Simulación green de alto rendimiento de un modelo basado en agentes del mosquito Aedes aegypti

The increase in temperature caused by the climate change has resulted in the rapid dissemination of infectious diseases. Given the alert for the current situation, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a state of health emergency, highlighting the severity of the situation in some countries. For this reason, coming up with knowledge and tools that can help control and eradicate the vectors propagating these diseases is of the utmost importance. Highperformance modeling and simulation can be used to produce knowledge and strategies that allow predicting infections, guiding actions and/or training health/civil protection agents. The model developed as part of this research work is aimed at assisting the decision-making process for disease prevention and control, as well as evaluating the reproduction and predicting the evolution of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is the transmitting vector of the dengue, Zika and chikungunya diseases. Decisionmaking based on these models requires a large number of simulations to achieve results with statistical variability. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that the GPU is a suitable platform from the point of view of the reduction of energy consumed for HPC simulations. It is also shown that it is possible to define energy prediction models that allow scientists to plan their experiments based on energy consumption and select those that are representative for decision making by reducing energy consumption in HPC simulations.El aumento de la temperatura a raíz del cambio climático, ha dado lugar a la rápida expansión de enfermedades infecciosas. Dada la alerta por la situación actual, la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) ha declarado la emergencia sanitaria poniendo de manifiesto la grave situación que se vive en algunos países. Es por ello que es necesario aportar conocimiento y herramientas que ayuden al control y erradicación del vector que propaga estas enfermedades. El modelado y la simulación de altas prestaciones pueden ayudar a aportar conocimiento y estrategias que permitan predecir infecciones, orientar actuaciones y/o formar a los agentes de protección civil/salud. El modelo desarrollado en este trabajo, tiene por objetivo ayudar a la toma de decisiones de prevención y control, a evaluar la reproducción y a predecir la evolución del mosquito Aedes aegypti, transmisor de las enfermedades dengue, Zika y chikungunya. Dado que son necesarias un elevado número de simulaciones para tener resultados con variabilidad estadística, se ha utilizado GPU. Con esta plataforma se busca: su potencia de cómputo para reducir el tiempo de ejecución y, además, reducir el consumo de energía. Para ello se proponen diferentes escenarios y experimentos para comprobar los beneficios de la arquitectura propuesta.Facultad de Informátic

Simulación green de alto rendimiento de un modelo basado en agentes del mosquito Aedes aegypti

The increase in temperature caused by the climate change has resulted in the rapid dissemination of infectious diseases. Given the alert for the current situation, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a state of health emergency, highlighting the severity of the situation in some countries. For this reason, coming up with knowledge and tools that can help control and eradicate the vectors propagating these diseases is of the utmost importance. Highperformance modeling and simulation can be used to produce knowledge and strategies that allow predicting infections, guiding actions and/or training health/civil protection agents. The model developed as part of this research work is aimed at assisting the decision-making process for disease prevention and control, as well as evaluating the reproduction and predicting the evolution of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is the transmitting vector of the dengue, Zika and chikungunya diseases. Decisionmaking based on these models requires a large number of simulations to achieve results with statistical variability. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that the GPU is a suitable platform from the point of view of the reduction of energy consumed for HPC simulations. It is also shown that it is possible to define energy prediction models that allow scientists to plan their experiments based on energy consumption and select those that are representative for decision making by reducing energy consumption in HPC simulations.El aumento de la temperatura a raíz del cambio climático, ha dado lugar a la rápida expansión de enfermedades infecciosas. Dada la alerta por la situación actual, la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) ha declarado la emergencia sanitaria poniendo de manifiesto la grave situación que se vive en algunos países. Es por ello que es necesario aportar conocimiento y herramientas que ayuden al control y erradicación del vector que propaga estas enfermedades. El modelado y la simulación de altas prestaciones pueden ayudar a aportar conocimiento y estrategias que permitan predecir infecciones, orientar actuaciones y/o formar a los agentes de protección civil/salud. El modelo desarrollado en este trabajo, tiene por objetivo ayudar a la toma de decisiones de prevención y control, a evaluar la reproducción y a predecir la evolución del mosquito Aedes aegypti, transmisor de las enfermedades dengue, Zika y chikungunya. Dado que son necesarias un elevado número de simulaciones para tener resultados con variabilidad estadística, se ha utilizado GPU. Con esta plataforma se busca: su potencia de cómputo para reducir el tiempo de ejecución y, además, reducir el consumo de energía. Para ello se proponen diferentes escenarios y experimentos para comprobar los beneficios de la arquitectura propuesta.Facultad de Informátic

Simulación green de alto rendimiento de un modelo basado en agentes del mosquito Aedes aegypti

The increase in temperature caused by the climate change has resulted in the rapid dissemination of infectious diseases. Given the alert for the current situation, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a state of health emergency, highlighting the severity of the situation in some countries. For this reason, coming up with knowledge and tools that can help control and eradicate the vectors propagating these diseases is of the utmost importance. Highperformance modeling and simulation can be used to produce knowledge and strategies that allow predicting infections, guiding actions and/or training health/civil protection agents. The model developed as part of this research work is aimed at assisting the decision-making process for disease prevention and control, as well as evaluating the reproduction and predicting the evolution of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is the transmitting vector of the dengue, Zika and chikungunya diseases. Decisionmaking based on these models requires a large number of simulations to achieve results with statistical variability. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that the GPU is a suitable platform from the point of view of the reduction of energy consumed for HPC simulations. It is also shown that it is possible to define energy prediction models that allow scientists to plan their experiments based on energy consumption and select those that are representative for decision making by reducing energy consumption in HPC simulations.El aumento de la temperatura a raíz del cambio climático, ha dado lugar a la rápida expansión de enfermedades infecciosas. Dada la alerta por la situación actual, la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) ha declarado la emergencia sanitaria poniendo de manifiesto la grave situación que se vive en algunos países. Es por ello que es necesario aportar conocimiento y herramientas que ayuden al control y erradicación del vector que propaga estas enfermedades. El modelado y la simulación de altas prestaciones pueden ayudar a aportar conocimiento y estrategias que permitan predecir infecciones, orientar actuaciones y/o formar a los agentes de protección civil/salud. El modelo desarrollado en este trabajo, tiene por objetivo ayudar a la toma de decisiones de prevención y control, a evaluar la reproducción y a predecir la evolución del mosquito Aedes aegypti, transmisor de las enfermedades dengue, Zika y chikungunya. Dado que son necesarias un elevado número de simulaciones para tener resultados con variabilidad estadística, se ha utilizado GPU. Con esta plataforma se busca: su potencia de cómputo para reducir el tiempo de ejecución y, además, reducir el consumo de energía. Para ello se proponen diferentes escenarios y experimentos para comprobar los beneficios de la arquitectura propuesta.Facultad de Informátic

Effect of gamma radiation on life history traits of Aedes aegypti (L.)

AbstractAedes aegypti is an important vector for Dengue and Dengue hemorrhagic fever. Considering its medical importance and its relevance as a model system, this study was undertaken to evaluate the impact of different doses of gamma radiation for three generations of A. aegypti. Two to three days old virgin males of A. aegypti were irradiated with 15 doses of gamma radiation, ranging from 1 to 50Gy and were immediately mass mated with the same aged virgin females. Observations were made for changes on their life history traits, particularly fecundity, hatchability, adult emergence, sex ratio and longevity, for three generations. Adult males exposed 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50Gy doses showed a significant decrease in fecundity in F0 generations. While hatchability was observed to have decreased with increasing radiation doses from 3Gy onwards in the F1 generation, samples irradiated with 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50Gy maintained significant decline in hatchability in their succeeding generations, F2 and F3 also. Similarly, a decline was observed in adult emergence from 3Gy onwards in all three generations. A male favoring sex ratio distortion was observed at the doses of 35, 40, 45 and 50Gy in all three generations. Following exposure to 4Gy, parental males and the resultant progeny showed increased longevity by 10.56 and 8.66days respectively. Similarly, the F1 generations of samples irradiated with 30, 35 and 40Gy exhibited an increase in longevity by 7.16, 7.44 and 6.64days respectively. Dose response curve for fertility among the three generations was drawn and presented. The effect of radiological exposure on the life history traits of A. aegypti varies with dose for the three generations studied. These results have potential implications in mutational studies and risk assessment and also contribute to a better understanding towards employment of the sterile insect technique in A. aegypti, plausibly paving the way to an effective mosquito genetic control program

Mosquito populations and human social behavior: A spatially explicit agent-based model

Some mosquitoes are vectors for disease transmission to human populations. Aedes aegypti, the main vector for dengue in Argentina, mainly breeds in artificial containers as it is strongly adapted to urban environments. This highlights the relevance of understanding human social behavior to design successful vector control campaigns. We developed a model of mosquito populations that considers their main biological and behavioral features and incorporates parameters that model human behavior in relation to water container disposal. We performed extensive numerical simulations to study the variability of adult and aquatic mosquito populations when various protocols are applied, changing the effectiveness and frequency of water bucket disposal and the delay in the availability of water containers for breeding. We found an effectiveness threshold value above which it is possible to significantly limit mosquito dispersal. Interestingly, a nonsynchronized discard frequency, more attainable by human populations, was more efficient than a synchronized one to reduce the aquatic mosquito population. Scenarios with random delays in the availability of water containers indicate that it is not decisive to have a fixed time delay for the entire population, which is more realistic as it mimics a wider range of human behaviors. This simple model could help design dengue prevention campaigns aiming at mosquito population control.Fil: Gramajo, Ana Alicia. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Investigaciones y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (cab). División Física Estadística; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; ArgentinaFil: Laneri, Karina Fabiana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Investigaciones y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (cab). División Física Estadística; ArgentinaFil: Laguna, Maria Fabiana. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Investigaciones y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (cab). División Física Estadística; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentin

Novel, Meso-Substituted Cationic Porphyrin Molecule for Photo-Mediated Larval Control of the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti

Dengue is a life-threatening viral disease of growing importance, transmitted by Aedes mosquito vectors. The control of mosquito larvae is crucial to contain or prevent disease outbreaks, and the discovery of new larvicides able to increase the efficacy and the flexibility of the vector control approach is highly desirable. Porphyrins are a class of molecules which generate reactive oxygen species if excited by visible light, thus inducing oxidative cell damage and cell death. In this study we aimed at assessing the potential of this photo-mediated cytotoxic mechanism to kill Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti mosquito larvae. The selected porphyrin molecule, meso-tri(N-methylpyridyl),meso-mono(N-tetradecylpyridyl)porphine (C14 for simplicity), killed the larvae at doses lower than 1 µM, and at light intensities 50–100 times lower than those typical of natural sunlight, by damaging their intestinal tissues. The physicochemical properties of C14 make it easily adsorbed into organic material, and we exploited this feature to prepare an ‘insecticidal food’ which efficiently killed the larvae and remained active for at least 14 days after its dispersion in water. This study demonstrated that photo-sensitizing agents are promising tools for the development of new larvicides against mosquito vectors of dengue and other human and animal diseases

Simulación de altas prestaciones (GPU) para la reproducción del mosquito Aedes aegypti en el cementerio de Santo Tomé, Corrientes

El Dengue, Zika y Chikungunya, son las enfermedades reemergentes de mayor preocupación a nivel mundial. La carencia de tratamientos médicos obliga a los agentes de salud a abordar la contención de los focos infecciosos desde la identificación y eliminación de los criaderos del vector transmisor. Una herramienta tecnológica que ayude en la toma de decisiones representa la solución a los costos asociados al tiempo de recolección de muestras y el análisis de datos, además de la consiguiente reducción de los gastos económicos. En este trabajo se presenta un modelo basado en agentes en GPU para la evaluación de la reproducción del vector Aedes aegypti, orientado a la toma de decisiones. El modelo ha sido validado con datos de Santo Tomé, Corrientes, dando excelentes resultados. En el trabajo se muestran las ventajas de utilizar una arquitectura paralela (GPU) para reducir el tiempo de cómputo de las simulaciones y, se presentan los resultados de una predicción realizada y validada con datos del sistema real.XX Workshop Procesamiento Distribuido y Paralelo.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic

Agent Based Modeling on Dynamic Spreading Dengue Fever Epidemic

Agent based model (ABM) is a computational model for simulation, behavioral representation and interaction of autonomous agents. The main problem definition related to how to make a dynamic model of dengue fever with consideration of their behavioral and interaction agent. This paper aims to develop interactive behavioral agents and related simulation models for such dynamic spreading dengue fever epidemic. This model construction consists of two agents, namely a human agent as a host and mosquito as a vector, where temperature and humidity are the environmental parameters. These environmental parameters deployed data and information from National Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics agency and supported by recent community health data of Bogor region. The verification stage evaluated model performance of two periods between January to June and between July to December 2015 showed the fitness of the model. During simulation stage where 100 humans agent and 10 mosquitoes agent were observed, indicating the decreasing of mosquito by 26.3% and the number of infected human decrease to 16% from the period of January until June to July until December 2015 respectively. These evaluation results showed that the agent based model results succeeded to follow a similar trend of decreasing pattern as actual data

Oviposition site selection in mosquitoes : the role of conspecific larvae, heterospecific larvae and microbes

In mosquitoes, the evaluation and selection of oviposition sites is critical for the growth, development and survival of the offspring. Gravid mosquitoes rely primarily on olfactory cues emanating from breeding water containing, e.g., intra- and interspecific aquatic stages, as well as bacteria for this purpose. In this thesis, I investigated the odour-mediated mechanisms regulating the oviposition preferences of Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus to intra- and interspecific aquatic stages and the commensal Klebsiella sp., bacterium. Using multi- and dual-choice oviposition assays, in combination with chemical and electrophysiological assays, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) associated with intraspecific aquatic stages of Ae. aegypti were identified and shown to regulate oviposition site choice and egg laying in a stage- and dose-dependent manner (Paper II). Using a similar approach, oviposition site selection by Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus were shown to be regulated by hydrocarbons emitted by interspecific 4th instar larvae, emphasising that these VOCs are able to regulate niche separation and competitive exclusion between these species (Paper III). The bacteria, Klebsiella sp., constitutes a major food resource for Ae. aegypti larvae, and gravid mosquitoes are attracted to this resource and the VOCs emitted by the bacteria (Paper IV), which strengthens their commensal interaction. This thesis identified the odour-mediated mechanisms by which mosquitoes detect intra- and interspecific aquatic stages, as well as mosquitoassociated bacteria. Furthermore, results of this study provide functional evidence that hydrocarbons, which previously have not been shown to regulate odourmediated behaviours in mosquitoes, play an important role in regulating oviposition. Besides, adding to our understanding of factors regulating oviposition preference in mosquitoes, this thesis has identified VOCs that may be evaluated under field conditions for their assessment as complementary vector control tools