Ph.D. Seminar: Samira Yousefi Naghani

TITLE: 

Development of a Decision Support Framework for Control of Avian Influenza Transmission  

ABSTRACT:

Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) is one of the disease-causing microbes that can be transmitted from animal to humans. In the last several decades, AIV has caused several outbreaks around the world, including in Canada and the US. This virus poses significant threat to both animal and human health. AIV is divided into two groups based on the degree of its ability to cause disease: highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and low pathogenicity avian influenza (LPAI). Several studies on avian influenza have focused on modeling disease transmission. These studies have proposed a number of approaches in order to analyze the sensitivity of the models using stochastic simulations. The state-of-the-art studies have examined the problem from different modeling perspectives such as transmission, prediction, surveillance, and early detection models to reduce the risk of introduction and spread of the virus. However, there are limited studies that have combined a variety of data sources and inference engines to make an integrated decision support framework.

This research proposes a decision support framework for the purpose of identifying and investigating the impact of different control policies and decisions on prevention of introduction and spread of LPAI in poultry flocks and limiting the level of transmission among flocks. Pre-emptive culling of neighboring flocks, ring vaccination, and compartmentalization are considered as some of the possible control and eradication measures. The proposed framework will include a combination of several subsystems, such as an agent-based simulation on extended Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) transmission model, a spatio-temporal avian influenza prediction map, and a social media surveillance. This framework utilizes statistical, mathematical, and machine learning methods and performs a comprehensive analysis that leads to timely and precise decisions in emergencies.

SoCS Advisor:  Dr. Rozita Dara
AD Advisor: Dr. Shayan Sharif
Advisory Committee Member: Dr. Zvonimir Poljak 
Advisory Committee Member: Dr. Fei Song