News

London connected city

Welcome to the DAFNI October 2022 newsletter. We hope you had a good summer break and enjoyed the good weather. But also, the heatwaves and droughts we have experienced this summer illustrate the value of the studies which DAFNI users are undertaking to explore the long-term impacts of changes in climate on our environment and society.

Brian Matthews
This is our first newsletter since the DAFNI conference which we held at the Barnes Wallis Building at the University of Manchester on 5 July. It was very well attended both online and in person; it was great to see people in person again after such a long time. We wanted this conference to be led by DAFNI users and it was great to see the range of projects which are now using DAFNI. In this newsletter, we would like to share the DAFNI conference outputs with you.
 
Also in this newsletter, are a couple of pieces on particular projects. Firstly André Neto Bradley discusses his work using DAFNI on energy modelling for different types of household, a very relevant topic in these times of increasing energy costs. And an article from Cranfield University describes how the DAFNI hardware fund was used to create interactive shared experiences and collaboration using a Virtual Reality platform.
 
Finally, we have launched DAFNI drop in sessions where DAFNI users can speak directly with our software engineers and learn how to integrate their models onto the platform. If you have an account on the DAFNI platform and would like to participate, look out for the dates on the DAFNI Slack Channel.
 
 Dr Brian Matthews, DAFNI Project Lead

Contents

  • DAFNI Conference 2022: Environmental Impacts 
  • News from our central team: 
    > Include DAFNI in your research proposal
    > André Neto Bradley on EnergyFlex, a microsimulation model that uses public data to synthesise a representative housing stock
    > University of Cranfield: interactive shared experiences and collaboration using VR
  • DAFNI technical training dates
  • Apply for a DAFNI account
  • Infrastructure and city ontologies – new publication 

Videos from the DAFNI Conference

Thank you to all of you who attended our conference at the University of Manchester. Many useful discussions were held as well as excellent speakers and poster presentations.

Manchester

The video presentations from the DAFNI Conference held in July are now available on the DAFNI website, click here to view.

Click to read our blog on conference highlights: https://www.dafni.ac.uk/insights/dafni-conference-2022-showcases-environmental-impacts/

News from our central team

Calling all researchers who are submitting a proposal to Research Councils

Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S)

DAFNI has been added to the Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) grant submission system and you will see us listed as a new facility which can be added to your grant proposal.

If your grant application requires novel workflows or you have particular requirements we would advise a conversation prior to submission. This is so we can advise accordingly. Look forward to joining your proposals.

Contact: marion.samler@stfc.ac.uk

A flexible approach to local energy modelling

In our latest blog we share insights about the work of Dr André Neto Bradley. He introduces EnergyFlex, a microsimulation model that uses public data to synthesise a representative housing stock for any local authority, and allows users to estimate energy efficiency and characteristics of the housing stock in the area.

Click to read the blog

EnergyFlex model

University of Cranfield: interactive shared experiences and collaborations using VR

In this case study read how Cranfield University is driving shared collaborative research and shared experiences across universities and with stakeholder groups using equipment purchased with DAFNI’s hardware fund. They will integrate the DAFNI platform into the project, using DAFNI as the hub for receiving data streams in real time.

Click here to read the blog

Hardware at Cranfield visualisation

Event news

DAFNI technical training

A great opportunity to get up to speed quickly on DAFNI and to ask our technical experts your burning questions.  Our regular technical training events on DAFNI are available to book via Eventbrite.

DAFNI training graphic

 

  • 2nd November 2022
To attend the event you will need experience of entering code through a command line interface, for more information and to book, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/dafni-31793198351.
Questionnaire

Apply for a DAFNI account

request your account, please go to the DAFNI website and complete the short questionnaire

Infrastructure and city ontologies

Professor Liz Varga of UCL and DAFNI governance board member is lead author on a paper newly published in Smart Infrastructure and Construction. The paper discusses the creation and use of ontologies and why they have become increasingly relevant for complex systems in recent years. The paper reports on findings of a literature review on infrastructure and city ontologies and puts forward some hypotheses inferred from the literature findings.

 

Link to Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers -Smart Infrastructure and Construction: https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/10.1680/jsmic.22.00005

 

ICED proceedings book
17th October 2022