Massimiliano Garagnani Department of Computing Faculty of Maths and Computing The Open University Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA - UK	Research Fellow Room Q102, M Block +44 (0)1908  654812 (direct) +44 (0)1908  652140 (FAX) E-mail: M dot Garagnani "at" open dot ac dot uk
	Research & activities	Links
	Publications	Tutorial on AI Planning  PPT  PDF
	Biography

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

I am a Research Fellow at the Department of Computing of the Open University.   My past research interests include genetic algorithms, belief systems and natural language generation. My more recent work focuses on non purely-sentential planning representations and on connectionist models for planning. From 2002 to 2004 I held a £54,000  EPSRC Fast Stream grant for a research project on hybrid and diagrammatic planning representations (see http://mcs.open.ac.uk/PATPLAN/). In 2001, I was Visiting Scholar at the AI group of the International Computer Science Insitute at Berkeley (Berkeley, CA), where I worked for six months under the direction of Dr. Lokendra Shastri on neurally plausible connectionist models. I am Associate Editor of "Expert Systems: the International Journal of Knowledge Engineering and Neural Nets" and a member of the British Computer Society Specialist Group on AI.

 

My research activity lies in the field of Artificial Intelligence. I am particularly interested in analysing, formalising and implementing computational models of the abstract mechanisms underlying human intelligence. My past and present research interests include:

• Genetic Algorithms
• Discourse and Argumentation structure generation; Belief systems
• AI Planning & Scheduling
• Semantic networks and connectionist networks

My present focus is on the development of non-sentential (i.e., hybrid and diagrammatic) representations for reasoning about action and planning. I am also interested in implementing and simulating neurally-plausible connectionist models exhibiting planning behaviour. 

PhD Students

• Marina Davidson (on "Preprocessing techniques for planning with Language Axioms") (part-time)

Current Editorial, Professional and Research Activities

• Associate Editor of "Expert Systems: the International Journal of Knowledge Engineering and Neural Nets" (Nov. 2001- present)

• Member of the BCS Specialist Group on AI and UK Planning and Scheduling Special Interest Group

• Programme Committee (Technical Stream) of AI 2005: the 24th SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of AI

• PC of ICKEPS - Competition on Knowledge Engineering Techniques for Planning and Scheduling to be held at ICAPS 2005, June 2005

• IGDA's AI SIG - AI Interface Standards Committee (Goal-oriented Action Planning working group)

• Internal Examiner for the OU MSc. Course in Computing for Commerce and Industry (M801) (2000-present)

Other Activities

• Visiting Scholar at the International Computer Science Insitute, Berkeley (CA) (Apr.- Oct. 2001)

• Coordinator of the Open University PLANET node, part of the European Network of Excellence in AI Planning (2001 - 2003)

• Conference Chair of the 19^th Workshop of the UK Planning and Scheduling SIG (PlanSIG 2000), Milton Keynes (UK), Dec.'00

• Reviewing: Interdisciplinary J. of AI and Simulation of Behaviour; ECP-2001, ICAI-2001, PlanSIG 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004; P.C. member of AI 2004 ICAPS04 Workshop PlanSIG 2004 2003 2002 2001 CSREA Int. Conf. on AI (IC-AI'2001) 

• Chair: Special Session on "Learning and Adapting in AI Planning" @ ICAI-2001 (see edited Proceedings)

• Departmental Research Seminar Series organizer, The Open University (2001 - 2002)

• Editor - Computing Department Technical Report Series (ISSN 1744-1986) (2003-2005)

 

• ES2002 – 22^nd SGAI Int. Conf. on Knowledge-Based Systems and Applied AI, Cambridge (UK), Dec. 2002. Tutorial on "AI Planning: Recent advances and New frontiers"
• The Open University - Staff Development day, Chesham Conference Centre (UK), November 2001. Invited lecture: "Non-propositional AI Planning"
• CSLI - Stanford University, Palo Alto (CA), 6^th July 2000. Talk: "Pre-processing Inner-Outer belief axioms for persuasive discourse planning"
• ICSI - University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley (CA), 5^th July 2000. Talk: as above
• AI Centre, SRI International, Menlo Park (CA), 30^th June 2000. Talk: as above
• Department of Computing, The Open University, Milton Keynes (UK), 14th February 2000. Seminar: "Pre-processing planning for argumentation-oriented belief systems and domain axioms"
• Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna(Italy), 29th June 1999. Invited Talk: "Belief Modelling for Persuasive Discourse Planning"
• Department of Computer Science, University of Pisa (Italy), 30th June 1999. Invited Talk: as above
• Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna (Italy), 8th January 1997. Seminar: "Belief Systems and Communication in Artificial Intelligence"
  

Edited Proceedings

Arabnia, H.R. (editor)
Bezieau, J-Y., Blake, B., Buckley, S., Castillo, O., Delrieux, C., Garagnani, M., Hanh, P.H., Joshua, R., Liuzzi, R.A., Mun, Y., Olivas, J. A., Piattini, M., Prasad, B., Tang, J., & M. A. Wani (assoc. eds.) (2001) Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence IC-AI'2001 (Vol. II), Las Vegas, June '01 - ISBN 1-892512-79-3. CSREA Press. zipped PDF (570KB)

Garagnani, M. (ed.) Proceedings of the 19th Workshop of the UK Planning and Scheduling SIG, Milton Keynes (UK) December 2000. ISSN 1368-5708.

Book Chapters:

Garagnani, M. (2004) A Framework for Hybrid and Analogical Planning. In Vlahavas, I., & Vrakas, D. (eds), Intelligent Techniques for Planning (pp. 35-88). Hershey (PA): IDEA Group, Inc. (in press) PDF

1. Garagnani, M. (2004) "A Diagrammatic Inter-Lingua for Planning Domain Descritpions". In Castillo, L., Borrajo, D., Salido, M.A. & Oddi, A. (eds), Planning and Scheduling. Series Frontiers in AI and Applications. Amsterdam: IOS Press (in press). PDF  zipped Postscript
2. Garagnani, M. (2004) "A Framework for Hybrid Planning". In Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XXI (Proc. of AI-2004), pp. 214-227. London: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 1-85233-907-1 (An earlier version was presented at ICAPS’04 Workshop on Connecting Planning Theory with Practice, Whistler (Canada), June '04) PDF  zipped Postscript
3. Garagnani, M. (2003) "Model-based planning in physical domains using SetGraphs". In  Coenen, F., Preece, A., &  Macintosh, A. (eds.), Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XX (Proc. of AI-2003), pp. 295-308. Springer Verlag. PDF  zipped Postscript
4. Garagnani, M., & Ding, Y. (2003) "Model-based Planning for Object-Rearrangement Problems". In Long, D., McDermott, D., & Thiébaux, S. (eds.), Proc. of the ICAPS-03 Workshop on PDDL, Trento (Italy), June '03. pp. 49-58. PDF  zipped Postscript
5. Davidson, M., & Garagnani, M. (2002) "Pre-processing planning domains containing Language Axioms".  In Grant, T., & Witteveen, C. (eds.), Proc. of the 21^st Workshop of the UK Planning and Scheduling SIG (PlanSIG-02), pp. 23-34. Delft (NL), Nov. '02. PDF Postscript
6. Garagnani, M., Shastri, L., Wendelken, C. (2002) "A connectionist model of planning as back-chaining search". In Gray, W.D., & Schunn, C.D. (eds.), Proc. of the 24th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci'02), pp.345-350. Mahwah (NJ) and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-4581-X. PDF (An extended version appears in Proc. of PlanSIG-01, pp.115-126. Edinburgh, Dec. '01. ISSN 1368-5708. zipped Postscript  PDF).
7. Garagnani, M. (2000) "Extending Graphplan to Domain Axiom Planning", in Garagnani, M. (ed.) Proc. of PlanSIG-00, pp. 275-276. Milton Keynes (UK), Dec.'00.  PDF  zipped Postscript
8. Garagnani, M. (2000) "A correct algorithm for efficient planning with preprocessed domain axioms". In Bramer, M., Preece, A. & Coenen, F. (eds.), Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XVII (Proc. of ES-2000), pp.363-374. London: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 1-85233-403-7. PDF  Postscript
9. Garagnani, M. (2000) "Speaker-hearer beliefs for discourse planning". In Arabnia, H.R. (ed.) Proc. of the Int'nal Conf. on AI (IC-AI 2000), pp.1009-1015. Las Vegas (NA), June '00. CSREA Press. ISBN 1-892512-57-2. PDF  Postscript 
10. Garagnani, M. (1999) "Improving the efficiency of Pre-processed Domain-axiom planning", in Proc. of PlanSIG-99, pp.190-192. Manchester (UK), Dec. '99. ISSN 1368-5708. PDF  Postscript
11. Garagnani, M. (1999) "A Sound Linear Algorithm for preprocessing planning problems with Language Axioms", in Proc. of PlanSIG-99, pp.40-53. Manchester (UK), Dec. '99. ISSN 1368-5708.  PDF Postscript 
12. Garagnani, M. (1998) "Converting Inference Rules into Conditional Effects", in Proc. of PlanSIG-98, pp.203-205. Huddersfield (UK), Sep. '98.  PDF Postscript  
13. Garagnani, M. (1998) "Belief Systems and Plans for Communication", in Proc. of the 15th Int.'nal Congress on Cybernetics, pp.373-378. Namur (Belgium), August '98. ISBN 2-87215-004-8.  PDF  Postscript 
14. Garagnani, M., Fox, M., Long, D.P. (1998) "Belief Systems for Conflict Resolution", in Proc. of the 13th European Conf. on AI (ECAI-98) - Workshop on Conflicts Among Agents, pp.55-60. Brighton (UK). PDF Postscript 
15. Garagnani, M. (1997) "Belief Modelling for Discourse Plans", in Proc. of PlanSIG-97, pp.55-67. Durham (UK), Dec. '97. ISSN 1368-5708. PDF  Postscript
16. Reed, C.A., Long, D.P., Fox, M., Garagnani, M. (1997) "Persuasion as a form of inter-agent negotiation", in Proc. of PRICAI-96 Workshop on Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Cairns, Australia, Aug. '96. ISBN 0-86857-725-1. Also in Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 1286, pp. 120-136. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 3-540-63412-6.  PDF  Postscript 
    

PhD Thesis:

Outside interests

I am really keen on Psychology and Philosophy. Many of my ethical ideals have been inspired by Eric Fromm's work. I love classical music; favourite composers include Chopin, Katchaturian, Rachmaninoff and Mozart. I play piano and guitar,  I enjoy painting and playing chess. From '95 to '98 I have been a member of Durham University Choir. From '80 to '83 I attended the Conservatoire of Music "G.B. Martini" (Bologna, Italy) where I studied piano and composition. In '95, at the same Institution, I obtained admission to the Superior Course of Harmony and Orchestra Direction. I am fluent in English and French (and Italian!), and speak some Spanish.

My favourite sport is Kung-Fu. In 1989 I was awarded the bronze medal at the inter-regional selections for the Italian Kung-Fu Championship. I also enjoy sailing, wind-surfing, scuba-diving, skiing, football, basketball, tennis, free-climbing and (last but not least) table-football. I am currently taking Salsa & Merengue classes.