ISSS608 2017-18 T1 Assign WU YUQING Analysis & Solutions

Question 1: Origin and Epidemic Spread

Identify approximately where the outbreak started on the map (ground zero location). Outline the affected area. Explain how you arrived at your conclusion. (Please limit your answer to six images and 500 words.)
Firstly, from the ‘preprocess.txt’, the messages containing symptoms are used to build the distribution of the number of flu-related messages by date as shown below. From the distribution, we can see that the number of flu-related messages on May 18th, May 19th, May 20th are significantly larger than the previous date. The number of flu-related messages peaked on May 19th. Thus, we can easily conclude that the epidemic outbroke on May 18th.

Question 2: Epidemic Spread

#2.1 Present a hypothesis on how the infection is being transmitted. For example, is the method of transmission person-to-person, airborne, waterborne, or something else? Identify the trends that support your hypothesis. (Please limit your answer to ten images and 1000 words.)