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The wireless epidemic

Nature volume 449, pages 287–288 (2007)Cite this article

As wireless communication technologies spread, so the potential for viruses to exploit them grows. Biological models of virus transmission will assume new relevance for assessing the emerging threat.

Accurately modelling the network through which a disease epidemic spreads is difficult in almost any setting. Diseases in plant populations, or animal diseases such as rabies, are heavily constrained by geographical proximity and the relatively fixed physical locations of the infected individuals9. Models of these diseases have been extended using detailed data on patterns of travel within cities10,11 and by air worldwide12 in attempts to analyse disease outbreaks in human populations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jon Kleinberg is in the Department of Computer Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA. kleinber@cs.cornell.edu,

    Jon Kleinberg

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Kleinberg, J. The wireless epidemic. Nature 449, 287–288 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/449287a

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