High-Performance Computing and ABMS for High-Resolution COVID-19 Spreading Simulation

This paper presents an approach for the modeling and the simulation of the spreading of COVID-19 based on agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS). Our goal is not only to support large-scale simulations but also to increase the simulation resolution. Moreover, we do not assume an underlying network of contacts, and the person-to-person contacts responsible for the spreading are modeled as a function of the geographical distance among the individuals. In particular, we defined a commuting mechanism combining radiation-based and gravity-based models and we exploited the commuting properties at different resolution levels (municipalities and provinces). Finally, we exploited the high-performance computing (HPC) facilities to simulate millions of concurrent agents, each mapping the individual’s behavior. To do such simulations, we developed a spreading simulator and validated it through the simulation of the spreading in two of the most populated Italian regions: Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna. Our main achievement consists of the effective modeling of 10 million of concurrent agents, each one mapping an individual behavior with a high-resolution in terms of social contacts, mobility and contribution to the virus spreading. Moreover, we analyzed the forecasting ability of our framework to predict the number of infections being initialized with only a few days of real data. We validated our model with the statistical data coming from the serological analysis conducted in Lombardy, and our model makes a smaller error than other state of the art models with a final root mean squared error equal to 56,009 simulating the entire first pandemic wave in spring 2020. On the other hand, for the Emilia-Romagna region, we simulated the second pandemic wave during autumn 2020, and we reached a final RMSE equal to 10,730.11

Spartan Daily, January 30, 1984

Volume 82, Issue 2https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/7120/thumbnail.jp

Maria Varela’s Flickering Light: Literacy, Filmstrips, and the Work of Adult Literacy Education in the Civil Rights Movement

In this article, I take up the underrecognized and almost unstudied literacy work of Maria Varela, a Latinx Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) staff member in charge of developing literacy materials for African Americans in the South during the 1960s. I analyze the use of community activism in the multimodal literacy materials that Varela and African Amer- ican communities collaboratively produced. These filmstrips played a critical role in those communities developing a new ethos of place: an imagined and embodied relationship between local and national communities that offers a new identity, sense of participatory agency, and place from which to speak

Spectrum, Volume 28, Issue 17

Higlights include: Fun-filled weekend for siblings -- Business students get global perspective at UN -- Robinson and Carlson debate top political issues -- Costello inspires students during marketing presentation -- Relay for Life -- Does what SHU wear give the wrong impression

Intervention or Collaboration?:Rethinking Information and Communication Technologies for Development

Over the past decades information system developers and knowledge engineers in ICT projects in wealthy regions of the world have come to realize that technical work can only be successful when situated in a broader organizational context. However, for low-resource environments (or example rural Africa), where contextual embedding is even more demanding given the complexity of these environments, practical, context-oriented methodologies how to "do" information systems engineering are still lacking. This book gives a basic but thorough insight how to develop information systems and services for people in low resource environments, from a socio-technical, information systems engineering perspective, presenting field-validated methods that cover the complete lifecycle of information systems engineering, with emphasis on context analysis, needs assessment, use case and requirements analysis and (business) sustainability analysis. Since technical development does not go without critical reflection, this book also investigates which (tacit) assumptions affect the way technologies are implemented in poor, low-resource environments. Linking collaborative sociotechnical development with theories of complexity and social networks of innovation, this book offers a reflective and critical approach to information and communication technologies for development

Skyler and Bliss

Hong Kong remains the backdrop to the science fiction movies of my youth. The city reminds me of my former training in the financial sector. It is a city in which I could have succeeded in finance, but as far as art goes it is a young city, and I am a young artist. A frustration emerges; much like the mould, the artist also had to develop new skills by killing off his former desires and manipulating technology. My new series entitled HONG KONG surface project shows a new direction in my artistic research in which my technique becomes ever simpler, reducing the traces of pixelation until objects appear almost as they were found and photographed. Skyler and Bliss presents tectonic plates based on satellite images of the Arctic. Working in a hot and humid Hong Kong where mushrooms grow ferociously, a city artificially refrigerated by climate control, this series provides a conceptual image of a imaginary typographic map for survival. (Laurent Segretier

November 18, 1985

The Breeze is the student newspaper of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia