An Agent-Based Digital Twin for Exploring Localized Non-pharmaceutical Interventions to Control COVID-19 Pandemic

The formation and formation of the Industry 4.0 concept stimulated the discussion of the use of computer technology in various areas of economic activity and, in particular, in the automation of social systems management. The basis of the concept is the inclusion of a virtual image of the social system in the form of a mathematical model or a digital twin of the enterprise in the production and management system. At the same time, it should be noted that today digital twin are created mainly only for technical objects used in the activities of enterprises. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the possibility of fixing organizational documents as one of the system-forming factors in the digital twin of an enterprise. This circumstance makes it possible, firstly, to more accurately calculate the managerial effects of managers by taking into account the impact of organizational documents on the activities of employees of the enterprise; secondly, to identify conflicts of documents developed by various departments of the company; thirdly, to calculate the content of documents during their development (design), based on the requirements of the situation or a given control effect. This possibility arises due to the use of a comprehensive mathematical model of the social system operating in an active environment. The model is a simulation agent-based model and allows you to calculate the dynamics of the social system in the socio-economic space, which allows its use in decision support systems by managers of any scale and activities to calculate the expected effect of management decisions – the specifics of a particular social system are taken into account by combining the values of the phase variables describing the state of the enterprise. The novelty of the research paper lies in the fact that it shows: the possibility to calculate the influence of organizational documents on the behavior of participants and, consequently, on the result of the social system, as well as the mechanism for converting messages, which are invariants of socio-economic space into information that affects the behavior of participants of relations.

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On the effectiveness of communication strategies as non-pharmaceutical interventions to tackle epidemics

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0257995 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (10) ◽

pp. e0257995

Author(s):

Alejandro Bernardin ◽

Alejandro J. Martínez ◽

Tomas Perez-Acle

Keyword(s):

Infectious Disease ◽

Communication Strategies ◽

Public Affairs ◽

The Other ◽

Agent Based ◽

Spreading Dynamics ◽

The One ◽

The Impact ◽

Adequate Management ◽

Pharmaceutical Interventions

When pharmaceutical interventions are unavailable to deal with an epidemic outbreak, adequate management of communication strategies can be key to reduce the contagion risks. On the one hand, accessibility to trustworthy and timely information, whilst on the other, the adoption of preventive behaviors may be both crucial. However, despite the abundance of communication strategies, their effectiveness has been scarcely evaluated or merely circumscribed to the scrutiny of public affairs. To study the influence of communication strategies on the spreading dynamics of an infectious disease, we implemented a susceptible-exposed-infected-removed-dead (SEIRD) epidemiological model, using an agent-based approach. Agents in our systems can obtain information modulating their behavior from two sources: (i) through the local interaction with other neighboring agents and, (ii) from a central entity delivering information with a certain periodicity. In doing so, we highlight how global information delivered from a central entity can reduce the impact of an infectious disease and how informing even a small fraction of the population has a remarkable impact, when compared to not informing the population at all. Moreover, having a scheme of delivering daily messages makes a stark difference on the reduction of cases, compared to the other evaluated strategies, denoting that daily delivery of information produces the largest decrease in the number of cases. Furthermore, when the information spreading relies only on local interactions between agents, and no central entity takes actions along the dynamics, then the epidemic spreading is virtually independent of the initial amount of informed agents. On top of that, we found that local communication plays an important role in an intermediate regime where information coming from a central entity is scarce. As a whole, our results highlight the importance of proper communication strategies, both accurate and daily, to tackle epidemic outbreaks.

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Impact of Personal Care Habits on Post-Lockdown COVID-19 Contagion: Insights from Agent-based Simulations

10.1101/2020.09.23.20200212 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Lindsay Álvarez-Pomar ◽

Sergio Rojas-Galeano

Keyword(s):

Social Distance ◽

Physical Contact ◽

Distance Measures ◽

Personal Protection ◽

Personal Care ◽

Agent Based ◽

Facial Mask ◽

The World ◽

Individual Protection ◽

Pharmaceutical Interventions

AbstractAfter the first wave of spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world are struggling to recover their economies by slowly lifting the mobility restrictions and social distance measures enforced during the crisis. Therefore, the post-lockdown containment of the disease will depend strongly not any more on government-imposed interventions but on personal care measures, taken voluntarily by their citizens. In this respect, recent studies have shed some light regarding the effectiveness individual protection habits may have in preventing SARS-Cov-2 transmission, particularly physical contact distancing, facial mask wearing and hand-washing habits. In this paper we describe experiments performed on a simulated COVID-19 epidemic in an artificial population using an agent based model, so as to illustrate to what extent the interplay between such personal care habits contributes to mitigate the spread of the disease, assuming the lack of other population-wide non-pharmaceutical interventions or vaccines. We discuss scenarios where wide adherence to these voluntary care habits alone, can be enough to contain the unfold of the contagion. Our model purpose is illustrative and contributes to ratify the importance of disseminating the message regarding the collective benefits of mass adoption of personal protection and hygiene habits, as an exit strategy for COVID-19 in the new normal state.

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A data driven agent-based model that recommends non-pharmaceutical interventions to suppress Coronavirus disease 2019 resurgence in megacities

Journal of The Royal Society Interface ◽

10.1098/rsif.2021.0112 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (181) ◽

pp. 20210112

Author(s):

Ling Yin ◽

Hao Zhang ◽

Yuan Li ◽

Kang Liu ◽

Tianmu Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Census Data ◽

Herd Immunity ◽

Risk Tolerance ◽

Contact Tracing ◽

Agent Based Model ◽

Agent Based ◽

Shenzhen City ◽

Other World ◽

Work Class ◽

Pharmaceutical Interventions

Before herd immunity against Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is achieved by mass vaccination, science-based guidelines for non-pharmaceutical interventions are urgently needed to reopen megacities. This study integrated massive mobile phone tracking records, census data and building characteristics into a spatially explicit agent-based model to simulate COVID-19 spread among 11.2 million individuals living in Shenzhen City, China. After validation by local epidemiological observations, the model was used to assess the probability of COVID-19 resurgence if sporadic cases occurred in a fully reopened city. Combined scenarios of three critical non-pharmaceutical interventions (contact tracing, mask wearing and prompt testing) were assessed at various levels of public compliance. Our results show a greater than 50% chance of disease resurgence if the city reopened without contact tracing. However, tracing household contacts, in combination with mandatory mask use and prompt testing, could suppress the probability of resurgence under 5% within four weeks. If household contact tracing could be expanded to work/class group members, the COVID resurgence could be avoided if 80% of the population wear facemasks and 40% comply with prompt testing. Our assessment, including modelling for different scenarios, helps public health practitioners tailor interventions within Shenzhen City and other world megacities under a variety of suppression timelines, risk tolerance, healthcare capacity and public compliance.

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Determining the effectiveness of practicing non-pharmaceutical interventions in improving virus control in a pandemic using agent-based modelling

Mathematics in Applied Sciences and Engineering ◽

10.5206/mase/10876 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (4) ◽

pp. 423-438

Author(s):

Christian Alvin Buhat ◽

Steven Kyle Villanueva

Keyword(s):

Initial Population ◽

Small Community ◽

Time Duration ◽

Agent Based ◽

Social Distancing ◽

Random Mass ◽

Epidemic Curve ◽

Optimal Output ◽

Outbreak Period ◽

Pharmaceutical Interventions

In order to determine the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions on an epidemic, we develop an agent-based model that simulates the spread of an infectious disease in a small community and its emerging phenomena. We vary parameters such as initial population, initial infected, infection rate, recovery rate, death rate, and asymptomatic rates, as inputs. Our simulations show that (i) random mass testing decreases the number of deaths, infections and time duration; (ii) as well as quarantines; (iii) social distancing lengthen outbreak period to an extent and helps flatten the epidemic curve; and (iv) the most effective combination of NPIs to minimize death, infection and duration is no mass testing, no social distancing and a total lockdown. Results of this study can aid decision makers in their policies to be implemented to have an optimal output.

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Returning to a normal life via COVID-19 vaccines in the USA: a large-scale agent-based simulation study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.27419 ◽

2021 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Junjiang Li ◽

Philippe Giabbanelli

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Vaccination Campaign ◽

Vaccination Strategy ◽

Current Evidence ◽

Logistic Growth ◽

Agent Based ◽

Pharmaceutical Intervention ◽

Current Availability ◽

The Usa ◽

Pharmaceutical Interventions

BACKGROUND In 2020, COVID-19 has claimed more than 300,000 deaths in the US alone. While non-pharmaceutical interventions were implemented by federal and state governments in the USA, these efforts have failed to contain the virus. Following the FDA approval of two COVID-19 vaccines, however, the hope for the return to normalcy is renewed. This hope rests on an unprecedented nation-wide vaccine campaign, which faces many logistical challenges and is also contingent on several factors whose values are currently unknown. OBJECTIVE We study the effectiveness of a nation-wide vaccine campaign in response to different vaccine efficacies, the willingness of the population to be vaccinated, and the daily vaccine capacity under two different federal plans. To characterize the possible outcomes most accurately, we also account for the interactions between non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccines, through six scenarios that capture a range of possible impact from non-pharmaceutical interventions. METHODS We use large-scale cloud-based agent-based simulations by implementing the vaccination campaign using Covasim, an open-source ABM for COVID-19 that has been used in several peer-reviewed studies and accounts for individual heterogeneity as well as a multiplicity of contact networks. Several modifications to the parameters and simulation logic were made to better align the model with current evidence. We chose six non-pharmaceutical intervention scenarios and applied the vaccination intervention following both the plan proposed by Operation Warp Speed (former Trump administration) and the plan of one million vaccines per day, proposed by the Biden administration. We accounted for unknowns in vaccine efficacies and levels of population compliance by varying both parameters. For each experiment, the cumulative infection growth is fitted to a logistic growth model, and the carrying capacities and the growth rates are recorded. RESULTS For both vaccination plans and all non-pharmaceutical intervention scenarios, the presence of the vaccine intervention considerably lowers the total number of infections when life returns to normal, even when the population compliance to vaccines is as low at 20%. We noted an unintended consequence: given the vaccine availability estimates under both federal plans and the focus on vaccinating individuals by age categories, a significant reduction in non-pharmaceutical interventions results in a counterintuitive situation in which higher vaccine compliance then leads to more total infections. CONCLUSIONS Although potent, vaccines alone cannot effectively end the pandemic given the current availability estimates and the adopted vaccination strategy. Non-pharmaceutical interventions need to continue and be enforced to ensure high compliance, so that the rate of immunity established by vaccination outpaces that induced by infections.

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Testing and Vaccination to Reduce the Impact of COVID-19 in Nursing Homes: An Agent-Based Approach

10.1101/2021.03.22.21254125 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jose Pablo Gómez-Vázquez ◽

yury García ◽

Alec J Schmidt ◽

Beatriz Martínez-López ◽

Miriam Nuño

Keyword(s):

Nursing Home ◽

Los Angeles ◽

Nursing Homes ◽

Attack Rate ◽

Cumulative Number ◽

Block Transmission ◽

Agent Based ◽

Hypothetical Scenario ◽

The Impact ◽

Pharmaceutical Interventions

Background: Efforts to protect residents in nursing homes involve non-pharmaceutical interventions, testing, and vaccine. We sought to quantify the effect of testing and vaccine strategies on the attack rate, length of the epidemic, and hospitalization. Methods: We developed an agent-based model to simulate the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in a nursing home with resident and staff agents. Interactions between 172 residents and 170 staff were assumed based on data from a nursing home in Los Angeles, CA. We simulated scenarios assuming different levels of non-pharmaceutical interventions, testing frequencies, and vaccine efficacy to block transmission. Results: Under the hypothetical scenario of widespread SARS-CoV-2 in the community, 3-day testing frequency minimized the attack rate and the time to eradicate an outbreak. Prioritization of vaccine among staff or staff and residents minimized the cumulative number of infections and hospitalization, particularly in the scenario of high probability of an introduction. Reducing the probability of a virus introduction reduced the demand on testing and vaccine to reduce infections and hospitalizations. Conclusions: Improving frequency of testing from 7-days to 3-days minimized the number of infections and hospitalizations, despite widespread community transmission. Vaccine prioritization of staff provides the best protection strategy, despite high risk of a virus introduction.

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The Camp Nou Stadium as a Testbed for City Physiology: A Modular Framework for Urban Digital Twins

Complexity ◽

10.1155/2021/9731180 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2021 ◽

pp. 1-15

Author(s):

Irene Meta ◽

Feliu Serra-Burriel ◽

José C. Carrasco-Jiménez ◽

Fernando M. Cucchietti ◽

Carla Diví-Cuesta ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Nonlinear Process ◽

Point Of View ◽

Statistical Techniques ◽

Proof Of Concept ◽

Agent Based ◽

Digital Twin ◽

Domain Specific ◽

Digital Twins ◽

Modular Framework

In this paper, the Camp Nou stadium is used as a testbed for City Physiology, a theoretical framework for urban digital twins. With this case study, the modularity and adaptability of the framework, originally intended for city-scale simulations, are tested on a large facility venue. As a proof of concept, several statistical techniques and an agent-based simulation platform are coupled to simulate a crowd in the stadium, and a process of four steps is followed to build the case study. Both the conceptual (interdomain) and technical (domain specific) layers of the digital twin are defined and connected in a nonlinear process so that they represent the complexity of the object to be simulated. The result obtained is a strategy to build a digital twin from the domain point of view, paving the way for more complex, more ambitious simulators.

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