{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,24]],"date-time":"2026-08-24T14:38:53Z","timestamp":1787582333135,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":31,"publisher":"The Royal Society","issue":"240","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,8]],"date-time":"2026-07-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1783468800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council through the MathSys CDT","award":["EP\/S022244\/1"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["EP\/S022244\/1"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000288","name":"Royal Society","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["URF\\R1\\241605"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["URF\\R1\\241605"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000288","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000865","name":"Gates Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000865","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Human African Trypanosomiasis Modelling and Economic Predictions for Policy","award":["INV-005121"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["INV-005121"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,8]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Stochastic simulations are often used to model real-world phenomena such as infectious disease dynamics. In this modelling, differing strategies are often compared to one another by comparing the model outputs of each strategy. Hash-based matching, pseudo-random number generation is an approach for stochastic simulations that was implemented by Pearson and Abbott in the hashprng package to overcome challenges with comparing model simulations in a way that considers the dependency between model outputs. We demonstrate how methods based on this approach grant considerable benefit when comparing different strategies, and show when each of our three proposed methods ought to be used. We illustrate our methods with two epidemiological models: one simple model of a vaccine-preventable infection and one complex model of African sleeping sickness, which can be controlled through multiple interventions. We show how our Bernoulli hashing method works very well for simple models, and a variation of it can be used for more complex models in certain cases. Additionally, we discuss the properties of our methods for considering counterfactual scenarios and note that, compared to other attempts to obtain perfect counterfactuals, they demonstrate advantages in computational efficiency and their application to a wider variety of models.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1098\/rsif.2025.1081","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,8]],"date-time":"2026-07-08T00:09:01Z","timestamp":1783469341000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Methods for reproducible comparison of strategies in stochastic modelling"],"prefix":"10.1098","volume":"23","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0001-4056-878X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rob","family":"Sunnucks","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick 1 , Coventry, UK"},{"name":"Zeeman Institute for Systems Biology and Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research (SBIDER), University of Warwick 2 , Coventry, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6261-775X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Emma L.","family":"Davis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zeeman Institute for Systems Biology and Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research (SBIDER), University of Warwick 2 , Coventry, UK"},{"name":"Department of Statistics, University of Warwick 3 , Coventry, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8414-7648","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Kat S.","family":"Rock","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick 1 , Coventry, UK"},{"name":"Zeeman Institute for Systems Biology and Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research (SBIDER), University of Warwick 2 , Coventry, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"175","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1051","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-022-28598-w","article-title":"Cost-effectiveness of sleeping sickness elimination campaigns in five settings of the Democratic Republic of Congo","volume":"13","author":"Antillon","year":"2022","journal-title":"Nat. Commun."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib2","article-title":"Cost-effectiveness of end-game strategies against sleeping sickness across the Democratic Republic of Congo","author":"Antillon","year":"2024","journal-title":"medRxiv"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"044109","DOI":"10.1063\/1.2159468","article-title":"Efficient step size selection for the tau-leaping simulation method","volume":"124","author":"Cao","year":"2006","journal-title":"J. Chem. Phys."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1203","DOI":"10.1098\/rsif.2008.0030","article-title":"Constructing the effect of alternative intervention strategies on historic epidemics","volume":"5","author":"Cook","year":"2008","journal-title":"J. R. Soc. Interface"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"332","DOI":"10.1186\/s13071-024-06404-4","article-title":"Modelling timelines to elimination of sleeping sickness in the Democratic Republic of Congo, accounting for possible cryptic human and animal transmission","volume":"17","author":"Crump","year":"2024","journal-title":"Parasit. Vectors"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.4324\/9780429502309","volume-title":"An introduction to chaotic dynamical systems","author":"Devaney","year":"2018"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib7","volume-title":"Global burden of disease study (GBD 2021) disability weights","author":"Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation","year":"2021"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1716","DOI":"10.1063\/1.1378322","article-title":"Approximate accelerated stochastic simulation of chemically reacting systems","volume":"115","author":"Gillespie","year":"2001","journal-title":"J. Chem. Phys."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib9","author":"GNU Project","year":"2025","journal-title":"GNU Scientific Library. Free Software Foundation. Version 2.8"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"121","DOI":"10.1098\/rspb.2002.2191","article-title":"The construction and analysis of epidemic trees with reference to the 2001 UK foot-and-mouth outbreak","volume":"270","author":"Haydon","year":"2003","journal-title":"Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1448","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-022-29192-w","article-title":"Identifying regions for enhanced control of gambiense sleeping sickness in the Democratic Republic of Congo","volume":"13","author":"Huang","year":"2022","journal-title":"Nat. Commun."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib12","volume-title":"MATLAB version 24.1.0 (R2024a)","author":"The MathWorks Inc.","year":"2025"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"20180279","DOI":"10.1098\/rstb.2018.0279","article-title":"Perfect counterfactuals for epidemic simulations","volume":"374","author":"Kaminsky","year":"2019","journal-title":"Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1515\/9781400841035","volume-title":"Modeling infectious diseases in humans and animals","author":"Keeling","year":"2008"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"543520","DOI":"10.1155\/2011\/543520","article-title":"Epidemic percolation networks, epidemic outcomes, and interventions","volume":"2011","author":"Kenah","year":"2011","journal-title":"Interdiscip. Perspect. Infect. Dis."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib16","article-title":"Tau-leaping implementations outside of chemistry","author":"Korn\u00f6","year":"2024","journal-title":"Student paper"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"367","DOI":"10.1201\/9780203734636-38","article-title":"Deterministic nonperiodic flow 1","volume-title":"Universality in chaos","author":"Lorenz","year":"2017","edition":"2nd"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib18","volume-title":"Human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) fact sheet","author":"World Health Organization"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib19","volume-title":"Human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness)","author":"World Health Organization"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib20","volume-title":"Neglected tropical diseases","author":"World Health Organization"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"035217","DOI":"10.1063\/1.4944952","article-title":"An adaptive tau-leaping method for stochastic simulations of reaction-diffusion systems","volume":"6","author":"Padgett","year":"2016","journal-title":"AIP Adv."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib22","article-title":"hashprng: hash-based matching pseudo-random number generation","author":"Pearson","year":"2025","journal-title":"R package, MIT licence"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"542","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1365-3156.2004.01240.x","article-title":"The effectiveness of active population screening and treatment for sleeping sickness control in the Democratic Republic of Congo","volume":"9","author":"Robays","year":"2004","journal-title":"Trop. Med. Int. Health"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"026602","DOI":"10.1088\/0034-4885\/77\/2\/026602","article-title":"Dynamics of infectious diseases","volume":"77","author":"Rock","year":"2014","journal-title":"Rep. Prog. Phys."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e0011959","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0011959","article-title":"The cost of sleeping sickness vector control in Yasa Bonga, a health district in the Democratic Republic of the Congo","volume":"18","author":"Snijders","year":"2024","journal-title":"PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1186\/1756-3305-1-3","article-title":"The history of African trypanosomiasis","volume":"1","author":"Steverding","year":"2008","journal-title":"Parasit. Vectors"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"8","DOI":"10.1186\/s13071-025-07131-0","article-title":"Measuring elimination of gambiense human African trypanosomiasis: a comparison of deceptively different metrics","volume":"19","author":"Sutherland","year":"2026","journal-title":"Parasit. Vectors"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e0008270","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0008270","article-title":"Impact of tiny targets on Glossina fuscipes quanzensis, the primary vector of human African trypanosomiasis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo","volume":"14","author":"Tirados","year":"2020","journal-title":"PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"S15","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jip.2012.07.026","article-title":"Tsetse flies: their biology and control using area-wide integrated pest management approaches","volume":"112","author":"Vreysen","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Invertebr. Pathol."},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib30","article-title":"Reproducible stochastic models","author":"Sunnucks","year":"2026","journal-title":"OSF"},{"key":"2026082409573633500_bib31","article-title":"Supplementary material from: Methods for reproducible comparison of strategies in stochastic modelling","author":"Sunnucks","year":"2026","journal-title":"FigShare"}],"container-title":["Journal of the Royal Society Interface"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/rsif\/article-pdf\/doi\/10.1098\/rsif.2025.1081\/6160508\/rsif.2025.1081.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"syndication"},{"URL":"https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/rsif\/article-pdf\/doi\/10.1098\/rsif.2025.1081\/6160508\/rsif.2025.1081.pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,24]],"date-time":"2026-08-24T14:00:16Z","timestamp":1787580016000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/rsif\/article\/23\/240\/20251081\/482448\/Methods-for-reproducible-comparison-of-strategies"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,8]]},"references-count":31,"journal-issue":{"issue":"240","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,8]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1098\/rsif.2025.1081","relation":{},"ISSN":["1742-5662"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1742-5662","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,8]]},"article-number":"20251081"}}