Message-passing approach to epidemic tracing and mitigation with apps

Hi NetFollowers, last week we had Hanlin Sun from Queen Mary University of London as our speaker, talking about a theoretical approach with both percolation and message-passing techniques used for mitigating an epidemic wave.

Hanlin explained the motivation beyond the modeling of the epidemic spreading process with contact-and-tracing apps giving both analytical predictions and results from extensive Monte Carlo simulations, showing how powerful can be a message-passing approach.

In the second part of the talk, Hanlin engaged with the audience discussing how to propose new research projects, and how the research can embrace two different perspectives: one bottom-up, from experimental evidence to models, and one in the other direction, driven by theoretical ideas. 

The discussion continued on the topic of how to find new research questions:  reading papers outside our comfort zone and attending conferences were two proposed solutions, as both in-person events and studying different topics can help in promoting new interdisciplinary ideas.

The talk is available on our YouTube channel. And what about you? What is your strategy to find new research questions? Join the discussion by leaving a comment on this thread! Blog thread (Twitter)!