Big Data VS Pandemic: PKU Professor Wang Tengjiao and his team develop PESA-Global
Apr 01, 2020
Peking University, April 1, 2020: A research team led by Professor Wang Tengjiao and Associate Research Fellow Chen Wei from Peking University School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science developed the Pneumonia Epidemic Situation Analyst (PESA-Global) system based on multi-source big data integrated learning, which accurately predicted the global epidemic trend multiple times.
Professor Wang Tengjiao (L) and Associate Research Fellow Chen Wei (R)
It has been nearly two months since Professor Wang's team was assigned the task of employing big data to combat COVID-19. Looking back, Wang said, “Big data is an applied technology. As a scientist, we should not only strive for scientific research and innovation, but also attach importance to engineering practice, so that technology can better serve the society and provide strong scientific and technological support for epidemic prevention and control."
A Race Against Time: Combat COVID-19 with Smart Technologies
The COVID-19 outbreak has cast a shadow over the Lunar New Year. At that time, PKU asked Professor Wang 's team to develop a system powered by big data to prevent and control the pandemic.
"Because of the sudden outbreak and the high infectivity of the pandemic, the original statistics and analysis methods were problematic, such as being single-sourced, having small coverage, or lacking a comprehensive research and judgment mechanism." In order to carry out efficient analysis and accurate trend prediction, Professor Wang led the team to focus on key issues. “With concerted efforts, our team has eventually developed a multi-source, big data Pneumonia Epidemic Situation Analyst (PESA),” Professor Wang said.
"Through the collection of data from multiple sources, the final calculation model will be integrated to form a complete result, which will help authorities to study and judge the domestic epidemic situation, and provide scientific and effective decision-making support for the command and deployment of epidemic prevention and control in China," Professor Wang explained.
In-depth Development
Since March, while COVID-19 has been brought under control in China, the pandemic has spread rapidly around the world. It has become one of the most important tasks for China to actively and resolutely safeguard the hard-won epidemic prevention and control achievements in the previous stage. Using the PESA, Professor Wang and his team predicted and studied the development of the COVID-19 outbreak on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the accurate prediction of the PESA has been highly recognized.
Carrying Out Research Online
Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the team adopted the way of "cloud-based" scientific research. They held meetings online to discuss their work every day and code in a collaborative development environment. In this way, the team’s efficiency was not affected greatly by the pandemic.
Professor Wang argued that the big data guidance mechanism is significantly important when it comes to predict the development of the virus outbreak. "In the next step, our team plans to carry out in-depth monitoring and early warning approaches of novel, major infectious diseases based on big data and design a sound and effective big data guidance mechanism to provide support for the epidemic prevention and control in China.
Written by: Cherlin Xu
Edited by: Huang Weijian
Source: PKU News (Chinese)
