COVID-19 continues to spread across the country and around the world. Current strategies for managing the spread of COVID-19 include social distancing. We present VERA, an interactive AI tool, that first enables users to specify conceptual models of the impact of social distancing on the spread of COVID-19. Then, VERA automatically spawns agent-based simulations from the conceptual models, and, given a data set, automatically fills in the values of the simulation parameters from the data. Next, the user can view the simulation results, and, if needed, revise the simulation parameters and run another experimental trial, or build an alternative conceptual model. We describe the use VERA to develop a SIR model for the spread of COVID-19 and its relationship with healthcare capacity.
Covid-19 has been causing severe loss to the human race. Considering the mode of spread and severity, it is essential to make it a habit to follow various safety precautions such as using sanitizers and masks and maintaining social distancing to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Individuals are widely educated about the safety measures against the disease through various modes such as announcements through online or physical awareness campaigns, advertisements in the media and so on. The younger generations today spend considerably more time on mobile phones and games. However, there are very fe…
The research team has utilized an integrated dataset, consisting of anonymized location data, COVID-19 case data, and census population information, to study the impact of COVID-19 on human mobility. The study revealed that statistics related to social distancing, namely trip rate, miles traveled per person, and percentage of population staying at home have all showed an unexpected trend, which we named social distancing inertia. The trends showed that as soon as COVID-19 cases were observed, the statistics started improving, regardless of government actions. This suggests that a portion of po…
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have implemented policies to curb the spread of the novel virus. Little is known about how these policies impact various groups in society. This paper explores the relationship between social distancing policies, traffic volumes and air quality and how they impact various socioeconomic groups. This study aims to understand how disparate communities respond to Stay-at-Home Orders and other social distancing policies to understand how human behavior in response to policy may play a part in the prevalence of COVID-19 positive cases. We collected d…
Ever since the first case of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was confirmed in Wuhan, China, social distancing has been promoted worldwide, including the United States. It is one of the major community mitigation strategies, also known as non-pharmaceutical interventions. However, our understanding is remaining limited in how people practice social distancing. In this study, we construct a Social Distancing Index (SDI) to evaluate people's mobility pattern changes along with the spread of COVID-19. We utilize an integrated dataset of mobile device location data for the contiguous Unite…
Purpose: Public attitudes towards COVID-19 and social distancing are critical in reducing its spread. It is therefore important to understand public reactions and information dissemination in all major forms, including on social media. This article investigates important issues reflected on Twitter in the early stages of the public reaction to COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach: A thematic analysis of the most retweeted English-language tweets mentioning COVID-19 during March 10-29, 2020. Findings: The main themes identified for the 87 qualifying tweets accounting for 14 million retweets we…
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought both tangible and intangible damage to our society. Many researchers studied about its societal impacts in the countries that had implemented strong social distancing measures such as stay-at-home orders. Among them, human mobility has been studied extensively due to its importance in flattening the curve. However, mobility has not been actively studied in the context of mild social distancing. Insufficient understanding of human mobility in diverse contexts might provide limited implications for any technological interventions to alleviate the situation. To t…
In the absence of pharmaceutical interventions to curb the spread of COVID-19, countries relied on a number of nonpharmaceutical interventions to fight the first wave of the pandemic. The most prevalent one has been stay-at-home orders, whose the goal is to limit the physical contact between people, which consequently will reduce the number of secondary infections generated. In this work, we use a detailed set of mobility data to evaluate the impact that these interventions had on alleviating the spread of the virus in the US as measured through the COVID-19-related deaths. To establish this i…
Internet of Things is a revolutionary domain that has the caliber to impact our lives and bring significant changes to the world. Several IoT applications have been envisioned to facilitate data driven and smart application for the user. Smart City and Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) offer a futuristic vision of smart, secure and safe experience to the end user, and at the same time efficiently manage the sparse resources and optimize the efficiency of city operations. However, outbreaks and pandemics like COVID-19 have revealed limitations of the existing deployments, therefore, archi…
COVID-19 is a global epidemic. Till now, there is no remedy for this epidemic. However, isolation and social distancing are seemed to be effective preventive measures to control this pandemic. Therefore, in this paper, an optimization problem is formulated that accommodates both isolation and social distancing features of the individuals. To promote social distancing, we solve the formulated problem by applying a noncooperative game that can provide an incentive for maintaining social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, the sustainability of the lockdown policy is interp…
Automated Driving Lab, Ohio State University（俄亥俄州立大学自动驾驶实验室）
The novel Corona virus pandemic is one of the biggest worldwide problems right now. While hygiene and wearing masks make up a large portion of the currently suggested precautions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO), social distancing is another and arguably the most important precaution that would protect people since the airborne virus is easily transmitted through the air. Social distancing while walking outside, can be more effective, if pedestrians know locations of each other and even better if they know locations of people who are p…
By the emergence of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China, and its rapid outbreak worldwide, the infectious illness has changed our everyday travel patterns. In this research, our team investigated the changes in the daily mobility pattern of people during the pandemic by utilizing an integrated data panel. To incorporate various aspects of human mobility, the team focused on the Social Distancing Index (SDI) which was calculated based on five basic mobility measures. The SDI patterns showed a plateau stage in the beginning of April that lasted for about two weeks. This phen…
In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, governments have encouraged and ordered citizens to practice social distancing, particularly by working and studying at home. Intuitively, only a subset of people have the ability to practice remote work. However, there has been little research on the disparity of mobility adaptation across different income groups in US cities during the pandemic. The authors worked to fill this gap by quantifying the impacts of the pandemic on human mobility by income in Greater Houston, Texas. In this paper, we determined human mobility using p…
This study develops a new method to quantify neighborhood activity levels at high spatial and temporal resolutions and test whether, and to what extent, behavioral responses to social distancing policies vary with socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. We define exposure density as a measure of both the localized volume of activity in a defined area and the proportion of activity occurring in non-residential and outdoor land uses. We utilize this approach to capture inflows/outflows of people as a result of the pandemic and changes in mobility behavior for those that remain. First, we …
This demo presents a functional Proof-of-Concept prototype of a smart bracelet that utilizes IoT and ML to help in the effort to contain pandemics such as COVID-19. The designed smart bracelet aids people to navigate life safely by monitoring health signs; and detecting and alerting people when they violate social distancing regulations. In addition, the bracelet communicates with similar bracelets to keep track of recent contacts. Using RFID technology, the bracelet helps in automating access control to premises such as workplaces. All this is achieved while preserving the privacy of the user…
Recent re-opening policies in the US, following a period of social distancing measures, introduced a significant increase in daily COVID-19 infections, calling for a roll-back or substantial revisiting of these policies in many states. The situation is suggestive of difficulties modeling the impact of partial distancing/re-opening policies on future epidemic spread for purposes of choosing safe alternatives. More specifically, one needs to understand the impact of manipulating the availability of social interaction venues (e.g., schools, workplaces, and retail establishments) on virus spread. …
Touristic cities will suffer from COVID-19 emergency because of its economic impact on their communities. The first emergency phases involved a wide closure of such areas to support "social distancing" measures (i.e. travels limitation; lockdown of (over)crowd-prone activities). In the second phase, individual's risk-mitigation strategies (facial masks) could be properly linked to "social distancing" to ensure re-opening touristic cities to visitors. Simulation tools could support the effectiveness evaluation of risk-mitigation measures to look for an economic and social optimum for activities…
Stanford University（斯坦福大学）；Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University（斯坦福大学伍兹环境研究所）；Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, Stanford University（斯坦福大学计算与数学工程研究所）；Department of Biology, Stanford University（斯坦福大学生物系）；Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University（斯坦福大学地球系统科学系）
One of the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic is the importance of social distancing, even in challenging circumstances such as pre-hurricane evacuation. To explore the implications of integrating social distancing with evacuation operations, we describe this evacuation process as a Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) and solve it using a DNN (Deep Neural Network)-based solution (Deep Reinforcement Learning) and a non-DNN solution (Sweep Algorithm). A central question is whether Deep Reinforcement Learning provides sufficient extra routing efficiency to accommodate increased social dist…
University of Florida（佛罗里达大学）；Federal University of Paraná（巴拉那联邦大学）
Misinformation entails the dissemination of falsehoods that leads to the slow fracturing of society via decreased trust in democratic processes, institutions, and science. The public has grown aware of the role of social media as a superspreader of untrustworthy information, where even pandemics have not been immune. In this paper, we focus on COVID-19 misinformation and examine a subset of 2.1M tweets to understand misinformation as a function of engagement, tweet content (COVID-19- vs. non-COVID-19-related), and veracity (misleading or factual). Using correlation analysis, we show the most r…
The spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused trillions of dollars in damages to the governments and health authorities by affecting the global economies. The purpose of this study is to introduce a connected smart paradigm that not only detects the possible spread of viruses but also helps to restart businesses/economies, and resume social life. We are proposing a connected Internet of Things ( IoT) based paradigm that makes use of object detection based on convolution neural networks (CNN), smart wearable and connected e-health to avoid current and future outbreaks. First, connec…
