| 研究開始時の研究の概要 |
This work will focus on wound healing in two-dimensional cellular tissues, as a topic at the intersection of physics, biology, and control theory. The purpose of this work is to learn more about how collective behavior of multicellular systems has evolved and whether it is optimal in a control theoretic sense. We will employ mechanics based modeling, modeling of decision-making by cells, and optimal control frameworks to address this question.
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| 研究実績の概要 |
I set out to study how wound healing can be interpreted as a process of collective behavior which has evolved to be optimal, as in optimizing a utility function.
However, it became necessary to study the control theoretic approach of the project in a more contained situation and I identified the study of epidemics as a suitable target, both for its general importance as a subject and its reduced simulation complexity as compared to a full tissue simulation.
In two studies, we studied social distancing behavior of populations as it arises from individuals optimizing their own decisions, balancing infection costs with the costs of avoiding contacts with others, e.g. worsening their economic situation or psychological health. We studied how social distancing is affected by the expectation of a vaccination: People social distance more strongly the earlier they expect a vaccine to arrive and the more certain they are about its early arrival time. We also showed how social distancing is affected by limited capacity in the healthcare system. Finally, we demonstrated how governments can design incentives to help individuals make optimal decisions.
I hope that these findings will affect how governments communicate about the state of an epidemic, vaccination development, and that it will help design better government interventions in future epidemics. I hope that this will also transfer into additional understanding of optimal collective behavior in other systems such as cellular tissues.
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