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Posted: Monday, September 22, 2014 11:45 pm
Aaron Mudd
In the past few months, the world has watched what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is calling, “the largest Ebola outbreak in history and the first in West Africa.” The World Health Organization reported 2,622 deaths as recently as Sept. 14 in its fourth situation report.
For Bowling Green graduate student Armin Smailhodzic, the outbreak was an opportunity for him to develop a mobile phone application called The Ebola Project. The application tracks Ebola through an unexpected medium — Twitter.
At first, Smailhodzic was working on identifying tweets from specific countries based on spelling in different languages, he said.
The app is a part of Smailhodzic’s graduate research in the Homeland Security Sciences master’s program, which includes using Twitter to track trends.
Smailhodzic said he got the idea from Cathleen Webb, head of the chemistry department, who suggested he try tracking the outbreak. Smailhodzic was skeptical.
“At first we were like, ‘Well, it’s Africa. There’s no one going to be tweeting in there,’” he said. “As soon as I typed in Ebola, I had over six-and-a-half million hits.”
Webb suggested they look into outbreaks after Keith Andrew, head of the physics and astronomy department, described the project to her.
Webb said she thought it would be interesting if Andrew and Smailhodzic tracked Ebola using Twitter because it was hard to track otherwise.
Webb said those infected with Ebola were afraid to get treatment in hospitals.
The rest here: http://wkuherald.com/news/article_06a6671c-42b1-11e4-835b-001a4bcf6878.html
News
Ebola app tracks virus using Twitter
Story
Comments
ShareShare
Create a hardcopy of this page
Font Size:
Default font size
Larger font size
Posted: Monday, September 22, 2014 11:45 pm
Aaron Mudd
In the past few months, the world has watched what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is calling, “the largest Ebola outbreak in history and the first in West Africa.” The World Health Organization reported 2,622 deaths as recently as Sept. 14 in its fourth situation report.
For Bowling Green graduate student Armin Smailhodzic, the outbreak was an opportunity for him to develop a mobile phone application called The Ebola Project. The application tracks Ebola through an unexpected medium — Twitter.
At first, Smailhodzic was working on identifying tweets from specific countries based on spelling in different languages, he said.
The app is a part of Smailhodzic’s graduate research in the Homeland Security Sciences master’s program, which includes using Twitter to track trends.
Smailhodzic said he got the idea from Cathleen Webb, head of the chemistry department, who suggested he try tracking the outbreak. Smailhodzic was skeptical.
“At first we were like, ‘Well, it’s Africa. There’s no one going to be tweeting in there,’” he said. “As soon as I typed in Ebola, I had over six-and-a-half million hits.”
Webb suggested they look into outbreaks after Keith Andrew, head of the physics and astronomy department, described the project to her.
Webb said she thought it would be interesting if Andrew and Smailhodzic tracked Ebola using Twitter because it was hard to track otherwise.
Webb said those infected with Ebola were afraid to get treatment in hospitals.
The rest here: http://wkuherald.com/news/article_06a6671c-42b1-11e4-835b-001a4bcf6878.html