A Knowledge Sharing Approach to Foster Interdisciplinary Pedestrian Dynamics and Epidemiological Modeling Research and Practice

A significant challenge to interdisciplinary computational science arises from the difficulty of using models from diverse domains. We show that combining the concepts of knowledge sharing—a component of knowledge management—and recommender systems, which have traditionally been viewed as separate undertakings, can help address the above limitation. In particular, we describe the VIPRA Recommender System (VRS), which enables transformative interdisciplinary science using pedestrian dynamics for epidemiological modeling. VRS provides a venue through which researchers can share capabilities of modeling systems and practitioners can receive assistance in identifying and using systems that meet their modeling needs, such as recommendations of suitable models and their input parameters. We present a usability study to establish its usefulness as a tool to empower interdisciplinary science using models from a variety of domains.