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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz ("John Carlos Baez") wrote:

Hurrah! I''ve gotten funding to meet with

• computer scientists who do epidemiology: Nathaniel Osgood, Xiaoyan Li, and William Waites
• software engineers who know category theory: Evan Patterson and Kris Brown
• a mathematician: Sophie Libkind
• an economist: Owen Haaga

for 6 weeks this summer, in Edinburgh! We'll be using category theory to develop new modeling software.

Here's a short description of our project:

Many of the most urgent social, economic and public health problems facing humanity require dynamic simulation modeling for a well-informed response. Sadly, most current models are labor intensive to build, difficult to reuse or adapt, and reliant on proprietary software. Our team has used modern mathematics to develop flexible open-source frameworks for "stock and flow models", which treat populations en masse, and also "agent-based models" or "ABMs" which simulate each individual separately. In our meeting we will develop new mathematics and create new software to design and work with "hybrid" models which combine stock and flow models and ABMs. To illustrate the power of this new software, we will create demonstration models of

1. gestational and type II diabetes,
2. labour shocks as the economy decarbonizes.

I've been working on applied category theory for a while, so it's great to see it getting ever more practical.