Estimation of time-space-varying parameters in dengue epidemic models

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to estimate parameters that change over time and space in dengue epidemic models, using variational calculus, to better match empirical data and understand extrinsic influences.

Contribution

It introduces a variational calculus-based approach for estimating dynamic parameters in dengue models, accounting for extrinsic factors and real data variability.

Findings

Parameters vary over time and space in dengue models.

The method successfully fits real epidemic data.

Extrinsic factors influence parameter dynamics.

Abstract

There are nowadays a huge load of publications about dengue epidemic models, which mostly employ deterministic differential equations. The analytical properties of deterministic models are always of particular interest by many experts, but their validity - if they can indeed track some empirical data - is an increasing demand by many practitioners. In this view, the data can tell to which figure the solutions yielded from the models should be; they drift all the involving parameters towards the most appropriate values. By prior understanding of the population dynamics, some parameters with inherently constant values can be estimated forthwith; some others can sensibly be guessed. However, solutions from such models using sets of constant parameters most likely exhibit, if not smoothness, at least noise-free behavior; whereas the data appear very random in nature. Therefore, some parameters cannot be constant as the solutions to seemingly appear in a high correlation with the data. We were aware of impracticality to solve a deterministic model many times that exhaust all trials of the parameters, or to run its stochastic version with Monte Carlo strategy that also appeals for a high number of solving processes. We were also aware that those aforementioned non-constant parameters can potentially have particular relationships with several extrinsic factors, such as meteorology and socioeconomics of the human population. We then study an estimation of time-space-varying parameters within the framework of variational calculus and investigate how some parameters are related to some extrinsic factors. Numerical results for some examples with real data are shown and discussed in details.