SECReT 2009 PhD projects
- The transfer, persistence and secondary transfer of gunshot residue (GSR): Implications for crime reconstruction and forensic protocol studied using Bayesian modelling
- To what extent can forensic evidence aid in the investigation and prosecution of internal child sex trafficking (ICST)?
- Complex systems approaches to issues in crime and security
- Developing tools for anticipating and mitigating the negative societal impact, while preserving the positive impact, of security technologies for use by the developers of these technologies upstream in the design process.
- How new ways of spatial analysis can improve the geographical understanding of illegal drug markets and the distribution of drug-related crime
- Computational cryptography
- Developing analytical Blood Pattern Analysis (BPA) techniques for environmentally altered bloodstains; and examining the range and influence of visualization methods available for BPA presentation in the context of jury decision making.
- Optimisation of illicit material detection using X-ray diffraction: Drug identification using Low Angle X-ray Scatter - DILAX III
- Improving the understanding of and responses to internal child sex trafficking in the UK: An empirical multi-method analysis
- Securing threat detection: Synergy of technological and neuropsychological factors
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Complex systems approaches to issues in crime and security
7 March 2012
This research concerns the mathematical modelling and analysis of issues related to security and crime. Such issues involve many factors, interacting in non-trivial ways, and as such are well-suited to treatment as complex systems and the use of associated tools. By attempting to model these factors, often using insight from quantitative social science, and their interactions, the aim is to provide a more thorough and well-rounded understanding of the mechanisms underlying security issues. This is done using techniques such as agent-based modelling and game theory, alongside more traditional differential-equation-based modelling. There is also particular emphasis upon applications of complex network theory to this area, where techniques originating in graph theory can be used.
A large section of the research is focussed on modelling spatio-temporal patterns of crime at the urban level, with specific focus on how this is influenced by the urban backcloth and layout of cities. A simulation-based approach is used to explore various criminological theories and mechanisms and to analyse the effect of changes to the backcloth or direct interventions.
Other topics to be explored include large-scale civil disorder, modelled using anologies with systems in other fields, such as retail and epidemiology, and the social network analysis of criminal organisations and their intra-group communication patterns.
