Mahendrarajah Piraveenan

B.Eng Hons (Adelaide) PhD (Sydney)
Lecturer
Project Management Programme

School of Civil Engineering, Room 338
Phone: 9351 2892
Fax: +61 2 9351 3343
Email:

About Piraveen

I am a computer systems engineer by training and I completed my Ph.D with Professor A.Y.Zomaya at the University of Sydney. My main research interest is in the topological analysis and modelling of complex networks, and how such analysis could be applied to measure robustness, response time, and attack tolerance of complex networks. The research is applicable in a number of areas including responsiveness of fire fighting and hospital networks, robustness of defence networks, infection-spearing in networks of patients, the affect of advertising and verbal communication in social networks, and the topological importance of genes and proteins in biological networks. During my Ph.D years I concentrated on assortativity of complex networks and introduced the novel concept of local assortativity. I am also interested in other topological aspects of complex networks such as modularity and betweenness, and motif analysis.

Career

Software Engineer, Spectra QEST Pvt Ltd, Adelaide (2004 – 2005
Research Engineer, CSIRO (2006)
Ph.D student, CSIRO / University of Sydney (2007 – 2010)
Lecturer, University of Sydney (2011 – cont)

Research Interests

Complex networks including topological analysis, motif analysis, load analysis, robustness and attack tolerance
Bioinformatics, including sequence analysis and biological networks
Network analysis in project management
Multi agent systems, distributed systems, emergent behaviour
Biologically inspired computation, including genetic algorithms
Distributed energy management

Current/recent research projects

CSIRO / NASA Ageless Aerospace Vehicle project (2003 – 2004)
Distributed Energy project, CSIRO (2006)
Robustness of complex networks under persistent attack (current)
Local modularity of networks (current)
Assortativity and infection spread in networks (current)

Publications

Scholarly Book Chapters

M. Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, P. Wang, A. Zeman, "Decentralised multi-agent clustering in scale-free sensor networks,' book chapter, in J. Fulcher and L. C. Jain (eds.), Studies in Computational Intelligence (SCI), 115, 485-515, Springer, Berlin, 2008.

Refereed Journal papers

M. Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, A. Y. Zomaya. Local assortativeness in scale-free networks, Europhysics Letters, 84, 28002, 2008. * (impact factor 2.893, ranked A in the ERA exercise)
M. Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, A. Y. Zomaya. Assortativeness and information in scale-free networks, European Physical Journal B, 67, 291–300, 2009. * (impact factor 1.568, ranked A in the ERA exercise)
M. Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, A. Y. Zomaya, Local Assortativity and Growth of Internet, European Physical Journal B, 70, 275–285, 2009. * (impact factor 1.568, ranked A in the ERA exercise)
M. Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, A. Y. Zomaya. Assortative mixing in directed biological networks, IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, to appear, 2010. * (impact factor 1.80, ranked A* in the ERA exercise)
M. Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, A. Y. Zomaya. Local assortativeness in scale-free networks – Addendum, Europhysics Letters, 89, 49901, 2010. * (impact factor 2.893, ranked A in the ERA exercise)

Refereed Conference Papers

M. Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, and A. Y. Zomaya, "Classifying complex networks using unbiased local assortativity," accepted, 12th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems (ALIFE) , 2010 * (ranked A in the ERA exercise)
J. T. Lizier, M. Piraveenan, D. Pradhana, M. Prokopenko, and L. S. Yaeger, "Functional and structural topologies in evolved neural networks," in Advances in Artificial Life: 10th European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL -2009), ser. LNCS/LNAI. Springer, vol. 5777-5778, 2009 * (ranked B in the ERA exercise)
M.Piraveenan, M.Prokopenko, A.Y.Zomaya, 'Information Cloning of scale free networks', The 9th European Conference on Artificial Life, ECAL-07, Portugal, September 2007 * (ranked B in the ERA exercise)
M.Piraveenan, D.Polani, M.Prokopenko, 'Emergence of genetic coding: An information theoretic view'. The 9th European Conference on Artificial Life, ECAL-07, Portugal, September 2007 (ranked B in the ERA exercise)
J. Li, G.Poulton, G.James, A. Zeman, P. Wang, M.Chadwick, M.Piraveenan, 'Multi Agent Coordination of Distributed Energy Resources', short paper, CSIRO ICT Centre Conference, Sydney, Australia, October 2006
M. Piraveenan, G.James, M. Chadwick, S. West, 'Modeling and Forward Planning for Intelligent Resource Agents for Distributed Energy Management', short paper, CSIRO ICT Centre Conference, Sydney, Australia, October 2006
M.Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, P. Wang, D.Price. 'Towards Adaptive Clustering in Self- monitoring Multi Agent Networks'. The 9th International Conference on Knowledge-Based & Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems, KES-05, Melbourne, September 2005. (ranked B in the ERA exercise)
M.Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, P. Wang, D.Price. 'On Decentralized Clustering in Self Monitoring Networks', short paper. The 4th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS-05), The Netherlands, July 2005. (ranked A in the ERA exercise)
M. Prokopenko, M.Piraveenan, P. Wang, 'On Convergence of Dynamic Cluster formation in Multi-Agent Networks'. The 8th European Conference on Artificial Life, ECAL-05, United Kingdom, September 2005. (ranked B in the ERA exercise)

Other publications

M. Piraveenan, A. Y. Zomaya and M.Prokopenko "Characterising local level topology in complex networks," short paper and key note talk, second International Workshop on Information Network Design (WIND'09) 2009 *
M. Piraveenan, M. Prokopenko, A. Y. Zomaya. "Assortative mixing in directed biological networks", University of Sydney Technical Report, 2009. *

Teaching and Learning

School & University Service

Membership of Professional Societies

IEEE, APESMA
Reviewer of International journals including IEEE transactions on parallel and distributed systems, IEEE transactions on computers, Artificial Life

The University of Sydney - Civil Engineering