BioPortal™ System Features

BioPortal™ can be used en-suite as a powerful BioSurveillance tool.  Its flexible modules can also be licensed for use in a variety of data analysis applications

Surveillance Portal

The Surveillance Portal is an interactive web-based application that allows the user to explore the incidence of infectious diseases.   The portal allows the user to:

• Select a disease of concern and access related databases
• Narrow the scope by time-frame and geographic area of interest
• View a variety of data aggregations
• Perform Hotspot Analysis to focus attention on critical areas

Spatial-Temporal Visualizer

The STV module allows the visualization of disease outbreaks in both time and space. The module comes complete with a rich set of tools to aid the user in analyzing the outbreak,including a time line tool, various charting tools, and a highly customizable map.

• Zoom in to view a specific region, or zoom out to get a strategic view
• Adjust the visible time window
• View the progress of the incidence of disease through the affected area and over the selected time span

Hotspot Analysis

Hotspot Analysis is used to identify clusters of related events (hotspots) based on historical spatial-temporal data. One of our key innovations is the application of the advanced Risk-adjusted Support Vector Clustering and Prospective Support Vector Clustering hotspot analysis algorithms to allow for the discovery of non-circular hotspots. Other well-established techniques - SaTScan and the Risk-adjusted Nearest Neighborhood algorithm - are also made available as part of the BioPortal System.

Phylogenetic Tree Analysis

Phylogenetic Tree Analysis examines the DNA of pathogens to determine the genetic relationship between various strains, and to identify possible sources or mutation.  The module:

• Color-codes outbreak occurrences based on distance in genetic space
• Helps predict distribution of virus strains
• Aids in more efficient vaccine distribution

Chief Complaint Classifier (Multilingual)

The Chief Complaint Classifier Module of the BioPortal System maps Chief Complaint (CC) records generated by hospital emergency departments to syndromic categories. This mapping is a three step process:

• In the first stage CCs are standardized and mapped to Unified Medical Language System concepts.
• In the second stage, each symptom is mapped into an appropriate symptom group to enable system modularity, extensibility, and flexibility
• In the last stage, the system uses the JESS rule inference engine to decide to which syndrome the CC belongs. This is done by mapping the symptom groups obtained from stage two to predefined syndromic categories

This process allows for the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of data that may act as early indicators for epidemics independent of an explicit doctor's diagnosis of disease.  The CC Classifier is also available for Chinese records and can be easity adapted for other languages.

Social Network Analysis (SNA)

Examining social networks is a valuable epidemiological tool for understanding the progression of the spread of an infectious disease.  In a biosurveillance context, including geographical contacts in the analytical framework provides much higher connectivity in network construction than using personal contacts alone. The Social Network Analysis module in the BioPortal system incorporates geographical locations, such as high risk areas and hospitals, into social networks to provide insights into the role of such locations in disease transmission, and identify potential bridges between locations.  This helps to maintain situational awareness and focus incident investigation and mitigation efforts.  The SNA module has been adopted for analysis of the SARS outbreak in Taiwan.