Alessandro Vespignani, one of Dr Song’s colleagues at Northeastern, discussed what might be done with such knowledge. Dr Vespignani, another moonlighting physicist, studies epidemiology. He and his team have created a program called GLEAM (Global Epidemic and Mobility Model) that divides the world into hundreds of thousands of squares. It models travel patterns between these squares (busy roads, flight paths and so on) using equations based on data as various as international air links and school holidays.
The result is impressive. In 2009, for example, there was an outbreak of a strain of influenza called H1N1. GLEAM mimicked what actually happened with great fidelity. In most countries it calculated to within a week when the number of new infections peaked. In no case was the calculation out by more than a fortnight
Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url
1More
1More
MIT panelists: Big data calls for data-driven decision making skills - 0 views
2More
Data from social networks are making social science more scientific. (via @TheEconomist) - 0 views
1More
The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science (via @MotherJones) - 0 views
1More
Too much data disables your decision making - 0 views
5 Hidden Skills for Big Data Scientists (via @AdaptableOrg) - 0 views
68% of companies now monitor employee internet activity and 56% block access to some si... - 0 views
1More
20 legal cases solved by using Facebook - 0 views
1More