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Wikipedia page views could, in the future, become an important tool in predicting disease outbreaks, according to the findings of a new studypublished in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. The research, carried out by a group of data scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, argued that Wikipedia traffic data could also be used to estimatethe current rates of disease outbreaks across the world.

The team of scientists tracked the progress of seven diseases across 11 countries -- using language as an approximate measure for peoples locations -- between 2010 and 2013, and compared page views on Wikipedia articles about those diseases with data obtained from health ministries. Based on this comparison, the researchers found that, in eight out of 14 cases, there was a clear increase in page views nearly a month before an official declaration of an outbreak.

Using this technique, they were able to predict influenza outbreaks in the U.S., Poland, Japan and Thailand, the spread of dengue in Brazil, and a spike in the number of tuberculosis cases in Thailand.

The research was based on the theory that people tend to search online for symptoms of the disease they suspect they have before being officially diagnosed. The researchers claimed that Wikipedia is the best bet to create an Internet-based model to predict outbreaks because data on Wikipedia page views are publicly available.

Using simple statistical techniques, our proof-of-concept experiments suggest that these data are effective for predicting the present, as well as forecasting up to the 28-day limit of our tests. Our results also suggest that these models can be used even in places with no official data upon which to build models, the researchers said, in the paper, adding that the new method could overcome key gaps in existing traditional and internet-based techniques.

Traditional disease surveillance techniques involve collecting data from laboratory tests and tracking the number of visits to health care facilities. The researchers claimed that while these techniques are accurate, they are also slow and expensive.

However, the Wikipedia-based model was not successful in predicting the spread of slow-progressing diseases like HIV/AIDS, according to the paper. Moreover, several scientists also questioned the extent to which the model could be used in areas with poor Internet penetration, or in relation to poorly understood diseases.

I'm not sure how much Wikipedia is used in Africa, Heidi Larson, an anthropologist from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,told BBC. For issues like Ebola, I don't think people at the beginning of the outbreak in West Africa would have (been searching for it), because they wouldn't have had it (Ebola) before.

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Wikipedia-Based Tracking Model Could Predict Disease Outbreaks: Study

People power: Volunteers take part in an all-day Wikipedia edit-a-thon at the Smithsonian American Art Museum last year.

Moscow:Russia's presidential library is to launch its own version of Wikipedia, claiming that the popular web resource contains "untrustworthy" information about the country.

The Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, named after Russia's first president, said it had already collected 50,000 books and archive documents from regional libraries to start work on its electronic encyclopedia.

"Thus, the creation of an alternative to Wikipedia has begun," the library, which is based in St Petersburg, said in a statement. "Analysis of that resource has shown that it is unable to give detailed and trustworthy information about Russia's regions and the life of the country."

It was unclear what information on Wikipedia the library deemed unreliable and calls to its spokesman went unanswered on Friday.

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The new resource would "objectively and accurately show the country and its population, and the diversity of the state and national structure of Russia", according to the library statement.

Wikipedia was launched by the American entrepreneurs Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. According to its own estimates, as of February this year, it had 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month.

A key principle of Wikipedia is that users can create accounts and participate in writing and editing themed entries.

According to the presidential library, which was established by Vladimir Putin, the current president, and opened in 2008, the encyclopedia would be "open for constant renewal and update" but it was unclear whether it would allow reader participation in editing. There was controversy in July when a Twitter bot - a software application that runs automated tasks - tracked an account linked to Russian state television changing a Wikipedia entry on the MH17 plane crash to say it was "shot down by Ukrainian soldiers".

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Russia to launch its alternative to Wikipedia

Russias presidential library is to launch its own version of Wikipedia, claiming the popular web resource contains untrustworthy information about the country.

The Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, named after Russias first president, said it had already collected 50,000 books and archive documents from regional libraries in order to start work on its electronic encyclopedia.

Thus, the creation of an alternative to Wikipedia has begun, the library, which is based in St Petersburg, said in a statement. Analysis of that resource has shown that it is unable to give detailed and trustworthy information about Russias regions and the life of the country.

It was unclear what information on Wikipedia the library deemed unreliable and calls to its spokesman went answered on Friday. The new resource would objectively and accurately show the country and its population, and the diversity of the state and national structure of Russia, it said.

Wikipedia was launched by American entrepreneurs Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. According to its own page on the resource, as of February this year it had 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month.

A key principle of Wikipedia is that users can create accounts and participate in writing and editing themed entries.

The presidential library, which was established by Vladimir Putin, the current president, and opened in 2008, said the encyclopedia would be "open for constant renewal and update" but it was unclear whether it would allow reader participation in editing.

There was controversy in July when a Twitter bot tracked an account linked to Russian state television changing a Wikipedia entry on the MH17 plane crash to say it was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers.

In 2012, Wikipedia closed down its Russian language pages for a day in protest at a bill giving the state rights to block access to blacklisted websites.

The Russian encyclopaedia was "expected to become one of the most in-demand resources on the Runet", the presidential library said.

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Russian library to launch web rival to 'untrustworthy' Wikipedia

Wyoming i// is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. Wyoming is the 10th most extensive, but the least populous and the second least densely populated of the 50 United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High Plains. Cheyenne is the capital and the most populous city in Wyoming, with a population estimate of 62,448 in 2013.

As specified in the designating legislation for the Territory of Wyoming, Wyoming's borders are lines of latitude, 41N and 45N, and longitude, 1043'W and 1113'W (27 W and 34 W of the Washington Meridian), making the shape of the state a latitude-longitude quadrangle.[5] Wyoming is one of only three states (along with Colorado and Utah) to have borders along only straight latitudinal and longitudinal lines, rather than being defined by natural landmarks. Due to surveying inaccuracies during the 19th century, Wyoming's legal border deviates from the true latitude and longitude lines by up to half of a mile (0.8km) in some spots, especially in the mountainous region along the 45th parallel.[6] Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the tenth largest state in the United States in total area, containing 97,814 square miles (253,340km2) and is made up of 23 counties. From the north border to the south border it is 276 miles (444km);[7] and from the east to the west border is 365 miles (587km) at its south end and 342 miles (550km) at the north end.

The Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming. The state is a great plateau broken by many mountain ranges. Surface elevations range from the summit of Gannett Peak in the Wind River Mountain Range, at 13,804 feet (4,207m), to the Belle Fourche River valley in the states northeast corner, at 3,125 feet (952m). In the northwest are the Absaroka, Owl Creek, Gros Ventre, Wind River and the Teton ranges. In the north central are the Big Horn Mountains; in the northeast, the Black Hills; and in the southern region the Laramie, Snowy and Sierra Madre ranges.

The Snowy Range in the south central part of the state is an extension of the Colorado Rockies in both geology and appearance. The Wind River Range in the west central part of the state is remote and includes more than 40 mountain peaks in excess of 13,000ft (4,000m) tall in addition to Gannett Peak, the highest peak in the state. The Big Horn Mountains in the north central portion are somewhat isolated from the bulk of the Rocky Mountains.

The Teton Range in the northwest extends for 50 miles (80km), part of which is included in Grand Teton National Park. The park includes the Grand Teton, the second highest peak in Wyoming.

The Continental Divide spans north-south across the central portion of the state. Rivers east of the divide drain into the Missouri River Basin and eventually the Gulf of Mexico. They are the North Platte, Wind, Big Horn and the Yellowstone rivers. The Snake River in northwest Wyoming eventually drains into the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean, as does the Green River through the Colorado River Basin.

The continental divide forks in the south central part of the state in an area known as the Great Divide Basin where the waters that flow or precipitate into this area remain there and cannot flow to any ocean. Instead, because of the overall aridity of Wyoming, water in the Great Divide Basin simply sinks into the soil or evaporates.

Several rivers begin or flow through the state, including the Yellowstone River, Bighorn River, Green River, and the Snake River.

Wyoming has 32 named islands, of which the majority are located in Jackson Lake and Yellowstone Lake within Yellowstone National Park in the northwest portion of the state. Green River in the southwest also contains a number of islands.

More than 48% of the land in Wyoming is owned by the U.S. government, leading Wyoming to rank sixth in the U.S. in total acres and fifth in percentage of a state's land owned by the federal government.[8] This amounts to about 30,099,430 acres (121,808.1km2) owned and managed by the U.S. government. The state government owns an additional 6% of all Wyoming lands, or another 3,864,800 acres (15,640km2).[8]

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Wyoming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The ability to forecast the spread of an infectious diseases weeks in advance can make a world of difference when it comes to public health responses. For decades, scientists have been trying to create models to predict how something like the flu will spread.

People's Internet usage has opened a new door for predictive data. There are already some tools out there, such as Google Trends, which triesto"nowcast," or showwhat's happening right now with the spread of certain diseases in the world. There have been studies, too, on whether Twitter can accurately predict how a disease is spreading.

But getting access to Google Trends or Twitter data is not always easy -- or cheap. So a team of mathematicians, biologists and computer scientists got together to see if they could use something that's completely open and free: Wikipedia.

As it turns out, they could accuratelyforecasthow influenza and dengue spread based purelyon people's reading habits of Wikipedia articles. Last week, they showed how their algorithm could predict flu season in the United States. The full results of their research are published in this week's PLOS Computational Biology.

"Nowcasting is cool, but ideally you want to provide informationto public health departments and policymakers so they can plan ahead of time," said Sara Del Valle, a project leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory whose team worked on the study. "Becauseif you reallywant to make a difference in how peopleare treated when they come to clinics and hospitals, it's better for them to be prepared. If they know in advance, we willsee peoplein a couple of weeks, four weeks, they can better prepare."

Researcherslooked at seven diseases and 11 countriesover a period of three years, starting in 2010, and comparedpage views on Wikipedia articles about those diseases to official data from health ministries.By looking at readers' habits, theysuccessfully predicted the spreads of influenza in the United States, Poland, Thailand and Japan and dengue in Brazil and Thailand at least28 days in advance.

Official government data -- usually released with a one- or two-week lag time -- lagged four weeks behind Wikipedia reading habits, according to Del Valle; people, she said, are probablyreading about the illnesses they have before heading to the doctor.

But not all the diseases or countries yielded such results; they couldn'tpredict slow-progressing diseases like HIV/AIDS, or diseases with very small numbers of victims, such asEbola (before the current outbreak) in Uganda or the plague in the United States. Seasonal diseases were much easier to forecast using the Wikipedia model.

And the study had other limitations; for instance, researchers used language as a proxy for country (Japanese articles about influenza were used to predict the spread of the disease in Japan). That may work for some languages, but for some more widely spoken ones, like English, it can be trickier.

Even still, researchers were able to accurately predict the spread of influenza in the United States by examining the page views for EnglishWikipedia articles. They hope they can next get country-specific datafrom Wikipedia.

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How Wikipedia reading habits can successfully predict the spread of disease