An iterative algorithm for optimizing COVID-19 vaccination strategies considering unknown supply.

Background And Objective: The distribution of the newly developed vaccines presents a great challenge in the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Policy makers must decide which subgroups should be vaccinated first to minimize the negative consequences of the pandemic. These decisions must be made upfront and under uncertainty regarding the amount of vaccine doses available at a given time.

Model based estimation of the SARS-CoV-2 immunization level in austria and consequences for herd immunity effects.

Several systemic factors indicate that worldwide herd immunity against COVID-19 will probably not be achieved in 2021. On the one hand, vaccination programs are limited by availability of doses and on the other hand, the number of people already infected is still too low to have a disease preventing impact and new emerging variants of the virus seem to partially neglect developed antibodies from previous infections. Nevertheless, by February 2021 after one year of observing high numbers of reported COVID-19 cases in most European countries, we might expect that the immunization level should have an impact on the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

Evaluation of Contact-Tracing Policies against the Spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Austria: An Agent-Based Simulation.

Background: Many countries have already gone through several infection waves and mostly managed to successfully stop the exponential spread of SARS-CoV-2 through bundles of restrictive measures. Still, the danger of further waves of infections is omnipresent, and it is apparent that every containment policy must be carefully evaluated and possibly replaced by a different, less restrictive policy before it can be lifted. Tracing of contacts and consequential breaking of infection chains is a promising strategy to help contain the disease, although its precise impact on the epidemic is unknown.

Reproduction of patterns in melanocytic proliferations by agent-based simulation and geometric modeling.

Spatio-temporal patterns of melanocytic proliferations observed in vivo are important for diagnosis but the mechanisms that produce them are poorly understood. Here we present an agent-based model for simulating the emergence of the main biologic patterns found in melanocytic proliferations. Our model portrays the extracellular matrix of the dermo-epidermal junction as a two-dimensional manifold and we simulate cellular migration in terms of geometric translations driven by adhesive, repulsive and random forces.

YouDo - we help! - An Open Information and Training Platform for Informal Caregivers.

The number of people in need of care increases constantly, and in the coming few years many seniors will depend on their close relatives for their care needs. These relatives very often need support to fulfill their role as informal caregivers. The YouDo prototype presented in this paper aims to provide special training programs for informal caregivers in order to help them to improve the quality of their nursing.