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Enhancing EpiCenter Data Quality Analytics with R

Description

The EpiCenter syndromic surveillance platform currently uses Java libraries for time series analysis. Expanding the data quality capabilities of EpiCenter requires new analysis methods. While the Java ecosystem has a number of resources for general software engineering, it has lagged behind on numerical tools. As a result, including additional analytics requires implementing the methods de novo.

The R language and ecosystem has emerged as one of the leading platforms for statistical analysis. A wide range of standard time series analysis methods are available in either the base system or contributed packages, and new techniques are regularly implemented in R. Previous attempts to integrate R with EpiCenter were hampered by the limitations of available R/Java interfaces, which were not actively developed for a long time.

An alternative bridge is via the PostgreSQL database used by EpiCenter on the backend. An R extension for PostgreSQL exists, which can expose the entire R ecosystem to EpiCenter with minimal development effort.

Objective To demonstrate the broader analytical capabilities available by making the R language available to EpiCenter reporting

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on