scholarly journals Global Disease Monitoring and Forecasting with Wikipedia

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. e1003892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Generous ◽  
Geoffrey Fairchild ◽  
Alina Deshpande ◽  
Sara Y. Del Valle ◽  
Reid Priedhorsky
2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Generous ◽  
Geoffrey Fairchild ◽  
Alina Deshpande ◽  
Sara Y. Del Valle ◽  
Reid Priedhorsky

This poster establishes the utility of Wikipedia as a broadly effective data source for disease information, and we outline a path to a reliable, scientifically sound, operational, and global disease surveillance system that overcomes key gaps in existing traditional and internet-based techniques.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 2530
Author(s):  
Nicoletta Contaldo ◽  
Jelena Stepanović ◽  
Francesco Pacini ◽  
Assunta Bertaccini ◽  
Bojan Duduk

The knowledge of phytoplasma genetic variability is a tool to study their epidemiology and to implement an effective monitoring and management of their associated diseases. ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma solani’ is associated with “bois noir” disease in grapevines, and yellowing and decline symptoms in many plant species, causing serious damages during the epidemic outbreaks. The epidemiology of the diseases associated with this phytoplasma is complex and related to numerous factors, such as interactions of the host plant and insect vectors and spreading through infected plant propagation material. The genetic variability of ‘Ca. P. solani’ strains in different host species and in different geographic areas during the last two decades was studied by RFLP analyses coupled with sequencing on vmp1, stamp, and tuf genes. A total of 119 strains were examined, 25 molecular variants were identified, and the variability of the studied genes was linked to both geographic distribution and year of infection. The crucial question in ‘Ca. P. solani’ epidemiology is to trace back the epidemic cycle of the infections. This study presents some relevant features about differential strain distribution useful for disease monitoring and forecasting, illustrating and comparing the phytoplasma molecular variants identified in various regions, host species, and time periods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (188) ◽  
pp. 149-160
Author(s):  
Janusz Poliński

Technical diagnostics is an integral part of the railway maintenance process. Through timely maintenance, in addition to ensuring the safety, functional and technical reliability of the infrastructure, maintenance costs are reduced and downtime losses, due to failures or premature repair requests, are eliminated or reduced. The track infrastructure diagnostic tools have evolved. This is related to, among others, the miniaturisation of instruments, reading accuracy during motion, as well as upgraded measurement automation and result analysis. Currently, data obtained from multifunctional diagnostic tools is the basis for the developed Russian railway infrastructure maintenance and operation digital model. The strategic development of mobile diagnostic labs is the gradual transition to solutions with advanced digital analysis, supported by artificial intelligence, monitoring and forecasting. The article presents the development of mobile labs for the railroad infrastructure condition diagnosis up to the current solutions, in which measurements take place without human intervention and the obtained information is transmitted in real time to the analysis and decision centres. Keywords: rail transport, measuring wagons, digitisation of railways, Russian railways


2020 ◽  
pp. flgastro-2020-101563
Author(s):  
Stephanie Shields ◽  
Allan Dunlop ◽  
John Paul Seenan ◽  
Jonathan Macdonald

COVID-19 has dominated life in 2020 with, at the time of writing, over 4.9M global cases and >320 000 deaths. The impact has been most intensely felt in acute and critical care environments. However, with most UK elective work postponed, laboratory testing of faecal calprotectin halted due to potential risk of viral transmission and non-emergency endoscopies and surgeries cancelled, the secondary impact on chronic illnesses such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is becoming apparent. Data from the Scottish Biologic Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) service shows a dramatic drop in TDM testing since the pandemic onset. April 2020 saw a 75.6% reduction in adalimumab testing and a 36.2% reduction in infliximab testing when compared with February 2020 data, a reduction coinciding with the widespread cancellation of outpatient and elective activity. It is feared that disruption to normal patterns of care and disease monitoring of biologic patients could increase the risk of disease flare and adverse clinical outcomes. Urgent changes in clinical practice have been instigated to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on routine clinical care. Further transformations are needed to maintain safe, effective, patient-centred IBD care in the future.


Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 889
Author(s):  
Jeban Chandir Moses ◽  
Sasan Adibi ◽  
Sheikh Mohammed Shariful ◽  
Nilmini Wickramasinghe ◽  
Lemai Nguyen

Technologies play an essential role in monitoring, managing, and self-management of chronic diseases. Since chronic patients rely on life-long healthcare systems and the current COVID-19 pandemic has placed limits on hospital care, there is a need to explore disease monitoring and management technologies and examine their acceptance by chronic patients. We systematically examined the use of smartphone applications (apps) in chronic disease monitoring and management in databases, namely, Medline, Web of Science, Embase, and Proquest, published from 2010 to 2020. Results showed that app-based weight management programs had a significant effect on healthy eating and physical activity (p = 0.002), eating behaviours (p < 0.001) and dietary intake pattern (p < 0.001), decreased mean body weight (p = 0.008), mean Body Mass Index (BMI) (p = 0.002) and mean waist circumference (p < 0.001). App intervention assisted in decreasing the stress levels (paired t-test = 3.18; p < 0.05). Among cancer patients, we observed a high acceptance of technology (76%) and a moderately positive correlation between non-invasive electronic monitoring data and questionnaire (r = 0.6, p < 0.0001). We found a significant relationship between app use and standard clinical evaluation and high acceptance of the use of apps to monitor the disease. Our findings provide insights into critical issues, including technology acceptance along with regulatory guidelines to be considered when designing, developing, and deploying smartphone solutions targeted for chronic patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 564 ◽  
pp. 116906
Author(s):  
Yves Moussallam ◽  
Talfan Barnie ◽  
Álvaro Amigo ◽  
Karim Kelfoun ◽  
Felipe Flores ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanam Soomro ◽  
Suresh Venkateswaran ◽  
Kamala Vanarsa ◽  
Marwa Kharboutli ◽  
Malavika Nidhi ◽  
...  

AbstractIn the search for improved stool biomarkers for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an aptamer-based screen of 1129 stool proteins was conducted using stool samples from an IBD cohort. Here we report that of the 20 proteins subsequently validated by ELISA, stool Ferritin, Fibrinogen, Haptoglobin, Hemoglobin, Lipocalin-2, MMP-12, MMP-9, Myeloperoxidase, PGRP-S, Properdin, Resistin, Serpin A4, and TIMP-1 are significantly elevated in both ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) compared to controls. When tested in a longitudinal cohort of 50 UC patients at 4 time-points, fecal Fibrinogen, MMP-8, PGRP-S, and TIMP-2 show the strongest positive correlation with concurrent PUCAI and PGA scores and are superior to fecal calprotectin. Unlike fecal calprotectin, baseline stool Fibrinogen, MMP-12, PGRP-S, TIMP-1, and TIMP-2 can predict clinical remission at Week-4. Here we show that stool proteins identified using the comprehensive aptamer-based screen are superior to fecal calprotectin alone in disease monitoring and prediction in IBD.


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