Conclusions: Raccoon Rabies

  1. Rabies entered Connecticut in 1991, and spread across the state in an epidemic wave. Rabies has now entered an endemic phase in Connecticut.

  2. The epizootic front was modelled as a linear wave travelling at about 46 km/yr, from southwest to northeast:

    y = mx + at +b
    with a good fit (R-squared: 0.841304).

  3. We have a model for the Local Spread:

  4. Modelling involves thoughtful translation of written or verbal descriptions into mathematical concepts such as functional forms (e.g. linear function, bell-shaped functions, etc.). Remember Occam's Razor: the simplest satisfactory model is the best one.

  5. HTML, Javascript, images, links provide powerful tools for making presentations and illustrating concepts, which are accessible to people all over the WWW. Other software tools such as GIS (Geographic Information Systems), spreadsheets, and programming languages play an essential role in the translation of "strategic math models" into actual models.