Prof. Thomas Hotz and Stefan Heyder have been awarded the TU Ilmenau Publication Prize for their research on the spread of the coronavirus. They thus join the winning teams of the prize, which is awarded in four categories.
For their paper "How to Coordinate Vaccination and Social Distancing to Mitigate SARS-CoV-2 Outbreaks," a team of researchers from TU Ilmenau has been awarded the university's publication prize in the category "Economic and Social Sciences." The scientists at the Group for Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics investigated which measures are best suited to counteract the spread of the virus. In this context, the award-winning paper deals in particular with social distancing and vaccination. To this end, the researchers set up models that allow qualitative conclusions to be drawn about the control of the epidemic.
For three years now, the scientists at the Group for Probability Theory and Mathematical Statisticshave been studying the course of the corona pandemic. As early as April 2020, Prof. Thomas Hotz, head of the Group, and Stefan Heyder, a doctoral student at the same Group, operated a public dashboard that estimated the reproduction number of COVID-19 in Germany, as well as in other countries. Their calculations on the rate of spread of the epidemic attracted considerable attention worldwide. In the same year, the BMBF project "KONSENS" produced the paper that has now won the award, as well as another publication that makes statements about coronatests and social distancing to contain the pandemic based on a mathematical model. In addition to Prof. Hotz and Stefan Heyder, Karl Worthmann, Professor at the Optimization-based Control Group, Philipp Sauerteig, PhD student at the same Group, as well as Sara Grundel and Tobias Ritschel (Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems Magdeburg) were involved. Together with colleagues from Trier and Poland, Prof. Hotz and Stefan Heyder also operated the estimation of reproduction numbers for counties in Germany and Poland. Stefan Heyder is currently working on the further development of these techniques as part of his doctorate.
For Prof. Thomas Hotz, the award of the publication prize is above all a tribute to the successful collaboration of all the scientists involved:
This research was teamwork. Different fields of mathematics such as statistics and systems theory came together to contribute to the research of such a socially relevant topic as the corona pandemic. I thank my colleagues very much for this great achievement!
Predicting new infections
Furthermore, both scientists are involved in projects of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in so-called "ForecastHubs". In this platform, groups of scientists from all over Europe make weekly predictions for new infections with COVID-19. A similar KIT project, also involving the scientists, corrected reporting delays of hospitalization incidence - a very relevant topic in 2021.
Every two years, TU Ilmenau awards the Publication Prize for outstanding publications by its own scientists. The prize is awarded in the categories of mathematics and natural sciences, engineering sciences, and economic and social sciences and is endowed with 2500 euros each. The selection criteria are international visibility, novelty value and interdisciplinarity of the publication.
Among the winners in the category "Mathematics and Natural Sciences" is the team of Prof. Gabriele Eichfelder for the publication: M. De Santis, G. Eichfelder, J. Niebling, S. Rocktäschel (2020): Solving Multiobjective Mixed Integer Convex Optimization Problems, SIAM Journal on Optimization 30 (4), 3122- 3145, DOI: 10.1137/19M1264709. In the category "Engineering Sciences", TU Ilmenau awarded the team of Prof. Jens Müller for the publication: N. Jaziri, A. Boughamoura, J. Müller, B. Mezghani, F. Tounsi, M. Ismail (2020): A comprehensive review of Thermoelectric Generators: technologies and common applications, Energy Reports 6 (Supl. 7), 264-287, DOI: 10.1016/j.egyr.2019.12.011.
In the category "Special Award for Outstanding Originality", the prize is awarded to the team of Prof. Nicola Döring for the publication: N. Döring, M. R. Mohseni, R. Walter (2020): Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping Review, Journal of Medical Internet Research 22(7), e18551, DOI: 10.2196/18551.
