Abstract: This study focuses on examining why the range of
experience with respect to HIV infection is so diverse, especially in
regard to the latency period. An agent-based approach in modelling
the infection is used to extract high-level behaviour which cannot be
obtained analytically from the set of interaction rules at the cellular
level. A prototype model encompasses local variation in baseline
properties, contributing to the individual disease experience, and is
included in a network which mimics the chain of lymph nodes. The
model also accounts for stochastic events such as viral mutations.
The size and complexity of the model require major computational
effort and parallelisation methods are used.