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Whooping cough first sickened the Illinois high school cheerleaders, then it struck the football players, the cross-country team and the band.

As it spread within the Chicago suburb of McHenry County in late 2011, another outbreak took place -- on social media. A small business called Sickweather LLC said it detected the online flare-up on Twitter Inc. (TWTR) and Facebook Inc. (FB) postings in early October that year. Thats about two weeks before local health officials issued a public statement.

Now, U.S. agencies want to expand their use of social media to spot potential biological attacks and outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases, including the new H7N9 avian flu that has killed dozens of people in China.

Thats the Holy Grail, said Mark Dredze, an assistant research professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a Sickweather adviser. Wed love these systems to tell us theres a brand new disease and its going to be a big thing.

The online disease trackers have had mixed results, with academics criticizing a tool by Mountain View, California-based Google Inc. (GOOG), the worlds biggest Internet search engine, for overestimating the number of U.S. influenza cases in recent years.

The system, dubbed Google Flu Trends, relied on search terms. It was never intended to be used on its own, said Matt Mohebbi, a former company engineer who helped create the tool.

Kelly Mason, a Google spokeswoman, said the company is open to feedback on how it can refine Flu Trends to help estimate influenza levels and complement existing surveillance systems.

Companies such as Sickweather and Boston-based Epidemico Inc. are trying to get past the noise on the Internet. They rely on computer algorithms to scan social media and news articles for references to disease like whooping cough. They try to screen out unrelated posts that might use sick (when they mean cool or insane) or Bieber fever (obsessed with pop star Justin Bieber).

The work also involves humans, in case the filters dont catch everything and the algorithms exaggerate illness reports.

The big advantage of social media is you can get a lot more data, and you can get it more quickly and more economically, said Henry Niman, a biomedical researcher and president of Pittsburgh-based Recombinomics Inc., which analyzes viral evolution and the spread of disease. It is a matter of fine-tuning that data so you come up with results that are more reliable.

See the original post:
Disease Outbreak Warnings Via Social Media Sought by U.S.

Time and time again business owners ask me how to find the time to do social media. Does it distract you from your "day job"?

It seems very easy to start using it, get distracted and then lose time reading/ replying to other items and still not have got any value. Thats when I thought that social media is like a weapon of mass distraction, always able to draw people away from their day job.

How to find the time for social media

Control and some form of discipline is essential to make it work, along with very clear objectives (who your audience is, what youre trying to achieve). Then its possible to develop regular habits, and a routine (that works for you) making results lots easier.

Some background rules

There are three simple rules that work for me, and others have adopted very similar approaches based on time management techniques. What works for you?

What might go in your routine?

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Originally posted here:
Is Social Media just a weapon of mass distraction?

Federal government departments are using increasingly powerful cyber-snooping equipment to monitor the social media lives of millions of Australians.

A dramatic public confrontation between the Immigration Department and a Sydney political activist over her Facebook page has resulted in accusations that mass-electronic surveillance is being used to keep tabs on political dissent.

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Other large government departments including Centrelink, Defence and Social Services have done mass monitoring of social media activity.

Do you know more? Send your confidential tips to ps@canberratimes.com.au

Centrelink's parent agency, the mammoth Department of Human Services, even has its own software, developed by the CSIRO and operated by a social media team of 10 public servants.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) hires private sector contractors who can monitor more than half-a-billion ''pieces'' of social media each day on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Flickr and blogs.

Several commercially available social media-tracking platforms, some of them in routine use by public service online media teams, can easily track the web activities of protest groups and their individual members.

Immigration experimented several years ago with powerful software called Radian6, which can provide surveillance across a range of social web platforms, but decided not to adopt the application for in-house use.

The department's key research contractor said the monitoring undertaken for Immigration was about ''taking the temperature of society'' and that no reputable research company would help government departments compile ''hit lists'' of political opponents.

Original post:
Every move you make ... govt cyber snoops scouring the tweets

An incident involving the Fayette County Animal Control Officer and the euthanizing of a dog has received a lot of attention on social media. On Thursday, April 10, Fayette County Sheriff Steve Kessler and Fayette County Prosecutor Carl Harris released a statement concerning the incident.

On Tuesday, March 11 it was reported that a dog had bitten a child near Elizabeth Street in Oak Hill. The boy who was bitten needed 21 stitches to treat the dog bite. Animal Control Officer Russell Parker captured the dog and spoke with the child's parents and the dog's owner. The owner of the animal told Parker the dog had not been vaccinated against rabies and asked for the dog to be euthanized.

On March 12 the Sanitarian for the Fayette County Health Department talked with Officer Parker and personnel at the Fayette County Animal Control Shelter about the need to quickly euthanize the dog. However, the only person at the shelter licensed to euthanize animals was unavailable to perform the procedure until late in the afternoon. The need for urgency in this case was in order to keep the child who was bitten from the need to undergo a lengthy vaccination process (rabies is universally fatal for humans and animals if left untreated).

Officer Parker advised the county sanitarian that he could euthanize the animal by shooting it, which is allowed by the WV Code "In an emergency or in a situation in which a dog cannot be humanely destroyed in an expeditious manner." Parker killed the dog at the Animal Control Shelter and sent the head to be tested for rabies.

(CLICK HERE to read the WV Code on Euthanasia by Shooting)

A formal complaint was filed by Carrie Carr,the Director of the Animal Control Center, on March 13 in connection with the incident. She told deputies that Officer Parker had to shoot the animal more than one to kill it, which is not in compliance with the WV Code (which can be read at the link above).

The Fayette County Sheriff's Office conducted and investigation into what happened. During the investigation it was found that Officer Parker used a small-caliber rifle to kill the dog. Parker had to fire a total of three shots to complete the task.

(CLICK HERE to read the full press release including the findings of the investigation)

Sheriff Kessler and Prosecuting Attorney Harris agreed that while the dog unquestionably suffered pain inthe incident, there was no evidence that Officer Parker acted maliciously when killing the animal. The Sheriff has now put policies in place to ensure an incident like this does not occur again. The Sheriff also said that Officer Parker has been disciplined.

"I fully understand that certain employees of the Fayette County Animal Control Center and their friends and associates are unhappy with my decision not to terminate Russell Parker's employments as the Fayette County Animal Control Officer," said Sheriff Kessler. "I'm certainly not defending what he did, and if an incident even remotely similar to this occurs in the future then I would certainly dismiss him from his employment. That being said, given the totality of the circumstances in this case, I do not believe that terminating his employment is appropriate at this time. The job of Animal Control Officer is a dirty, nasty and dangerous job and the pay is not much above minimum wage. Animal Control Officer Parker has been injured several times during the course of his employment while dealing with vicious animals, but he continues to do his work each day with enthusiasm and no small degree of skill."

Read more:
Fayette Sheriff, Prosecutor issue statement on botched dog euthanizing incident

Please be advised that departmental representatives from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada will hold a technical briefing on the First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act.

The technical briefing will be followed by a media availability with the Honourable Bernard Valcourt, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development in the House of Commons Foyer.

Technical Briefing Thursday, April 10, 2014 10:10 a.m EDT National Press Theatre 165 Sparks Street

For media interested in attending the technical briefing in person, please note access to the National Press Theatre is restricted to media accredited through the Parliamentary Press Gallery. For more information on accreditation, contact Terry Guillon, Chief of the Press Gallery, at 613-992-4511 or terry.guillon@parl.gc.ca

Media who would like to take part in the conference call must dial 613-960-7526 or 1-877-413-4814 and enter pass code 1299597 at least 10 minutes before the call is scheduled to begin.

The briefing is for background information only, not for attribution.

Information for media availability with Minister Valcourt 11:30 a.m. EDT House of Commons Foyer

For more information: Erica Meekes Press Secretary Office of the Honourable Bernard Valcourt 819-997-0002

AANDC Media Relations Line 819-953-1160

Read more:
Technical briefing and media availability on the First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act