Please join the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering for our Spring 2022 Cross-College Collaboration with Dr. Glenn Young and Dr. Asma Azizi from KSU's College of Science and Mathematics! Light refreshments will be provided.
 

Title for Dr. Glenn Young:
Evolutionary Game Theory: The Mathematics of Cooperation by Dr. Glenn Young, Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Abstract for Dr. Glenn Young:

Altruistic cooperation is the act of expending one’s own energy for the benefit of another individual or group. The existence of altruism throughout nature is therefore a bit of an evolutionary puzzle: how can spending your own energy, thereby decreasing your reproductive fitness, be evolutionarily advantageous? The answer to this question can be quantified using a mathematical framework called evolutionary game theory (EGT). In this talk, I will outline EGT and discuss how it is used to study the evolutionary stability of cooperation in biological systems, drawing on recent work for examples.

Title for Dr. Asma Azizi:

Effect of Human Behavior on the Evolution of Viral Strains by Dr. Asma Azizi, Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Abstract for Dr. Asma Azizi:

Human behavior can change as a reaction to disease observed in others. Such behavioral changes are an important factor in the spread of an epidemic. It has been noted that human behavioral traits in disease avoidance are under selection in the presence of infectious diseases. Here we explore a complimentary trend: the pathogen itself might experience a force of selection to become less visible, or less symptomatic, in the presence of such human behavioral trends. Using a stochastic SIR agent-based model, we investigated the co-evolution of two viral strains with cross-immunity, where the resident strain is symptomatic while the mutant strain is asymptomatic. We assumed that individuals exercised self-regulated social distancing (SD) behavior if one of their neighbors was infected with a symptomatic strain. We observed that the proportion of asymptomatic carriers increased over time with a stronger effect corresponding to higher levels of self-regulated SD. Adding mandated SD made the effect more significant, while the existence of a time-delay between the onset of infection and the change of behavior reduced the advantage of the asymptomatic strain. These results were consistent under random geometric networks, scale-free networks, and a synthetic network that represented the social behavior of the residents of New Orleans.

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About the Series:
The Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology (SPCEET) Cross-College Collaboration is designed to encourage the exchange of ideas within and across the college’s disciplines through research. Our departments invite up-and-coming researchers from across KSU to give presentations on their ongoing and most recently completed research projects each semester.

The Seminar Series provides faculty, staff, and students an excellent opportunity to directly interact with faculty across colleges and disciplines, get valuable feedback on their ongoing work from peers, and create possibilities for high-impact collaboration.