name	Menno RUBINGH
contact info	Click here
date of birth	7 Dec 1966
nationality	Netherlands
languages	English -- fluent German -- good Dutch -- native language French, Italian -- understanding
personality type	Big Five: O++ C- E-- A- N= MBTI: INTP

SERVICES OFFERED:

• Software structure & algorithm design
  • Ferreting out new possibilities to make them into working prototype systems
  • Engineering the concrete methods and algorithms needed for the envisaged usage possibilities (incl. numerical and AI algoritms)
  • Improvement of the structure and organization of existing code, to make it more maintainable
  • Design of software components that are: platform-independent, maximally bug-free, and clearly (understandably) structured
  • Creation of software tools.

• Software documentation
  • Writing texts that convey insight into the underlying logic and mechanisms used in a piece of software, and that link up the logical picture with the actual software code.

USEFUL FOR:

I'm useful everywhere where new things need to be understood, then engineered into working prototypes and/or documented clearly.   That is, I'm useful where no off-the-shelf standard solutions are available.   (Note: I'm less useful for quickly plugging together end-user programs using only off-the-shelf components; and for work limited to the the outside (user) interface of a system and not touching its internal design. )

EXPERIENCE OVERVIEW: Programming Languages ANSI C, C++, Java, Pascal, Perl, assembler, FORTRAN (-77 and -90), Lisp, Smalltalk, BASIC, VBA, UNIX shell scripts (sh/bash/ksh/C), Javascript, ... Operating systems and Platforms UNIX (Linux, HP-UX, AIX), Windows, Renesas M32192 with OSEK/VDX, OS/2, DOS, VAX-VMS, Apple Macintosh, ... Software tools gcc, gdb, ddd, gprof, make, Lauterbach debugger, Vector tools, yacc/bison, (f)lex, vi(m), hexdump, UNIX tools (grep/awk/sed/...), SVN/CVS/MKS, doxygen, javadoc, ... Libraries C++ STL, MFC, Java Sun container classes, Java Swing, X-windows, ... Communication protocols TCP/IP, (E)SMTP, HTTP, CAN, SPI, ... Application languages etc. XML, XSL, SQL, mySQL, Postscript, gs, Prolog, UML, formal specification languages (Z, predicate calculus), ... Other relevant skills/knowledge: Good all-round knowledge in physics, electronics, mathematics (incl. numerical and graph algorithms), AI fields (neural networks, natural language processing, text association), and computer science (hashing, random generation, balanced trees, compiler design); basic knowledge in information theory Computer science experience includes: Code generation (C/C++, VBA, XSL, XML/HTML, Postscript); Coding of interpreters; Creation of own software tools (e.g. Java file-scope class detector, calling tree analyzers, BASIC variable definition checker); Computer graphics (ray tracing, splines); Object-oriented design (in any programming language); UNIX system programming (pthreads, pipes, ...)

EDUCATION:

Technical University (TU) Delft, Netherlands, 1986 - 1991: M.Sc. Electrical Engineering
	*	Specialization: Semiconductor physics and computer simulation of semiconductor devices
	*	Traineeship during studies (1990, Philips Nijmegen): Computer modeling of ESD protection transistors.

PROFESSIONAL CURRICULUM VITAE:     Oldest jobs first.   Jump to most recent job

• 1992-1996: First jobs, Netherlands
  • 1992 (Delft Institute of Micro-Electronics and Sub-micron techology, Delft) -- Writing of a program for computation of charge distributions in SiGe MOS transistors (C++, Apple Macintosh); plus assistance with literature research
  • 1993-1994 (Warma Engineering, Ridderkerk bei Rotterdam) -- General maintenance of a program (Basic, DOS) for control/monitoring of heating installations.
  • 1995 (INCORE Automatisering, Amsterdam) -- Design and implementation of a program for generic and configurable data communication (file transfer through TCP/IP) between a warehouse management program and a remote database (C, OS/2).
  • 1996 (TNO-FEL, Den Haag) -- Implementation of a program for computation of the infrared contrast of a navy ship, on the basis of a simple model. Also assistance with making the model mathematically consistent. (FORTRAN-90, DOS.)
  • 1996 (CMG, Den Haag) -- Programming work for the control of the mobile flood-protection dam ("Stormvloedkering") near Rotterdam (UNIX, C/C++).

• 1996-1997 (CONSUL Risk Management B.V., Delft, with TU Delft, Netherlands)
  Research and software development for anomaly detection for computer security.
  The "anomalies" to be detected were defined as: suspicious, untypical entries in a logs of the behaviour of computer network users. The purpose of this anomaly detection was intrusion detection through detection of changed user behaviour.
        Delivered work: R&D on detection of "anomalies" in logs of the behaviour of computer network users. Research into data analysis methods, such as statistical methods, that can be used in anomaly detection; followed by design, implementation, documentation, and testing of a prototype program that executes anomaly detection in computer logs. (ANSI C, SQL, Sybase, UNIX, Windows NT, MVS.)

• 1998-2000 (Freelance work, Netherlands)
  Various programming- and documentation assignments:
        Analyzing and documenting the logical functionality of existing programs, to open up the software to the customer for re-implementation and/or maintenance   --   for the following two programs: 1. (for Europe Data Consult, Rotterdam) an old Pascal program for computation of technical specifications of a electrical power conductor; 2. (for RIKS, Ministry of Water Management, The Hague, and EDS, Leidschendam) the DIGIPOL program, a C program for interpolation of sea- and river depth measurement data.
        Other assignments   --   (for Rentmeester Informatisering, Alphen a/d Rijn) conversion of Windows '9x printer driver software to Windows NT 4.0 (for EDS Leidschendam) UNIX shell scripting and documentation for a backup system.

• 2001 (ED&T, Philips Research, Eindhoven, Netherlands)
  Re-implementation of a program ('maketiming') for converting the model description of a mixed analog/digital IC into an (approximate) fully digital IC.
  The purpose of this program was to make it possible to compute the timing behaviour of a mixed analog/digital IC by using simulation software intended for digital ICs.
        The goal of the assignment was to extend the program so that it could handle additional digital cell library file formats. After my analysis of the program, it was decided that the program had to be fully re-implemented to use another internal data structure.
        As a part of the assignment, I also documented and debugged a few auxiliary programs used in translation of digital cell libraries to other file formats. (UNIX, C++)

• 2002-2004 (im-brain GmbH, Dortmund, Germany)
  Research, design and implementation of a new and improved version of the semantic text association software used by the company.
  The text association software is a "brain" that can compare texts and words in a human-like way, by taking into account the (automatically generated) "cloud" of associations around each word. Design, implementation and testing of the central text association module used by all im-brain application (end-user) programs.
        Research into extension of the association machine to image data, and delivery of prototype systems to compare logo images and to detect blocks of text in scanned pages. Delivery of general-purpose hierarchical clustering software, complete with graphical visualization of the clustering result.
        Improvement of the structure of one of the (server-based) end-user programs. In all im-brain software, organization of the code into libraries, and help with making the code more error-free. Writing of software documentation. (Linux, C++)
  

• 2005 (Docuserve, Hamburg, Germany, for customer Basler Vision Technologies, Ahrensburg, Germany)
  Writing of an overview (programmer's guide) of the API of a software library for a "smart camera".
  The camera incorporated a general-purpose processor, on which user programs could (typically for image processing) could be run. These user programs used a software library delivered with the camera that allowed the image capturing and image transfer hardware to be controlled from the user program.
        My main task was to write an API overview text (programmer's guide) for this software library. The purpose of this text was to give the application programmer an overview picture over the library's API, which the automatically (doxygen) generated "API Reference" could not give.
        In addition, my tasks included also: (1) In discussion with the programmers and from the source code, finding out and getting clear what the API actually was, i.e. what in the code of the software library was the set of classes/methods intended to be called from user programs; (2) Help with structuring the "API Reference" generated automatically from comments in the source code; (3) Writing of explanatory/tutorial texts to go with the set of sample programs delivered with the camera.
        The software library was a C++ library (using templates and exceptions). The processor on the camera was running the Linux operating system.
  

• 2006 (JULIE Lab, University of Jena, Germany)
  Software development for a natural language processing research group.
  The research subject of this small group consisted in language processing software based on so-called "supervised learning". That is, the software always had to be trained on a sample of the input data, on which the expected outputs (such as word class of each word) of the language processing software were added ("annotated") manually.
        My task was to design and build an infrastructure system for all data processing and data storage for this supervised learning of language processing software modules. The system I built included a central data repository, a server for access to this repository, a client program communicating with this server (from which an external GUI program was called through which the annotator entered the expected outputs for the training sample), and a set of auxiliary programs to for the system supervisor to manage the repository. The system could also do iterative learning ("active learning"), in which the selection of the next training sample depends on the outputs of the previous iteration. (Java, TCP/IP, Linux.)

• Sep 2006 - Dec 2007 (Manu-Dextra GmbH, Nürnberg, Germany, for customer Automotive Distance Control Systems GmbH, Lindau/Bodensee, Germany)
  Software architecture/design documentation, and software development, for the microcontroller software in a radar sensor device.
  The software on the two microcontrollers (Renesas M32192) in this radar sensor device computed from the raw radar data the position and speed of the (nearest) objects in the region swept by the moving radar beam. The software (ANSI C) was strictly modularized into separate software components, much like C++ classes. (These modules largely conformed to the automotive AUTOSAR standard.)
        My tasks during this assignment consisted to 75% of software software documentation, and to 25% of sofware development, namely:

  o	Documentation:
  		*	Software architecture documentation: Description of the application software in the device as a whole, treating the software components as black boxes. The software architecture documentation was split up into two separate documents: 1. Description of the general architecture used on all devices manufactured by the company, including an overview of the standard software components reused on all devices; 2. Specification of the software architecture of the radar sensor device, referring to the general architecture document where possible.
  		*	Detailed design documentation of the boot-loader software on both microcontrollers in the radar sensor device.
  		*	Detailed design documentation of one of the software components in the application software of the radar sensor device, namely the "ACTL" component (Application ConTroL), responsible for controlling (coordinating) the cyclic data processing in the device.
  o	Software design and -development:
  		*	Modification of the software component ACTL. This ACTL component contained a state machine, with as state variable the "operation mode" of the device as a whole. I changed the implementation of this state machine to make the behaviour of the state machine configurable at compile time. Originally the state machine had been hard-coded as a switch-case; I changed this to an implementation in which the state machine behaviour was specified (encoded) in constant tables, in separate C source files. These C source files were then generated automatically from a human-readable specification of the state machine in Excel tables. I also wrote the VBA code in Excel that generated these C files.
  		*	Customer adaptation in the software component for operating the CAN bus
  		*	Writing of Perl scripts, used (among other things) for code generation for the CAN software component

  I delivered extensive documentation also for the code and scripts that I wrote/changed. (C, CAN, OSEK/VDX, Vector/Lauterbach tools, Perl, VBA)

HOBBIES: Hiking, baroque music, history, psychology; study and design of software brains for autonomous robots (see "http://www.rubinghscience.org").