Continuous and discrete compartmental models for infectious disease

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Sousa, Gustavo A., Souza, Diogo L. M., Gabrick, Enrique C., Reis, Patrício D. C. dos, Bentivoglio, Lucas E., Batista, Antonio M., Szezech Jr, José D.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Sousa, Gustavo A.
Souza, Diogo L. M.
Gabrick, Enrique C.
Reis, Patrício D. C. dos
Bentivoglio, Lucas E.
Batista, Antonio M.
Szezech Jr, José D.
author_facet Sousa, Gustavo A.
Souza, Diogo L. M.
Gabrick, Enrique C.
Reis, Patrício D. C. dos
Bentivoglio, Lucas E.
Batista, Antonio M.
Szezech Jr, José D.
contents The study of infectious disease propagation is essential for understanding and controlling epidemics. One of the most useful tools for gaining insights into the spread of infectious diseases is mathematical modelling. In terms of mathematical epidemiology, the main models are based on compartments, such as SI, SIR, and SEIR. These models offer mathematical frameworks for representing the proliferation dynamics of various diseases, for instance flu and smallpox. In this work, we explore these models using two distinct mathematical approaches, Cellular Automata (CA) and ODEs. They are able to reproduce the spread dynamics of diseases with their own individuality. CA models incorporate the local interaction among individuals with discrete time and space, while ODEs provide a continuous and simplified view of a disease propagation in large and homogeneous populations. By comparing these two approaches, we find that the shape of the curves of all models is similar for both representations. Although, the growth rates differ between CA and ODE. One of our results is to show that the CA yields a power-law growth, while the ODE growth rate is well-represented by an exponential function. Furthermore, a substantial contribution of our work is using a hyperbolic tangent to fit the initial growth of infected individuals for all the considered models. Our results display a strong correlation between simulated data and adjusted function. We mainly address this successful result by the fact that the hyperbolic function captures both growing: the power-law (when considered the first terms of infinite sums) and combinations of exponential (when the hyperbolic function is written via exponential). Therefore, our work shows that when modelling a disease the choice of mathematical representation is crucial, in particular to model the onset of an epidemic.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_13953
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Continuous and discrete compartmental models for infectious disease
Sousa, Gustavo A.
Souza, Diogo L. M.
Gabrick, Enrique C.
Reis, Patrício D. C. dos
Bentivoglio, Lucas E.
Batista, Antonio M.
Szezech Jr, José D.
Populations and Evolution
Biological Physics
The study of infectious disease propagation is essential for understanding and controlling epidemics. One of the most useful tools for gaining insights into the spread of infectious diseases is mathematical modelling. In terms of mathematical epidemiology, the main models are based on compartments, such as SI, SIR, and SEIR. These models offer mathematical frameworks for representing the proliferation dynamics of various diseases, for instance flu and smallpox. In this work, we explore these models using two distinct mathematical approaches, Cellular Automata (CA) and ODEs. They are able to reproduce the spread dynamics of diseases with their own individuality. CA models incorporate the local interaction among individuals with discrete time and space, while ODEs provide a continuous and simplified view of a disease propagation in large and homogeneous populations. By comparing these two approaches, we find that the shape of the curves of all models is similar for both representations. Although, the growth rates differ between CA and ODE. One of our results is to show that the CA yields a power-law growth, while the ODE growth rate is well-represented by an exponential function. Furthermore, a substantial contribution of our work is using a hyperbolic tangent to fit the initial growth of infected individuals for all the considered models. Our results display a strong correlation between simulated data and adjusted function. We mainly address this successful result by the fact that the hyperbolic function captures both growing: the power-law (when considered the first terms of infinite sums) and combinations of exponential (when the hyperbolic function is written via exponential). Therefore, our work shows that when modelling a disease the choice of mathematical representation is crucial, in particular to model the onset of an epidemic.
title Continuous and discrete compartmental models for infectious disease
topic Populations and Evolution
Biological Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.13953