Submission + - Google Algorithm to Search Out Hospital Superbugs 1
Googling Yourself writes: "Researchers in the UK plan to use Google's PageRank algorithm to find how super-bugs like MRSA spread in a hospital setting. Previous studies have discovered how particular objects, like doctors' neckties, can harbor infection, but little is known about the network routes by which bugs spread. Mathematician Simon Shepherd plans to build a matrix describing all interactions between people and objects in a hospital ward, based on observing normal daily activity. "Obviously nurses move among patients and that can spread infection, but they also touch light switches and lots of other surfaces too," says Shepard., "If you observe a network of all those interactions you can build a matrix of which nodes in the network are in contact with which other nodes." Combining that information with the strength of different interactions within a ward makes it possible to calculate which ties to cut — by, perhaps, tougher cleaning — to maximally disrupt the network and cut infections. "Ultimately, we would like to produce a software tool so managers of wards can carry out the analysis for themselves," says Shepherd."
