SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETECTING, COLLECTING, ANALYZING, AND COMMUNICATING EVENT-RELATED INFORMATION

• US 20100175006A1
• Filed: 12/02/2009
• Published: 07/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Georgetown University
• Original Assignee: Georgetown University
• Inventors: LI, Peter Chao-yuan
• Granted Patent: US 8,881,040 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/764
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3338 Query expansion
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/80 for detecting, monitoring or modelling epidemics or pandemics, e.g. flu
• CPC Class Codes: G16Z 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other main groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: Y02A 90/10 Information and communication technologies [ICT] supporting adaptation to climate change, e.g. for weather forecasting or climate simulation

Abstract

A system and method involves detecting operational social disruptive events on a global scale, assigning disease event staging and warnings to express data in more simplistic terms, modeling data in conjunction with linguistics analysis to establish responsive actions, generating visualization and modeling capabilities for communicating information, and modeling disease propagation for containment and forecasting purposes.

Claims

1. A method for communicating event information, comprising the steps of:

outputting over a communications network a first instruction to a client computer to display a graphic on a graphical user interface device, the graphic including at least a planar representation of a portion of the Earth'"'"'s surface;

retrieving information stored in a first database concerning a first event, wherein the first event is identified from at least one parameter associated with a plurality of indications and warnings, and wherein the information comprises a first scale value describing a severity of the first event and a geographical location describing a location of the first event;

selecting from a plurality of indicia a first indicia representing the scale value of the first event, the first indicia including a link to additional information concerning the first event;

providing to a memory of the client computer the additional information for display on the graphical user interface upon activation of the link; and

outputting a second instruction to the client computer to display the first indicia on the displayed graphic at the geographical location if the geographical location is within the displayed graphic portion of the Earth'"'"'s surface.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising retrieving information concerning a second event and outputting a third instruction to the client computer to display information about the second event.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the graphic is a portion of a map.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the graphic is a rendering of a portion of a satellite image of the Earth'"'"'s surface.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of selecting the first event from a list of event types.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the list of event types includes at least one communicable human, plant, or animal disease event.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first scale value comprises one of a number, a word, a phrase, and a color.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the word is one of “

alert,”

“

watch,” and

“

warning.”

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein the color is one of red, orange, yellow, and green.

10. The method according to claim 7, wherein the number is a staging number identifying the state of the first event.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first indicia is displayed in the form of an icon.

12. A system for communicating event information, comprising:

an event server in data communications with a plurality of client computers used to monitor a plurality of pre-determined events;

a software subsystem for outputting a first instruction from the server to display a graphic on a graphical user interface device of each of the plurality of client computers, the graphic including at least a planar representation of a portion of the Earth'"'"'s surface;

a first database in data communication with the event server comprising a plurality of records, each record comprising information about one of the plurality of pre-determined events,

wherein each of the pre-determined events is identified from at least one parameter associated with a plurality of indications and warnings and wherein the information comprises a scale value describing a severity of the one of the plurality of pre-determined events and a geographical location describing a location of the one of the plurality of pre-determined events; and

a plurality of indicia for use in representing the scale value, each of the plurality of indicia including a link for displaying on the graphic additional information concerning the events upon activation of the link;

wherein the plurality of indicia are displayed on the graphic at the geographical location if the geographical location is within the displayed graphic portion of the Earth'"'"'s surface.

13. The system according to claim 12, wherein the graphic is a portion of a map.

14. The system according to claim 12, wherein the graphic is a rendering of a portion of a satellite image of the Earth'"'"'s surface.

15. The system according to claim 12, wherein the plurality of pre-determined events include at least one communicable human, plant, or animal disease event.

16. The system according to claim 12, wherein the scale value comprises one of a number, a word, a phrase, and a color.

17. The system according to claim 16, wherein the word is one of “

alert,”

“

watch,” and

“

warning.”

18. The system according to claim 16, wherein the color is one of red, orange, yellow, and green.

19. The system according to claim 16, wherein the number is a staging number identifying the state of the event.