Browsing by Author "Pinto, Alberto"
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- Bistability of Evolutionary Stable Vaccination Strategies in the Reinfection SIRI ModelPublication . Martins, José; Pinto, AlbertoWe use the reinfection SIRI epidemiological model to analyze the impact of education programs and vaccine scares on individuals decisions to vaccinate or not. The presence of the reinfection provokes the novelty of the existence of three Nash equilibria for the same level of the morbidity relative risk instead of a single Nash equilibrium as occurs in the SIR model studied by Bauch and Earn (PNAS 101:13391–13394, 2004). The existence of three Nash equilibria, with two of them being evolutionary stable, introduces two scenarios with relevant and opposite fea tures for the same level of the morbidity relative risk: the low-vaccination scenario corresponding to the evolutionary stable vaccination strategy, where individuals will vaccinate with a low probability; and the high-vaccination scenario corresponding to the evolutionary stable vaccination strategy, where individuals will vaccinate with a high probability. We introduce the evolutionary vaccination dynamics for the SIRI model and we prove that it is bistable. The bistability of the evolutionary dynamics indicates that the damage provoked by false scares on the vaccination perceived mor bidity risks can be much higher and much more persistent than in the SIR model. Furthermore, the vaccination education programs to be efficient they need to imple ment a mechanism to suddenly increase the vaccination coverage level.
- Dynamics of Epidemiological ModelsPublication . Pinto, Alberto; Aguiar, Maíra; Martins, José; Stollenwerk, NicoWe study the SIS and SIRI epidemic models discussing different approaches to compute the thresholds that determine the appearance of an epidemic disease. The stochastic SIS model is a well known mathematical model, studied in several contexts. Here, we present recursively derivations of the dynamic equations for all the moments and we derive the stationary states of the state variables using the moment closure method. We observe that the steady states give a good approximation of the quasi-stationary states of the SIS model. We present the relation between the SIS stochastic model and the contact process introducing creation and annihilation operators. For the spatial stochastic epidemic reinfection model SIRI, where susceptibles S can become infected I, then recover and remain only partial immune against reinfection R, we present the phase transition lines using the mean field and the pair approximation for the moments. We use a scaling argument that allow us to determine analytically an explicit formula for the phase transition lines in pair approximation.
- The Higher Moments Dynamic on SIS ModelPublication . Pinto, Alberto; Gouveia Martins, José Maria; Stollenwerk, NicoThe basic contact process or the SIS model is a well known epidemic process and have been studied for a wide class of people. In an epidemiological context, many authors worked on the SIS model considering only the dynamic of the first moments of infecteds, i.e., the mean value and the variance of the infected individuals. In this work, we study not only the dynamic of the first moments of infecteds but also on the dynamic of the higher moments. Recursively, we consider the dynamic equations for all the moments of infecteds and, applying the moment closure approximation, we obtain the stationary states of the state variables. We observe that the stationary states of the SIS model, in the moment closure approximation, can be used to obtain good approximations of the quasi-stationary states of the SIS model.
- On the series expansion of the spatial SIS evolution operatorPublication . Martins, José; Aguiar, Maíra; Pinto, Alberto; Stollenwerk, NicoFor the spatial stochastic susceptible–infected–susceptible model, we consider the perturbative series expansion of the gap between the dominant and subdominant eigenvalues of the evolution operator. We compute explicitly the first terms of the series expansion of the gap with difference equations for the calculation of states.
- A scaling analysis in the SIRI epidemiological modelPublication . Pinto, Alberto; Stollenwerk, Nico; Gouveia Martins, José Maria; Martins, JoséFor the spatial stochastic epidemic reinfection model SIRI, where susceptibles S can become infected I , then recover and remain only partial immune against reinfection R, we determine the phase transition lines using pair approximation for the moments derived from the master equation. We introduce a scaling argument that allows us to determine analytically an explicit formula for these phase transition lines and prove rigorously the heuristic results obtained previously.
- A spatially stochastic epidemic model with partial immunization shows in mean field approximation the reinfection thresholdPublication . Stollenwerk, Nico; van Noort, Sander; Martins, José; Aguiar, Maíra; Hilker, Frank; Pinto, Alberto; Gomes, GabrielaRecently, the notion of a reinfection threshold in epidemiological models of only partial immunity has been debated in the literature. We present a rigorous analysis of a model of reinfection which shows a clear threshold behaviour at the parameter point where the reinfection threshold was originally described. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this threshold is the mean field version of a transition in corresponding spatial models of immunization. The reinfection threshold corresponds to the transition between annular growth of an epidemics spreading into a susceptible area leaving recovered behind and compact growth of a susceptible-infected-susceptible region growing into a susceptible area. This transition between annular growth and compact growth was described in the physics literature long before the reinfection threshold debate broke out in the theoretical biology literature.
- The Value of Information Searching against Fake NewsPublication . Martins, José; Pinto, AlbertoInspired by the Daley-Kendall and Goffman-Newill models, we propose an Ignorant-Believer-Unbeliever rumor (or fake news) spreading model with the following characteristics: (i) a network contact between individuals that determines the spread of rumors; (ii) the value (cost versus benefit) for individuals who search for truthful information (learning); (iii) an impact measure that assesses the risk of believing the rumor; (iv) an individual search strategy based on the probability that an individual searches for truthful information; (v) the population search strategy based on the proportion of individuals of the population who decide to search for truthful information; (vi) a payoff for the individuals that depends on the parameters of the model and the strategies of the individuals. Furthermore, we introduce evolutionary information search dynamics and study the dynamics of population search strategies. For each value of searching for information, we compute evolutionarily stable information (ESI) search strategies (occurring in non-cooperative environments), which are the attractors of the information search dynamics, and the optimal information (OI) search strategy (occurring in (eventually forced) cooperative environments) that maximizes the expected information payoff for the population. For rumors that are advantageous or harmful to the population (positive or negative impact), we show the existence of distinct scenarios that depend on the value of searching for truthful information. We fully discuss which evolutionarily stable information (ESI) search strategies and which optimal information (OI) search strategies eradicate (or not) the rumor and the corresponding expected payoffs. As a corollary of our results, a recommendation for legislators and policymakers who aim to eradicate harmful rumors is to make the search for truthful information free or rewarding.