Tuesday 16 May - AP/QLS special seminar

[Quantitative Life Sciences]

A*PPLIED PHYSICS-QUANTITATIVE LIFE SCIENCES SPECIAL SEMINAR*
Tuesday 16 May at 11:00
ICTP, Central Area, 2nd floor, old SISSA building, Via Beirut

Title: "Digital Epidemiology: Challenges in Data Collection in 
Developing Countries"

Speaker: Eiko Yoneki, University of Cambridge

Abstract:
Respiratory and other close-contact infectious diseases, such as TB, 
measles and pneumonia, are major killers in much of the developing 
world. Understanding how the diseases spread and for identifying how 
best to control it can be tackled by modelling the spread diseases. 
Although central to the models, few quantitative data are available on 
relevant contact patterns, and no study to measure these factors has yet 
been attempted in developing countries.
We have originally exploited device connectivity traces from the real 
world for modelling social network structure. The initial motivation was 
providing delay tolerant networks among smart phones formed by people. 
The empirical study of contact networks shares many issues with 
network-based epidemiology, and our work has been extended towards 
understanding the epidemic spread of infectious diseases. Capturing 
human interactions will provide an empirical, quantitative measurement 
of social mixing patterns to underpin mathematical models of the spread 
of close-contact diseases.
I will describe remote sensing platform to collect human mobility data 
using RFID sensors, Raspberry Pis and mobile phones, recording 
proximity, to gather information on human interactions in rural and 
urban communities in developing countries.


Everyone interested is most welcome to attend!


-- 
Erica Sarnataro
Group Secretary
Quantitative Life Sciences
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Trieste,  Italy
Tel. +39-040-2240623
e-mail:qls at ictp.it