Model Selection and Evaluation Based on Emerging Infectious Disease Data Sets including A/H1N1 and Ebola

Liu, Wendi; Tang, Sanyi; Xiao, Yanni

Secondly, the turning point (or the inflection point of the cumulative case curve), defined as the time when the rate of case accumulation changes from increasing to decreasing (or vice versa), will be estimated for A/H1N1 in China and Ebola in different regions of West Africa. The turning point plays an important role in determining the rate of change transitions from positive to negative, that is, the moment at which the cases begin to decline. Precisely estimating this point can allow us to determine either the beginning of a new epidemic phase or the peak of the current epidemic phase, representing the point at which disease control activities take effect or the point at which an epidemic begins to wane naturally, defined by Hsieh et al. [14] .