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Railways
I have a life-long interest in both model railways and prototypes (the real thing).
My photo gallery displays my British OO scale, North American HO and O scale, and European HO/HOm scale models. The gallery also includes sections for other railway exhibition layouts seen at shows, plus 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 extending and replacing trackwork and point controls, including industrial harbour-side industry. The layout was converted to digital command control (DCC) with sound.
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, is a British, OO (1:76) scale layout "Clayton End Signalman" with locomotives and rolling stock representing the periods circa 1950s/70s and 1980s onwards.
The most recent layout is Auswiss, an HO/HOm (1:87) scale, based on European railways - Austria and Switzerland. It has both standard gauge and metre gauge track, rolling stock, and motive power.
All four layouts are regularly exhibited at UK Model Railway shows, ranging from Central 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 and previously 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!
Introduction
After almost 25 years in Banking and Financial Services management, I decided to study for a BSc in Information Systems Design. Subsequently, I completed my post-graduate PhD research.
This Web site covers a range of activities related to my computing studies and research, including some Web-design and database design projects.
Perhaps, the more interesting content relates to my interest in railways (both model railways and their protoypes) in GB, Europe, and North America.
My wife and I have walked, climbed and trekked, primarily in the Pennines, North Wales, the Lake District, and the Scottish Highlands. We have also visited Switzerland (many times), and twice trekked in the Nepal Himalaya.
Switzerland has always 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++.Consistent with railways, I have also used C# to create an online European Railways (UIC) EVN VKM locomotive and vehicle number classification system tool.
Hillwalking
As mentioned above, I've hill walked in the Pennines, the Lake District, the Scottish Highlands and Switzerland. This has included over 60 Scottish Munros and 100+ Cumbrian tops, along with completing the Pennine Way, Coast to Coast, and West Highland Way long distance walks.
Trekking in the foothills and mountains of the Nepal Himalaya was a challenging 3 weeks and resulted in reaching the summit of Mera Peak (6476m) in 1990. That was followed up with a two week trek 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 research 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 using 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.
