ECE Departmental Seminar

Mean-Field Analysis of a Network Behavioral–Epidemic Model

Kathinka Frieswijk
University of Groningen

Friday, 10/21/22, 1:30pm
Light Engineering 250 

Abstract:  The spread of an epidemic disease and the population’s collective behavioral response are deeply intertwined, influencing each other’s evolution. Such coevolution typically has been overlooked in mathematical models, limiting their real-world applicability. In this seminar, we address this gap and discuss and analyse a behavioral–epidemic model, in which a susceptible–infected–susceptible epidemic model and an evolutionary game-theoretic decision-making mechanism concerning the use of self-protective measures are coupled. Through a mean-field approach, we characterize the asymptotic behavior of the system, deriving conditions for global convergence to a disease-free equilibrium and characterizing the endemic equilibria of the system and their (local) stability properties. Interestingly, for a certain range of the model parameters, we prove global convergence to a limit cycle, characterized by periodic epidemic outbreaks and collective behavioral response.

Bio: Kathinka Frieswijk is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen (UG), the Netherlands. At the UG, she received a BS in Medicine, a BS in Mathematics and a BS in Physics, and she graduated in 2018 with a MS in Theoretical Physics. In 2022, she received a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research at Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Her research interests include epidemic modeling on large-scale networks, opinion dynamics, and evolutionary game theory.