About the MMC

Founded in 1999, the University of Leicester's Centre for Mathematical Modelling (MMC) unites researchers with shared interests in advanced modelling and simulation methods.

Cutting across traditional disciplinary boundaries, the MMC organizes a broad-based research colloquium series, funds visiting scholars and organises workshops, seminars and conferences on Centre-related themes.

The MMC is located in the Michael Atiyah Building (named after a leading mathematician who was also the chancellor the University of Leicester). Director of the MMC is Professor Alexander N Gorban.

Highlights: our current projects

The most recent research highlights:

• Mathematicians develop theory which helps to unravel long-standing mysteries of animal movement (How environment plays key role in changing movement behavior of animals) (October 30, 2017).
• Six degrees of separation: Why it is a small world after all. Study examines how small-world networks occur within bigger and more complex structures (October 19, 2017).
• Nomination for the Research Impact Award (27 June 2017): Pattern Recognition in Big Data. Researchers: Professor Alexander Gorban, Professor Jeremy Levesley, Dr Ivan Tyukin, Dr Evgeny Mirkes, Dr Andrey Mudrov, Department of Mathematics. Nomination
• High praise for Leicester data mining team’s research into trauma patient deaths (11 May 2017) The paper  E.M. Mirkes, T.J. Coats, J. Levesley, A.N. Gorban, Handling missing data in large healthcare dataset: a case study of unknown trauma outcomes, Computers in Biology and Medicine 75 (2016), 203-216 is highlighted by the journal 'Computers in Biology and Medicine'  as ‘honoured’ and ‘esteemed’
• Blessing of Dimensionality: One-Trial Correction of Legacy Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems. Press-release in ScienceDaily: Helping robots correct errors on-the-fly and learn from each other (August 21, 2017)
• Capillarity of Ideal Gas: Beyond Navier--Stokes equations. Press Release in ScienceDaily: New capillarity effects in ideal gases solve an old mathematical mystery. (November 24, 2016)

Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) projects funded by Innovate UK foundation:

• KTP009890 between ARM/Apical Ltd and the University of Leicester (Efficient Visual Intelligence Technologies), 2015-2017, Knowledge Base Supervisor Dr I.Y. Tyukin, lead academic Prof A.N. Gorban
• KTP010522 between Visual Management Systems Limited and the University of Leicester (Efficient Visual Intelligence Technologies), 2017-2019, Knowledge Base Supervisor Dr I.Y. Tyukin, lead academic Prof A.N. Gorban
• KTP010604 between Dataffirm Limited and the University of Leicester (Mining of Big Text Data), 2017-2019, Knowledge Base Supervisor Dr E.M. Mirkes, lead academic Prof A.N. Gorban
• KTP 10819   between Photek Ltd and the University of Leicester To develop a product range of image intensifiers enhanced with data analytics capabilities), 2017-2020, Knowledge Base Supervisor Dr A. Mudrov, Lead Academic Dr I.Y. Tyukin.

Industrial projects:

• With Weatherford Int.. The magnetic flux leakage (MFL) method for the detection of defects in ferromagnetic (steel) tubulars. MFL identifies the position, size and shape of corrosion-related defects in steel casings used to protect boreholes drilled into oil and gas reservoirs.
• With Weatherford Int. Algorithms and software for pseudo-outcrop visualization of borehole and full-diameter rock core images to augment the ubiquitous unwrapped cylinder view and thereby assist non-specialist interpreters.
• With Weatherford Int. Lattice Boltzmann modelling of permeability and relative permeability of porous media for multi-phase flows.
• With ARM/Apical Ltd. Detection and Tracking of Objects in Live Video Streams, learning models of tracking objects online and software library for intellectual analysis of video stream.
  -Scene Analysis Assisting for AWB Using Binary Decision Trees and Average Image Metrics.
  -Learning Optimization for Decision Tree Classification of Non-categorical Data
• With Avacta Animal Health. Computational diagnosis and risk evaluation for canine lymphoma (press-release in ScienceDaily: New hope for beloved family pets: New blood test for canine cancer). The startup is sold.
• With British Geological Survey, University of Bristol, University of Leeds. Quaternary hydrate stability:
  -Sensitivity of the global submarine hydrate inventory to scenarios of future climate change;
  -Forecasting diffusive formation of free-gas methane layers in sea sediments.
• With British Geological Survey. Data mining for geological information: algorithms and software for data mining with uncertainty evaluation.

Biomedical projects:

• Development new screening tool for toxic chemicals, with Department of Chemistry (press-release in ScienceDaily: New approach for screening toxic chemicals mimics mammal senses)
• Handling missing data in large healthcare datasets, with TARN (press-release in ScienceDaily: Trauma patient deaths peak at two weeks )
• Modelling of global epigenetic changes in pneumococcus, with Department of Genetics (press-release in ScienceDaily: Breakthrough study discovers six changing faces of 'global killer' bacteria)
• Mathematical Modeling of microRNA-Mediated Mechanisms of Translation Repression and Analysis of microRNA modes of action with Institut Curie, Paris (press-release in ScienceDaily: Mathematicians solve decade-old debate on regulation of protein production by microRNAs in cells)