduate research and was awarded a PhD .
This Web site covers a range of activities,related to my computing studies and research, including some Web-design and database design projects.
Perhaps, more interesting content relates to my interest in railways (both model railways and their protoypes in GB, Europe, and North America) and Hillwalking.
I have walked/climbed primarily in the Pennines, the Lake District, and Scotland. I have also visited Switzerland (many times), and trekked in the Nepal Himalaya.
Switzerland has proved a perfect destination, offering both excellent Swiss railways and mountain treks.
Last, but not least, I am a proud supporter of Stoke City FC.
Programming
Projects have involved various programming languages and applications, including XHTML, CSS, Active Server Pages (ASP and ASP.NET), PHP, Python, Javascript, Flash, SQL, and C++.I have also used C# to create an online European Railways (UIC) EVN VKM locomotive and vehicle number classification system tool.
Hillwalking
I've walked in the Pennines, the Lake District, the Scottish Highlands and Switzerland. This has included over 60 Scottish Munros and 100+ Cumbrian tops. Also, the Pennine Way, Coast to Coast, and West Highland Way long walks.
I have also trekked in the foothills and mountains of the Nepal Himalaya, having reached the summit of Mera Peak (6476m) in 1990 and trekked to Langtang in 1991.
This photo epitomises the joy of hillwalking in the great outdoors; it shows the rugged terrain and wilderness surrounding Lochnagar - as shown in a pictorial diary of two days hillwalking in the Scottish Highlands, near Braemar - in August 2003.
Academic Activities
Until recently, I was a lecturer in the Computing Department at UCLan, where I taught Advanced Database Systems and Database Administration using Oracle 11g, Systems Analysis & Design, and project-based Professional Skills. My qualifications:
BSc (Hons) ISD
I gained my BSc (Hons) ISD degree in 2003, at UCLan:. My Web pages include some elements:
- papers on the Data Protection Act 1998, the evolution of Intranets 1 in organisations, and employee motivational issues caused by technology "change in the workplace" 1.
- Programming: some examples are trivial - some more involved.
- Web development.
- Systems Analysis & Design and Database development.
PhD Information Retrieval
My PhD Computing research was on information integration in Web environments, using Semantics-based search with "Semantic Web" technologies RDF/XML, RDF Schema and OWL Web Ontology Language in the Semantic Web.
My semantics-based Web search work included Java programming, using the Jena Ontology API framework, to develop an Ontology-enabled application. In effect, I created a prototype "semantic search engine" - the key elements were:
- Information Sharing - Ontology Integration and Semantic Web 2.
- A semantic search tool, termed SemSeT - developed to conduct Information Retrieval (IR) experiments, initially using test data and then with the TExt Retrieval Conference (TREC) dataset: WT2G document collection.
- The use of small ontology modules for Ontology-based query expansion (OQE) to improve search precision and recall.
I completed my PhD in 2010.
Database Systems
I have experience across a range of database management systems: from MS Access to MySQL, MS SQL Server 2000/08/12, and Oracle 8i/11g databases.
I have used the Oracle 11g OEM and the Oracle Forms/SQL Developer tools and I have taught advanced database systems modules at UCLan - for final year BSc Hons and MSc students.
1 
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2 Scientific American: The Semantic Web: Web content meaningful to computers.
