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Text mining to identify the origin of chronic wasting disease
Issues in Information Systems (2021)
  • G. Kent Webb
Abstract
Chronic wasting  disease (CWD)  is  a 100  percent  fatal,  prion  disease of  deer  that  has  the potential  to decimate  the  deer  population and  jump to  the  human  population.   A  simple  Google  search on  the  “origin of  chronic wasting  disease” yielded  a total  of  56  relevant  articles.   Of  these,  75  percent  report  that  the origin  is  unknown,  19.6  percent  report  that  the  disease  may  have  originated  in  a  Fort  Collins,  Colorado, government  research facility, and 5.4 percent  report  other  possible  origins.  Government  sources  reported the  Fort  Collins  theory  4.3 percent  of  the  time  while  non-governmental  sources,  such  as news articles, reported the  Fort  Collins  theory  32.1 percent  of  the  time. Text  mining  of  the  internet  for  the  first  40  years of  the disease  produced  evidence supporting  a common  assertion  in  the press that  all  of  the early  cases can be traced  back  to  Fort  Collins.  For  1967  into  1998, six  clusters  were identified  that  could  all  be traced back  to Fort  Collins.    Limited  information  from  game farms  made tracking  difficult  for  1998 to 2007 with 10  more clusters  traced  back  to  areas linked  to  Fort  Collins or  with  trace backs  to Fort  Collins  explainable based originsof on  the  evidence.  Available at:  www.deerfriendly.com/deer-disease/chronic-wastingdisease/possiblechronicwastingdisease
Keywords
  • Text Mining,
  • Contact Tracing,
  • Analytics/Business Intelligence
Publication Date
Fall 2021
DOI
DOI: https://doi.org/10.48009/3_iis_2021_200-213
Publisher Statement
Copyright is owned by author
Citation Information
G. Kent Webb. "Text mining to identify the origin of chronic wasting disease" Issues in Information Systems Vol. 22 Iss. 3 (2021) p. 184 - 196 ISSN: 1529-7314
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kent_webb/41/
Creative Commons license
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY International License.