Accounting for space and uncertainty in real‐time location system‐derived contact networks

Ecology and Evolution - Tập 10 Số 11 - Trang 4702-4715 - 2020
Trevor S. Farthing1, Daniel E. Dawson1, Michael W. Sanderson2, Cristina Lanzas1
1Department of Population Health and Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
2Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology College of Veterinary Medicine Center for Outcomes Research and Epidemiology Kansas State University Manhattan KS USA

Tóm tắt

Abstract

Point data obtained from real‐time location systems (RTLSs) can be processed into animal contact networks, describing instances of interaction between tracked individuals. Proximity‐based definitions of interanimal “contact,” however, may be inadequate for describing epidemiologically and sociologically relevant interactions involving body parts or other physical spaces relatively far from tracking devices. This weakness can be overcome by using polygons, rather than points, to represent tracked individuals and defining “contact” as polygon intersections.

We present novel procedures for deriving polygons from RTLS point data while maintaining distances and orientations associated with individuals' relocation events. We demonstrate the versatility of this methodology for network modeling using two contact network creation examples, wherein we use this procedure to create (a) interanimal physical contact networks and (b) a visual contact network. Additionally, in creating our networks, we establish another procedure to adjust definitions of “contact” to account for RTLS positional accuracy, ensuring all true contacts are likely captured and represented in our networks.

Using the methods described herein and the associated R package we have developed, called contact, researchers can derive polygons from RTLS points. Furthermore, we show that these polygons are highly versatile for contact network creation and can be used to answer a wide variety of epidemiological, ethological, and sociological research questions.

By introducing these methodologies and providing the means to easily apply them through the contact R package, we hope to vastly improve network‐model realism and researchers' ability to draw inferences from RTLS data.

Từ khóa


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