On the mitigation of bioterrorism through game theory

Abstract

Bioterrorism represents a serious threat to the security of civilian populations. The nature of an epidemic requires careful consideration of all possible vectors over which an infection can spread. Our work takes the SIR model and creates a detailed hybridization of existing simulations to allow a large search space to be explored. We then create a Stackelberg game to evaluate all possibilities with respect to the investment of available resources and consider the resulting scenarios. Our analysis of our experimental results yields the opportunity to place an upper bound on the worst case scenario for a population center in the event of an attack, with consideration of defensive and offensive measures.