Examining H1N1 through Its Information Entropy

As reported by CNN in October 2009, the declaration of the H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic as a national emergency in the United States highlights the magnitude and continuing spread of the first pandemic flu outbreak in 40 years. Epidemics of influenza have occurred throughout history. The great influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 killed more than 500,000 people in the United States and 50 million people worldwide. More than 40,000 people are killed each year by influenza in the United States.

The May 2010 “IN THE SPOTLIGHT” column of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine discussed how signal processing techniques can be used to analyze the information content of H1N1 genomic sequences, which could help in understanding this and future flu outbreaks. Learn more from this column article titled Examining H1N1 through Its Information Entropy, by William A. Thompson, Andy Martwick, and Joel K. Weltman.