Sanja Brdar | Searcharxiv

arXiv2019

Some Enumeration Problems in the Duplication-Loss Model of Genome Rearrangement

Tandem-duplication-random-loss (TDRL) is an important genome rearrangement operation studied in evolutionary biology. This paper investigates some of the formal properties of TDRL operations on the symmetric group (the space of permutations over an $ n $-set). In particular, the cardinality of `balls' of radius one in the TDRL metric, as well as the cardinality of the maximum intersection of two such balls, are determined. The corresponding problems for the so-called mirror (or palindromic) TDRL rearrangement operations are also solved. The results represent an initial step in the study of error correction and reconstruction problems in this context and are of potential interest in DNA-based data storage applications.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2015

Unveiling Spatial Epidemiology of HIV with Mobile Phone Data

An increasing amount of geo-referenced mobile phone data enables the identification of behavioral patterns, habits and movements of people. With this data, we can extract the knowledge potentially useful for many applications including the one tackled in this study - understanding spatial variation of epidemics. We explored the datasets collected by a cell phone service provider and linked them to spatial HIV prevalence rates estimated from publicly available surveys. For that purpose, 224 features were extracted from mobility and connectivity traces and related to the level of HIV epidemic in 50 Ivory Coast departments. By means of regression models, we evaluated predictive ability of extracted features. Several models predicted HIV prevalence that are highly correlated (>0.7) with actual values. Through contribution analysis we identified key elements that impact the rate of infections. Our findings indicate that night connectivity and activity, spatial area covered by users and overall migrations are strongly linked to HIV. By visualizing the communication and mobility flows, we strived to explain the spatial structure of epidemics. We discovered that strong ties and hubs in communication and mobility align with HIV hot spots.

stat.AP↗