Slashdot Mirror
Sim Epidemic
Dotnaught writes "Scientific American has an intriguing story about EpiSims, an outbreak simulator. Designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), it deals with a social networking of a different sort: 'To understand what a social network really is and how it can be used for epidemiology, imagine the daily activities and contacts of a single hypothetical adult, Ann. She has short brushes with family members during breakfast and then with other commuters or carpoolers on her way to work. Depending on her job, she might meet dozens of people at work, with each encounter having a different duration, proximity and purpose.'"
I read an article in Popular Science a few months ago while waiting in the dentist office about a similar program developed by CERN. The main difference was that it was text based instead graphical. The coolest thing I saw about it was that they used it to re-enact the spread of the bubonic plaguge which killed so many people years ago. I think they were developing it for WHO and the associated organizations.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
Some more amusing ways to torture my Sims.
For a minute there, I thought this article was going to be about how millions of teenage girls are displaying frightening symptoms: siting inside all day instead of socializing, playing computer games all day, turning away from reality. I guess the Sims has the power to turn girls into guys. But that's not what this is about...
A friend of mine works with the WHO which has solicited many different people to do work like this for them. In light of all the terrorism talk and threats of bio-terrorism, we've had talks on this. Different universities etc. The problem with it is that no model is able to conform to historical records of various outbreaks well enough across the board to develop policy on. One model is highly based on an aids breakout of the 1980s or an asian flu epidemic, and the model fits well to it. But when the model is applied to different epidemics they don't work out. There are just so many factors differing by area, culture etc. Think close knit community vs big city. Also the way things are transmitted. You would have to have a different model for each scenario which is very difficult/costly. Until we can predict everything going into a situation these models aren't very useful.
Models working with more people is definitely a step forward, but just an improvement.
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
theres no torrent link?
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Chaos theory.
A decibel - a RELATIONSHIP between two values of POWER http://arts.ucsc.edu/EMS/Music/tech_background/TE-
A copy of The Sims 2 ?
To understand what a social network really is and how it can be used for epidemiology, imagine the daily activities and contacts of a single hypothetical adult, Ann....
Of course, this is slashdot. If Ann was a slashdotter, her epidemiology would consist only of contact between Ann and her parents, at the dinner table, during the approximately 45 minutes per day that Ann leaves the cellar.
Perhaps it should read something like:
To understand what a social network really is and how it can be used for epidemiology, one must not be a slashdotter. Imagine the daily activities and contacts of a single hypothetical adult, Ann....
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Just keep watching Numb3rs then! I'm sure one of these weeks CBS will have the equation all figured out to solve ALL these types of problems. Everything is #'s!
Sounds a little like the Zombie Infection Simulator.
A tool like this could be adapted for some other fascinating uses:
Marketing (particularly the viral type)
Political meme simulation
Catching terrorists and other criminals through investigating their social linkage
Pharmacological demand forecasting
All technology has alternate uses - some good, some not...
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
So when will the SimEpidemic game be available from EA?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Can one make a mod for Sims out of that? pleeease?
Can I use this to figure out how best to spread my next cold to friends, family, and co-workers so I don't have to suffer alone?
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I was really hoping this article was going to be about some diseas which was wiping "The Sims" off the face off the planet... just my luck.
No smoking sigs indoors.
Are you so passionate about this that you have to post anon?
AT&ROFLMAO
I read the headline as "Sin Epidemic." I was hoping I would catch it...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
This is going to be reposted as Epidemic Sim- watch for it!
Is there a version out there for us hand-of-God-wannabes to simulate outbreaks of dysentery in a highly-populated area? *splat*
Why are you an uncircumcised disease vector? Did you know that uncircumcised partners of women are more likely to develop cervical cancer?
s ed +cervical+cancer&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=uncircumci
... till they come out with the "gay bathhouse" mod pack.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
If I were a terrorist and wanted to start off a really good plague with something new, nasty, and specially engineered, I always thought handing out a few infected 20 dollar bills at various interstate highway Burger Kings or MacDonalds would be very effective.
Every car that comes after you becomes a new vector! And heading all over the place!
After all, it is basically a "WHO's on first" post.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Noone else seems to have asked the most important question of all. Where can we download it?
You have a few issues that you have to consider in any given model:
;-)
1) Vectors (i.e. sexually transmitted/blood-based infections like AIDS will behave differently than airborn-short-distance illnesses like SARS). This
2) Contagious exposure time: Ebola will be far less dangerous than HIV because it is much more quickly progressing.
These parameters will change the outcomes of the simulation.
A simulated epidemic, not an epidemic of simulations
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
http://www.ccs.lanl.gov/ccs5/apps/epid.shtmlp ://episims.lanl.gov/
htt
The ______ Agenda
First off, here's a link to the EpiSims site at Los Alamos National Labs. They have a neat (250 meg) video showing smallprox propagation, as well as several graphs.
Here's a link to the general web page at LANL for Dynamic Simulation Science, which also includes information on things like simulation of transportation networks.
A google scholar search turns up a few interesting-looking research papers:
Structural and Algorithmic Aspects of Massive Social Networks (Eubank et al, 2004)
Understanding Large-Scale Social and Infrastructure Networks: ASimulation-Based Approach (Barrett et al)
BioWar: A City-Scale Multi-Agent Network Model of Weaponized Biological Attacks
Isn't this the new expansion that just came out for Sims 2?
So we can all play EpiSims!
19.35 - You are in your parents basement. It's very dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
'up'
19.40 - You are in your parents hall. You hear voices to the east.
'east'
19.45 - The room is full of people. You are likely to catch the plague.
'mingle'
19.50 - Your aunt kisses you.
'use handkerchief'
19.55 - You feel dizzy
'South'
20.00 - You are in the kitchen. You have caught the plague. You feel very hot.
'South'
20.05 - You are in the garden. You are dead.
Ah, the humble foreskin. It protects the glans from abrasion in your pants, holds the smegma in for its anti-pathogenic goodness, is full of nerve endings for... stuff, and probably even helps keep those little amazonian fish from swimming up you. How's it going over there with the quest to surgically banish masturbation? I hear anal sex is becoming really popular in America, on account that circumcised males often can't get enough stimulation from vaginal sex. Not that I've actually looked into it of course. Just one of these things you hear passed about that make sense on the surface.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
This will definately prevent trillions.
But... I don't necesarily that I need a good pandemic right very this second. I don't really hold on to life desprately, but I'm not all for death either. So here we are.
I am sorry for having spread this addictive agent to you if you haven't been previously exposed.....
T.J. Schmitz - the man, the myth, the legend - o
Rather, it means that when /.'ers rule the earth, they are usually constructing a simulation.
3 74250
r s=12&minturns=200
To me at least the whole project reminds me of another, which has free software to construct even better simulations (multiple viruses at once) - and it allows you to rule the earth at the same time!
See
http://pubserver.freeciv.org/viewgame.phtml?game=
for an example, and
http://pubserver.freeciv.org/query.phtml?minplaye
for a couple more.
The real cause for concern is not Ann, the typical adult, but Bob, the traveling salesman. Bob comes into contact with hundreds of people spread across a wide area. Bob can give the infection to client sin remote sites and airline passengers. Worse, Bob will give the disease to hotel and airline workers (who spread it to other "Bob"s that travel).
The connectivity of people lies on a 2-D spectrum of distance and numerousity. Highly connected, highly-travelled people will play a much greater role in spreading the disease than typically-connected, less mobile people. Given the incubation delay and delays in reporting of an epidemic, the Bobs of the world will have done their damage long before the government realizes the danger and closes the airports.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Dude, what does mine say?
Sweet, what does mine say?
Dude! What does mine say?
Sweet!! What does mine say?
Dude!! What does mine say?
Sweet!!! What does mine say?
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
there are people who go around (when they get moderator points) and filter to look for funny mods they don't find funny, and then mod them down, because they think /. is lame, but the mod system is set to pretty much never give those ppl mod points again, so... they make new accounts, get karma up with whoring, and get mod points again, to do it again.. until they get subnet banned.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
The current simulator has a model of Portland in it. A mod for San Francisco is an obvious next step.
It seems like simulations like these should parallelize nicely, and be ideal for a distributed computing project -- Epidemic@home, anyone? It'd be very interesting to watch running, and would help educate people about how diseases are spread. Of course, you'd probably also want to limit the amount of data conveyed to single users, to keep it from being too useful to "Bad People."
Just think of all the fab bubonic plaque carrier tattoos you can adorn your Sim with, while learning useful skills like Retch and Die and Group Infection Hug.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --