Identification and Control of Game-Based Epidemic Models

The effectiveness of control measures against the diffusion of the COVID-19 pandemic is grounded on the assumption that people are prepared and disposed to cooperate. From a strategic decision point of view, cooperation is the unreachable strategy of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, where the temptation to exploit the others and the fear of being betrayed by them drives the people’s behavior, which eventually results in a fully defective outcome. In this work, we integrate a standard epidemic model with the replicator equation of evolutionary games in order to study the interplay between the infection spreading and the propensity of people to be cooperative under the pressure of the epidemic. The developed model shows high performance in fitting real measurements of infected, recovered and dead people during the whole period of COVID-19 epidemic spread, from March 2020 to September 2021 in Italy. The estimated parameters related to cooperation result to be significantly correlated with vaccination and screening data, thus validating the model. The stability analysis of the multiple steady states present in the proposed model highlights the possibility to tune fundamental control parameters to dramatically reduce the number of potential dead people with respect to the non-controlled case.

Simulation Analysis of the Evolution of Sustainable Operation of Transport Infrastructure Projects under Government Regulation Based on Prospect Theory and BP Neural Network

The decisions and actions of operators in the operation of transport infrastructure play a crucial role in the sustainability of the project but are influenced by factors such as the strength of government regulation and the frequency of use by users. The influence of social recognition and acceptance by the authorities on the decisions of the various parties involved in a project is becoming increasingly significant. To address this issue, this paper attempts to apply prospect theory to characterize the impact of changes in recognition on the decisions of project managers and the government from the perspective of recognition and to construct a tripartite evolutionary game model for the government, the operator, and the users, taking into account the combined effect of multiple factors, to explore the evolutionary law of the operator’s strategy choice. Evolutionary game theory, in which each person is considered irrational and behavior is changeable, is more realistic. The addition of prospect theory allows the model to more realistically reflect the decisions of each participant in the game process when faced with risk. The results of the study show that there is an optimal level of external regulation to maximize the benefits for all three parties in the game, strong government regulation does not necessarily improve service quality, operators tend to provide low-quality services in the game process and incentives should be increased, and that attempts should be made to provide users with a variety of transport infrastructure options to ensure that users’ interests are maximized. The paper further analyzes the indicators established by sensitive factors using BP neural networks on the basis of the analysis of transportation infrastructure operation and impact sensitive factors using evolutionary games and finds that the conclusions obtained by deep learning algorithms are more consistent with those obtained using evolutionary games, achieving cross-validation of the results. The reliability of the result is improved, and it is demonstrated that deep learning algorithms can be introduced as a supplement in the process of future analysis of transportation infrastructure operations. Finally, management suggestions are made in light of the actual situation.

A bi-level mathematical model for logistic management considering the evolutionary game with environmental feedbacks

PurposeThis paper proposed a bi-level mathematical model for location, routing and allocation of medical centers to distribution depots during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The developed model has two players including interdictor (COVID-19) and fortifier (government). Accordingly, the aim of the first player (COVID-19) is to maximize system costs and causing further damage to the system. The goal of the second player (government) is to minimize the costs of location, routing and allocation due to budget limitations.Design/methodology/approachThe approach of evolutionary games with environmental feedbacks was used to develop the proposed model. Moreover, the game continues until the desired demand is satisfied. The Lagrangian relaxation method was applied to solve the proposed model.FindingsEmpirical results illustrate that with increasing demand, the values of the objective functions of the interdictor and fortifier models have increased. Also, with the raising fixed cost of the established depot, the values of the objective functions of the interdictor and fortifier models have raised. In this regard, the number of established depots in the second scenario (COVID-19 wave) is more than the first scenario (normal COVID-19 conditions).Research limitations/implicationsThe results of the current research can be useful for hospitals, governments, Disaster Relief Organization, Red Crescent, the Ministry of Health, etc. One of the limitations of the research is the lack of access to accurate information about transportation costs. Moreover, in this study, only the information of drivers and experts about transportation costs has been considered. In order to implement the presented solution approach for the real case study, high RAM and CPU hardware facilities and software facilities are required, which are the limitations of the proposed paper.Originality/valueThe main contributions of the current research are considering evolutionary games with environmental feedbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and location, routing and allocation of the medical centers to the distribution depots during the COVID-19 outbreak. A real case study is illustrated, where the Lagrangian relaxation method is employed to solve the problem.

Research on evolutionary game of environmental accounting information disclosure from the perspective of multi-agent

In the past, China, like other developing countries in the world, pursued the goal of rapid economic development at the expense of ecology and ignored the issue of environmental protection. But in recent decades, as environmental problems have become increasingly prominent, developing countries have begun to explore ways to coordinate economy and ecological environment. As the largest developing country, China has been actively exploring ecological governance plans, putting forward the concept of green development, setting the goal of building a "beautiful China" and placing the construction of ecological civilization in the ontological status of social systems and national goals. In order to accelerate the green development process of enterprises in developing countries, based on the actual situation in China, this paper constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model of environmental accounting information disclosure with enterprises, investors and media as the research objects, and analyzes the internal mechanism of environmental accounting information disclosure. The model finds that the equilibrium of the three parties is affected by multiple factors. Therefore, this study further uses system dynamics to explore the dynamic process of evolutionary games and the strategic choices among multiple agents, and explore the mechanism of three types of agents to promote environmental accounting information disclosure. The simulation results reveal that government incentives have a greater impact on guiding enterprises and the media to evolve in the direction of legal disclosure and participation in exposure strategies. In addition, the continuous reduction of the cumbersome degree of disclosure procedures and the difficulty of improving environmental performance can fundamentally promote companies to actively choose legal disclosure strategies, which will help improve the quality of environmental accounting information disclosure, boost investor confidence, and enhance government supervision.