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Researchers Use Wireless To Study How Flu Spreads
MojoKid writes "With the help of wireless sensors, Stanford researchers confirmed what most of us suspected. When it comes to infectious viruses, human beings are toast. The researchers outfitted an entire high school population with IEEE 802.15.4 sensors for one day to model what they call a 'human contact network.' The devices tracked how often people came within the infection-spreading range of other individuals during a typical height-of-flu-season January day. The devices logged more than 760,000 incidents when two people were within 10 feet of each other, roughly the maximum distance that a disease can be transmitted through a cough or sneeze, according to a Stanford report on the project. The researchers ran thousands of simulations of a flu outbreak trying to determine infection rates under various circumstances."
I was under the impression that flu was also spread by a carrier touching a surface, then someone else touching it, then touching his eyes or mouth. And if people aren't sneezing/coughing like crazy, I would expect this shared-surfaces issue to be the dominant way the flu is spread.
If I'm right, wouldn't their approach have a serious problem getting data on these shared-surface transmissions?
Flu spreads wirelessly.
Hey, if you can verb a noun, then you can noun an adjective.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Some people aren't vulnerable to catching the flu. Sure, they get exposed just like anyone else, but for some reason their body doesn't become a virus factory.
I think it'd be nice to do some research into what it takes to make a body more resistant, but that's probably not very profitable for the vaccine industry...
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
High school students are generally a lot more sociable than the general population. Outfit a large office building with these same sensors, and I bet you get different results.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
So we have successfully determined that a place has a lot of people within 10 feet of each other when:
1) It's designed specifically so 20-40 people sit in small rooms where their "personal space" is made up entirely of a chair and a 2 foot by 3 foot desk.
2) This time is broken up by people, all at the same time, getting up and moving around the halls to other similarly small rooms or to unrelated small social groups.
Wow. I never realized that. I didn't know the kid behind me who used to pull on my hair was less than 10 feet from me, it all makes sense now!
If you're in a school and no one ever gets within 10 feet of you, you're the smelly kid. I'm sorry.
Cylons are Toasters. Human beings are meatspace. The viruses between the two... well, Dr. Baltar?
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/12/08/1009094108.abstract?sid=8b3f6e2c-94b3-4175-903a-5d75382af4fd
Abstract:
The most frequent infectious diseases in humans—and those with the highest potential for rapid pandemic spread—are usually transmitted via droplets during close proximity interactions (CPIs). Despite the importance of this transmission route, very little is known about the dynamic patterns of CPIs. Using wireless sensor network technology, we obtained high-resolution data of CPIs during a typical day at an American high school, permitting the reconstruction of the social network relevant for infectious disease transmission. At 94% coverage, we collected 762,868 CPIs at a maximal distance of 3 m among 788 individuals. The data revealed a high-density network with typical small-world properties and a relatively homogeneous distribution of both interaction time and interaction partners among subjects. Computer simulations of the spread of an influenza-like disease on the weighted contact graph are in good agreement with absentee data during the most recent influenza season. Analysis of targeted immunization strategies suggested that contact network data are required to design strategies that are significantly more effective than random immunization. Immunization strategies based on contact network data were most effective at high vaccination coverage. /p?
Verbing weirds language.
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
As above.
The only time I've heard it used as one is to refer to an AM radio, by old people.
I'll get off your lawn now.
In the sentence "I like wireless.", "wireless" is a noun. Therefore, "wireless" is a noun.
Words don't have divine and immutable parts of speech or any other linguistic feature somehow ingrained in the fabric of the universe. "Wireless" can plop down in any open class position (noun, verb, adjective, adverb). It is even welcome to be a closed class word (determiner, pronoun, conjunction, etc) if we decide to start using it as such. "Wireless" can also be spoken with a "Z" at the end, or by dropping the first letter ("W"). In other words, we can do whatever we want so long as our speaking partner understands what we are doing.
As a brilliant man said a very long time ago "The meaning of a word is its use in the language".
If you have noticed people annoyed by you in person when you say stuff like what you have posted here, it is because *you* are the one violating a norm by suggesting we cannot use language however we please. This norm is implicit in humans interaction and people are right to roll their eyes when you're around.
Yes, IAAL. (I am a linguist)
If you're hanging around with people who call AM radios "wireless", we should probably get off *your* lawn. (Well, the retirement home's lawn that you enjoy.)
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
As a brilliant man said a very long time ago "The meaning of a word is its use in the language".
OK, my reply is going to be off topic, but your comment quoted above reminded me of an argument I had with some friends.
I had one friend who had started dating a mildly religious women who didn't like cussing, so he was working to cut cuss words out of his speech. He would sometimes use silly or weird words in their replacement, such as "ferk" in lieu of "fuck" if he accidentally hurt himself, for example.
My argument was that he was *still* cussing, despite the change in word. The new stand-in word retained the original meaning, use, and inflection and was understood by all as a replacement for the original word. Therefore, it was still cussing.
Many of my friends did not agree with my assertion.
As a linguist, I would be interested in your take.
Oh, and sorry to reply to myself, I forgot to add the obvious joke in my previous post:
Are you a cunning linguist? Or just a master debater?
Thanks folks, I'm here all night!
I always thought much the same for the people who throw in an asterisk rather than typing the word verbatim. Either say it or don't (and for those sites with profanity filters, either allow it or don't), don't say 'f*ck' and pretend it's any different to saying 'fuck'.
I always found that to be completely pointless, as well. Its meaning is still the same, and it's used in the exact same circumstances as the swear word they're replacing. That said, getting offended by mere words is just idiotic, I think. People use the argument that swear words were intended to be offensive, but not only are they mere words, but you have no obligation to be offended by them. It's ultimately your own fault if you get offended. People need to get out of their little bubbles and toughen up.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
In the sentence "I like wireless.", "wireless" is a noun.
Pardon, but I'm pretty sure that that sentence is implying an unstated noun that is obvious given the context, much like the sentence "I will." which has no predicate at all. Wireless is still an adjective, but it is standing in for a complete phrase. If you were talking about car paint jobs and said, "I like red", red would be an adjective ("I like red paint jobs") not a noun ("I like the color red (in general)."). Or in this case specifically, "I like wireless (communications)" does not necessarily imply that wireless is itself a noun, it's just standing in for the understood phrase.
I am, however, NOT a linguist.
This is an interesting question which I myself have puzzled over more than once. The explanation I am going to give you is one that is not based on any clear vein of research, so take it for what it is worth.
"Cussing" is making use of linguistic forms which have been deemed taboo. Whether or not you are cussing, in my opinion, depends upon whether or not you are violating a taboo from the perspective of yourself or your speaking partner. I could see the argument of justification for your friend going either way (he is mapping to the same concept which is itself taboo) or (the concept is not taboo only the word). If your friend honestly doesn't feel as if he is cussing then, to him, he is not cussing. He might be to you, or to others, depending upon what exactly each person has decided is the thing which is taboo.
In my opinion he is still "cussing" by doing this replacement but the fact that uptight sensors on stations like FOX let this stuff through is evidence that not everyone agrees.
Basically, I suppose it depends on what you think cussing *is*. There is quite a large body of work on it but I regret that I have no experience with it. Sorry about that.
Wireless! I wirelessly wirelessed her wireless wireless, wireless thats how I got herpes.(Ok I couldn't figure out how to make wireless a preposition :P)
Monstar L
When a student says "School makes me sick!", apparently that is an observant student, and should be allowed to study at home.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
It is different because it contains an extra message: "I know I'm not supposed to say that, but you won't stop me from saying it anyway."
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
then why would anyone take extra precautions?
This only models a viral outbreak which is both unannounced, and virtually symptomless.
Skip forward to 2:04:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuLrBLxbLxw
Apologies in advance if this offends you. My parents were horrified that I thought this was funny.
Doesn't getting all the students together to distribute the monitors confound the results as the students are
within 10 feet of each other ?
Interesting. Well, thanks for your take on it. It's always fun to ponder these sorts of questions.
And you're very right, it does depend on who you are talking to, like most anything.
Getting out of your bubble inherently causes you to get the flu. I'm staying put!
Methinks this study protests too much. In schools, most classrooms are arranged in such a way that desks face one direction, forward. These sensors are logging data that is not truly in the range of spreading the virus. Last time I checked a kid never sneezed out of his ear to infect the kid sitting 5 feet to the left of him or out of the back of his skull to get the people behind him. The numbers presented are blown way out of proportion. The study does however pose a good question. Should the students or the teachers get the vaccine? My vote is for the teachers since they look in the face of 25-30 loaded barrels every class, while students might get their neck coughed on by the kid sitting behind them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Nonetheless, there are meanings and usages accepted by the majority of educated users at a certain point in time.
Adverb? Well obviously you didn't study very diligent.
But anyway, wireless is a noun but not for any woo-woo "languages evolve" kind of bullshit reason; it's an old word for a radio.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."