0000000000319793
AUTHOR
Jose-maria Sempere
Simulating the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions limiting transmission in COVID-19 epidemics using a membrane computing model
Epidemics caused by microbial organisms are part of the natural phenomena of increasing biological complexity. The heterogeneity and constant variability of hosts, in terms of age, immunological status, family structure, lifestyle, work activities, social and leisure habits, daily division of time and other demographic characteristics make it extremely difficult to predict the evolution of epidemics. Such prediction is, however, critical for implementing intervention measures in due time and with appropriate intensity. General conclusions should be precluded, given that local parameters dominate the flow of local epidemics. Membrane computing models allows us to reproduce the objects (virus…
Simulating the Influence of Conjugative Plasmids Kinetic Values on the Multilevel Dynamics of Antimicrobial Resistance in a Membrane Computing Model
AbstractPlasmids harboring antibiotic resistance genes differ in their kinetic values as plasmid conjugation rate, segregation rate by incompatibility with related plasmids, rate of stochastic loss during replication, cost reducing the host-cell fitness, and frequency of compensatory mutations to reduce plasmid cost, depending on the cell mutation frequency. How variation in these values influence the success of a plasmid and their resistance genes in complex ecosystems, as the microbiota? Genes are located in plasmids, plasmids in cells, cells in populations. These populations are embedded in ensembles of species in different human hosts, are able to exchange between them bacterial ensembl…