There is a mismatch between levels of crime and its fear and often, cities might see an increase or a decrease in crime over time while the fear of crime remains unchanged. A model that considers fear of crime as an opinion shared by simulated individuals on a network will be presented, and the impact that different distributions of crime have on the fear experienced by the population will be explored. Results show that the dynamics of the fear is sensitive to the distribution of crime and that there is a phase transition for high levels of concentration of crime.

If G is a topological group, a G-flow X is a non-empty, compact, Hausdorff space on which G acts continuously; it is minimal if all G-orbits are dense. By a theorem of Ellis, there is a (unique) minimal G-flow M(G) which is universal: there is a continuous G-map to every other G-flow. 

Here, we will be interested in the case where G = Aut(K) for some structure K, usually omega-categorical. Work of Kechris, Pestov and Todorcevic and others gives conditions on K under which structural Ramsey Theory (due to Nesetril - Rodl and others) can be used to compute M(G). 

In the first part of the talk I will give a description of the above theory and when it applies (the 'tame case'). In the second part, I will describe joint work with J. Hubicka and J. Nesetril which shows that the omega-categorical structures constructed in the late 1980's by Hrushovski as counterexamples to Lachlan's conjecture are not tame and moreover, minimal flows of their automorphism groups have rather different properties to those in the tame case. 

This is a welcome to everyone who is interested in discussing and learning more about topics relating to life in academia and issues faced by minorities. We will tell you more about Mathematrix and the events upcoming in the term, as well as discussing ideas for future terms.

All staff, ECRs and postgrad students are invited to join. The lunches are free, relaxed and informal, and people may come and go as they please.