Abstract: For centuries, we have improved our understanding of specific conflicts, but what if there is a common phenomenon that governs violent behaviour? Here, we present a geo-spatial interaction model that uses X-Y coordinates of human settlements to understand conflict across multiple scales (single unsuccessful attacks to genocides) and across multiple genres (state warfare to terrorism to Narco-wars). We show convincing empirical results and attempt to answer causal questions through simulation models informed by social-political arguments. The research is part of a new research project GUARD at the Alan Turing Institute.
Biography: Dr. Weisi Guo is an associate professor at the University of Warwick and a Turing Fellow at the UK’s national institute for data science - the Alan Turing Institute. He graduated with MEng, MA, PhD from the University of Cambridge and has a background in data science and network science. He leads the Data-Embedded-Networks (DEN) Laboratory at Warwick with over £1.3M of research funding covering a wide range of research interests ranging from critical infrastructure resilience to conflict modelling. He has published over 100 peer reviewed papers in a variety of top journals in IEEE, Royal Society, and Nature Publishing Group, and is always keen to expand his collaboration horizon.
An audio recording of the talk will be posted on the after the seminar.
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For more information, contact Gillian Mckay.