Reproduced from the Fall 2015 School of Mathematical Sciences newsletter (PDF) Download a PDF copy of this article Chikungunya fever in the Americas In August 2014, DARPA (the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) launched a challenge, asking the public to predict the number of cases of chikungunya fever in each of the PAHO (Pan American Health Organization) countries, many of…
Category: Research
On the Importance of Mathematical Models
Last month, our team won the DARPA Chikungunya Challenge. We were asked to predict the number of cases of Chikungunya observed in the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) countries from the beginning of September 2014 till the end of February 2015. Our predictions were then scored against the actual numbers reported on the PAHO website. Points were also awarded for methodology, presentation,…