Quasi-neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks.
Some epidemics have been empirically observed to exhibit outbreaks of all possible sizes, i.e., to be scale-free or scale-invariant. Different explanations for this finding have been put forward; among them there is a model for "accidental pathogens" which leads to power-law distributed ou...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2011-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3132777?pdf=render |
| _version_ | 1818327544765612032 |
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| author | Oscar A Pinto Miguel A Muñoz |
| author_facet | Oscar A Pinto Miguel A Muñoz |
| author_sort | Oscar A Pinto |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Some epidemics have been empirically observed to exhibit outbreaks of all possible sizes, i.e., to be scale-free or scale-invariant. Different explanations for this finding have been put forward; among them there is a model for "accidental pathogens" which leads to power-law distributed outbreaks without apparent need of parameter fine tuning. This model has been claimed to be related to self-organized criticality, and its critical properties have been conjectured to be related to directed percolation. Instead, we show that this is a (quasi) neutral model, analogous to those used in Population Genetics and Ecology, with the same critical behavior as the voter-model, i.e. the theory of accidental pathogens is a (quasi)-neutral theory. This analogy allows us to explain all the system phenomenology, including generic scale invariance and the associated scaling exponents, in a parsimonious and simple way. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-13T12:17:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a41d0179ef0449b790ab59570e3d8061 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-13T12:17:58Z |
| publishDate | 2011-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-a41d0179ef0449b790ab59570e3d80612022-12-21T23:46:40ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032011-01-0167e2194610.1371/journal.pone.0021946Quasi-neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks.Oscar A PintoMiguel A MuñozSome epidemics have been empirically observed to exhibit outbreaks of all possible sizes, i.e., to be scale-free or scale-invariant. Different explanations for this finding have been put forward; among them there is a model for "accidental pathogens" which leads to power-law distributed outbreaks without apparent need of parameter fine tuning. This model has been claimed to be related to self-organized criticality, and its critical properties have been conjectured to be related to directed percolation. Instead, we show that this is a (quasi) neutral model, analogous to those used in Population Genetics and Ecology, with the same critical behavior as the voter-model, i.e. the theory of accidental pathogens is a (quasi)-neutral theory. This analogy allows us to explain all the system phenomenology, including generic scale invariance and the associated scaling exponents, in a parsimonious and simple way.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3132777?pdf=render |
| spellingShingle | Oscar A Pinto Miguel A Muñoz Quasi-neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks. PLoS ONE |
| title | Quasi-neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks. |
| title_full | Quasi-neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks. |
| title_fullStr | Quasi-neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Quasi-neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks. |
| title_short | Quasi-neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks. |
| title_sort | quasi neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks |
| url | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3132777?pdf=render |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT oscarapinto quasineutraltheoryofepidemicoutbreaks AT miguelamunoz quasineutraltheoryofepidemicoutbreaks |