Abstract
In this paper we compare the impact of two sexual mixing schemes on the characteristics of the resulting sexual networks and the spread of HIV. This work is part of our studying social complexity in the Sekhukhune district of the Limpopo province in South Africa. While the agent-based models are constrained by evidence wherever possible, little or no evidence is available about individuals’ choice of partners in the region and their sexual behaviour. Since we therefore have to depend on plausible assumptions we decided to study different sexual mixing schemes and their effect on the formation of sexual networks. We report on some fundamental network signatures and discuss the resulting HIV/AIDS prevalence as a macro-level output of the simulation.
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Repast Agent Simulation Toolkit – http://repast.sourceforge.net/.
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JESS (Java Expert System Shell) – http://www.jessrules.com/jess/.
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This scheme is adapted from the mechanism originally proposed by Todd and Bilari [20].
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See Moss [14] for further discussion on this subject.
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Acknowledgments
This work was done within the CAVES project, which was funded under the EU 6FP NEST programme. We are thankful to the editors, the reviewers and the participants of WCSS’08 for their feedback and comments. Thanks to Scott Moss, Bruce Edmonds, our colleagues at the Stockholm Environment Institute (Oxford) and at the Centre for Policy Modelling for their input and feedback over the course of the CAVES project and this work.
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Alam, S.J., Meyer, R. (2010). Comparing Two Sexual Mixing Schemes for Modelling the Spread of HIV/AIDS. In: Takadama, K., Cioffi-Revilla, C., Deffuant, G. (eds) Simulating Interacting Agents and Social Phenomena. Agent-Based Social Systems, vol 7. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-99781-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-99781-8_5
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