Tien Ba DINH Curriculum Vitae

Faculty of Information Technology, Phone: +84 (0)8 8102010

University of Natural Sciences - HCMCity, Cellphone: +84 (0)908 859795
227 Nguyen Van Cu St., Dist. 5, URL: http://scom.hud.ac.uk/scomtbd
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Email: tiendb@fit.hcmuns.edu.vn or tiendb@yahoo.com

Education
Ph.D. Computer Science, University of Huddersfield, UK. 2002 – 2007
Supervisor: Prof. Barbara Smith, and Prof. Lee McCluskey
Thesis: Optimal Temporal Planning Using The Plangraph Framework
B.Sc. Computer Science, University of Natural Sciences, 1996 - 2000
Vietnam National University of Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM), Vietnam.
Awarded with Excellence Degree, GPA: 9.04/10, Rank: 1st in 300 students.
B.A. English, Hanoi University of Foreign Languages, 1997 - 1999
Vietnam National University of Hanoi (VNU-Hanoi), Vietnam.
GPA: 7.63/10, Rank: 1st in about 150 students.

Work experience
• Lecturer, Faculty of Information Technology, 2007 - now
University of Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM, Vietnam.
• Part-time lecturer, University of Huddersfield, UK. 2003 - 2007
“NMF2167: Professional Studies and C&IT”
• Interpreter/Translator (English-Vietnamese), Britannia Language Link Ltd., UK. 2002 - 2007
Working as a freelancer.
• Research Intern, NASA Ames Research Center, California, USA. 2004
“Solving the SOFIA Flight Planning Problem using Squeaky Wheel Optimization”
• Part-time lecturer, University of Huddersfield, UK. 2002
“CMS235: Rapid Application Development”
• Teaching Assistant, University of Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM, Vietnam. 2000-2001
Subjects: Graph Theory, Software Engineering, Database, Operating Systems,
Programming, Formal Specifications etc...
• Software Developer, TECHNIMEX Corporation, (a state-owned company of Ministry 1999-2001
of Science, Technology and Environment), Vietnam.
Researching and developing software on Logistics and Scheduling.

Awards and Honours

• Overseas Research Students (ORS) Award Scheme, UK. 2002 – 2005
• Full PhD scholarship awarded by the University of Huddersfield, UK. 2002 – 2005
• RIACS Internship at NASA Ames Research Center, California, USA. 2004
• AAAI and PLANET scholarship to attend the Doctoral Consortium, the ICAPS 2003

Tien B. Dinh Curriculum Vitae Page 1 of 5

 conference, and the PLANET’s International Planning Summer School.
• 3rd Prize of Youth IT Talent awarded by the Vietnamese IT Association. 2001
• The top student of 300 students graduating in 2000, and obtained the highest GPA 2000
since the establishment of the Faculty of Information Technology, University of
Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM, Vietnam.
• The only student throughout the whole University of Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM, 2000
awarded the Excellent Graduation Degree in the school class 1996-2000.
• 2nd Prize for Scientific and Technological Invention - VIFOTEC awarded by The 2000
Vietnam Fund of Technological Creation.
• 2nd National Prize for research awarded by the Vietnamese Ministry of Training and 2000
Education.
• 2nd Eureka Prize for undergraduate students doing research in HoChiMinh City, VN. 2000
• 1st Prize at the scientific conference for undergraduate students doing research at the 2000
University of Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM.
• Scholarships from companies and organizations, such as Intel Corporation, Paragon 1999 & 2000
Solutions Vietnam (PSV), Yamada Corp., for outstanding students.
• Annual scholarships from Vietnamese Government for outstanding students. 1996 - 2000
• The top student of about 150 students graduating in 1997-1999 at the English 1999
Department, Hanoi University of Foreign Languages, VNU-Hanoi, Vietnam.
• The National Prize of the Vietnamese Ministry of Training and Education for 1999
undergraduate students doing research.
• 1st Prize at the scientific conference for undergraduate students doing research at the 1999
University of Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM.
• 3rd Prize in the National Computer Science Olympiad for high school students. 1995

Conferences and workshops

• Tien Ba Dinh, "Optimal Temporal Planning System Using The Plangraph Framework", the Annual
Research Students' Conference, University of Huddersfield, November 2005.
• Tien Ba Dinh, “Solution Extraction with the Critical Path in Graphplan-based Optimal Temporal
Planning”, Doctoral Program, in proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Principles and
Practice of Constraint Programming (CP2004), Toronto, Canada, Sept-Oct 2004, page 793, ISBN 3-
540-23241-9, Springer.
• Tien Ba Dinh, Barbara Smith, “CPPlanner: extending Graphplan framework for optimal Temporal
Planning”, in proceedings of the workshop on Constraint Satisfaction Techniques in Planning and
Scheduling and in the special series of “Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence”, ECAI 2004, Valencia,
Spain, August 2004, page 21-28, ISSN 0922-6389, IOS Press.
• Tien Ba Dinh, “Domain Independent Temporal Planner with Critical Paths”, poster presentation at
the EPSRC ISN 5th PhD Student Workshop on Scheduling, University of Nottingham, June 2004.

Tien B. Dinh Curriculum Vitae Page 2 of 5

• Tien Ba Dinh, Barbara Smith, Lee McCluskey, "CPPlanner: A Domain-Independent Temporal
Planner with Critical Paths", in proceedings of PlanSIG 2003, Glasgow, December 2003, page 36-
43, ISSN: 1368-5708.
• Tien Ba Dinh, Barbara Smith, "CPPlanner: A Temporal Planning System using Critical Paths",
Doctoral Consortium, ICAPS 2003, Trento, Italy, June 2003.
• Tien Ba Dinh, "Graphplan-based temporal planning with the critical path", in proceedings of
PlanSIG Workshop, TUDelft, the Netherlands, November 2002, page 76-78, ISBN 1-3685-70-8.
• Duong Anh Duc, Le Thuy Anh, Lam Quang Vu, Tran Duc Duan, Dinh Ba Tien, "Some problems and
solutions in building a WebGIS application", in the proceedings of "Some selected topics in computer
science", the 5th National Conference, Nha Trang, Vietnam, 2002.
• Duong Anh Duc, Le Thuy Anh, Lam Quang Vu, Tran Duc Duan, Dinh Ba Tien, "Comparison on
some methods and software development tools", in the proceedings of the 8th Science and Technology
Conference, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2002.
• Dinh Ba Tien, Le Thuy Anh, “Traffic Guiding System", the 3rd and the 4th Student Scientific
Conference – University of Natural Sciences, Vietnam National University of Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam, 1999 and 2000.
• Nguyen Van Hieu, Le Thuy Anh, Dinh Ba Tien, Tran Minh Triet, "RFID Card And Toll Collection
Manager Software In The Modern Toll Collection Station", in proceedings of the Scientific
Conference - University of Natural Sciences, Vietnam National University of Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam, May 2000.
• Dinh Ba Tien, Duong Anh Duc, Le Thuy Anh, "Some Applications of Graph Theory In Building
Traffic Guiding System", in proceedings of 1st National Conference on Applied Mathematics, Ha Noi,
Vietnam, 1999.

Research projects
“Optimal temporal planning using the Graphplan framework" 2002-2007
PhD research project, University of Huddersfield, UK
Supervisor: Prof. Barbara Smith, and Prof. Lee McCluskey
The project aim is to extend domain-independent temporal planning systems to handle richer temporal
planning domains in which actions can have effects at any time during their execution. Specifically, the
project investigates the extension of the systems, based on the Graphplan approach, that find optimal
solutions in terms of time (makespan). To achieve this aim, we are developing a planning system, called
CPPlanner, which is capable of finding an optimal solution for richer temporal planning domains in
which actions can have effects at any time during their executions.

“Solving the SOFIA Flight Planning Problem using Squeaky Wheel Optimization”, 2004
NASA Ames, California, USA.
Mentor: Dr. Jeremy Frank
The project aim is to apply the Squeaky Wheel Optimization (SWO) into the Flight Planning Problem to
find a plan which maximizes the number of observation requests performed. With the empirical study of
over 48 test cases, the SWOPlanner, with SWO approach, shows much better results in terms of number
of observation requests planned and the system performance compared to the current ForwardPlanner
which applies partial looking-ahead heuristics. The SWO approach only fails to plan 1 test case out of 48,

Tien B. Dinh Curriculum Vitae Page 3 of 5

whereas the ForwardPlanner fails to solve 10 test cases. Also, the SWOPlanner runs about 20 to 50 times
faster than the ForwardPlanner does.

“Studying and building a GIS application on Web”, 2000-2001

National Research Project, Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam.
Project leaders: Prof. Duong Anh Duc, and Nguyen Minh Nam

We studied and built a Web-based street map of Ho Chi Minh City. The map is integrated with spatial
and non-spatial databases, which provides the information about landmarks and historical sites for
tourists as well as helping tourists to plan optimal routes when travelling.

“SmartMAP System”, B.S. dissertation 1998-2000

University of Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM, Vietnam
Supervisor: Prof. Duong Anh Duc
This was my B.S. final year project. We developed a SmartMAP system, which included the Traffic
Guiding System, Taxi Dispatcher, and Products Delivering System. In particular, about 2000 copies of
the Traffic Guiding System was released on to the market and got good public attention and feedback.
The Traffic Guiding System is a stand-alone software which integrates a topology map database with
both spatial and non-spatial information. It allows users to find “optimal” routes based on their
conditions, such as avoiding potential congestion areas, traversing pre-defined places… In addition, it
provides information on historical sites, landmarks.
The Taxi Dispatcher helps the control center to dispatch taxis efficiently based on the current situation
of all taxis and requests from passengers.
The Products Delivering System helps companies to find an efficient solution to deliver their products
from their depots to different agents and customers in the city. The system shows the route for each of the
trucks or vans in a team, which optimizes the overall expenses of the team.

“Studying and proposing topology databases for storing data and solving map problems” 2000
University of Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM, Vietnam
Project leaders: Prof. Duong Anh Duc
We studied the Vector Product Format (VPF) – a topology database for map data. We proposed a new
topology framework which contains 3 levels of topology for map data, and applied this framework into
storing spatial and non-spatial database for Ho Chi Minh City.

“Teaching-Aid Tools for Operating System courses” 2000

University of Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM, Vietnam
Project leader: Mrs. Tran Hanh Nhi
I participated in the 3-member group to implement simulations to show how a general operating system
works. The simulations demonstrate the inside of the operating system, which helps students have a better
understanding about the structure and operations of an operation system.

“English-Vietnamese Automatic Machine Translation System” 1998-1999

National Research Project, Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam.
Project leader: Dr. Dinh Dien
Given an English paragraph, my main role in the project was to build all possible trees for each sentence
based on syntactical rules. Then, the system used grammatical and semantic rules to eliminate irrelevant
trees. The application translates a document from English to Vietnamese.

Tien B. Dinh Curriculum Vitae Page 4 of 5

“RFID Card and Toll Collection Manager Software at Modern Toll Collection Stations” 1999
University of Natural Sciences, VNU-HCM, Vietnam
Project leader: Mr. Nguyen Van Hieu
This project was to develop both hardware and software for modern toll collection stations on highways
in Vietnam. We built and implemented hardware components, such as “touchless” magnetic cards, and
card readers, and manager software to collect fees at Toll Collection Stations on highways.

Skills
• Object-Oriented Analysis, Design and Programming.
• Programming in C/C++, Visual C++, Visual Basic, Java, Delphi, and Pascal
• Constraint Programming: ILOG Solver, and some knowledge of EcliPSe.
• Database: SQL Server, MS Access, and Oracle.
• Operation Systems: MS Windows, Unix, Linux, and MS-DOS.
• Strong background in Algorithms and Mathematics.
• Strong team-working ability.

References
Available upon request.

Tien B. Dinh Curriculum Vitae Page 5 of 5