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Dr Blair Lennon Robertson

Contact

Department: Mathematics and Statistics

Email: blair.robertson@canterbury.ac.nz

Phone Number: +64 3 369 3999 ext. null

Office: Jack Erskine 713

Language: English

About
Research / Creative works
Supervision
Networks
Projects

Fields of Research

  • Numerical Optimization
  • Data Mining
  • Sampling Theory
  • Computational Mathematics and Statistics
  • Applied Mathematics

Researcher Summary

My recent research has focused on developing algorithms for numerical optimization problems, designing tree-based learners for classification problems and developing spatially balanced sampling designs for environmental monitoring.

Subject Area: Disciplines

  • Mathematics: Applied Mathematics
  • Statistics: Applied Statistics
  • Roberston_cropped.jpg

Prizes and Awards

    Distinction
  • Faculty of Engineering Established Teaching Award ( 2022 - present )
  • Worsley Early Career Research Award ( 2015 - 2016)

Research/Scholarly/Creative Works

Journal Articles
  • Robertson B., Ozturk O., Kravchuk O. and Brown J. (2022) Spatially Balanced Sampling with Local Ranking. Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13253-022-00501-6.
  • Trinh XS., Ngoduy D., Keyvan-Ekbatani M. and Robertson B. (2022) Incremental unscented Kalman filter for real-time traffic estimation on motorways using multi-source data. Transportmetrica A: Transport Science 18(3): 1127-1153. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23249935.2021.1931548.
  • Price C., Reale M. and Robertson B. (2021) OSCARS-II: an algorithm for bound constrained global optimization. Journal of Global Optimization 79: 39-57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10898-020-00928-6.
  • Robertson B., van Dam-Bates P. and Gansell O. (2021) Halton iterative partitioning master frames. Environmental and Ecological Statistics http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10651-020-00481-1.
  • Robertson BL., Reale M., Price CJ. and Brown JA. (2021) Quasi-random ranked set sampling. Statistics and Probability Letters 171 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.spl.2020.109029.
  • Curran M., Hodza P., Cox S., Lanning S., Robertson B., Robinson T. and Stahl P. (2020) Ground-level Unmanned Aerial System Imagery Coupled with Spatially Balanced Sampling and Route Optimization to Monitor Rangeland Vegetation. Journal of Visualized Experiments http://dx.doi.org/10.3791/61052.
  • Curran MF., Cox SE., Robinson TJ., Robertson BL., Strom CF. and Stahl PD. (2020) Combining spatially balanced sampling, route optimisation and remote sensing to assess biodiversity response to reclamation practices on semi-arid well pads. Biodiversity 21(4): 171-181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14888386.2020.1733085.
  • Curran MF., Cox SE., Robinson TJ., Robertson BL., Rogers KJ., Sherman ZA., Adams TA., Strom CF. and Stahl PD. (2019) Spatially balanced sampling and ground-level imagery for vegetation monitoring on reclaimed well pads. Restoration Ecology 27(5): 974-980. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/rec.12956.
  • Kermorvant C., D'Amico F., Bru N., Caill-Milly N. and Robertson B. (2019) Spatially balanced sampling designs for environmental surveys. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 191 524: 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7666-y.
  • Wickramarachchi DC., Robertson BL., Reale M., Price CJ. and Brown JA. (2019) A reflected feature space for CART. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics 61(3): 380-391. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/anzs.12275.
  • Robertson BL., McDonald T., Price C. and Brown J. (2018) Halton iterative partitioning: spatially balanced sampling via partitioning. Environmental and Ecological Statistics 25(3): 305-323. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10651-018-0406-6.
  • van Dam-Bates P., Gansell O. and Robertson BL. (2018) Using balanced acceptance sampling as a master sample for environmental surveys. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 9(7): 1718-1726. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13003.
  • Robertson BL., McDonald T., Price CJ. and Brown JA. (2017) A modification of balanced acceptance sampling. Statistics & Probability Letters : 107-112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.spl.2017.05.004.
  • Price CJ., Reale M. and Robertson BL. (2016) Stochastic filter methods for generally constrained global optimization. Journal of Global Optimization 65(3): 441-456. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10898-015-0388-y.
  • Wickramarachchia DC., Robertson BL., Reale M., Price CJ. and Brown J. (2016) HHCART: An oblique decision tree. Computational Statistics & Data Analysis 96: 12-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csda.2015.11.006.
  • Price CJ., Reale M. and Robertson BL. (2014) One side cut accelerated random search. Optimization Letters 8(3): 1137-1148. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11590-013-0631-8.
  • Robertson BL., Brown JA., McDonald T. and Jaksons P. (2013) BAS: balanced acceptance sampling of natural resources. Biometrics 63(3): 776-784. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/biom.12059.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2013) A CartOpt method for bound-constrained global optimization. ANZIAM Journal 55(2): 109-128. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1446181113000412.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2013) CARTopt: a random search method for nonsmooth unconstrained optimization. Computational Optimization and Applications 56(2): 291-315. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10589-013-9560-9.
  • Price CJ., Reale M. and Robertson BL. (2012) A cover partitioning method for bound constrained global optimization. Optimization Methods and Software 27(6): 1059-1072. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10556788.2011.557726.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2011) A Hooke and Jeeves - CARTopt hybrid method for nonsmooth optimization. Advanced Modeling and Optimization 13(3): 381-401.
  • Price CJ., Robertson BL. and Reale M. (2009) A hybrid Hooke and Jeeves - Direct method for non-smooth optimization. Advanced Modeling and Optimization 11(1): 43-61.
  • Price CJ., Reale M. and Robertson BL. (2008) A direct search method for smooth and nonsmooth unconstrained optimization. ANZIAM Journal 48: C927-C948.
Conference Contributions - Published
  • Robertson B., Brown J. and McDonald T. (2019) The Use of Ranked Set Sampling with Balanced Acceptance Sampling. In Proceedings of the 34th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling (IWSM).
  • Robertson B., Brown J., McDonald T. and Price C. (2019) Spatially Balanced Sampling using the Halton Sequence. In 2019 JSM Proceedings: 647-652.
  • Trinh X., Ngoduy D., Robertson B. and Keyvan-Ekbatani M. (2019) A novel incremental unscented Kalman Filter with adaptive noise for motorway traffic estimation from heterogeneous data.. In Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies.
  • Trinh XS., Ngoduy D. and Keyvan-Ekbatani M. (2019) A comparative study on filtering methods for online freeway traffic estimation using heterogeneous data. In IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Proceedings, ITSC IEEE. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ITSC.2019.8917363.
  • Trinh XS., Ngoduy D., Keyvan-Ekbatani M. and Robertson B. (2019) A Novel Traffic Estimation Approach Using Multi-Source Data on Motorways. In Tenth Triennial Symposium on Transportation Analysis (TRISTAN).
  • Brown J., Robertson B. and McDonald T. (2017) Spatially Balanced Sampling. In Proceedings of the 32nd International Workshop on Statistical Modelling (IWSM), Johann Bernoulli Institute, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands, 3, 7 July 2017..
  • Robertson BL., Price C. and Reale M. (2017) Stochastic global optimization using random forests. In Proceedings of MODSIM 2017: 784-789.
  • Brown JA., Robertson BL. and McDonald T. (2015) Spatially Balanced Sampling: application to environmental surveys. In Procedia Environmental Sciences 27: 6-9.
  • Brown JA., Robertson BL. and McDonald T. (2015) Spatially Balanced Sampling: application to environmental surveys. In Procedia Environmental Sciences 27: 6-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.proenv.2015.07.108.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ., Reale M. and Brown JA. (2013) Directed Voronoi Search: a method for bound constrained global optimization. In Proceedings of ASOR 2013: 46-52.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2009) Nonsmooth Optimization using Classification and Regression Trees. In : 1195-1201.
Conference Contributions - Other
  • Curran M., Cox S., Robertson B. and Robinson T. (2021) Spatially Balanced Sampling, Route Optimization and Drone Imagery to Advance Restoration Monitoring. Society for Ecological Restoration International Meeting, 21 Jun 2021.
  • Robertson B., Brown J., McDonald T. and Price C. (2019) Spatially Balanced Sampling using the Halton Sequence. Denver, CO, USA: Joint Statistical Meeting, 28 Jul-2 Aug 2019.
  • Robertson B., McDonald T., Brown J. and Price C. (2019) Quasi-random spatially balanced sampling. Adelaide, Australia: Biometrics by the Botanic Gardens, International Biometric Society Australasian Region Conference, 3-6 Dec 2019.
  • Robertson BL., Price C. and Reale M. (2017) Random search global optimization using random forests. Auckland, New Zealand: 2017 IASC-ARS/NZSA Conference, 10-14 Dec 2017.
  • Robertson BL., Price C. and Reale M. (2017) Stochastic global optimization using random forests. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: The 22nd International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM2017), 3-8 Dec 2017.
  • Dam-Bates P., Gansell O. and Robertson BL. (2016) New Zealand master sample using Balanced Acceptance Sampling. Seattle, Washington, USA: International Statistical Ecology Conference 2016, 28 Jun-1 Jul 2016.
  • Price CJ., Robertson BL. and Reale M. (2016) Stochastic filter methods for global optimization. Canberra, Australia: AUSTMS 2016. The 60th annual meeting of the Australian Mathematical Society, 4-8 Dec 2016.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2016) Connections between local non-smooth optimization and global optimization. University of Canterbury: Optimization and Statistics in Data Science, 22-22 Nov 2016.
  • Robertson BL., McDonald T. and Brown JA. (2015) Spatially balanced sampling using quasi-random number sequences. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand: Joint Conference of the New Zealand Statistical Association and Operations Research Society of New Zealand (NZSA + ORSNZ), 24-26 Nov 2015.
  • Reale M., Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Brown JA. (2013) Directed Voronoi Search: A direct search method for bound constrained global optimization. Adelaide, Australia: 20th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM2013), 4-4 Dec 2013.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2009) Nonsmooth optimization using classification and regression trees. Limassol, Cyprus: 3rd International Conference on Computational and Financial Econometrics (CFE'09), 29-31 Oct 2009.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2008) CARTopt: A random search method for non-smooth optimization. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand: 7th Australia-New Zealand Mathematics Convention (AIMS), 8-12 Dec 2008.
Oral Presentations
  • Robertson B., McDonald T., Brown J. and Price C. (2022) Drawing well-spread samples from spatial populations. 28 Sep 2022.
  • Robertson B., McDonald T., Brown J. and Price C. (2021) Quasi-random spatially balanced sampling. SER-RM Workshop: Practical Tools and Sample Designs for Ecological Restoration Monitoring, 06 May 2021.
  • Robertson B., Brown J., McDonald T. and Price C. (2020) Spatially balanced sampling of natural resources using a random-start Halton sequence.. Adelaide, Australia: University of Adelaide Biometry Hub.
  • Dam-Bates P., Gansell O. and Robertson BL. (2016) New Zealand master sample using balanced acceptance sampling. University of Otago.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2014) Bound constrained global optimization using classification and regression trees. American Statistical Association Spring Meeting.
  • Brown JA., Robertson BL., Price CJ., Reale M., Jaksons P. and McDonald T. (2013) Spreading your effort: a balanced sample design for n-dimensions. Mandurah, Perth, Australia: The International Biometric Society, Australasian Region Conference.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2013) Bound constrained global optimization using CART partitions. University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA.
  • Brown JA., Robertson B. and Jaksons P. (2012) Adaptive sampling. University of Pau and Pays de l'Adou: Seminar.
  • Brown JA., Robertson B. and Jaksons P. (2012) Adaptive sampling: How to sample only the good stuff. Department of Mathematics, Statistics, University of Canterbury: Seminar.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2011) Direct search methods for nonsmooth optimization using global optimization techniques. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2009) Nonsmooth optimization using classification and regression trees. Rome, Italy.
Reports
  • Robertson BL., Price CJ. and Reale M. (2012) The CARToptimizer package version 1.0 user's guide.Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury. 18pp.
Additional Publications
  • Robertson BL. (2010) Direct Search Methods for Nonsmooth Problems using Global Optimization Techniques. Christchurch, New Zealand. University of Canterbury.

Student Supervision

Displaying all items.
    Completed
  • PhD - Abi N: Adaptive spatially balanced sampling method (2019)
  • PhD - Jaksons P: Long term ecological sampling: Adaptive surveys and methodology (2015)
  • PhD - Trinh XS: Real-time traffic monitoring using multiple data sources in urban networks (2022)
  • PhD - Wickramarachchi D: Oblique decision trees in transformed spaces (2015)
  • Masters - Li Y: Sampling Big Data (2017)

Affiliations

  • New Zealand Statistical Association (NZSA) (Professional Organisation): Member

Research Groups

  • Computational Mathematics
  • Environmental statistics
  • Stochastic Optimization and Statistical Learning (SOSL)

Research Projects

  • Adaptive survey designs for environmental monitoring in Qatar
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