Our own Dr. Yuan Zhou will present at the IMSE seminar on Monday, April 29, 2019 at 1:00pm in Nedderman Hall, Room 105. Please note that this seminar is in the usual room, but we are moving the time up 15 minutes to accommodate faculty schedules. Dr. Zhou’s presentation title, abstract, and biographical sketch are below.
Title: Modeling Complex Adaptive Systems: Agent-Based Simulation and Its Applications
Author: Yuan Zhou
Location: Nedderman Hall Room 105
Date: Monday, April 29, 2019
Time: 1:00pm
Abstract: Modeling the behavior of complex adaptive systems, such as infectious disease transmissions and policing systems, plays an important role in management decision-making towards improving systems’ performance. However, it is often challenged by inherent complexities of the underlying systems: nonlinear interactions in between systems’ entities (e.g., contacts between humans), entities’ adaptive behaviors (e.g., criminals’ response to policing actions and other environmental factors), and dependent happenings of certain events (e.g., parent-offspring disease transmissions). Traditionally, equation-based models, such as differential equations and Markov models, have been used to represent the average system behavior, but they usually fail to capture those complexities appropriately. In recent years, agent-based simulation (ABS) has received growing attentions because it enables realistic representations of systems’ complexities at a micro-level. ABS is a class of computational models that is built upon the unique behaviors of individual entities, or agents, who are interacting with each other, autonomously making decisions, and collectively driving the macro-level behavior of the system. In this talk, we will discuss several projects involving ABS modeling in healthcare systems, policing systems, and traffic systems. Our goal is to address some critical issues in design and implementation of ABS models, including model granularity, data needs, and model validation, and provide some strategies to overcome these issues.
Bio: Yuan Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Department of Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington. She received a B.S. degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China and a Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from The University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY. Dr. Zhou’s primary research interests include healthcare delivery systems engineering, agent-based simulation, infectious disease modeling and policy development, health data analytics, and dynamic policing decision analytics. Currently, she is also working with local healthcare and law enforcement partners to develop analytical tools to support their management decision making and improve operations performance.