Fragrances are a woman’s secret, even from her friends

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A recent study by Dutch design aesthetics researchers has discovered that women closely guard their fragrance identity to the point that they will keep it secret from the entire world if they can — so secret that even their friends cannot copy their personal scent, and they certainly won’t buy perfumes they like for their friends.

“The question here is not only: how do you express you identity? But it is: what types of items can someone else buy for you?” Dr. Rick Schifferstein of Delf University of Technology in the Netherlands told The Speaker. Schifferstein and his team were studying what effects packaging has on fragrance purchase when they made the somewhat unexpected discovery.

“Everyone expresses their identity through their appearance and their actions,” he explained. “Apparently, your identity  is not only expressed through the way you dress or your haircut, but also by the fragrance you wear.

Women won’t buy perfumes for each other, the team found, unless they don’t like the scent themselves, or when they may have previously liked the scent but no longer have a purpose for it. Actually, the researchers found, women tend to “sabotage” their friends when they give this type of gift. Women will buy a scent they like for themselves or their boyfriend — which is something women like to do, the findings showed — but will only buy scents they dislike for their female friends.

“While women hold fragrances as personally intimate and respect other women’s intimate choices, they happily want to influence what fragrances men wear,” Dr Bryan Howell, co-author of the study, said. “Assuming it is for a spouse or boyfriend, they want to pick fragrances they also like since they’ll be around that person often.”

The issue is more complicated than a simple concept of “sabotage” though, according to the researchers, and has to do with the importance of personal identity. Schifferstein explained some of the complexity of the issue by referring to the gift motivations, concerns and preferences of women.

Rick Schifferstein
Dr. Rick Schifferstein

“Giving someone a fragrance might suggest that they need one because they smell bad. This could cause unwanted questions to occur between friends. Women prefer to avoid that possibility and look for a gift that is safer to share.”

In case women do give their friends fragrances, it may concern fragrances that are no longer working for themselves and that are passed on to their friends, in hopes that they will work for them. Alternatively, women may appreciate the personality or preference differences between themselves and their friends, and may decide to give them a fragrance that has a different character than what they would buy for themselves.

“Fragrance categories — for example, fruity, spicy, citrus, floral — may play an important role in this process: Some women identified themselves as belonging to a certain category and they would consider purchasing only fragrances from this category for themselves. Consequently, they would not recommend these fragrances for their female best friends.”

The gifts women choose for each other tend to be purchased with a strong motivation to play it safe: “The more intimate the item, the less likely it will be considered appropriate as a gift.” Gifts such as CDs, books, and flowers tend to suit this less intimate, more safe approach, Schifferstein told us.

The report, “Using color–odor correspondences for fragrance packaging design” was completed by Bryan F. Howell and Hendrik N.J. Schifferstein, and was published on Science Direct.

By Andy Stern

Fracking Operation Ordered To Shut Down After Earthquake

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A Repsol fracking operation was ordered to shut down this week after an earthquake shook the region around Fox Creek, Alberta.

The earthquake measured 4.8 on the Richter scale — large enough to rattle pictures handing on walls, according to Fox Creek mayor Jim Ahn, who reported that he thought a truck had rolled by his building when the 1.5-second earthquake took place.

That was enough, though, for Alberta Energy Regulator to shut down the Repsol Oil & Gas site 35 kilometers north of the town.

Jim Ahn
Fox Creek mayor Jim Ahn

The province’s energy regulator shuts down any fracking site when there is an earthquake of 4.0 or greater magnitude in the area.

Scientists will now investigate whether fracking was the cause of the earthquake. If confirmed to be the cause, the quake would be the largest found to be caused by fracking in Canada.

Currently, the largest fracking-caused earthquake in Canada is a 4.6 magnitude quake that took place in northeastern B.C. last summer.

By Andy Stern

Agricultural Researchers Propose Agri-CERN, Europe-Wide Community Of Shared Research And Equipment

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ECOFE (European Consortium for Open Field Experimentation), a network of agricultural resources at various locations around Europe, has been proposed by a group of scientists in order to do for agricultural science what CERN has done for nuclear research.

The organization would be a community of research stations across Europe — from an outpost in Sicily to a field in Scotland. Among the benefits looked forward to by the researchers behind the project are the ability to study a wide range of soil properties, atmospheric conditions, and temperatures, and, prospectively, the ability to finance more expensive equipment, which would be shared.

For example, open-field installations that allow researchers to study the effects of artificially elevated levels of carbon dioxide, would be a shared cost and a shared tool.

“Present field research facilities are aimed at making regional agriculture prosperous,” said co-author Hartmut Stützel of Leibniz Universität Hannover in Germany. “To us, it is obvious that the ‘challenges’ of the 21st century–productivity increase, climate change, and environmental sustainability–will require more advanced research infrastructures covering a wider range of environments.”

The benefits of community research are also associated with potential downsides: researchers would have to sacrifice some of their scientific autonomy in order to focus on targeted research goals.

“It will be a rather new paradigm for many traditional scientists,” said Stützel but I think the communities are ready to accept this challenge and understand that research in the 21st century requires these types of infrastructures. We must now try to make political decision makers aware that a speedy implementation of a network for open field experimentation is fundamental for future agricultural research.

The report is titled “The Future of Field Trials in Europe: Establishing a Network Beyond Boundaries.” It was completed by Drs. Stutzel, Nicolas Bruggermann, and Dirk Inze, and was published in the journal Cell.

By Andy Stern

Concept Watch

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This is the ASIG nohero/nosky Concentric D. wrist watch, a concept for CD2 that was designed by Row Zero aka Simon Williamson, an associate professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts, which redesigns not just the surface but also the case of the watch.

Instead of a motor of gears rotating the arms of the watch from its center, the ASIG Concentric D. powers itself from the border of the watch face, leaving the face empty and transparent.

The arms radiate inward rather than outward, and must run along three tracks on the inside of the watch face border.

The ASIG Concentric D. concept also maintains the traditional feature of the watch winder, whether the winder is used to tension springs within the border of the face or is just for show is not known.

The watch hands are decorated with rows of tiny lights for night wear.

The ASIG Concentric D. has garnered a significant amount of attention based on its design alone. The unique concept watch is not in production, and Future Now does not know of any similar watches using the layout conceived by Williamson.

By Andy Stern

Behance
Row Zero

asig g watch

 

 

Liquid Can Be Made To Jump Off Fibers

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A Duke University team has created fibers that cause liquid to jump off their surface as it accumulates, leading to new possibilities in water purification, atmospheric moisture harvesting, and various drop collecting industrial material applications.

“Self-removal is essentially inevitable as long as the surface is reasonably hydrophobic,” said Chuan-Hua Chen of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, a lead researcher of the study. High degrees of hydrophobia are not necessary to create self-removing droplets. Self-removal is based largely on a small surface area for liquid to bead upon.

Liquids jump off the fibers as they accumulated due to the composition and width of the fibers. So long as merged droplets are above a certain size, when they coalesce into almost-spheres to reduce surface area, some of the energy released turns into mechanical energy sufficient to detach the bead and propel it away from the surface.

[youtube id=”pW4bfdOdstY” align=”center” mode=”normal” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”500″]

The speed at which a droplet launches from a surface is based on the degree to which the ratio radius of the droplet trying to reduce contact with the surface exceeds the critical value of attachment to the surface.

It is the first time self-removing droplets have been demonstrated on curved surface such as fibers, and the team believes the technology should be applicable to emulsions so long as the emulsion is not too vicious.

The report, “Self-Propelled Droplet Removal from Hydrophobic Fiber-Based Coalescers,” was completed by Drs. Kungang Zhang, Fangjie Liu, Adam J. Williams, Xiaopeng Qu, James J. Feng, and Chuan-Hua Chen, and was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

By Andy Stern

Archery tag rises in popularity

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Archery tag. Do you love dodgeball? Do you love archery? Do you love exciting action? This sport has all of these, and its popularity is rising.

New Zealander Sam Humphreys is expanding the new sport. It’s catching on locally, and Humphreys’ hopes to hold national competitions for the island. International competitions, too — the Humphreys are trying to develop a team to play against Australia next year.

Humphreys and his wife Paula-Lee are already active travelling around their region of New Zealand, promoting the sport and their company NZ Bow Sports Ltd. Local businesses now sell archery tag equipment, archery-tag themed parties are held, and holiday programmes include the sport as an entertainment option.

Archery tag spread to the Australian continent from the US a couple of years ago, and currently the growing sport has over 350 licences in 34 countries.

The game

With four six-minute quarters, players can be exhausted at the end of an intense match, which starts when a whistle blows and the five players on each side rush to the safe zone between the two sides to grab their arrows, then rush back and begin the engagement.

Players aim for each other and for the five-disk targets. If a player is hit anywhere except the head, or if his arrow is caught mid-air, he is out of the game, and if all players on a team are knocked out the team loses.

However, players can be brought back into the game by their team members when those team members catch an arrow mid-flight or hit one of their opponents’ five disks.

Players are required to wear a protective helmet at all times, and the arrows are foam-tipped.

Unlike paintball, to which archery tag has been compared, the game is family friendly — it doesn’t hurt when you get hit anymore than getting hit by a tennis ball hurts, according to Humphreys.

By Andy Stern

Maroon 5 banned from China after Tweets to Dalai Lama

Maroon 5 banned from China after Tweets to Dalai Lama
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In the latest of China’s celebrity bannings over support of Tibet and the Dalai Lama, Maroon 5 has had two upcoming Chinese shows cancelled following a Tweet by the band’s guitarist well-wishing Tibet’s exiled leader, who is considered a separatist terrorist by the Chinese government.

China has banned many notable celebrities and musicians for their support of Tibet, including actors Brad Pitt for his role in the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet, Richard Gere for his activism, Harrison Ford for a speech in front of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sharon Stone for a quip about a Chinese earthquake having had something to do with China’s accumulated karma.

Bands already on China’s blacklist include Bjork, Oasis, and Bob Dylan, all due to the Chinese government’s concern over the band’s support of Tibet.

The latest addition to the blacklist, Marroon 5, followed keyboardist Jesse Carmichael’s Tweet around the Fourth of July and the Dalai Lama’s birthday:

“Happy Birthday America (and The Dalai Lama too) sang happy birthday to his holiness today.”

The Tweet was later deleted, but a cached copy remained.

The musician also attended a birthday party for the Tibetan leader in Los Angeles July 4, reportedly.

No explanation has been provided by either the Chinese government or the band, but both the upcoming Shanghai and Beijing concerts were suddenly deleted from the band’s Asian tour webpage.

By Andy Stern

Russia signs deal with Abkhazia, becomes commander of military in that region

Russia signs deal with Abkhazia, becomes commander of military in that region
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Russia President Vladimir Putin and the leader of Abkhazia have signed an agreement under which Putin will become the commander of a joint military force in the breakaway region.

“I’m sure that cooperation, unity and strategic partnership between Russia and Abkhazia will continue to strengthen,” stated Putin after signing the agreement Monday.

Russia already has a military presence in the territory. Russian troops have served in Abkhazia since it broke away from Georgia in a separatists war in the early 1990s.

The United States issued a statement in response to the deal. “The United States will not recognize the legitimacy of any so-called ‘treaty’ between Georgia’s Abkhazia region and the Russian Federation,” read a press release issued by the US State Department.

The US and other nations strongly suspect Russia is stepping up its attempt to expand in the region, which recently had a change in leadership after the former leader was forced to step down and a former Soviet KGB officer was elected president.

Read more: Prime Minister of Abkhazia Beaten After Car Blocked in Traffic, Escapes

The deal was signed by this president, Raul Khadzhimba.

“The United States’ position on Abkhazia and South Ossetia remains clear,” wrote Jeff Rathke, Director of the Bureau of Public Affairs at the Office of Press Relations for the State Department, “these regions are integral parts of Georgia, and we continue to support Georgia’s independence, its sovereignty, and its territorial integrity.

“We once again urge Russia to fulfill all of its obligations under the 2008 ceasefire agreement, to withdraw its forces to pre-conflict positions, to reverse its recognition of the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, and to provide free access for humanitarian assistance to these regions.

“We renew our full support for the Geneva international discussions as a means to achieving concrete progress on security and humanitarian issues that continue to impact the communities on the ground in Georgia.”

Georgia also condemned the move towards greater Russian involvement in Abkhazia, and called on the international community to speak out against the move.

However, Khadzhimba was more optimistic in his assessment.

“Ties with Russia offer us full security guarantees and broad opportunities for socio-economic development,” said Khadzhimba.

By Andy Stern

First Website Ever Made in US Brought to Light in Digital Archaeology Find

First Website Ever Made in US Brought to Light in Digital Archaeology Find
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Digital archaeology that has revealed the earliest signs of web-life in America. Stanford Libraries has brought to light the first websites ever uploaded in the US–genealogically part Euro-descendant, part US original. The pages are now available for browsing, and Stanford Wayback, a customized platform for accessing archived web assets, provides a third dimension for viewing the internet, allowing users to see and navigate the web as it has changed over time and to look back in time at code written by the earliest “WWW Wizards.”

“A handful of staff at SLAC who worked on the early web fortuitously saved the files, along with their timestamps,” said Nicholas Taylor, web archiving service manager for Stanford Libraries.

The earliest site dates back to Dec. 6, 1991–a month in which no-fly zones were being set up in Iraq after the Gulf War, the Ukrainian people voted for independence from the Soviet Union and the Cold War ended, Hezbollite (Shiite Muslim) militants released their last US hostages, and Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston won at the 2nd annual Billboard Music Awards.

The sites were installed on the first server outside of Europe, which was installed by physicist Paul Kunz between Dec. 6 and Dec. 12.

First Website Ever Made in US Brought to Light in Digital Archaeology FindTaylor told The Speaker how in launching the Stanford Web Archive Portal, once they learned of the existence of the earliest US websites, this seemed the most intriguing choice.

“A major focus for Stanford University Libraries’ web archiving effort is preserving Stanford University’s institutional legacy. We thought that the SLAC earliest websites would be the most broadly interesting historical web content related to the University with which to launch the Stanford Web Archive Portal. That is to say, we didn’t explicitly set out to track down the oldest US website, per se, but became quickly interested once we learned about it.”

The lineage of the earliest US sites is a part European descendant-part original strain, Taylor told us.

“They’re necessarily derivative, in some sense; what made the Web was adherence to a common set of conventions (e.g., the syntax for a hyperlink). The SLAC ‘WWW Wizards’ built the first US website based upon the conventions formulated by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the world’s first website at CERN. In another sense, the first U.S. website was entirely home-grown, built foremost to serve the research needs of the SLAC research community.”

Taylor elaborated on this piece of digital archaeology was undertaken.

First Website Ever Made in US Brought to Light in Digital Archaeology Find“You might say that there were two major digital archaeology efforts. One, SLAC’s previous recovery and preservation of the original website files, and two, Stanford University Libraries’ much subsequent restoration of access to the websites in their original temporal context, via the the Stanford Web Archive Portal.

We have the early sites back online today because of SLAC staff foresight.

“Essentially, SLAC staff that were involved with the early websites and, later, staff in the SLAC Archives and History Office had the wherewithal to retrieve, set aside, and document the files constituting the earliest websites,” said Taylor.

The sites were saved with their timesstamps, which are associated with the first version of a website, as well as subsequent versions.

“The original timestamps were preserved as part of the SLAC backup system for those servers and are a critical piece of context in understanding the restored content.

“We’re accustomed to thinking about the Web in two dimensions–i.e., as a flat plane that we navigate spatially. Web archives and the Memento protocol, in particular, offer the prospect of adding a third dimension to the Web–allowing users to see how it has changed over time and seamlessly navigate to archived versions of resources that have since disappeared.”

First Website Ever Made in US Brought to Light in Digital Archaeology FindTaylor commented on the nature of investigating the origins of the digital realm, and noted that we are close enough in time to still touch its ancestry.

“A last note about ‘digital archaeology,'” said Taylor, “unlike much archaeology, our digital archaeology effort had the benefit of being able to confer directly with the individuals who created these artifacts.”

Taylor encouraged everyone to support and celebrate the efforts of this “memory institution,” and take a look at our digital past in the artifacts they have recently preserved.

Stanford Wayback is part of the Libraries’ web archiving initiative, which aims to collect, preserve and provide access to web content that is at risk of being updated, replaced or lost.

By Andy Stern

India To Buy Half Its Military Weapons From Within Country

India To Buy Half Its Military Weapons From Within India
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Although analysts and military advisers are divided on the wisdom of such sudden, heavy reliance on local production for military needs, India is launching a campaign to produce at least half of the nation’s total weapon and equipment needs within the next 10 to 12 years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the new approach to military defense this month as part of a countrywide “Made in India” campaign intended to boost the domestic economy.

The amount of military equipment India intends to produce itself under the new campaign will be worth over $100 billion.

Currently, the Indian defense industry exports $100 million per year, but officials have stated that Indian industry has the potential to produce high-tech weaponry, submarines and warships.

“During the past decades plus, India has been importing weapon systems under Buy [global] or Buy and Make [with transfer of technology to state-owned defense companies], which has not altered the import-vs-domestic ratio of 70 percent imports and 30 percent [domestic],” a Larsen and Toubro executive was quoted as commenting. “That the national security cannot continue to be in the hands of the foreign original equipment manufacturers is long felt and must be realized.”

India’s total annual defense imports are worth almost $6bn. India has been the biggest arms importer in the world since 2010 when it overtook China.

Currently, the main supplier of India’s military needs is Russia. Seventy-five to 85 percent of India’s Air Force, Army and Navy is equipped with Soviet or Russian military hardware. Nearly $5bn of India’s defense budget was spent in Russia last year, amounting to one-third of all russia exports, and a significantly increase from 2012’s $3bn trade.

India is also the biggest foreign buyer of US weapons. India imported $1.9bn of military equipment from America in 2013, edging out the previous biggest buyer of US weapons, Saudi Arabi.

So far, attempts by the Indian Ministry of Defense to domestically source light utility helicopters, infantry combat vehicles, and tactical communication system programs have not taken off, causing some criticism of the program.

Rahul Bhonsle, a retired Indian Army brigadier general and defense analyst, recently commented, “Categorization has to be done based on the capabilities of the domestic defense industry and not arbitrarily. Moreover, the primary aim of the defense procurement procedure is to ensure that the armed forces capacity building remains on stream.”

Rajinder Bhatia, CEO of private-sector defense company Bharat Forge, also questioned the Make India campaign: “Make India programs should be for high-tech projects only. The rest of the procurement should be either Buy Indian Or Buy and Make Indian.”

However, Modi has made it policy to arm India massively. India is currently undertaking a $100 billion defense upgrade, and in August, Modi stated that he wanted to build an Indian Army such that no country “dare cast an evil eye” on the nation.

By Andy Stern
Photo: U.S. Army Alaska (USARAK)

Uzbekistan Calls for International Help Over Aral Sea, Now Almost Dry

Uzbekistan Calls for International Help Over Aral Sea, Now Almost Dry
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Once the world’s fourth-largest inland body of water, the Aral Sea is on the verge of extinction. Uzbekistan, which shares the lake with Kazakhstan, is calling on the international community to deal with the environmental catastrophe.

The Aral Sea is considered by some experts to be the worst man-made ecological catastrophe in history. The sea has been desiccated by Soviet irrigation projects that have used the lake’s water indiscriminately since the 1960s.

Currently, the lake is reduced to a series of small water bodies, representing 10 percent of the original Aral Sea. The southern basin has completely evaporated.

Uzbek President Islam Karimov called for aid at an international conference of experts and donors.

Uzbekistan Calls for International Help Over Aral Sea, Now Almost Dry“The countries of the region do not have sufficient funds and logistical means to overcome the environmental, socio-economic and humanitarian his appeal,” stated Karimov.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently commented on the problem, “Today the Aral Sea is on the verge of extinction. This loss will affect the lives of millions of people in Uzbekistan and abroad.”

Notable among the humanitarian issues associated with the loss of the lake is massive amounts of pesticide-contaminated dust which are being blown from the seabed, affecting health.

International donors have recently pledge $3 billion towards mitigating the consequences of the Aral Sea catastrophe.

The money was raised at a fundraiser hosted by Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov. The names of donors and the programs that would be funded were not offered.

The $3 billion is additional to the nearly $9 billion reported to have been donated since 2011.

By Andy Stern

Yale Scientists Conclude Best Chances of Eradicating Ebola – Report

Isolating Ebola Cases Best Chance of Eradicating Ebola - Report
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A recent study by Yale University has found that isolating Ebola victims within four days of symptom onset could achieve disease elimination in Liberia. Setting out to determine how to best use scare resources to combat the Ebola outbreak overwhelming West Africa, and after analyzing the incidence and case fatality of the outbreak, the team concluded that the best hope for ending the spread of Ebola was isolation of Ebola victims very early in the progression of symptoms–although the time window suggested by the research was smaller than current time to hospital reporting in West Africa.

“The Ebola outbreak in Western Africa is spiraling out of control. The need to determine how to deploy scarce resources to end this crisis is urgent,” Dr Dan Yamin, Postdoctoral Associate in Epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the report, framed the study.

Dan Yamin
Dr Dan Yamin, lead researcher on the study

The goal of the study was to “evaluate the contribution of disease progression and case fatality to transmission and to examine the potential for targeted interventions to eliminate the disease,” according to the report.

The team used both clinical and epidemiological data–incidence and case fatality records–from the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and found that secondary infections occurred during the infectious period of an Ebola victim at an average rate of 1.73. That is, each infected person passed on Ebola to 1.73 healthy individuals.

Isolating Ebola Cases Best Chance of Eradicating Ebola - Report
Distribution of secondary cases per infected individual among survivors and nonsurvivors

Ebola victims who did not survive passed the disease on to 0.66 people, while nonsurvivors passed the disease on to 2.36 people. Survivors of Ebola, the study found, infected at least one healthy person in 32 percent of cases. Nonsurvivors infected at least one healthy person with a 67 percent probability rate.

“Consequently, nonsurvivors, who made up 63% (CI, 60% to 64%) of the population, were responsible for 86% (CI, 63% to 98%) of transmissions,” the researchers found.

Left alone, “the number of newly reported cases will be doubled every 20 days,” Yamin told The Speaker, pointing out that the number of newly reported cases should not be misconstrued to be the total number of cases.

The conclusion reached by the team was that isolation of infected individuals offered a chance of eliminating the disease. Isolation of 75 percent of nonsurviving infected individuals within four days after symptoms began created a 74 percent chance of disease elimination. Isolation of all infected people offered a marginal reduction beyond the 74 percent. Isolation of asymptomatic people, however, made no practical sense, the researchers found.

“There is no medical sense in quarantining asymptomatic people,” Yamin told us. “All evidence shows that asymptomatic people (and people that were exposed and are in the “incubation period”) can’t transmit.

“Isolating all individuals before symptoms onset is not practical,” said Yamin, noting that, of course, it “would obviously lead to disease elimination.”

Isolating Ebola Cases Best Chance of Eradicating Ebola - Report
Average number of secondary cases per day of symptomatic disease

The most pragmatic way to actually combat Ebola in West Africa, Yamin told us, was isolation of only those people who were already symptomatic.

“In the absence of sufficient isolation units, our model emphasizes that targeted isolation of those who are mostly responsible for transmission may be the most efficient way to contain Ebola. Specifically, because infectiousness increases greatly with disease progression we found that that isolating 75% of infected individuals (particularly, the more severe cases) within four days of symptom onset has a high chance of eliminating the spread of the disease.

The researchers found that the current average period from symptom onset to hospitalization in Liberia was approximately 5 days–significantly beyond the requirements suggested by the study.

The researchers also evaluated the effectiveness of self-quarantine–a pragmatic strategy in areas where there were not sufficient isolation units. Self-quarantine of 75 percent of all infected could eradicate Ebola with 78 percent probability.

“Effectively, we tested self-quarantine by contact reduction of an infected person beyond what was currently reported,” Yamin told us. “The data provided by the Liberian Ministry of Health suggests that, an infected individual contacts, on average, with 6 people–this

Isolating Ebola Cases Best Chance of Eradicating Ebola - Report
Probability of disease elimination for different intervention strategies and coverages

number seems to be substantially lower than the number of contacts of a healthy person.

“Our results suggest that to achieve 78% for elimination, additional 60% reduction in contacts should occur following the first day from symptoms onset. Practically, implementing even this strategy seem to be challenging, which highlights the importance of increasing isolation units in Liberia.”

The conclusion of the researchers was that the massive international support directed at helping in West Africa “should be directed towards expanding the capacity of hospitalized case isolation.”

“Targeted isolation may offer the best hope of ending the Ebola epidemic.”

The report, “Effect of Ebola Progression on Transmission and Control in Liberia,” was authored by Dan Yamin, PhD; Shai Gertler; Martial L. Ndeffo-Mbah, PhD; Laura A. Skrip, MPH; Mosoka Fallah, PhD; Tolbert G. Nyenswah, MPH; Frederick L. Altice, MD, MA; and Alison P. Galvani, PhD, was published in Annals of Internal Medicine, and was funded primarily by the National Institute of Health.

By Andrew Stern

Photo: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies