Ronan Kelly
Retired 2020
With 'crowdbreaks,' Penn State epidemiologists keep tabs on trending diseases
August 20, 2012
By Taunya English
Crowdbreaks.com sifts through Twitter traffic to spot trends in disease outbreaks. The creators say they are still looking for ways to "teach" the system how to recognize true disease-related data while filtering out "noise" not related to health. (Images courtesy of Crowdbreaks.com)
Crowdbreaks.com sifts through Twitter traffic to spot trends in disease outbreaks. The creators say they are still looking for ways to "teach" the system how to recognize true disease-related data while filtering out "noise" not related to health. (Images courtesy of Crowdbreaks.com)
Disease detectives at Penn State want to enlist "citizen epidemiologists" to help them with their work.
Lots of us hate when whiny friends feel the need to post to Facebook or blog about it every time they sneeze or scratch a new rash. Biologist Marcel Salath? wishes more of us would turn to social media.
"When people tweet about being sick or seeing someone who's sick--and that's public data--we go and grab it and put it on the map, and show other people what's going on in their neighborhood," said Salath?, an assistant professor at Penn State University's Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics.
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http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/...gists-keep-tabs-on-trending-diseases?Itemid=3
August 20, 2012
By Taunya English
Crowdbreaks.com sifts through Twitter traffic to spot trends in disease outbreaks. The creators say they are still looking for ways to "teach" the system how to recognize true disease-related data while filtering out "noise" not related to health. (Images courtesy of Crowdbreaks.com)
Crowdbreaks.com sifts through Twitter traffic to spot trends in disease outbreaks. The creators say they are still looking for ways to "teach" the system how to recognize true disease-related data while filtering out "noise" not related to health. (Images courtesy of Crowdbreaks.com)
Disease detectives at Penn State want to enlist "citizen epidemiologists" to help them with their work.
Lots of us hate when whiny friends feel the need to post to Facebook or blog about it every time they sneeze or scratch a new rash. Biologist Marcel Salath? wishes more of us would turn to social media.
"When people tweet about being sick or seeing someone who's sick--and that's public data--we go and grab it and put it on the map, and show other people what's going on in their neighborhood," said Salath?, an assistant professor at Penn State University's Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics.
...
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/...gists-keep-tabs-on-trending-diseases?Itemid=3