Insights

Infrastructure must improve people’s way of life

On 25th February the Oxford Martin School hosted the latest in their enthralling series of events on ‘building back better’ post-Covid.

Focusing this time on infrastructure’s role, Professor Jim Hall, chair of DAFNI governance board and Sir John Armitt of the National Infrastructure Commission held an incredibly impressive and wide-ranging conversation on the UK’s infrastructure systems, the goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions, and the government’s commitment to levelling up in terms of geographical and social inequalities.

Click here to read more.

Fergus McClean, Newcastle University 

In a special interview Fergus McClean shares his experience of using DAFNI. He is a research associate at Newcastle University working on surface water flood modelling as part of a UK Climate Resilience Programme funded project called Open Climate Impact Framework (OpenCLIM). He also works on flooding-related projects around the world, including in Uganda (Science for Humanitarian Emergencies and Resilience) and Malaysia (Techno-Economic framework for Resilient and Sustainable Electrification). His research focus is on flood impacts and model sensitivity analysis. 

Click here to read Fergus McClean’s Interview.

ITRC’s NISMOD moves on to DAFNI’S next-generation computing platform, ushering  in an exiting new phase of collaboration and development

Catherine Dhanjal writes about the importance of  NISMOD moving onto DAFNI and the highlights of the event on 21st Januray 2021 that celebrated it.

Click here to read Catherine Dhanjal’s blog.

Craig Robson, Newcastle University

Super user Craig Robson’s experiences of using DAFNI

Craig Robson writes about his experience of using DAFNI. He is a Research Associate of the School of Engineering at the Newcastle University. He has worked across a range of projects related to complex networks, infrastructure network resilience, spatial data management and data visualisation. Awarded a PhD in 2017 from Newcastle University entitled ‘Robustness of Hierarchical Spatial Critical Infrastructure Networks’, focused on the resilience of critical spatial infrastructures to geographic hazards, developing the required analytical methods and associated data management architectures.

Click here to read Craig Robson’s blog.

DAFNI Champion – Juste Raimbault, UCL

Preventing disease spread on public transport

Juste is based at the Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London (UCL) and his work as a Champion for DAFNI involves integrating the MATSim multi-agent transport simulation framework into DAFNI. He will develop the MATSim model to apply it to the current Covid crisis, using the EpiSim model to add pandemic indicators to travel indicators and to model them on DAFNI.

His aim is to have a generic multimodal transport model which can be applied to any UK city. Ultimately, he aims to use the EpiSim variant of MATSim to integrate epidemiological indicators into the transport system modelling, enabling users to test policies and interventions to limit disease spread on public transport.

Juste Raimbault explains the scope of his work as a DAFNI champion. 

DAFNI Champion – Simon Jude, Cranfield University

DAFNI’s interaction with the Cranfield Living Laboratory and Urban Observatory

Simon is based at Cranfield University, in the School of Water, Energy and Environment. Within that theme he’s based in the Centre for Environmental and Agri-informatics where he leads a group focusing on risk and decision making.

He also leads Cranfield’s Urban Observatory, which is somewhat unusual in that it’s in a rural location and is a self-contained microcosm of a city with its own airport, and infrastructure, including a water treatment plant and solar farm.

His work as a DAFNI Champion involves developing a pilot Digital Twin using DAFNI to link real-time and near real-time water quality data from Cranfield Urban Observatory and the National Water and Water Treatment Test Facility.

Simon explains his role as DAFNI Champion.

DAFNI Champion – Adrian Hickford, University of Southampton

Adrian Hickford explains the scope of his work as a DAFNI champion.

DAFNI Champion – Lauren McMillan, UCL

Lauren McMillan explains the scope of her work as a DAFNI champion.

DAFNI Champion – Andrey Postnikov, UCL

Andrey Postnikov explains the scope of his work as a DAFNI champion.

DAFNI Champion – Cristian Genes, University of Sheffield

Cristian Genes explains the scope of his work as a DAFNI champion.