Social Distancing using Play-Doh and Matches

There has been much talk about using social distancing as a response to the Coronavirus outbreak. Here’s a video of how social distancing can be used: Close Contact, where the population is infected very rapidly. This is not A Good Thing – the national health service is overwhelmed, and the death rate goes up as …

Coronavirus: The First Big Test of Behavioral Science

The United Kingdom is at a crossroads, an ideological battle between natural science and behavioral science. Let’s hope for all our sakes we get this one right. Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, is facing a dilemma. When do we go from the so-called containment phase for controlling Covid-19 Coronavirus, to the delay phase. In …

Techincal Note: Calculating Hamming Distances Between Two Binary Strings in Excel

I haven’t seen anywhere that does this, so here’s how to calculate the Hamming distance between two binary strings in excel. Credit: Wikipedia / en:User:Cburnett Say you have two binary strings, say 001001 and 100100. How do you calculate their Hamming distance? It turns out it isn’t that easy in Excel, but is possible. How …

Agent-Based Strategizing: New Book Published at Cambridge University Press

My new book, Agent-Based Strategizing, has been published at Cambridge University Press. It is available to download for free until 31 July 2019 at the link below. The book is an overview of how agent-based modelling has been (and can be) used in strategic management. https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/agentbased-strategizing/4AD9D0D7416DE46AEB7F1A5478772ACF Abstract: Strategic management is a system of continual disequilibrium, …

Spatial Transmission Models: A Taxonomy and Framework

This paper , published in the journal Risk Analysis, sets out a review of the different methods used for modelling the spread of an idea, disease, etc. over space. ABSTRACT Within risk analysis and more broadly, the decision behind the choice of which modelling technique to use to study the spread of disease, epidemics, fires, technology, rumors, or …

PhD Studentship in Modelling Dynamic Responses to Dynamic Threats at Loughborough University [applications now closed]

I am co-supervising the following PhD project – the application link and further details can be found here: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research-degrees/funded/modelling-dynamic-responses/ .  The closing date is 14 December 2017.  Please get in touch if you would like to discuss this opportunity. One of the most challenging issues for policy makers dealing with bio-security threats is their dynamic …

Why The Mayor of Houston Was Right to Not Evacuate the City

Right now, Houston is going through one of the most severe storms ever to hit the USA.  The main conversation on today’s news was whether the Mayor (who has authority to do such things) should have evacuated the City prior to the arrival of Hurricane Harvey. For a start, NOAA did not forecast a direct …

Two Funded PhD Studentships in Agent-Based Modelling at Loughborough University School of Business and Economics [applications now closed]

I am looking for high quality, numerate, candidates to fill these exciting PhD studentships with me as a (co-) supervisor at Loughborough’s School of Business and Economics.  Please note that this post has been updated with new links (in blue, below). The first is modelling dynamic responses to dynamic threats; the second is using analytics …