UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis

GENeSIS is a new ESRC node in the National Centre for e-Social Science. It joins the previous GeoVUE node at UCL to the MoSeS node at Leeds to pursue research into agent-based modeling and microsimulation applied to cities. GENeSIS strictly means GENerative e-SocIal Science but like all good acronyms can be unpacked in diverse ways which emphasize our focus on space and simulation.

GeoVUE stands for Geographic Virtual Urban Environments. It was a project which essentially developed web-based services for the visualization of 2D maps producing in particular GMapCreator and MapTube amongst other software for map mashup and then moved on to consider importing 2D maps and related geospatial data into 3D environment, specifically games and virtual worlds but also 3D GIS, CAD and 3D virtual globes. MoSeS stands for MOdelling and Simulation for e-Social Science. It was a project to build microsimulation model of the UK economy developed using microsimulation logics and applied to subdivisions of the UK space at different spatial scales. It is used for policy analysis such as the impact of aging on public services.

GENeSIS (= GeoVUE + MoSeS) is to develop microsimulation models for social science and to link these to the emerging paradigm of agent-based models. The UCL node will develop ABMS and their visualization while the Leeds node will link microsimulation to ABMs. Model development and visualization will take place in both nodes and the programme of research will be integrated.

This blog is our first experiment in not building web site for the project although one does exist in preliminary form at http://www.genesis.ucl.ac.uk/ where you can view the proposal.

Blog address below

http://www.genesis.ncess.ac.uk/