SummerSim 2016: Theoretical considerations on creating populations with partnerships for large-scale agent-based models - Response for Reviewers

[Jacob Barhak]

Below s the Response for reviewers submitted as part of the camera ready manuscript

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Review 1: Fanny Boulaire Dear Fanny, Thank you very much for your comments! The misspellings have been corrected, the �+�-sign from equation has been removed (it was an artifact from a previous version) and the legend in the figure has been re-arranged, so that �female with partner� becomes visible. Also, �sex� has been replaced with �gender�. Review 2: Dan Chen Dear Dan, Thank you very much for your comments! We hope the passage between section 2.3 and 2.4 has been made more fluent by adding some explanation of the problem of overestimation of agents when they would be created as Agent A and Agent B following the theoretical considerations. We also tried to make section 2.4 more understandable. The idea described in this section deals with problems arising after the problem of sparse data and the use of model calibration to get reasonable estimates. It rather explains what parameters need to be estimated from the data and how they need to be transformed for the method to produce the desired results. The experiment-section has been expanded and the R-code is now available online to readers to replicate the simulation. Regarding the literature, we searched for any article dealing with the problem of creating agent populations in paired relationships and found none. Nathan Geffen has done a comprehensive comparison of different matching algorithms in his blog-post (http://nathangeffen.webfactional.com/partnermatching/partnermatching.html), but we did not come across a scientific paper on this topic. Extracting this information from epidemiological studies will be hard as - in my experience - the reporting on how the starting population has been created is rather sparse. Review 3: Jacob Barhak Dear Jacob, Thank you for your comments on the paper! Regarding the minor issues, �firstly, secondly, �� was replaced by �(I), (II), ��, the plus sign was unnecessary and has been removed and the minus in in �P(a_A � a_B)� has been replaced by �P(agediff(A,B))� to make it more clear, that this term stands for the age difference between Agent A and Agent B. Concerning MIST and INSPYRED, I think those methods are heading in a slightly different direction, but I will be more than happy to discuss with you, if they can be applied to the partnership-problem. All reviews: The comparison with the matching algorithm has now been supplemented to the experiment part of the paper including a speed comparison. The R-code has been uploaded for readers to replicate the simulations.

[Jacob Barhak]

At final stages of preparation it was discovered an author was added to the paper author list.

The corresponding author was asked about this addition. Below is the entire conversation:

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On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 1:44 PM, Stefan Scholz <ssch...@uni-bielefeld.de> wrote:

Hi Jacob,

 I am really sorry about causing you extra work! I did not know it would cause so much confusion. Svenja helped me to improve the paper after the first feedback from the reviewers and provided further input. I hope it will be possible to keep her as an co-author of the paper.

 Best,
 Stefan

Am 07.07.2016 um 20:26 schrieb Jacob Barhak:

Hi Stefan,

It seems you are good.

It would have helped if all names were there from the first version. It would have saved some confusion due to discrepancy in the lists.

Can you please explain the reason for adding an author in later paper versions. This is unusual and needs to be documented as part of the public review records.

Thanks for responding fast.

              Jacob

 

On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 1:00 PM, José Luis Risco Martín <jlr...@ucm.es> wrote:

Hello all:

I have found Svenja Elkenkamp in the camera ready version (attached), our Google Spreadsheet program (see link below) and the SummerSim PDF program. It does not matter is she is included or not into the START system.

Best regards,

José L.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZWRK7txjstvSICg6h15lke7wA-JrlxZ7APP5XmFcH1o/edit#gid=1804490398

On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 2:21 PM, Jacob Barhak <jacob....@gmail.com> wrote:

So Stefan,

Jose can make sure the published version matches.

Note that the paper version I see does not include her name and that her name is not on the start system. I was pretty sure that I copied the authors in a previous version while making the program, yet I cannot see the name there now. Something went wrong there.

Jose, can you make sure that Stefan can access his paper and make the appropriate correction?

Andrea, it seems the name should appear. I will correct with Aleah.

Hopefully we can set things right quickly.

               Jacob

On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 6:55 AM, Stefan Scholz <stefan...@uni-bielefeld.de> wrote:
 

Hi Jacob,

Thanks for noticing! Svenja is one of the co-authors of the paper. I thought I added her in the START system.

Do you know I can add her? START is cloded as far as I know...

Thanks!

Stefan

Von: Jacob Barhak

Gesendet: Donnerstag, 7. Juli 2016 13:23

An: Stefan Scholz

Cc: Andrea D'Ambrogio

Betreff: Re: SummerSim Submission
 

Hi Stefan,

Do you know  "Svenja Elkenkamp" and is this an author in your paper?

This name was in the draft program listed alongside your paper and when comparing it to the paper authors I noticed a difference. It may be a cut an paste error of some sort, yet I am just double checking with you to make sure no one got left behind by mistake.

I hope we can figure out this issue and fix it quickly.

             Jacob