[FOSS_health] FYI: IBM makes infectious disease predictor open source

[Tim C]

On 09/06/07, Tim Cook <tw_cook at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> "IBM said today it will make its framework for modeling infectious
> diseases available as open-source code and data to aid scientists,
> researchers and public health officials in predicting the spread of
> pandemics and crafting effective responses."
>
> http://govhealthit.com/article102945-06-08-07-Web


Hmmm, so they are making it open-source two years after they made it freely
downloadable - note the post-date on the following Web page:
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/stem

The problem with it until now has been limited documentation. perhaps the
open-source as opposed to the no-cost version will have better
documentation?

Still, they deserve to be congratulated. The people at the US Dept of Energy
Los Alamos Labs developed an even better disease outbreak simulator, using a
far more sophisticated micro-simulation approach than the IBM STEM project
(which still uses a semi-ecological approach). But the Los Alamos team was
disbanded, I'm told, and all their code has been filed in a large
high-security vault, I assume, to help keep the world safe. Sigh.

Tim Churches
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