June 6, 2023
K-State team designs web application for dengue data visualization and case prediction
Dengue fever remains a significant public health concern in many tropical and subtropical countries, and there is still a need for a system that can effectively combine global risk assessment with timely incidence forecasting.
Kansas State University researchers have produced an integrated application called PICTUREE—Aedes, which can collect and analyze dengue-related data, display simulation results and forecast outbreak incidences.
The team includes Chunlin Yi, doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering; Aram Vajdi, research assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering; Tanvir Ferdousi, former doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering; Lee W. Cohnstaedt, adjunct faculty in entomology and research entomologist with the USDA-NBAF-Foreign Arthropod-Borne Animal Diseases Research Unit; and Caterina Scoglio, university distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering.
PICTUREE—Aedes automatically updates global temperature and precipitation data and contains historical records of dengue incidence from 1960-2012 and Aedes mosquito occurrences from 1960-2014 in its database. The application uses a mosquito population model to estimate abundance, dengue reproduction number and dengue risk. To predict future dengue outbreak incidence, PICTUREE—Aedes applies various forecasting techniques, including the ensemble Kalman filter, recurrent neural network, particle filter and super ensemble forecast — all based on user-entered case data. The PICTUREE—Aedes' risk estimation identifies favorable conditions for potential dengue outbreaks, and its forecasting accuracy is validated by available outbreak data from Cambodia. Currently, the tool can only be accessed within the K-State network.
View a video where Yi explains the PICTUREE—Aedes tool.
The researchers have published the article "PICTUREE—Aedes: A web application for dengue data visualization and case prediction" in the open-access journal Pathogens.
Future plans involve enabling full public access to the web application and extending this tool to Culex mosquitoes with the goal of assessing West Nile virus risk.
The project was sponsored by the Department of the Army, U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Edgewood Contracting Division and Fort Detrick, Maryland.