Cimini Chiara, Pezzotta Giuditta, Lagorio Alexandra, Pirola Fabiana, Cavalieri Sergio
Department of Management, Information and Production Engineering, University of Bergamo, 24044 Dalmine, Italy.
Healthcare (Basel). 2021 Oct 21;9(11):1412. doi: 10.3390/healthcare9111412.
Simulation models have always been an aid in epidemiology for understanding the spread of epidemics and evaluating their containment policies. This paper illustrates how hybrid simulation can support companies in assessing COVID-19 containment measures in indoor environments. In particular, a Hybrid Simulation (HS) is presented. The HS model consists of an Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) to simulate the virus contagion model and a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model to simulate the interactions between flows of people in an indoor environment. Compared with previous works in the field of simulation and COVID-19, this study provides the possibility to model the specific behaviors of individuals moving in time and space and the proposed HS model could be adapted to several epidemiological conditions (just setting different parameters in the agent-based model) and different kinds of facilities. The HS approach has been developed and then successfully tested with a real case study related to a university campus in northern Italy. The case study highlights the potentials of hybrid simulation in assessing the effectiveness of the containment measures adopted during the period under examination in the pandemic context. From a managerial perspective, this study, exploiting the complementarity of the ABM and DES approaches in a HS model, provides a complete and usable tool to support decision-makers in evaluating different contagion containment measures.
模拟模型一直是流行病学领域的一种辅助手段，用于理解流行病的传播并评估其防控政策。本文阐述了混合模拟如何支持企业评估室内环境中的新冠疫情防控措施。具体而言，介绍了一种混合模拟（HS）。HS模型由一个基于主体的模拟（ABS）来模拟病毒传播模型和一个离散事件模拟（DES）模型来模拟室内环境中人员流动之间的相互作用。与模拟和新冠疫情领域的先前研究相比，本研究提供了对在时间和空间中移动的个体的特定行为进行建模的可能性，并且所提出的HS模型可以适应多种流行病学情况（只需在基于主体的模型中设置不同参数）以及不同类型的设施。HS方法已经得到发展，然后通过与意大利北部一个大学校园相关的实际案例研究进行了成功测试。该案例研究突出了混合模拟在评估疫情期间所采取的防控措施有效性方面的潜力。从管理角度来看，本研究利用HS模型中ABM和DES方法的互补性，提供了一个完整且可用的工具，以支持决策者评估不同的疫情防控措施。
