ISSS608 2017-18 T1 Assign LIM LIANG DANNY GroundZeroLocation
Smartpolis Epidemic Outbreak
| A Visual Detective Journal
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Contents
Where’s the message coming from?
Base on the information given on the epidemic spread, the symptoms can be categorised mainly into 2 type of epidemic diseases, namely Respiratory and Gastrointestinal infections.
Symptoms related to Respiratory Infection are flu, fever, sweats, chills, cough and sore throat.
Symptoms related to Gastrointestinal Infection are stomachache, diarrhea, nausea, vomit, cough and abs pain.
By categorizing the micromessages using the keywords related to each infection symptoms, we can see that:
- Respiratory related symptoms are pratically seen all over the Vastopolis City, mainly concentrated in Downtown and Uptown zone with sign of spreading across into the eastern part of Eastside and Northern part of Lakeside zone.
- Gastrointestinal related symptoms are mainly concentrated and contained only in Smogtown, Plainville and Southern part of Westside and Villa. This shows the Gastrointestinal related infection are pretty contained and isolated within the 4 city zone.
Respiratory Related Symptoms
- In summary, the respiratory issues has already spread throughout the whole city and the above tree map serves as a very good alert indicator to put Downtown and Uptown on high alert red alert with the number of reported cases shown.
- It is interesting to note that Downtown has the most number of reported case but as compared to it’s population density, Uptown has the higher overall population density ratio than downtown.
- This also shows that these areas are highly contaminated with the respiratory virus and people residing in there will have a higher chance of contacting the respiratory diseases as compared to other zones in the city.
- There is also some conentration of reported case in Eastside and Northern part of Lakeside which could give an indication that the reespiratory virus has spread eastward.
Gastrointestinal Related Symptoms
- This tree map results serves as a very good alert indicator to put Plainville and Smogtown on high alert with the number high no. of reported cases.
- It is interesting to note that Plainville and Westside has more reported case as compared to Smogtown and Villa which could give an indication that the epidemic spread for Gastrointestinal disease could have started from this 2 zone before spreading to Smogtown and Villa.
When did the outbreak starts?
Respiratory Viral Outbreak on 18th May 2011
The line graph (left) above shows that there is a surge in message related to Respiratory infection symptoms on 18 May 2011.
Reported cases continue to spike on 19 May 2011 before subsiding in 20 May 2011.
Gastrointestinal Viral Outbreak on 19th May 2011
The line graph (right) above shows that there is a surge in message related to Gastrointestinal infection symptoms on 19 May 2011.
Reported cases continue to spike on 20 May 2011 mainly in Plainville an Westside zone.
What causes the viral infection?
Since the viral outbreak for Respiratory diseases and Gastrointestinal diseases starts from 18 May and 19 May respectively, it makes very good sense to backtrack and take a look at the notable events that happen at least 3days before the outbreaks.
In total, 6 notable events was highlighted of which 4 are road accident related, 1 plane crash and 1 explosion. Out of the 6 events, 2 of them that falls on 17 May is a cause of concern. They are namely the Smogtown Explosion and Truck Accident on 610 between Plainville and Westside.
Key information from microblogs messages
- Smogtown Explosion: Loud Explosion, Huge Smoke, Lasted for 9 hours from 11:00 AM to 08:00 PM
- Truck Accident: Truck Topple, Truck Cashed, Fire Break Out, Spills from Truck Storage, Lasted for 11 hours from 09:00 AM to 08:00 PM
Smoke from the Smogtown explosion is very likeable cause for the respiratory cases where hugh smoke is emitted from the burining of unkown material during the explosion which last for 9 hours. This hypothesis is further supported with the fact that the wind is blowing from the West and West North West direction that spreads the smoke towards downtown area where most resident commmute to work.
Spills from the truck that could have flow into the vast river below the highway and contaminating the water that causes the gastrointestinal cases. This hypothesis is supported with the fact that vast river is flowing southwards at 3 miles per hours and could have containminated the river water between Westside and Plainville before hitting resident in Smogtown and Villa. This also help explain the reason that more gastrointestinal cases are reported in Westside and Plainville than Smogtown and Villa.
The above two incidents is highlighted that Smogtown and Runway 610 is a very possible Ground Zero location that causes the people to be sick and eventually the epidemic outbreak.
