Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation for Transmission Dynamics and Surveillance of Dengue: Conceptual and Design Model
- Authors: Pascoe, Luba , Nyambo, Devotha G , Bradshaw, Karen L , Clemen, Thomas
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/440200 , vital:73756 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1109/AFRICON55910.2023.10293299"
- Description: African countries need to strengthen surveillance and control of arboviral diseases such as dengue due to increased outbreaks and spread of arboviruses. Climatic, socio-environment, and ecological variables influence the spread of dengue fever in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper presents an Agent-Based conceptual and design model for dengue fever developed using the Multi-Agent Research and Simulation (MARS) framework. The study analyzes dengue fever's spatial distribution and identifies the causal relationship between the disease and its climatic and environmental variables. Agent-based modeling (ABM) was used to comprehend the spatial patterns of variation to determine the ecological association between the observed spatio-temporal variations in dengue fever. The domain and design model of an ABM for the surveillance of dengue fever is presented based on the Overview, Design Concepts, and Details (ODD) protocol. Model input parameters and input data for the study area are also presented. The dengue ABM can be adopted and reused for modeling other diseases and other complex problems from different domains while ensuring that their unique characteristics and appropriate modifications are considered to ensure the model's validity and relevance to the new context.
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- Date Issued: 2023
Review of Importance of Weather and Environmental Variables in Agent-Based Arbovirus Models
- Authors: Pascoe, Luba , Clemen, Thomas , Bradshaw, Karen L , Nyambo, Devotha G
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/440300 , vital:73764 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192315578"
- Description: The study sought to review the works of literature on agent-based modeling and the influence of climatic and environmental factors on disease outbreak, transmission, and surveillance. Thus, drawing the influence of environmental variables such as vegetation index, households, mosquito habitats, breeding sites, and climatic variables including precipitation or rainfall, temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity on dengue disease modeling using the agent-based model in an African context and globally was the aim of the study. A search strategy was developed and used to search for relevant articles from four databases, namely, PubMed, Scopus, Research4Life, and Google Scholar. Inclusion criteria were developed, and 20 articles met the criteria and have been included in the review. From the reviewed works of literature, the study observed that climatic and environmental factors may influence the arbovirus disease outbreak, transmission, and surveillance. Thus, there is a call for further research on the area. To benefit from arbovirus modeling, it is crucial to consider the influence of climatic and environmental factors, especially in Africa, where there are limited studies exploring this phenomenon.
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- Date Issued: 2022
Linking scales and disciplines: an interdisciplinary cross-scale approach to supporting climate-relevant ecosystem management
- Authors: Berger, Christian , Bieri, Mari , Bradshaw, Karen L , Brümmer, Christian , Clemen, Thomas , Hickler, Thomas , Kutsch, Werner Leo , Lenfers, Ulfia A , Martens, Carola , Midgley, Guy F , Mukwashi, Kanisios , Odipo, Victor , Scheiter, Simon , Schmullius, Christiane , Baade, Jussi , du Toit, Justin C , Scholes, Robert J , Smit, Izak P , Stevens, Nicola , Twine, Wayne
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/460589 , vital:75967 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02544-0"
- Description: Southern Africa is particularly sensitive to climate change, due to both ecological and socio-economic factors, with rural land users among the most vulnerable groups. The provision of information to support climate-relevant decision-making requires an understanding of the projected impacts of change and complex feedbacks within the local ecosystems, as well as local demands on ecosystem services. In this paper, we address the limitation of current approaches for developing management relevant socio-ecological information on the projected impacts of climate change and human activities. We emphasise the need for linking disciplines and approaches by expounding the methodology followed in our two consecutive projects. These projects combine disciplines and levels of measurements from the leaf level (ecophysiology) to the local landscape level (flux measurements) and from the local household level (socio-economic surveys) to the regional level (remote sensing), feeding into a variety of models at multiple scales. Interdisciplinary, multi-scaled, and integrated socio-ecological approaches, as proposed here, are needed to compliment reductionist and linear, scale-specific approaches. Decision support systems are used to integrate and communicate the data and models to the local decision-makers.
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- Date Issued: 2019