Assessing the impact of a health intervention via user-generated Internet content

Assessing the effect of a health-oriented intervention by traditional epidemiological methods is commonly based only on population segments that use healthcare services. Here we introduce a complementary framework for evaluating the impact of a targeted intervention, such as a vaccination campaign against an infectious disease, through a statistical analysis of user-generated content submitted on web platforms. Using supervised learning, we derive a nonlinear regression model for estimating the prevalence of a health event in a population from Internet data. This model is applied to identify control location groups that correlate historically with the areas, where a specific intervention campaign has taken place. We then determine the impact of the intervention by inferring a projection of the disease rates that could have emerged in the absence of a campaign. Our case study focuses on the influenza vaccination program that was launched in England during the 2013/14 season, and our observations consist of millions of geo-located search queries to the Bing search engine and posts on Twitter. The impact estimates derived from the application of the proposed statistical framework support conventional assessments of the campaign

Adult systemic cat scratch disease associated with therapy for hepatitis C

BACKGROUND: We describe the first case of systemic cat scratch disease in a patient receiving peginterferon α-2a and ribavirin for treatment of hepatitis C. Cases of adult systemic CSD are extremely infrequent and immunomodulatory treatment for hepatitis C has been associated with aberrant host responses to common pathogens. CASE PRESENTATION: A 52 year old man being treated for hepatitis C presented with diffuse lymphadenopathy, weight loss, fevers and splenic lesions. Symptoms were initially confused with adverse effects of his regimen, delaying recognition of his infection. Diagnostic investigation, including histopathology, microbiology and serologic parameters, confirmed that his illness was due to disseminated cat scratch disease with Bartonella henselae. CONCLUSION: Disseminated CSD is exceptionally rare in adults. We describe the first case of disseminated cat scratch disease associated with peginterferon α and ribavirin to alert clinicians of the need to be aware of unusual manifestations of common infections in this population

Optical limiting applications

Most promising applications of C60 fullerene are in the field of optoelectronics and nonlinear optics (NLO). Photovoltaic cells and infrared detectors are among actively pursued optoelectronic applications while, in the field of NLO, after some initial emphasis on third-order responses, such as intensity dependent refractive index, the focus is now mainly on optical limiting based on the mechanisms of reverse saturable absorption (RSA) and possibly other multiphoton processes. In the first section we define the ideal behavior of an optical limiter and summarize the physical mechanisms that may lead a real material to approach such an ideal behavior. The reverse saturable absorption (RSA) mechanism is emphasized and the nonlinear optical techniques for determining optical limiting properties are described. In section 3 the linear and nonlinear optical properties of fullerenes are illustrated. The third order NLO responses indicate that fullerene is a good optical material, while photophysical properties and absorption spectra of the ground the and excited states suggest the presence of a strong RSA in a large visible range. The experimental OL properties of fullerenes are described in section 4. The OL behavior of C60 in solution has been measured in a large wavelength range and compared with the calculated data, based on the RSA model. The presence of a prevailing RSA contribution is demonstrated but nonlinear scattering and nonlinear refractive changes are shown to contribute. In section 5 the optical properties of fullerene derivatives in solution are characterized, and compared with those of C60 and of a benchmark OL material like Sn-phthalocyanine. The issues related with preparing a solid OL material by inclusion of fullerene derivatives in a host matrix are discussed in section 6 and it is shown that with the use of suitably designed hybrid sol-gel glasses the OL performances of solution samples can be preserved. In section 7 it is shown that fullerenes, thanks to their electro-active properties, offer opportunities to implement different mechanisms of OL with the aim of extending the wavelength range of operation. Finally, section 8 addresses some current issues pertaining to the design and manufacture of practical OL devices and section 9 concludes this chapter with a summary and a few final remarks

Understanding and Exploiting Information Spreading and Integrating Technologies

Our daily life leaves an increasing amount of digital traces, footprints that are improving our lives. Data-mining tools, like recommender systems, convert these traces to information for aiding decisions in an ever-increasing number of areas in our lives. The feedback loop from what we do, to the information this produces, to decisions what to do next, will likely be an increasingly important factor in human behavior on all levels from individuals to societies. In this essay, we review some effects of this feedback and discuss how to understand and exploit them beyond mapping them on more well-understood phenomena. We take examples from models of spreading phenomena in social media to argue that analogies can be deceptive, instead we need to fresh approaches to the new types of data, something we exemplify with promising applications in medicine