Epidemic models help researchers understand and predict the nature of a potential epidemic. This study analyzes and improves network evolution technology that evolves contact networks so that simulated epidemics on the network mimic a specified epidemic pattern. The evolutionary algorithm incorporates the novel recentering-restarting algorithm, which is adopted into the optimizer to allow for efficient search of the space of networks. It also implements the toggle-delete representation which allows for broader search of solution space. Then, a diffusion character based method is used for analyzing the contact networks. A comparison of simulated epidemics that result from changing patient zero for a single contact network is performed. It is found that the location of patient zero is important for the behaviour of an epidemic. The social fabric representation is invented and then tested for parameter choices. The response to vaccination strategies (including ring vaccination) is then tested by incorporating them into the epidemic simulations. / Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Comment caractériser les liens entre les récits mobilisant la figure du patient zéro et la production de cette dite figure? La notion de récit ici abordée, étant particulièrement inspirée de Ricoeur (1983), fait essentiellement du récit une configuration narrative et médiatique cherchant à imiter une temporalité donnée. La notion de figure, quant à elle, dépasse l’opposition classique entre l’abstrait et le concret; la figure est le lieu où se rencontrent représentations concrétisées et entités idéelles afin de se « figurer » mutuellement. Le référent de la figure, n’étant pas une abstraction figée dans le temps, est constamment en proie au réassemblage, à la transformation et à l’effacement des éléments qui la constituent. Je qualifie de figuration ce processus temporellement déployé. Par le biais de ma perspective narrative, ce sont les récits médiatisés, surtout en temps d’épidémies/pandémies, que je tiens pour éléments d’assemblage de la figuration du patient zéro en regard des deux dernières décennies. Ainsi, j’ai pu conclure que la personnification y est certainement son mode d’instanciation le plus récurrent et celle-ci s’exécute habituellement par le biais d’une désignation – de qui s’agit-il? – jumelée à une performance personnificatrice – de quelles actions s’agit-il? De plus, une étude intermédiale du parcours de cette figuration a permis de faire ressortir l’hypermédialité relativement constante de l’écrit en son sein. En dernier lieu, pour synthétiser l’évolution de la figuration du patient zéro au cours du laps de temps concerné, j’ai proposé d’aborder celle-ci via trois processus transformateurs : la dé-personnification, la distanciation et la pluralisation. / How can we characterize the links between the stories mobilizing the figure of patient zero and the production of this so-called figure? The notion of story discussed here, being particularly inspired by Ricoeur (1983), essentially makes the story a narrative and media configuration seeking to imitate a given temporality. The notion of figure, for its part, goes beyond the classical opposition between the abstract and the concrete; the figure is the place where concretized representations and ideal entities meet in order to "figure" each other. The referent of the figure, not being an abstraction frozen in time, is constantly plagued by the reassembly, transformation and erasure of the elements that constitute it. I call this temporally deployed process figuration. Through my narratively informed perspective, it is the mediatized stories, especially during times of epidemic/pandemic, that I hold as elements of assembly of the figuration of patient zero within the scope of the last two decades. Thus, I was able to conclude that personification is certainly its most recurrent mode of instantiation and this is usually carried out through a designation – who is it? – paired with a personifying performance – what actions are those? In addition, an intermedial study of such figuration has above all made it possible to highlight the relatively constant hypermediality of the writing form within it. Finally, to synthesize the evolution of the figuration of patient zero during the time span concerned, I proposed to approach it through three transformative processes: de-personification, distancing and pluralization.