UNESCO UNITWIN Complex Systems Digital Campus

This page communicates about academic material related to complex systems and its applications. It is part of the UNESCO UNITWIN Complex Systems Digital Campus (CS-DC), led by Le Havre Normandie University and Strasbourg University. The network gather more than 100 universities across the world. A list of the partners can be found here: CS-DC Members. This page is currently maintained thanks to members of Le Havre Normandie University (LMAH, LITIS) and the HSM.

Coming next...

June 22 2022, 11:00 am (ET), J. Epstein, New York University

Title: Triple Contagion: Toward Cognitive Epidemiology,

Abstract: Epstein will present differential equation and agent-based models in which contagious disease transmission is affected by contagious fear of the disease and contagious fear of the control, in this case vaccine. The three contagions--one viral particulate and two cognitive--are coupled. The two fears evolve and interact in ways that shape distancing behavior, vaccine uptake, and their relaxation. These behavioral dynamics in turn can amplify or suppress disease transmission, revealing several coupled contagion mechanisms for multiple pandemic waves, including cases where waves increase in amplitude. Methodologically, the coupled contagion approach advances infectious disease modeling by including human behavioral adaptations, grounded in the cognitive neuroscience of fear learning, extinction, and transmission.

Bio: Joshua M. Epstein is Professor of Epidemiology at NYU with Affiliated Appointments to the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the Department of Politics. He is External Faculty Fellow of the Santa Fe Institute and founding Director of the NYU Agent-Based Modeling Lab. Among his awards are the NIH Director's Pioneer Award and an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Amherst College, his alma mater. He holds a Ph.D. from MIT and before moving to NYU was Professor and Director of the Center for Advanced Modeling in the Social, Behavioral and Health Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Nonlinear Dynamics, Mathematical Biology, and Social Science (Wiley); Growing Artificial Societies with Robert Axtell (MIT Press); Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling (Princeton); and Agent_Zero: Toward Neurocognitive Foundations or Generative Social Science (Princeton).

Links: A link to the recent Triple Contagion Royal Society Paper is here
A link to the ABM Lab is here
The webpage of J. Epstein is: here.