ICES:Large:Collaborative Research: The Role of Space, Time, and Information in Controlling Epidemics

对流行病的控制，广义上定义为从流感和天花等人类疾病到通信网络中的恶意软件，关键依赖于诸如疫苗接种和反病毒(针对人类疾病)或软件补丁(针对恶意软件)等干预措施。这些干预措施几乎总是来自公共机构的自愿指示；然而，人们并不总是遵守这种建议，并根据他们具体的“自身利益”做出个人决定。此外，人们动态地改变他们的联系人，这些行为变化对这些干预的力度和有效性产生了巨大的影响，因此，根据个人的反应，“好的”干预策略实际上可能是无效的。这个项目的目标是研究控制流行病的政策设计的基础，使用复杂网络上的一大类流行病游戏，涉及网络信息、时间演变和学习的不确定性。将提出模型，以捕捉静态和时间相互作用的复杂性和信息交换的模式，包括干预失败的可能性和潜在的道德风险。该项目还将研究公共机构和网络安全提供商提出的控制疫情和恶意软件传播的具体政策，并将在此框架内开发资源约束机制来实施这些政策。该项目将综合计算机科学、经济学、数学和流行病学的方法，为公共卫生政策的研究和设计提供智力统一，并有可能在所有这些领域开展强有力的论文工作。教育和外联是该项目的一个重要方面，包括制定本科生和本科生的课程。作为该项目的一部分，还计划举办一个多学科讲习班。

The control of epidemics, broadly defined to range from human diseases such as influenza and smallpox to malware in communication networks, relies crucially on interventions such as vaccinations and anti-virals (in human diseases) or software patches (for malware). These interventions are almost always voluntary directives from public agencies; however, people do not always adhere to such recommendations, and make individual decisions based on their specific "self interest". Additionally, people alter their contacts dynamically, and these behavioral changes have a huge impact on the dynamics and the effectiveness of these interventions, so that "good" intervention strategies might, in fact, be ineffective, depending upon the individual response. The goal of this project is to study the foundations of policy design for controlling epidemics, using a broad class of epidemic games on complex networks involving uncertainty in network information, temporal evolution and learning. Models will be proposed to capture the complexity of static and temporal interactions and patterns of information exchange, including the possibility of failed interventions and the potential for moral hazard. The project will also study specific policies posed by public agencies and network security providers for controlling the spread of epidemics and malware, and will develop resource constrained mechanisms to implement them in this framework.This project will integrate approaches from Computer Science, Economics, Mathematics, and Epidemiology to give intellectual unity to the study and design of public health policies and has the potential for strong dissertation work in all these areas. Education and outreach is an important aspect of the project, and includes curriculum development at both the graduate and under-graduate levels. A multi-disciplinary workshop is also planned as part of the project.