| A summary of my research interests can be found in this presentation and on this poster. These resources are a bit dated but you might still find some interesting information here. |
| Projects |
| From Conceptual Model to Implementation with Generative AI |
| Internship, EPSRC funded |
| Traditional approaches to implementing ABMs often rely on extensive manual coding, which creates a major bottleneck in the development process. However, the recent advancements in Generative AI technology present an exciting opportunity to improve this workflow. Our current research involves fine tuning an LLM for the use in the field of Social Simulation, designing prompts that translate UML diagrams derived from the previously generated conceptual ABM into executable GAML code for the Gama platform, a modelling and simulation environment for creating and running spatially explicit agent-based simulations, and evaluating the quality of the derived scripts. |
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| The research is conducted by one of our bright undergrads, Sener Topaloglu. The duration of the project is 3 month. |
| Human-Inspired Agents: A Fuzzy Set Approach |
| Internship, funded internally |
| Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) is a powerful paradigm that can be used for conducting what-if analysis of human centric systems. Agents are comparable to non-player characters in games and serious simulations. In principle, ABS enables exploring the interaction of different groups of stakeholders, where the latter are often people in a specific context, from land owners in conservation, to shoppers in marketing. A key challenge in ABS is the appropriate specification of agents in order for them to behave similarly to humans. Commonly, so-called archetypes are established, which capture groups within a population sharing similar behaviour. This project is designed to combine fuzzy set theory with ABS in order to enable simulations where agents can be efficiently designed to replicate core behavioural aspects of human stakeholders, thus providing a pathway for human-inspired ABS. |
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| In this project I share the PI role with my colleague Christian Wagner. The research is conducted by one of our bright undergrads, Danial Stroud. The duration of the project is 3 month. |
| Creating an Artificial Hotspot Laboratory Prototype for Investigating HGV Hotspot Incidences |
| Funded internally by D^3 RPA Discipline Bridging Fund + ADAC (£11.022) |
| In this project we want to explore how we can take advantage of the multitude of collected data streams related to HGV incidents and the information/knowledge derived from these data streams after data analysis. Such data is collected by our industrial partner Microlise whose incident black boxes are installed in over 25% of the UK HGVs, capturing the driving behaviour of more than 90,000 drivers. Microlise is currently working with us on an Innovate UK project (VEDAT: 101938) which aims to develop a method for identify incidence hotspot locations from big incidence data sets. The dataset we are working with contains three month worth of data (1.2 million data points) about different types of HGV driving behaviour incidences: contextual speeding, speeding, harsh braking, harsh corners. These incidences can be traced back to individual drivers. We aim to develop an Artificial Hotspot Lab (AHL) prototype that will allow us to simulate different types of HGV drivers and their driving behaviours. With such a simulator (a what-if analysis tool) we could study the potential impact of driver personality on hot spot evolution with or without using innovative guidance systems as the one planned to be developed by Microlise which will inform drivers about upcoming hazards. For developing the AHL we will use an Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) and simulation approach. |
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| In this project I am the PI. The COIs are Bob John (UoN: CompSci), Grazziela Figueredo (UoN: ADAC), and Mohammad Mesgarpour (Microlise). The research is conducted by Grazziela Figueredo (UoN CompSci). The duration of the project is 3 month. |
| Agent-Based Modelling for Simulating Peacebuilding: A Feasibility Study |
| Funded internally (£5.100) [official website] |
| This project is about developing a framework for building agent-based simulation models of conflict-affected areas using Software Engineering (the unified modelling language - UML) for the conceptual modelling process. This framework will allow us to study how individuals in conflict-affected regions change their perceptions towards great powers and their behaviours as a result of international peacebuilding efforts - with a focus on those conducted by China. From a technical perspective we are particularly interested in developing a novel way of considering opinion dynamics as well as polarisation and including environmental psychology within our object oriented social simulation models. We will test our ideas using a case study approach. The case study is based on empirical data from a study conducted by Hirono (2011). This study investigates the perceptions and behaviours of the Sudanese and South Sudanese government and people towards Chinese immigrants who engage in peacebuilding efforts. It is also of interest to observe how these perceptions modify overtime, as the environment changes. The objective of the simulation is to provide insights into research questions such as: (1) How do people in Sudan and South Sudan perceive China's peacebuilding policy and practices? (2) How do such perceptions and the political/social/economic conditions of Sudan and South Sudan lead to particular behaviours that make up the Sudanese and South Sudanese' relations with China? (3) How and why do such perceptions and behaviours change over time? The figure below shows schematically the elements of the interactive process of our SimPB framework. These include establishing archetypes, creating general agent templates using UML, creating specific agent objects that are then integrated and cross linked within the simulation environment, running experiments, and analysing results. |
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| The PI in this project is Miwa Hirono (UoN: Politics). The COIs in this project are Peer-Olaf Siebers (UoN: CompSci) and Anya Skatova (UoN: Psychology). The research is conducted by Grazziela Figueredo (UoN CompSci). Academic support is provided by Lisa Siebers (NTU: Business School). The duration of the project is 3 month. |
| Sustaining Urban Habitats: An Interdisciplinary Approach |
| Leverhulme RP2013-SL-015 (£1.75M with an additional £1.65M Institutional Support) [Official Website] |
| The aim of this programme is to develop a distinctively interdisciplinary approach to producing and evaluating scenarios for sustainable living in urban habitats. With two growth cities in China (Chengdu, Shanghai) and two transition cities in Europe (Nottingham, Stuttgart) as our empirical focus, we will explore ways of combining environmental and economic modelling with social and cultural ethnographic work to illuminate: realistic measures of urban sustainability and options for improving resilience and resource flows (Theme #1); patterns of consumption by different groups and social perspectives on measures and scenarios for improving sustainability (Theme #2); factors shaping economic activity and migration, and prospects for balancing economic and social capital with environmental capital (Theme #3); effective ways of managing the different forms of data from #1 to #3 to develop appropriate indicators of sustainability (Theme #4); minimising resource demands in response to underlying stimuli and constraints (Theme #5); the role of public policies and policy-maker perspectives on the indicators and scenarios that we develop (Theme #6). |
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| The PI on this project is Darren Robinson. I am one of the 9 CI's and together with the PI and Paul Nathanail I am looking after Theme #5 (Modelling and Optimisation). The research is conducted by Dr Sameh Zakhary and Dr TrungHieu Tran. |
| Test Driven Object Oriented Simulation Modelling |
| Funded internally (£1.500) |
| Agile Software Development (ASD) has been a recent revolution in program design. ASD comprises a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental improvement. Extreme Programming (XP) is one of the methods that falls into this category. XP intends to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements and promotes Test Driven Development (TDD) as one of the practices. TDD (unit testing) forces a programmer to take a different view of the system by writing (and thinking about) the test cases before writing the actual unit code. The idea is illustrated in the diagram below [Source: Wikipedia]. |
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To our knowledge this kind of approach has never been applied to developing component based simulation models where researchers/practitioners often work with predefined components (design patterns) rather than coding methods. Moreover, an interesting aspect to consider is that different simulation methods have different design philosophies. Discrete Event Simulation (DES) focuses on describing the processes and operations while Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) focuses on designing individual entities and their behaviours and interaction. Therefore another open research direction to take would be to investigate whether the test driven development is applicable in the same way under both simulation modelling philosophies. On this project I share the investigator role with Ender Özcan. The research is conducted by Asta Shahriar |
| Future Energy Decision Making for Cities - Can Complexity Science Rise to the Challenge? |
| EPSRC EP/G05956X/1 Project Website |
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The research addresses a key challenge for energy sustainability - how can individual UK cities play their vital role in the implementation of ambitious future UK energy sustainability policies between now and 2020, whilst mitigating conflicts with the local imperatives that until now have dominated local government decision making? There are many different actors/key stakeholders (and legislation) involved in decision making processes that interact/influence each other in a non linear way. It is common practice to model only a subset of the actors involved in the decision making process. However, to get a realistic representation of the real system and its decision making processes we need to model the decision makers (politicians and senior local government personnel) on the one hand and the people influencing the decision making process (energy companies and their executives, activity groups and end users) on the other hand. |
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We will deploy agent-based modelling and simulation to deliver models that enable cities to define their current energy situation and then reach balanced decisions in their future energy planning, implementing UK sustainability targets. The project work will also involve efforts to relate and, where possible, integrate these agent-based models with dynamical network models of the evolving energy supply-demand network developed be our collaborators at Leeds University. I am a co-investigator on this project. The research is conducted by Dr Tao Zhang |
| Modelling and Analysing the Cargo Screening Process |
| EPSRC EP/G004234/1 |
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The efficiency of current cargo screening processes is unknown as no benchmarks exists against which they could be measured (% detected vs. % missed). Some manufacturer benchmarks exist for individual sensors which have been tested under laboratory conditions but we have not found any benchmarks that take a holistic view of the screening procedures assessing a combination of sensors and also taking operator variability into account. Just adding up resources and manpower used is not an effective way for assessing systems where human decision-making (e.g. interpreting sensor signals) and operator compliance to rules (e.g. when operating with equipment) play a vital role. For such systems more advanced assessment methods need to be used, taking into account that the cargo screening process is of a dynamic and stochastic nature. We are proposing to design a plug and play software tool (cargo screening system simulator) that will map the right technology and manpower to the right commodity / threat combination. System simulation can help to understand the processes currently in place and show the consequences of changes to these processes over time. The tool will enable the optimisation of resources (equipment, manning) and processes (job organisation, interoperability of equipment, teamwork, communication, data flow) and allow to evaluate the integration of new sensor technology and how they will improve detection efficiency. |
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| A Multi-Agent Simulation of Retail Management Practices |
| EPSRC EP/D503949/1 |
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Our previous project is part of an IDEAS Factory Network Project which investigates the role of management practices in closing the productivity gap. Our task in Nottingham is to develop a tool that helps to understand and predict the impact of different management practices on retail store productivity. After an intensive review of the literature we have decided to use agent-based modelling and simulation to support our investigations. In agent-based simulation models a complex system is represented by a collection of agents that are designed to mimic the behaviour of their real world counterparts and are programmed to follow some often quite simple behaviour rules. Macro behaviour is not modelled but it emerges from the micro decisions of the individual agents (Pourdehnad et al., 2002). Through interaction of agents with each other and their environment the simulation produces complex collective behaviour patterns. There has been a fair amount of modelling and simulation of operational management practices, but people management practices have often been neglected although research suggests that they crucially impact upon an organization's performance (Birdi et al., 2008). One reason for this neglect relates to the key component of people management practices, an organisation's people, who may often be unpredictable in their individual behaviour. In our project we focus on simulating various in-store scenarios grounded in empirical case studies with a leading UK retailer. We investigate if agent-based modelling and simulation can help us with assessing the impact of people management practices on customer satisfaction, under consideration of external stimulation attributable to the word of mouth and internal stimulation triggered by memory of one's own previous shopping experiences in relation to the performance of a service-oriented retail department. To achieve this aim we have adopted a case study approach using applied research methods to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. This has enabled us to acquire a valid and reliable understanding of how the real system operates, revealing insights into the working of the system as well as the behaviour of and interactions between the different individuals and their complementary roles within the retail department. Using this knowledge and data, we have applied agent-based modelling to devise a functional representation of the case study departments. By executing the simulation models we can run experiments to investigate the effects of different management scenarios. We have presented our work at all major annual simulation conferences and have found that interest in the research area is steadily growing. Developing capabilities in modelling human behaviour and performance becomes more and more relevant for business and organisations but also in areas like prevention of terrorism, homeland security, and emergency responses. References:
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| Esteem |
| 2018: Special Interest Group |
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Simulation Journal Club Local discussion forum for people interested in simulation, meeting bi-weekly. Papers discussed are be related to (1) simulation modelling in general, or (2) the research that the journal club members are involved in, or (3) relevant research methods, or (4) entertaining papers about Computer Science. An alternative to discussing papers could be to discuss video lectures posted on YouTube. For more information see here. |
| 2016: Special Interest Group |
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Nottingham Initiative on Engineering Social Simulation (NIESS) If you are interested in this initiative and want to find out more please get in touch. |
| 2014: Guest Editorship |
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Special Section in the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS): Engineering Agent-Based Social Simulations Guest Editors:
The Guest Editorial is available here: [url] |
| 2013 Special Interest Group |
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Behavioural Economics Meets object oriented Simulation SIG (BEMooSSIG) Local discussion forum for people interested in studying how to use games (lab experiments) as a data collection tool or as a mechanism to inform/support modelling the decision making of actors in object oriented social or socio-technical system simulation models and how the simulation results can be used to cross-validate game results. Website: http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pos/bemoossig/ |
| 2013: Special Interest Group |
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East Midlands Simulation SIG (EMSSIG) EMSSIG organises some get togethers for those that are interested or working in simulation in the East Midlands (Nottingham, Loughborough, Leicester) with the aim to meet at least once per term. The topics of interest to be presented and discussed at the meetings are of a broad range and include things like: conceptual modelling, system dynamics simulation, discrete event simulation, agent-based simulation, and participatory simulation. Website: http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pos/emssig/ |
| 2012: Guest Editorship |
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Special Issue of International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM): Multi-Agent Simulation as a Novel Decision Support Tool for Innovation and Technology Management Guest Editors:
The Guest Editorial is available here: [url] |
| Research Visits |
| 2017: Michigan State University - Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences |
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When looking for a "what-if" analysis tool to support social systems engineering studies, agent-based modelling and simulation should be the method of choice. It is a well-established method for studying human-centric systems. Developing such models, however, is not an easy task, and there is not much guidance around, that clearly explains how this is done. I visited Dr Ligmann-Zielinska at MSU-Geography for a month, as both our research interests are around the topics of sustainability and agent-based social simulation and we both have developed frameworks (formal approaches) to support those studies. While my framework focuses on the simulation model design (Siebers and Kluegl, 2017) the framework of Dr Ligmann-Zielinska focuses more on the experimentation and simulation output analysis (Ligmann-Zielinska et al, 2010). The goal of the research visit was to bring these two framework together and to come up with an umbrella framework that supports the simulation modeller from the beginning right through to the end of a simulation study (i.e. it encompasses the whole life cycle of a simulation study) with guidance and documentation support. The research visit was supported by the "Research Board International Collaboration Fund" of the University of Nottingham. A summary report about this "mini sabbatical" can be found here. References
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| Resources |
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Below is a list of resources (papers and books), which are all somehow related to my teaching and research. There is one set of resources organised by topics and another set of resources organised by projects I have worked on or supervised. Papers are listed in the following format: authors (year) title. Books are listed in the following format: title [authors year]. To find the complete reference of a resource copy the relevant tree entry and paste it into Google Scholar. This will provide you with the complete reference and often also a download link. |
| Resources organised by Topics |
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| Resources related to Projects |
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