Continuous and discontinuous Markov-chain models for mastitis infection

Mastitis infection has been analysed with the theory of finite Markov chains, considering two models for the infection process: discrete in space and continuous in time, and discrete in space and time. The predictions of the two models are in full agreement, and the transition matrices approach the same limit for both models. For the Markov chain discontinuous in time we have also calculated the average and variance matrices for the first passage time between any pair of states. The obtained results are discussed.