The Double Exposure SI Model: A Senior Thesis

Abstract

The SI model of disease spread is a fairly simple and well-known way to study disease. In the model, each person is either susceptible or infected, and the infection spreads when a susceptible person interacts with an infected person. A more realistic simulation on a network can be compared to this differential equation model in order to determine if the theoretical equation correctly predicts the behavior of the simulation. This research looks into a double-exposure model, where a person has to come into contact with at least two infected people before becoming infected. The theoretical equation will then be analyzed to see how it behaves, how it differs from the SI model, and if a simulated disease matches the theoretical curves.