Blog Updates

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Plan to Expand Preliminary Model and Sources

Below are our plan to expand our preliminary model as well as our sources for various numerical and informational data.

Plan to Expand

We plan to expand our current model by adding more complete and advanced factors to the model. We plan to look at each part of our model individually and decide which parts could benefit from expansion. Ideas under consideration: HIV/AIDS population, charitable donations, prenatal care, education, regional focus, other risk behaviors, and medical progress.

Furthermore, we will look into more advanced representations of the model and discuss the possibility of certain parts of the model being more conducive to change. The most likely expansion will be to make certain converters that are especially important in the problem analysis and change them into full-fledged stocks. The candidates for this particular change include Mother To Child Transmission (MTCT), Sexual Contact, and Exposure to Infected Blood Fluids.

We will also look to expand and create a more complete model of the negative and positive effects. It is important to us to accurately and properly represent all aspects of the problem (and solution) in our model. As there are many initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS, it is necessary to quantify and illustrate the effect they have on the epidemic.


Sources of Information

UNAIDS - www.unaids.org

UNAIDS is a joint United Nations program with multiple co-sponsors that brings together the efforts and abilities of these organizations to combat Global AIDS. Released 2006 Report on Global AIDS Epidemic. Allied organizations: UNFPA, UNODC, ILO, UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank.

AVERT - www.avert.org

AVERT is a global HIV/AIDS charity that is focused on “averting” HIV and AIDS around the world. They focus especially on countries with extremely high infection rates, and deliver information and education to people at risk around the world.

PubMed - www.pubmed.gov

PubMed is a tool for finding biomedical articles and resources. It uses the Entrez retrieval system and is provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.