Fig. 7.

Should the overall dwell time distribution for state X be “reset” by the transition from base sub-state X${}_0$ to intermediate sub-state X${}_I$ (i.e., should the dwell time in state X${}_I$ be independent of the time already spent in X${}_0$?), or should the X${}_I$ dwell time be conditioned on time already spent in X${}_0$ so that the X${}_0\to$X${}_I$ transition does not alter the overall dwell time in state X? How do these different assumptions alter the structure of the corresponding mean field ODEs? We answer these question in Sect. 3.6 where we describe how to apply the LCT in scenarios with intermediate states, assuming in Sect. 3.6.1 that the dwell time distribution for X${}_I$ is independent of the amount of time spent in X${}_0$, and assuming in Sect. 3.6.2 that the overall dwell time for X is unaffected by transitions from X${}_0$ to X${}_I$