<div dir="ltr">Dear all,<div><br></div><div>I am Aristides Moustakas and I am a new member of the <span style="font-size:13px">Population Modeling Working Group mailing list associated with the</span></div><span style="font-size:13px">Inter Agency Modeling and Analysis Group (IMAG). I am contributing this for introducing myself into the group and providing some information regarding my recent work.</span><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px">My web page is below and most of my papers are uploaded in Research Gate</span></div><div><a href="http://www.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/staff/aristidesmoustakas.html">http://www.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/staff/aristidesmoustakas.html</a><br></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aristides_Moustakas">http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aristides_Moustakas</a><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-size:13px">A recent paper that I have contributed in regarded coupling of agent based models of badgers with agent based models of cattle and farms for predicting the dynamics of bovine tuberculosis was very well received by the press in the UK. The story was covered by the BBC, the Guardian and practically most media in the UK last week</span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px">I am pasting the abstract of the paper below - the paper is published online in </span><a href="http://link.springer.com/journal/477" style="border:0px;font-family:&#39;Helvetica Neue&#39;,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:11px;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:16.5px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;outline:0px;color:rgb(1,118,195)">Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment</a></div><div><a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00477-014-1016-y">http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00477-014-1016-y</a><br></div><div><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:&#39;Helvetica Neue&#39;,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:20.7999992370605px">Bovine </span><a href="http://link.springer.com/search?dc.title=Tuberculosis+%28TB%29&amp;facet-content-type=ReferenceWorkEntry&amp;sortOrder=relevance" class="" style="border:0px;font-family:&#39;Helvetica Neue&#39;,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:20.7999992370605px;margin:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;outline:0px;color:rgb(1,118,195);text-decoration:none">Tuberculosis (TB)</a><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:&#39;Helvetica Neue&#39;,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:20.7999992370605px"> is a major problem for the agricultural industry in several countries. TB can be contracted and spread by species other than cattle and this can cause a problem for disease control. In the UK and Ireland, badgers are a recognised reservoir of infection and there has been substantial discussion about potential control strategies. We present a coupling of individual based models of bovine TB in badgers and cattle, which aims to capture the key details of the natural history of the disease and of both species at approximately county scale. The model is spatially explicit it follows a very large number of cattle and badgers on a different grid size for each species and includes also winter housing. We show that the model can replicate the reported dynamics of both cattle and badger populations as well as the increasing prevalence of the disease in cattle. Parameter space used as input in simulations was swept out using Latin hypercube sampling and sensitivity analysis to model outputs was conducted using mixed effect models. By exploring a large and computationally intensive parameter space we show that of the available control strategies it is the frequency of TB testing and whether or not winter housing is practised that have the most significant effects on the number of infected cattle, with the effect of winter housing becoming stronger as farm size increases. Whether badgers were culled or not explained about 5 %, while the accuracy of the test employed to detect infected cattle explained less than 3 % of the variance in the number of infected cattle.</span><br></div><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px">Here is a list of some of the media coverage:</span></div><div><span style="font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30820579" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30820579</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/14/testing-cattle-better-than-culling-badgers-control-bovine-tb-study-suggests" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/14/testing-cattle-better-than-culling-badgers-control-bovine-tb-study-suggests</span></a><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-bovine-tuberculosis-effective-badger-culls.html" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-bovine-tuberculosis-effective-badger-culls.html</span></a><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150114072705.htm" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150114072705.htm</span></a><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/more-evidence-against-badger-cull-testing-bovine-tb-more-effective-measure-1483421" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/more-evidence-against-badger-cull-testing-bovine-tb-more-effective-measure-1483421</span></a><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/testing-better-badger-cull-154624501.html#pPDm66d" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">https://uk.news.yahoo.com/testing-better-badger-cull-154624501.html#pPDm66d</span></a><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/qmuo-tfb011415.php" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/qmuo-tfb011415.php</span></a><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Testing-8216-better-badger-cull-8217-say/story-25854685-detail/story.html" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Testing-8216-better-badger-cull-8217-say/story-25854685-detail/story.html</span></a><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://www.stackyard.com/news/2015/01/vet/02_badger_cull.html" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.stackyard.com/news/2015/01/vet/02_badger_cull.html</span></a><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://en.newhub.shafaqna.com/UK/169671-More-evidence-against-badger-cull-Testing-for-bovine-TB-more-effective" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-GB">http://en.newhub.shafaqna.com/UK/169671-More-evidence-against-badger-cull-Testing-for-bovine-TB-more-effective</span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://www.nationalheadlines.co.uk/892813/testing-better-than-badger-cull/" target="_blank">http://www.nationalheadlines.co.uk/892813/testing-better-than-badger-cull/</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><a href="http://www.healthcanal.com/infections/59135-testing-for-bovine-tuberculosis-is-more-effective-than-badger-culls-at-controlling-the-disease.html" target="_blank">http://www.healthcanal.com/infections/59135-testing-for-bovine-tuberculosis-is-more-effective-than-badger-culls-at-controlling-the-disease.html</a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px">Best regards,</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:13px">Aris</p></div></div>