Abstract
This paper details a network-based analysis of the spreading of rodent infestations through a city under varying conditions. Models of two very different cities, Tulsa, OK, USA and Providence, RI, USA, are created as geometric graphs using publicly available map data. The SIR epidemic model is applied with varying parameters, and the resulting infestation rates are measured. Results indicate that the density of a city, the size of the largest connected component (from the point of view of a rodent migrating to a new location), and the distance and probability of migration all play a role in determining the resulting rate of infestation. Results obtained are consistent with infestation patterns and rates reported by studies of other similarly dense city environments. For Providence a targeted attack simulation is run, which shows that carefully targeted extermination interventions could reduce infestation in the city by approximately 40%.
Highlights
Spreading algorithms have been studied with many different networks and contexts, such as diseases spread through human contacts (Newman 2002; Schneeberger et al 2004; Bearman et al 2002), information spread through email chains (Ebel et al 2002) and mobile cellular networks (Onnela et al 2007), and memes spread through marketing and promotion (Aral and Walker 2011; Weng et al 2012)
During data collection the locations of 88,260 buildings in Tulsa and 43,662 buildings in Providence were gathered, and four separate networks were created for each city based on rodents’ migration radius r
While higher values of r imply higher infestation rates, because of the relatively small size of the largest connected component, the citywide infestation rates stay within a narrow range of values and do not rise above 4.5%
Summary
Spreading algorithms have been studied with many different networks and contexts, such as diseases spread through human contacts (Newman 2002; Schneeberger et al 2004; Bearman et al 2002), information spread through email chains (Ebel et al 2002) and mobile cellular networks (Onnela et al 2007), and memes spread through marketing and promotion (Aral and Walker 2011; Weng et al 2012). Rodents in a city will spread through a network of buildings. The spreading and location of rodents has been studied statistically (French et al 1968; Feng and Himsworth 2014), but few network-based studies exist. Humans have numerous reasons to study the behavior of rodents, including management of rodent wastes, mitigation of damage that rodents cause, and prevention of diseases that are transmitted from rodents to humans (Mills and Childs 1998; Würbel 2001; Lund 2015)
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