This project was subervised by Mike Tildesley and Ellen Brooks-Pollock.

Title: Modelling Disease Spread on Partially Observed Networks

Abstract: Network models are being used increasingly to simulate the spread of diseases which are transmitted by a contact process. These models are most effective when detailed data are available. However in most cases only partial information is available. We represent the full-set of UK inter-farm cattle movements as a directed weighted-static network with farms as nodes and movements forming edges. Foot-and -mouth style outbreaks are simulated on the network. Movements are then deleted at random from the data set. The network is rebuilt using various methods from different percentages of the original data. When epidemics are simulated on the rebuilt networks we find that, in certain regions, a 30\% knowledge of the true network is sufficient to accurately predict both the structure of the network and the size and spatial spread of an epidemic. However this result is dependent on the network structure of the regions investigated.

You can view the report and poster via the links on the top of this page