EAGER International Type II: Sustainable International Collaboration in Spatiotemporal Modeling of Human Mobility and Contagion Dynamics for COVID-19

第一部分为了遏制新冠肺炎疫情，全球范围内实施了令人震惊的经济和社会活动回调。然而，如果没有足够的预防措施，遏制措施可能很快就会屈服于人员流动。在近期没有大规模接种的治疗或疫苗的情况下，必须采取有针对性的干预措施，以避免感染卷土重来，避免在恢复正常之前不断增加的经济后果。这就需要一个准确的时空预测模型来解释空间异质性和人体运动。值得注意的是，对人类流动性和传染病动力学的研究不能孤立地进行，创新的解决方案越来越多地来自跨境的智力互动。然而，随着封锁和旅行限制的实施，传统的学术活动已经戛然而止，学术界正在拥抱虚拟的流动性和连通性。这也引发了对参与者的质量和参与度以及长期可持续国际合作的担忧。这个迫切的项目将研究时空人类流动性将如何影响新冠肺炎的传播动力学，这有助于优化非药物干预的设计。来自美国、日本和澳大利亚的研究学者也将齐聚一堂，研究新冠肺炎疫情对国际合作的影响，并设计创新机制，使这种跨境合作对未来的干扰具有韧性和可持续性。第二部分，这一跨学科协作研究以前所未有的规模融合了流行病动力学、计算社会科学、统计学学习和系统工程。PI的团队将从事以下研究工作：(1)为人类流动性和传染病动力学及其与干预政策的联系建立时空模型：将开发一个考虑人类运动和无症状感染的时空分隔模型，以描述传染病的动态地理流行和固有的不确定性。(2)合作网络的动态图建模：国际出版合著关系将被表示为动态网络，随着疾病的流行，将揭示跨境合作的传染性影响，揭示现有合作伙伴关系中的薄弱协调，并确定未来国际合作的趋势。(3)可持续国际协作的创新机制设计：利用新兴的新型数字基础设施，该小组将集体探索开放科学倡议，以进行研究互动、文件编制、方案制定和评估，以实现弹性和可持续的协作。该项目预计将解读新冠肺炎对国际合作的影响，并设计战略机制，以促进未来弹性和可持续的跨境合作。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Part 1.To tame the COVID‐19 pandemic, staggering pullback in economic and social activities has been imposed globally. Yet, the containment measures can rapidly succumb to human mobility not accompanied by adequate precaution. Absent treatment or vaccine for mass inoculation in the near future, it is indispensable to adopt target-oriented intervention to avert the infection resurgence and eschew mounting economic fallout before the return to normalcy. This entails an accurate spatiotemporal predictive model that accounts for the spatial heterogeneity and human motion. Notably, research in human mobility and contagion dynamics cannot be done in isolation, and innovative solutions are increasingly emanating from cross-border intellectual interactions. However, with lockdown and travel restrictions in play, the traditional academic activities have ground to a screeching halt, and the academia is embracing virtual mobility and connectivity. This has also triggered concerns over the quality and engagement of participants, and sustainable international collaboration over the long run. This EAGER project will investigate how spatiotemporal human mobility will affect the contagion dynamics of COVID-19, which is conducive for optimal design of nonpharmaceutical intervention. It also brings research scholars from the U.S., Japan and Australia to study the impact of COVID-19 prevalence on international collaboration, and design innovative mechanism to render such cross-border cooperation resilient and sustainable against future disturbances.Part 2. This interdisciplinary collaborative research integrates epidemic dynamics, computational social science, statistical learning and systems engineering at an unprecedented scale. The PI’s team will pursue the following research thrusts: (1) Spatiotemporal modeling for human mobility and contagion dynamics and the connection to intervention policy: A spatiotemporal compartmental model considering human motion and asymptomatic infection will be developed to delineate dynamical geographical prevalence of the contagion and the inherent uncertainty. (2) Dynamic graph modeling for collaboration network: International publication co-authorship will be represented as dynamic networks, which along with disease prevalence will uncover the contagion impact on cross-border cooperation, reveal weak coordination in existing partnerships and identify future trend of international collaboration. (3) Innovative mechanism design for sustainable international collaboration: Leveraging the emerging novel digital infrastructure, the team will collectively explore open-science initiatives for research interaction, documentation, protocol formulation and assessment for resilient and sustainable collaboration. This project is anticipated to decipher the impact of COVID-19 on international collaboration and design strategic mechanism to foster future resilient and sustainable cross-border cooperation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.