Enhancing Influenza Epidemics Forecasting Accuracy in China with Both Official and Unofficial Online News Articles, 2019–2020

Real-time online data sources have contributed to timely and accurate forecasting of influenza activities while also suffered from instability and linguistic noise. Few previous studies have focused on unofficial online news articles, which are abundant in their numbers, rich in information, and relatively low in noise. This study examined whether monitoring both official and unofficial online news articles can improve influenza activity forecasting accuracy during influenza outbreaks. Data were retrieved from a Chinese commercial online platform and the website of the Chinese National Influenza Center. We modeled weekly fractions of influenza-related online news articles and compared them against weekly influenza-like illness (ILI) rates using autoregression analyses. We retrieved 153,958,695 and 149,822,871 online news articles focusing on the south and north of mainland China separately from 6 October 2019 to 17 May 2020. Our model based on online news articles could significantly improve the forecasting accuracy, compared to other influenza surveillance models based on historical ILI rates (p = 0.002 in the south; p = 0.000 in the north) or adding microblog data as an exogenous input (p = 0.029 in the south; p = 0.000 in the north). Our finding also showed that influenza forecasting based on online news articles could be 1–2 weeks ahead of official ILI surveillance reports. The results revealed that monitoring online news articles could supplement traditional influenza surveillance systems, improve resource allocation, and offer models for surveillance of other emerging diseases.

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Avian Flu, Ebola, MERS, and Other Emerging Challenges for Influenza Surveillance Practitioners

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics ◽

10.5210/ojphi.v8i1.6581 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Alan Siniscalchi ◽

Brooke Evans

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Disease Surveillance ◽

Ebola Virus ◽

Virus Disease ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Emerging Diseases ◽

Influenza Surveillance ◽

Surveillance Systems ◽

Public Health Agencies ◽

Public Health Practitioners

Public health agencies strive to develop and maintain cost-effective disease surveillance systems to better understand the burden of disease within their jurisdiction. The emergence of novel avian influenza and other respiratory viruses such as MERS-CoV along with other emerging diseases including Ebola virus disease offer new challenges to public health practitioners. The authors conducted a series of surveys of influenza surveillance coordinators to identify and define these challenges. The results emphasize the importance of maintaining sufficient infrastructure and the trained personnel needed to operate these surveillance systems for optimal disease detection and public health preparedness and response readiness.

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Ebola, Enterovirus, MERS, Novel Flu, and other Challenges for Public Health Surveillance Practitioners

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics ◽

10.5210/ojphi.v7i1.5718 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Alan Siniscalchi ◽

Brooke Evans

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Disease Surveillance ◽

Ebola Virus ◽

Virus Disease ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Emerging Diseases ◽

Influenza Surveillance ◽

Surveillance Systems ◽

Public Health Agencies ◽

Public Health Practitioners

Public health agencies strive to develop and maintain cost-effective disease surveillance systems to better understand the burden of disease within their jurisdiction. The emergence of novel influenza and other respiratory viruses such as MERS-CoV along with other emerging diseases including Ebola virus disease offer new challenges to public health practitioners. The authors conducted a series of surveys of influenza surveillance coordinators to identify and define these challenges. The results emphasize the importance of maintaining sufficient infrastructure and the trained personnel needed to operate these surveillance systems for optimal disease detection and public health preparedness and response readiness.

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Absenteeism in schools during the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic: a useful tool for early detection of influenza activity in the community?

Epidemiology and Infection ◽

10.1017/s0950268811002093 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 140 (7) ◽

pp. 1328-1336 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

E. O. KARA ◽

A. J. ELLIOT ◽

H. BAGNALL ◽

D. G. F. FOORD ◽

R. PNAISER ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Syndromic Surveillance ◽

Influenza A ◽

Laboratory Data ◽

Influenza Surveillance ◽

Surveillance Systems ◽

H1n1 Pandemic ◽

School Absenteeism ◽

Sentinel Network ◽

Influenza A H1n1 ◽

Influenza Activity

SUMMARYCertain influenza outbreaks, including the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, can predominantly affect school-age children. Therefore the use of school absenteeism data has been considered as a potential tool for providing early warning of increasing influenza activity in the community. This study retrospectively evaluates the usefulness of these data by comparing them with existing syndromic surveillance systems and laboratory data. Weekly mean percentages of absenteeism in 373 state schools (children aged 4–18 years) in Birmingham, UK, from September 2006 to September 2009, were compared with established syndromic surveillance systems including a telephone health helpline, a general practitioner sentinel network and laboratory data for influenza. Correlation coefficients were used to examine the relationship between each syndromic system. In June 2009, school absenteeism generally peaked concomitantly with the existing influenza surveillance systems in England. Weekly school absenteeism surveillance would not have detected pandemic influenza A(H1N1) earlier but daily absenteeism data and the development of baselines could improve the timeliness of the system.

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A New Influenza-Tracking Smartphone App (Flu-Report) Based on a Self-Administered Questionnaire: Cross-Sectional Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.9834 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Kazutoshi Fujibayashi ◽

Hiromizu Takahashi ◽

Mika Tanei ◽

Yuki Uehara ◽

Hirohide Yokokawa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Early Detection ◽

Surveillance System ◽

Influenza Surveillance ◽

Surveillance Systems ◽

Basic Information ◽

Information And Communications Technologies ◽

Communications Technologies ◽

Influenza Activity ◽

Influenza Outbreaks ◽

Self Administered Questionnaire

BACKGROUND Influenza infections can spread rapidly, and influenza outbreaks are a major public health concern worldwide. Early detection of signs of an influenza pandemic is important to prevent global outbreaks. Development of information and communications technologies for influenza surveillance, including participatory surveillance systems involving lay users, has recently increased. Many of these systems can estimate influenza activity faster than the conventional influenza surveillance systems. Unfortunately, few of these influenza-tracking systems are available in Japan. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate the flu-tracking ability of Flu-Report, a new influenza-tracking mobile phone app that uses a self-administered questionnaire for the early detection of influenza activity. METHODS Flu-Report was used to collect influenza-related information (ie, dates on which influenza infections were diagnosed) from November 2016 to March 2017. Participants were adult volunteers from throughout Japan, who also provided information about their cohabiting family members. The utility of Flu-Report was evaluated by comparison with the conventional influenza surveillance information and basic information from an existing large-scale influenza-tracking system (an automatic surveillance system based on electronic records of prescription drug purchases). RESULTS Information was obtained through Flu-Report for approximately 10,094 volunteers. In total, 2134 participants were aged <20 years, 6958 were aged 20-59 years, and 1002 were aged ≥60 years. Between November 2016 and March 2017, 347 participants reported they had influenza or an influenza-like illness in the 2016 season. Flu-Report-derived influenza infection time series data displayed a good correlation with basic information obtained from the existing influenza surveillance system (rho, ρ=.65, P=.001). However, the influenza morbidity ratio for our participants was approximately 25% of the mean influenza morbidity ratio for the Japanese population. The Flu-Report influenza morbidity ratio was 5.06% (108/2134) among those aged <20 years, 3.16% (220/6958) among those aged 20-59 years, and 0.59% (6/1002) among those aged ≥60 years. In contrast, influenza morbidity ratios for Japanese individuals aged <20 years, 20-59 years, and ≥60 years were recently estimated at 31.97% to 37.90%, 8.16% to 9.07%, and 2.71% to 4.39%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Flu-Report supports easy access to near real-time information about influenza activity via the accumulation of self-administered questionnaires. However, Flu-Report users may be influenced by selection bias, which is a common issue associated with surveillance using information and communications technologies. Despite this, Flu-Report has the potential to provide basic data that could help detect influenza outbreaks.

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The use of near patient tests in influenza surveillance: Swiss experience and EISS recommendations

Eurosurveillance ◽

10.2807/esm.08.12.00438-en ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 8 (12) ◽

pp. 240-246 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Y Thomas ◽

L Kaiser ◽

W Wunderli ◽

Keyword(s):

Surveillance System ◽

High Specificity ◽

Influenza Surveillance ◽

Surveillance Systems ◽

Community Practice ◽

Additional Information ◽

System A ◽

Influenza Activity ◽

Different Seasons

Surveillance requires time for analysis and for the communication to physicians. In order to reduce this delay, a new surveillance system based on the use of a near patient test (NPT) has been evaluated. The high specificity of NPT together with the rapidity in obtaining the results, make these tests attractive for surveillance of influenza epidemic in community practice. Such surveillance has been used in several countries including Switzerland. Four different seasons - between 1999 and 2003 - of this type of surveillance experienced in Switzerland have been analysed. The heterogeneity in terms of intensity and type of strains detected during these four epidemics seasons allowed an efficient evaluation. The average gain of time with NPT compared to cell culture was nine days. Furthermore, training of participants appeared to be essential to assure the quality of the surveillance system. A statement on the use of NPTs for influenza surveillance has finally been endorsed by EISS members. Included are recommendations that the network should use the NPTs data, which provides additional information to the classical surveillance systems, as an "early warning" system of a change in influenza activity.

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Enhancing COVID-19 Epidemics Forecasting Accuracy by Combining Real-time and Historical Data from Social Media, Online News Articles, and Search Queries (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.35266 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jingwei Li ◽

Wei Huang ◽

Choon Ling Sia ◽

Zhuo Chen ◽

Tailai Wu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Real Time ◽

Historical Data ◽

Mainland China ◽

Hubei Province ◽

Online News ◽

Data Sources ◽

Resources Allocation ◽

Forecasting Accuracy ◽

Proposed Model

BACKGROUND The SARS-COV-2 virus and its variants are posing extraordinary challenges for public health worldwide. More timely and accurate forecasting of COVID-19 epidemics is the key to maintaining timely interventions and policies and efficient resources allocation. Internet-based data sources have shown great potential to supplement traditional infectious disease surveillance, and the combination of different Internet-based data sources has shown greater power to enhance epidemic forecasting accuracy than using a single Internet-based data source. However, existing methods incorporating multiple Internet-based data sources only used real-time data from these sources as exogenous inputs, but didn’t take all the historical data into account. Moreover, the predictive power of different Internet-based data sources in providing early warning for COVID-19 outbreaks has not been fully explored. OBJECTIVE The main aim of our study is to explore whether combining real-time and historical data from multiple Internet-based sources could improve the COVID-19 forecasting accuracy over the existing baseline models. A secondary aim is to explore the COVID-19 forecasting timeliness based on different Internet-based data sources. METHODS We first used core terms and symptoms related keywords-based methods to extract COVID-19 related Internet-based data from December 21, 2019, to February 29, 2020. The Internet-based data we explored included 90,493,912 online news articles, 37,401,900 microblogs, and all the Baidu search query data during that period. We then proposed an autoregressive model with exogenous inputs, incorporating the real-time and historical data from multiple Internet-based sources. Our proposed model was compared with baseline models, and all the models were tested during the first wave of COVID-19 epidemics in Hubei province and the rest of mainland China separately. We also used the lagged Pearson correlations for the COVID-19 forecasting timeliness analysis. RESULTS Our proposed model achieved the highest accuracy in all the five accuracy measures, compared with all the baseline models in both Hubei province and the rest of mainland China. In mainland China except Hubei, the COVID-19 epidemics forecasting accuracy differences between our proposed model (model i) and all the other baseline models were statistically significant (model 1, t=–8.722, P<.001; model 2, t=–5.000, P<.001, model 3, t=–1.882, P =0.063, model 4, t=–4.644, P<.001; model 5, t=–4.488, P<.001). In Hubei province, our proposed model's forecasting accuracy improved significantly compared with the baseline model using historical COVID-19 new confirmed case counts only (model 1, t=–1.732, P=0.086). Our results also showed that Internet-based sources could provide a 2-6 days earlier warning for COVID-19 outbreaks. CONCLUSIONS Our approach incorporating real-time and historical data from multiple Internet-based sources could improve forecasting accuracy for COVID-19 epidemics and its variants, which may help improve public health agencies' interventions and resources allocation in mitigating and controlling new waves of COVID-19 or other epidemics.

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EagleEye: A Worldwide Disease-Related Topic Extraction System Using a Deep Learning Based Ranking Algorithm and Internet-Sourced Data

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21144665 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (14) ◽

pp. 4665

Author(s):

Beakcheol Jang ◽

Myeonghwi Kim ◽

Inhwan Kim ◽

Jong Wook Kim

Keyword(s):

Deep Learning ◽

Disease Surveillance ◽

Disease Outbreak ◽

Emerging Diseases ◽

Online News ◽

Long-term Cyclic Variations of Prominences, Green and Red Coronae over Solar Cycles

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100064496 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 179 ◽

pp. 201-204

Author(s):

Vojtech Rušin ◽

Milan Minarovjech ◽

Milan Rybanský

Keyword(s):

Emission Lines ◽

High Latitudes ◽

Green Line ◽

Solar Cycles ◽

The South ◽

Coronal Emission ◽

Local Maxima ◽

The North ◽

Cyclic Variations

AbstractLong-term cyclic variations in the distribution of prominences and intensities of green (530.3 nm) and red (637.4 nm) coronal emission lines over solar cycles 18–23 are presented. Polar prominence branches will reach the poles at different epochs in cycle 23: the north branch at the beginning in 2002 and the south branch a year later (2003), respectively. The local maxima of intensities in the green line show both poleward- and equatorward-migrating branches. The poleward branches will reach the poles around cycle maxima like prominences, while the equatorward branches show a duration of 18 years and will end in cycle minima (2007). The red corona shows mostly equatorward branches. The possibility that these branches begin to develop at high latitudes in the preceding cycles cannot be excluded.

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The Song the South Korean Church and the North Korean Church Will Sing Together

Korea Presbyterian Journal of Theology ◽

10.15757/kpjt.2012.44.4.015 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 44 (4) ◽

pp. 373-394

Author(s):

이상일

Keyword(s):

Korean Church ◽

The South ◽

South Korean ◽

The North

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US and Russian policies and strategies in the Middle East: Iraq and Syria as a model

Tikrit Journal For Political Science ◽

10.25130/poltic.v0i0.165 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 220

Author(s):

Esraa Aladdin Noori ◽

Nasser Zain AlAbidine Ahmed

Keyword(s):

Middle East ◽

East Asia ◽

Balance Of Power ◽

Western World ◽

International Conflicts ◽

The South ◽

The West ◽

The North ◽

East Region ◽

Middle East Region

The Russian-American relations have undergone many stages of conflict and competition over cooperation that have left their mark on the international balance of power in the Middle East. The Iraqi and Syrian crises are a detailed development in the Middle East region. The Middle East region has allowed some regional and international conflicts to intensify, with the expansion of the geopolitical circle, which, if applied strategically to the Middle East region, covers the area between Afghanistan and East Asia, From the north to the Maghreb to the west and to the Sudan and the Greater Sahara to the south, its strategic importance will seem clear. It is the main lifeline of the Western world.

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