Research

Baseline model

The objective is to generate a complete synthetic representation of people and households in the UK. The building blocks within this process are the Sample of Anonymised Records (SARs) from the 2001 Census of Population and Households. Repeated sampling from the SARs has been used as a means to recreate small area populations in accordance with known census distributions. As their description implies, the SARs are fully anonymised and there is no possibility that real individuals or households may be identified through this process. Thus the baseline population for the model will be a synthetic but completely realistic representation. This recreation process is commonly referred to as ¡®microsimulation'.

Dynamic model

The population will be projected forward to the year 2031 using a combination of static and dynamic ageing. ¡®Static ageing' is a process in which the core database is resampled in order to match a change in the underlying population distribution. For example, suppose that government projections show an expected growth in the young and affluent communities of metropolitan Leeds . The population would be resampled with increased selection probabilities for the young and affluent target group. ¡®Dynamic ageing' is a method in which individual processes of ageing, household formation, labour market migration , and so forth, are modelled explicitly for individual members of the population. Thus an individual aged 25 in 2001 will be aged 35 in 2011, to use a straightforward example. The dynamic ageing method is more resource intensive than static ageing, but potentially more effective.

Grid-enabled portal

The application of Grid technology to spatial decision support systems has been demonstrated within the context of a health-care planning scenario through the Hydra project. Hydra assumes a scenario in which health care services targeted at a particular demographic group are made available through a dispersed network of providers. The technology is designed to support a wide range of contemporary problems such as growth of care in the community services for the elderly, and increased local provision of services like cancer screening. The Hydra demonstrator incorporates a service-based grid architecture which provides secure access to a variety of capabilities, including a (virtual) data service, modelling and optimisation, mapping and collaborative services, delivered through an easy-to-use portal.