I recently attended the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) 5th Research Methods Festival. Researchers from the Talisman project presented in a few different sessions, presenting cutting edge work on methods for collecting data (with a focus on new crowd-sourced data) as well as methods for spatial modelling, simulation and policy analysis. All of the presentations are available on the Research Methods Festival website.
The left image, taken from one of my presentations, shows some of the movement patterns produced by a ‘virtual burglar’ as they move around Leeds. We can use models like this to explore crime patterns at an individual level, and try to predict the effects that crime-reduction initiatives will have. The image was created using a piece of software called GeoTime, which is designed to allow users to explore spatio-temporal patterns of human movement. For more information about the burglary model itself, have a look at my Research page (scroll down to “Agent-Based Modelling of Crime”).