Localized Epidemic Detection in Networks with Overwhelming Noise

Abstract

We consider the problem of detecting an epidemic in a population where individual diagnoses are extremely noisy. We show that exclusively local, approximate knowledge of the contact network suffices to accurately detect the epidemic. The motivation for this problem is the plethora of examples (influenza strains in humans, or computer viruses in smartphones, etc.) where reliable diagnoses are scarce, but noisy data plentiful. In flu or phone-viruses, exceedingly few infected people/phones are professionally diagnosed (only a small fraction go to a doctor) but less reliable secondary signatures (e.g., people staying home, or greater-than-typical upload activity) are more readily available.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jun 15, 2015
Source ID
10.1145/2796314.2745883

Entities

People

  • Ariel Orda
  • Chris Milling
  • Constantine Caramanis
  • Eli A. Meirom
  • Sanjay Shakkottai
  • Shie Mannor

Organizations

  • Army Research Office
  • EU Business School
  • National Science Foundation
  • Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
  • University of Texas at Austin

Tags

Readers

  • Approximation Theory.
  • Educational Psychology
  • Infectious Disease/Epidemiology