Industrial and systems engineering students, professor receive Best Paper Award
Published: Sep 23, 2021 8:00 AM
By Virginia Speirs
Two Auburn engineering students and a professor recently received Best Paper Award at the 33rd European Modeling and Simulation Symposium.
Konstantinos Mykoniatis, assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering, along with students Julia Bitencourt, graduate student in industrial and systems engineering and Mohsen Nikfar, graduate research assistant, received the award at the 18th International Multidisciplinary Modelling and Simulation Multi-Conference, held virtually Sept. 15-17, for their paper, "Analyzing the Impact of Vaccination on COVID-19 Spread and Hospitalizations: A Multi-Paradigm Simulation Modeling Approach."
The award grants the authors complimentary registration for the next conference, which will be in Rome, Italy.
"Julia and Mohsen started this paper as part of their long-term semester simulation project in my newly developed INSY 5400/6400 multi-paradigm simulation course that was offered last semester," Mykoniatis said.
The paper describes a simulation model that integrates Discrete Event Simulation and Agent-Based Modeling to study the COVID-19 crisis. The goal of this research is to determine how vaccine distribution affects the spread of COVID-19 as well as hospitalizations in Alabama, Mykoniatis said.
The simulation model incorporates three main components, the supply chain of vaccines, the spread of COVID-19, and hospitalizations. The first component studies the availability of trucks for supplying the vaccines and vaccine damage due to inappropriate handling and storage. The second component incorporates the Susceptible Exposed Infected Recovery epidemic model. Lastly, the third component considers capacity requirements and treatment times for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. This dynamic model enables a better understanding of the interactions between variables of interest, helps to evaluate hospital bed requirements and provides metrics that support the management and control of the epidemic and healthcare system, Mykoniatis said.
"Our paper discusses some of the implications of vaccination campaigns to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the importance of mitigation strategies through a hybrid simulation model," Bitencourt said. "I felt very honored to present this work at the I3M conference, which was the first conference that I ever participated in, and it couldn't have a better outcome."
"It was an honor to receive the best paper award in the 18th I3M conference 2021," Nikfar said. "We are glad we were good representatives for Auburn University. I also want to thank my co-authors, Mrs. Julia Bitencourt and Dr. Mykoniatis. Good teamwork always pays."
Media Contact: , jeremyhenderson@auburn.edu, 334.844.3591
Graduate students Mohsen Nikfar and Julia Bitencourt, and assistant professor Konstantinos Mykoniatis, co-authored Analyzing the Impact of Vaccination on COVID-19 Spread and Hospitalizations: A Multi-Paradigm Simulation Modeling Approach.
