Simultaneous reconstruction of evolutionary history and the diffusion dynamics of rumours

Epidemic modelling of rumour diffusion has a long history in both theoretical and empirical research. However, the ubiquitousness of online social networks has revealed the rapid evolution of rumours, which demands new epidemic models to consider both evolutionary and diffusion processes on the same time scale. Existing mathematical epidemiology has applied dynamical models to study rumour diffusion, but they have tended not to exploit evolutionary changes and their effect on the rumour diffusion processes and population dynamics. On the other hand, statistical phylogenetics has increasingly been applied to the study of evolving diseases. This project will integrate the techniques in these two fields to create a novel model that combines phylogenetic analysis and epidemic modelling to track and predict the spread of rumours. Specific objectives include:

1. A phylogenetic framework of evolving rumours: Construct a phylogenetic tree to trace the evolution and divergence of rumours over time.
2. A novel diffusion model to integrate the phylogenetic framework into epidemic models: Develop a novel model through exploring epidemic models and integrating them with the phylogenetic framework to simultaneously model the diffusion and evolution of rumours.