Title: Disease Signatures
Speaker: Nina Fefferman, DIMACS and Tufts University
Date: September 19, 2005, 12:00 - 1:30 pm
Location: DIMACS Center, CoRE Bldg, Room 431, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, NJ
Abstract:
Traditional SIR models (a collection of partial differential equations) focus on the use of uniform population averages to predict disease incidence over time. For this seminar, we'll take a look a at a slightly different, incredibly simple way of using well understood etiological parameters to predict disease spread in heterogeneous populations. We'll then look at how to extend and generalize this "disease signature" method into a set of tools for early outbreak detection and we'll discuss a promising direction for their use in determining underlying contact rates between different sub-populations. We'll probably also talk about how termites have been helping move this research forward!
see: DIMACS Computational and Mathematical Epidemiology Seminar Series 2005 - 2006