Eoin Curran - About My Work

• Phone: + 353 86 9471111
• Email: eoin@peelmeagrape.net

Portfolio / Interests

See the Blog, or my and Darragh's Projects and Portfolio pages.

Education / Qualifications

• M.Sc. Networks and Distributed Systems Trinity College Dublin. (Publications)
• B.A. (Mod) Mathematics, Trinity College Dublin. Achieved First-class, Gold medal, Townsend Memorial Prize, Foundation Scholarship, Lloyd Exhibition.

Career

• Machine Learning Group, UCD CASL Lab:
  May '07-present

  Contract Researcher, investigating Commercialisation of Kernel-based classification techniques for Images and Text. (KeCIT Project)

• Jan-May '07: Skiing, Chamonix
• Ticketsolve:
  October '06 - December '06.

  Developed (along with Darragh) the initial version of the ticketsolve product.

• Exoftware:
  November '05 - October '06.
  
  • Consultant to clients on technical practices used in 'agile' software development in .NET and Java/J2EE projects: Test-Driven Development, Test Automation, Build Automation, Continuous Integration.
  • Facilitating a feasability study / requirements gathering project for a customer in the financial sector. Rapid face-to-face prototyping (using Ruby on Rails).
  • Design, Development and Deployment of boxoffice and ticketing solution for the Dublin International Film Festival and the Dublin Fringe Festival '06.
• Murex:
  May '05 - November '05.
  Software Development, Research and Development. Build Automation (Ant, Perforce).
• Scoilbuy
  Summer '04 - Spring '05. (Part-time, evenings and weekends)
  • Purchasing solution for Irish schools.
  • Ongoing development of online store.
  • Online hosting of system.
  • Java based, running on of MySQL using Spring, Hibernate, Velocity, Javamail, POI(Excel Integration), IText (Pdf Integration), Lucene (Search).
  
  
• NCL Technologies
  September '03 - May '05. (Tele-working from Madrid)
  At NCL, I was personally responsible for the implementation of a range of projects using Java and J2EE. The projects I developed involved more than 80k lines of source code. The work was in the area of telecommunications and involved implementing various telecommunication protocols and integrating with multiple vendors. I have deployed and supported production systems inside mobile network operators.
  
  My work at NCL included:
  
  Developing the Provato product:
  • Java-based mobile messaging server (SMS, MMS)
  • SOAP interface, with clients for Java, .NET, COM, Perl
  • Deployable within J2EE application servers or standalone - integrated closely with JBoss and BEA Weblogic
  • Complete runtime reconfiguration - Developed custom container to manage component configuration, lifecycle and dependencies
  • Clustered Operation - Developed custom group communications protocol, used dynamic java bytecode generation to allow transparent reconfiguration of all components in cluster.
  • Persistent Queues - both custom implementation and JMS integration
  • SNMP Agent Functionality
  • Integrates with a range of SMS and MMS servers
  
  Responsible for maintenance and support of the Swiftnote java library.
  • Java based implentation of communications protocols for several SMSC Protocols
  • Responsible for development and production support to several mobile network operators.
  • Solid experience dealing with concurrency / multi-threaded java issues in a large (>50kLOC) code base.
  
  Designing and developing WapStack.
  • Java implementation of a WAP stack
  • Includes implementations of: PPP, IP, UDP, WTP, WSP
  • Simulates a WML Browser, to allow programmatic testing of WML based sites
  • Used for live end-to-end testing and monitoring of WAP based services within Mobile Networks
  
  Designing and developing Vodafone Ireland 'Free How Are You? Text' service.
  • EJB based solution, running on JBoss (against Oracle)
  • Web-services based integration with multiple client systems
  • Realtime SMS based service, running on top of Provato
  
  
• M.Sc. Networks and Distributed Systems Trinity College Dublin.
  October '02 - September '03
  • Jim Dowling, Eoin Curran, Raymond Cunningham and Vinny Cahill, "Building Autonomic Systems using Collaborative Reinforcement Learning", Special Issue on Autonomic Computing, Knowledge Engineering Review Journal, Cambridge University Press, vol(21), no(3), 2006, ISSN 1469-8005. Link
  • Jim Dowling, Eoin Curran, Raymond Cunningham and Vinny Cahill, "Using Feedback in Collaborative Reinforcement Learning to Adaptively Optimise MANET Routing", IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (Part A), Special Issue on Engineering Self-Orangized Distributed Systems, vol. 35, no. 3, pages 360-372, May 2005, ISSN 0018-9472
  • Jim Dowling, Raymond Cunningham, Anthony Harrington, Eoin Curran and Vinny Cahill, "Emergent Consensus in Decentralised Systems using Collaborative Reinforcement Learning", Post-Proceedings of the workshop SELF-STAR: Self-* Properties in Complex Information Systems, Hot Topics in Computer Science, LNCS 3460, 2005. PDF
  • Eoin Curran and Jim Dowling, "SAMPLE: Statistical Network Link Modelling in an On-Demand Probabilistic Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks", International Conference Wireless on Demand Network Systems and Services, 2005. PDF
  • Jim Dowling, Eoin Curran, Raymond Cunningham and Vinny Cahill, "Collaborative Reinforcement Learning of Autonomic Behaviour", 2nd International Workshop on Self-Adaptive and Autonomic Computing Systems, pages 700-704, 2004. [Winner Best Paper Award]. PDF
  • Jim Dowling, Eoin Curran, Raymond Cunningham and Vinny Cahill, "Component and System-Wide Self-* Properties in Decentralised Distributed Systems", International Workshop on Self-* Properties in Complex Information Systems, 2004.
  • Cooperative Reinforcement Learning for Routing in Ad-hoc Networks , Master's Thesis, October 2003.
  • Ad-hoc Internet Connectivity , TCD Computer Science Technical Report, May 2003.
  • Member of Winning team in Barclays Capital University Programming Competition , London, October 2002. See ENN Article [CACHED]
  
  
• NCL Technologies
  May '02 - September '02
  (See above for details).
  
  
• 4th year, Mathematics, TCD.
  October '01 - May '02.
  Graduated November 2002, B.A. (Mod) Mathematics, Trinity College Dublin with first-class honours (Gold medal).
  
  
• Object Mentor (Illinois)
  June - September '01. (J1 Program)
  
  • Servlet/XSL application development.
  • Part of an XP team.
  • Development in java, python, ruby, vb.
  
  
• NCL
  February - April '01 (part-time, during university)
  
  • Servlet/JSP application development, SMS messaging services.
  
  
• 3rd year, Mathematics, TCD.
  October '00 - May '01.
  Awarded Townsend Memorial Prize.
  
  
• Factor-e / Enba
  Contract. June - September '00
  
  • Servlet/JSP development of WAP financial application
  • CORBA (VisiBroker 3 & 4) development of client and server software in java.
  
  
• 2nd year, Theoretical Physics, TCD.
  October '99 - March '00.
  Awarded Foundation Scholarship (5 years free fees, room, board).
  
  
• Cunav Technologies / NewWorld Commerce Ltd.
  June '99 - September '99, (Part-time October - May '00) (Reference)
  
  • Microsoft Outlook/Exchange contact management application (vbScript coding, design, documentation, implementation)
  • Desk Research (Java technologies, JDBC, Servlet, JSP, Enterprise JavaBeans, Application Servers)
  • Java Coding (Servlet/JSP application with JDBC/SQL Server backend)
  • Enterprise level e-commerce website (order-processing, shopping cart, product catalog). ASP (vbScript) and Netscape Application Server (java) / Oracle.
  
  
• 1st year, Theoretical Physics, TCD.
  October '98 - May '99.
  Entrance Exhibition Prize, Lloyd Exhibition Prize.
  
  
• Allied Irish Banks
  June-August '97, July-September '98, on-call/part-time '98-'00.
  
  • Technical Support (100+ users - mission critical applications), Windows 3.1/NT4, Token Ring Network, Custom Applications.
  • Application Development - 2 complete applications developed using integration of Microsoft Office applications and C++/COM
  
  
• Broadcom Eireann Research Ltd.
  June - August '96
  
  • Set-up of web/mail services for telecoms research project. Details of the tasks I completed are in a reference from Broadcom.
• Diploma of Spanish as a Foreign Language (DELE), Intermediate Level (ALTE B2/Vantage Level), November 2004. (Description of DELE).

• Youth: Achievements

  • First Place, Wisconsin International Computer Problem Solving Contest, Elementary level (Under 16), 1990.
  • First Place, Fred Klotz Memorial Trophy, Irish National LOGO competition 1990 & 1991.
  • Took the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) as an entry requirement to the CTYI '95 (Centre for Talented Youth Ireland) and scored a perfect 800 in the Mathematical section. Full Scholarship CTYI Summer Program '93 & '94
  • Team Member, Irish delegation to the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), Eindhoven, July 1995. Bronze Medal Winner.
  • Development of 'Scoilbase', an Irish Primary School Administration System, in association with the Good Shepherd N.S. ~1995.
  • Development of Small Business (Auto-trade specific) Accounts and Stock Management software for the Ranelagh Auto Centre (Microsoft Access). ~1996.
  • Team Member, Irish delegation to the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), Veszprem (Hungary), July 1996. Bronze Medal Winner.
  • Team Member, Irish delegation to the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), Cape Town, South Africa, December 1997. Silver Medal Winner

Recruitment Agent Section - Technology Experience

• J2EE Platform: JDBC, Servlet, JSP, JMX, JMS, JNDI, EJB.
• Distributed Systems: CORBA (VisiBroker), SOAP, JavaGroups, J2EE, RMI, Erlang.
• Internet Applications: Servlet, JSP, ASP, Applets, HTML, WML, XML.
• Java Software Development: Swing/AWT, XML, Ant, JUnit, HttpUnit, Log4J, XDoclet.
• Ruby on Rails Development and Deployment: Mongrel, Capistrano, AJAX and RJS, PDF Generation. Have put 3 Rails-based e-commerce sites into production.
• Application Servers: Extensive JBoss customisation. Clustered JBoss for fault tolerance. Netscape Application Server. BEA Weblogic.
• Mobile Communications Technology: Extensive technical knowledge of SMS, MMS, WAP, wireless protocols.
• Programming Environments: Java, Python, C/C++, Visual C++, Visual Basic (VBA), Microsoft ASP, Perl, Ruby, XML, XSLT.
• Relational Database Systems: Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and Access, mySql, Postgres, Hypersonic. JDBC, ODBC, ADO, DAO.
• OO Software Design & Development: UML, Test-driven development, Refactoring, process automation (cvs, python, ant).
• Networking: In-depth knowledge of networking protocols, TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP, Routing Protocols, Wireless Protocols: 802.11.
• Network Administration: Linux, FreeBSD, OS/2, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Acorn RISC-OS. Database, file system management, email, internet connectivity (proxy, firewall configuration, security).