Goto

Collaborating Authors

 compartment


How uncrewed narco subs could transform the Colombian drug trade

MIT Technology Review

Fast, stealthy, and cheap--autonomous, semisubmersible drone boats carrying tons of cocaine could be international law enforcement's nightmare scenario. A big one just came ashore. Colombian military officials intercepted this 40-foot-long uncrewed fiberglass "narco sub" in the ocean just off Tayrona National Park. On a bright morning last April, a surveillance plane operated by the Colombian military spotted a 40-foot-long shark-like silhouette idling in the ocean just off Tayrona National Park. It was, unmistakably, a "narco sub," a stealthy fiberglass vessel that sails with its hull almost entirely underwater, used by drug cartels to move cocaine north. The plane's crew radioed it in, and eventually nearby coast guard boats got the order, routine but urgent: Intercept. In Cartagena, about 150 miles from the action, Captain Jaime González Zamudio, commander of the regional coast guard group, sat down at his desk to watch what happened next.



GRASP: Graph Reasoning Agents for Systems Pharmacology with Human-in-the-Loop

Bazgir, Omid, Manthapuri, Vineeth, Rattsev, Ilia, Jafarnejad, Mohammad

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) modeling is essential for drug development but it requires significant time investment that limits the throughput of domain experts. We present \textbf{GRASP} -- a multi-agent, graph-reasoning framework with a human-in-the-loop conversational interface -- that encodes QSP models as typed biological knowledge graphs and compiles them to executable MATLAB/SimBiology code while preserving units, mass balance, and physiological constraints. A two-phase workflow -- \textsc{Understanding} (graph reconstruction of legacy code) and \textsc{Action} (constraint-checked, language-driven modification) -- is orchestrated by a state machine with iterative validation. GRASP performs breadth-first parameter-alignment around new entities to surface dependent quantities and propose biologically plausible defaults, and it runs automatic execution/diagnostics until convergence. In head-to-head evaluations using LLM-as-judge, GRASP outperforms SME-guided CoT and ToT baselines across biological plausibility, mathematical correctness, structural fidelity, and code quality (\(\approx\)9--10/10 vs.\ 5--7/10). BFS alignment achieves F1 = 0.95 for dependency discovery, units, and range. These results demonstrate that graph-structured, agentic workflows can make QSP model development both accessible and rigorous, enabling domain experts to specify mechanisms in natural language without sacrificing biomedical fidelity.


On a Reinforcement Learning Methodology for Epidemic Control, with application to COVID-19

Iannucci, Giacomo, Barmpounakis, Petros, Beskos, Alexandros, Demiris, Nikolaos

arXiv.org Machine Learning

This paper presents a real time, data driven decision support framework for epidemic control. We combine a compartmental epidemic model with sequential Bayesian inference and reinforcement learning (RL) controllers that adaptively choose intervention levels to balance disease burden, such as intensive care unit (ICU) load, against socio economic costs. We construct a context specific cost function using empirical experiments and expert feedback. We study two RL policies: an ICU threshold rule computed via Monte Carlo grid search, and a policy based on a posterior averaged Q learning agent. We validate the framework by fitting the epidemic model to publicly available ICU occupancy data from the COVID 19 pandemic in England and then generating counterfactual roll out scenarios under each RL controller, which allows us to compare the RL policies to the historical government strategy. Over a 300 day period and for a range of cost parameters, both controllers substantially reduce ICU burden relative to the observed interventions, illustrating how Bayesian sequential learning combined with RL can support the design of epidemic control policies.


Machine Learning Epidemic Predictions Using Agent-based Wireless Sensor Network Models

Nwokoye, Chukwunonso Henry, Oluchi, Blessing, Waldron, Sharna, Ezzeh, Peace

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Given Name Surname line 2: dept. Abstract -- The lack of epidemiological data in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is a fundamental difficulty in constructing robust models to forecast and mitigate threats like viruses and worms. Many studies have looked at different epidemic models for WSNs, focusing on the manner in which malware infections spread given the network's specific properties, including energy limits and node mobili ty. In this study, an agent - based realization of the susceptible - exposed - infected - recovered - vaccinated (SEIRV) mathematical model was employed for machine learning (ML) predictions. Using tools such as Netlogo's BehaviorSpace and Python, two epidemic synth etic datasets were generated and prepared for the application of several ML algorithms. Posed as a regression problem, the infected and recovered nodes were predicted, and the performance of these algorithms is compared using the error metrics of the train and the test sets. The predictions performed quite well, with low error metrics and high R values (0.997, 1.000, 0.999, 1.000), indicating an effective fit to the training set. The validation values were lowered (0.992, 0.998, 0.971, and 0.999), as is ty pical when evaluating model performance on unknown data. Judging from the recorded performances, support vector, linear, Lasso, Ridge, and ElasticNet regression were among the worst performing algorithms, while Random Forest, XGBoost, Decision Trees, and K nearest neighbor had the best model performances. In recent years, the globe as we know it has been changing due to bre akthroughs in numerous linked innovations including smart electrical grids [1], the IoT, long - term evolution, 5G connectivity [2] and cyber physical systems [3] such as wireless sensor networks (WSN).