CRIMINOLOGISTS increasingly rely on “geographic profiling”, an examination of the sites of dastardly deeds that narrows down the possible identities of serial criminals. A mathematical refinement of this idea has implications for pre-empting both terrorist activity and the progression of infectious disease. To demonstrate it, and to help settle a mystery, Steven Le Comber of Queen Mary, a college of the University of London, has used it to suggest the identity of Banksy, a prolific but reclusive street artist, an example of whose work may or may not be pictured above.
Dr Le Comber, a biologist, learned of geographic profiling from Kim Rossmo, a criminologist at Texas State University, and reckoned it could be useful for epidemiology, too. Although many existing models can predict the spread of disease, Dr Le Comber wanted to look at the past—to identify, say, a breeding site responsible for a malaria outbreak. This geographical backtracking is just what Dr Rossmo had been doing with criminals. Now the pair collaborate on methods which will help pinpoint both crooks and critters.
Their system, Dirichlet process mixture modelling, is...Continue reading
Source: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1LASuX6
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