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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."
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!
As someone who works with epidemiologists, I can assure you that if you have a social network and represent individuals as actors that interact with each other, you are better than most of the models, which see cities as "pools" with simple rules to change the number of infectious, susceptible, recovered, at each iteration.
And if your individuals' behavior incorporate a real model of movement with a sense of distance to other people, you have indeed a very interesting model. (Yes, it is that bad. If you are a developer and want to help save the world, adopt a biologist and do their developments). Right now, various techniques are used to try and build a social network that can help understand how a disease spreads in various age group. "How many people come at less than 3 meters of a given person in a normal schools day ? in an airport ? in a regular office ? in a retirement house ? in subways ?" having an indication even with a 1 to 10 estimation, it would bring interesting results. So if we know you are in range to infect 50 to 500 people in a normal day, we know that the models that say it is 10 and the models that say it is 1000 are useless.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
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!