Ivanhoe Newswire - August 2008
. . .College professor John Bugge spends a lot of time riding his bike. Preparing for a pandemic? Not so much. "I guess I would have to say I'm a unprepared as anybody else," At the H. Miltong Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, researchers say the threat of a modern pandemic is very real. "I would like to say we don't have to plan for it, but the truth is, we expect that it's coming, it's just a matter of when it comes," Julie Swann, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech told Ivanhoe. "What's different about the research that we're doing is it really looks at the aspects that relate to the spread of the disease over time and over geography," Dr. Swann said. The model can also be used for distributing food and vaccine, so providers can plan ahead. "For example if you're interested in opening food distribution facilities, depending on the number of infected people it will tell you where you should open facilities where you should close them, and how you should allocate your resources," Pinar Keskinocak, Ph.D., Operations researcher at H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, told Ivanhoe.
http://www.ivanhoe.com/science/story/2008/08/464a.html