Statistics Seminar
Date/Time: | Monday, 16 Sep 2013 from 4:10 pm to 5:00 pm |
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Location: | Snedecor 3105 |
Cost: | Free |
URL: | www.stat.iastate.edu |
Contact: | Jeanette La Grange |
Phone: | 515-294-3440 |
Channel: | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences |
Categories: | Lectures |
Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
We consider a measles outbreak in Harare, Zimbabwe from 2009-2010 where a total of 156 individual cases were confirmed in the weekly recorded surveillance system over the course of a year. We model the data with an epidemiological compartment model with observations only on the transitions to infectious, i.e. showing symptoms and contagious. We present methodology called particle learning for sequentially estimating both the state of the system, i.e. current number of infectious individuals, and the static parameters, i.e. rate of infectivity. Particle learning is a sequential Monte Carlo method, a.k.a. particle filter, that utilizes the sufficient statistic structure contained in the model to combat particle degeneracy. We conclude with an application of this methodology to the measles outbreak in Harare.