Clostridioides Difficile Infection (CDI) stands out as a critical healthcare-associated infection with global implications. Effectively understanding the mechanisms of infection dissemination within healthcare units and hospitals is imperative to implement targeted containment measures. In this study, we address the limitations of prior research by Sulyok et al., where they delineated two distinct categories of surfaces as high-touch and low-touch fomites, and subsequently evaluated the viral spread contribution of each surface utilizing mathematical modeling and Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE). Acknowledging the indispensable role of spatial features and heterogeneity in the modeling of hospital and healthcare settings, we employ agent-based modeling to capture new insights. By incorporating spatial considerations and heterogeneous patients, we explore the impact of high-touch and low-touch surfaces on contamination transmission between patients. Furthermore, the study encompasses a comprehensive assessment of various cleaning protocols, with differing intervals and detergent cleaning efficacies, in order to identify the most optimal cleaning strategy and the most important factor amidst the array of alternatives.

A Picit Jeu is an agent-based model (ABM) developed as a supporting tool for a role-playing game of the same name. The game is intended for stakeholders involved in land management and fire prevention at a municipality level. It involves four different roles: farmers, forest technicians, municipal administrators and forest private owners. The model aims to show the long-term effects of their different choices about forest and pasture management on fire hazard, letting them test different management strategies in an economically constraining context. It also allows the players to explore different climatic and economic scenarios. A Picit Jeu ABM reproduces the ecological, social and economic characteristics and dynamics of an Alpine valley in north-west Italy. The model should reproduce a primary general pattern: the less players undertake landscape management actions, by thinning and cutting forests or grazing pastures, the higher the probability that a fire will burn a large area of land.

Flibs’NLogo implements in NetLogo modelling environment, a genetic algorithm whose purpose is evolving a perfect predictor from a pool of digital creatures constituted by finite automata or flibs (finite living blobs) that are the agents of the model. The project is based on the structure described by Alexander K. Dewdney in “Exploring the field of genetic algorithms in a primordial computer sea full of flibs” from the vintage Scientific American column “Computer Recreations”.
As Dewdney summarized: “Flibs […] attempt to predict changes in their environment. In the primordial computer soup, during each generation, the best predictor crosses chromosomes with a randomly selected flib. Increasingly accurate predictors evolve until a perfect one emerges. A flib […] has a finite number of states, and for each signal it receives (a 0 or a 1) it sends a signal and enters a new state. The signal sent by a flib during each cycle of operation is its prediction of the next signal to be received from the environment”

Must tax-benefit policy making be limited to the ‘experts’?

MUSA is an ABM that simulates the commuting sector in USA. A multilevel validation was implemented. Social network with a social-circle structure included. Two types of policies have been tested: market-based and preference-change.

The Urban Traffic Simulator is an agent-based model developed in the Unity platform. The model allows the user to simulate several autonomous vehicles (AVs) and tune granular parameters such as vehicle downforce, adherence to speed limits, top speed in mph and mass. The model allows researchers to tune these parameters, run the simulator for a given period and export data from the model for analysis (an example is provided in Jupyter Notebook).

The data the model is currently able to output are the following:

…

This study employs a hierarchical cross-departmental ABM to explore the question: How and to what extent are the land use policies enforced when assessed against the real-world land use pattern? Specifically, two sub-questions are of interest: How can real-world policy interactions be abstracted into the behavior across hierarchical governmental departments in the model? How can the level of enforcement for each land use policy be quantified under these interactions? We build three hierarchical agents—the central level, the local level that incorporates three departments, and the village collective level—with simplified but plausible processes of land use change, with levels of enforcement of different land use policies as key parameters. We calibrate the model using a genetic algorithm to determine those parameters and answer our research question. We further applied the model to simulate potential land use changes and investigate the implications of different policy options. The results are expected to provide insights into the intricate relationships shaping land use processes, contributing to evidence-based decision-making in urban planning and sustainable land use management.

This model grows land use patterns that emerge as a result of land-use compatibilities stablished in urban development plans, land topography, and street networks. It contains urban brushes to paint streets and land uses as a way to learn about urban pattern emergence through free experimentation.

The Village Project is designed to help archaeologists understand the factors influencing settlement patterns of small-scale agrarian peoples. Although such societies are becoming increasingly rare, they represent the norm throughout most of the Neolithic period the world over.

CoDMER v. 2.0 was parameterized with ethnographic data from organizations dealing with prescribed fire and seeding native plants, to advance theory on how collective decisions emerge in ecological restoration.