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19.04.2024   at 11:30 - 13:00

Journal Club: Information Geometry in Epidemiology and Population Dynamics

Speaker: Stefan Hohenegger, Senior Researcher
Abstract: In this talk I introduce basic concepts in information theory and apply them to epidemiology and population dynamics: I start by reformulating simple evolution models in terms of probability distributions. This allows me to construct the Fisher information, which I interpret as the metric of a one-dimensional differentiable manifold. For systems that can be effectively described by a single degree of freedom, I show that their time evolution is fully captured by this metric. In this way, I extract universal features across seemingly very different models. This further motivates a reorganisation of the dynamics around zeroes of the Fisher metric, corresponding to extrema of the probability distribution. Concretely, I propose a simple form of the metric for which I analytically solve the dynamics of the system that well approximates the time evolution of various established models in epidemiology and population dynamics, thus providing a unifying framework.
Location: The DIAS Meetingroom Syd (V22-503a-2)
You can also join via Zoom (passcode: 060379).

The event is open to all.